Bo - God's Rescue

Bo: Ex 10:1-13:16

God's Rescue

After declaring war on the false gods of Egypt in last weeks section, the Lord (or YHVH) brings a decisive blow in our portion for this week which is memorialised in what is possibly my favourite part of the Biblical calendar: Passover. While I originally intended to write on the parallels between the feast of Passover and the crucifixion of Christ, my mind was captured by what seems an adlib part of the story, but is in fact central to it. And this is the theme of redemption.

After the institution of the Passover in Exodus 12, we find in chapter 13 an instruction from God saying: “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.” Later in verses 11-13, He repeats and elaborates on this instruction saying that once they enter the land, the first-born animals are to be set apart and sacrificed to the Lord. The unclean animals, as typified by the donkey, and people were to be redeemed. The word redemption in its ancient context means to set something free from slavery or captivity through some sort of substitution or transaction. In the case of the animals, they were to either have its neck broken or substituted by a lamb. And all the first-born sons were to be redeemed by silver, as explained in the book of Numbers. However, it is possible that they were originally intended to be redeemed with a lamb also, as expressed in the Passover event.

This practice serves two functions. The first is that it reinforces that all life belongs to the Lord. It's not that as of this point God decided to take ownership of His creation, but rather He is demonstrating through the instruction that His people were to set-apart as sacred, or consecrate (qadash, a verb derived from the word qodesh: holy), the first-born of living animals and people that He can do with them as He wishes. The second, and more significant, was that it was a reminder of what God did to make the exodus possible. As the Lord explains in verses 14-16:

And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’ It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.

Thus, the act of redeeming the first-born was a reminder that they were redeemed on the night of the Passover after the first-born of those who did not have the blood of the lamb on their door were killed. That the instructions to dedicate the firstborn bookend the instructions on how to observe the Feast of Unleavened bread, a memorial to the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, further demonstrates this relationship. 

But as well as looking backwards, it was also pointing them forwards to the coming of Christ. As Tim Hegg explains, "this slaughter of the firstborn, and the obvious substitution of the Pesach [Passover] lamb for the firstborn of the Israelites, is a clear and precise foreshadowing of the Messiah who would die to obtain the redemption of His people." Thus, it was a sign that the greater redemption would cost the Lord His Son, Jesus. Instead of delivering us from slavery to Pharaoh, we have been delivered from the power of sin. This imagery is what Paul describes in Romans 6:16

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

 As we see here, the liberation from sin means that we are liberated from the effects of sin. One being an attitude of rebellion against God. In Romans 7, Paul describes sin as a force that drives people to disobedience. This is the sin nature we inherited from our first parents when they rebelled, and the thing God promised to deliver us from by the woman's seed in Genesis 3. Thus one part of the liberty we experience through Christ is the freedom from sin that we might serve God and obey Him willingly from the heart. The Gospel isn't freedom to do as we want, which is how modern society defines freedom; it's the freedom to live as we were created to - walking in harmony with our creator. The other thing we are liberated from is the judgement for our sin, which is death.  Therefore, like the donkey in Exodus 13, either we are substituted by the lamb, or we experience death. In Romans 6:23 we read: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." The third affect of sin that Christ redeems us from are the things that bring bitterness in a broken world. The Passover meal reflects on the bitterness of slavery through the eating of bitter herbs, which by extension is a reminder of the bitterness of sin. Things like illness, pain and other forms of suffering. This, however is not really experienced by the believer until the last day, as described in Revelation 21. Although, there are times we may find relief in this life.

Like the deliverance from Egypt, our deliverance from sin which was made possible by the redemption paid by Christ was a gracious gift initiated by God. It was something He did because of His promises to Abraham (Ex 6:4-5) and the benefits received by faith. Our redemption from sin was something initiated by God according to His eternal plan. It's not something we can cause or merit; it is a gift of grace. And because the 'Son of Man came... to give his life as a ransom for many' (Matt 20:28), to liberate not just the descendant of Abraham, but to bring in the mixed multitude from all families of the earth (Ex 12:38; Gen 12:3) to experience freedom from the curse of sin, we have great reason to celebrate, worship, and delight in a wonderful God and Saviour: Jesus Christ.