"Moses, Part 4”
[Hebrews 11:28]
November 17, 2013 Second Reformed Church
Last week, we saw Moses approach
Pharaoh after the ninth plague and demand that he set the people of God free –
and Pharaoh refused. Pharaoh threated
that he would kill Moses if he ever saw him again, and Moses, fearlessly,
having faith in God and His promises, declared that he would never see him
again. Yet, his final word was the
revelation of the tenth plague – that God was going to come to kill the
first-born of all the people and all the animals of Egypt, after which, Pharaoh
would tell them all to leave – and Moses stormed out of the presence of Pharaoh.
“Then
the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be
multiplied in the land of Egypt’” (Exodus 11:9, ESV).
Then
God spoke to Moses and instituted the Passover – and we do well to hear what
God said:
“The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in
the land of Egypt, ‘This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It
shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of
Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb
according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. And if the
household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take
according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall
make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year
old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it
until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
“Then they shall take some of the
blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which
they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with
unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw
or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.
And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains
until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your
belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you
shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass
through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in
the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will
execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the
houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no
plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
“This day shall be for you a
memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your
generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you
shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of
your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the
seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you
shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work
shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be
prepared by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on
this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you
shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. In
the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat
unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in
your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from
the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land.
You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat
unleavened bread.
“Then Moses called all the elders of
Israel and said to them, ‘Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your
clans, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the
blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the
blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house
until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and
when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will
pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to
strike you. You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons
forever. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has
promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, “What
do you mean by this service?” you shall say, “It is the sacrifice of the Lord's
Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when
he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.”’ And the people bowed their
heads and worshiped.
“Then the people of Israel went and
did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did” (Exodus 12:1-28, ESV).
Again, our text this morning
reads: “By faith he kept the Passover
and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch
them.”
As we consider the Passover, we
understand:
First, faith is necessary to receive
the Sacrament.
Second, Jesus received the Wrath of
God on Himself that was due us.
Third, we are not touched by the
Destroyer, because Jesus bled for us.
“By faith he kept the Passover”
The Hebrews were slaves in
Egypt. Moses had made it impossible for
him to ever return to speak to Pharaoh.
And now God had told Moses to institute the Passover, after which, the
people of God would be able to leave Egypt.
Moses received these instructions
and this promise from God by faith:
Moses received what he knew about God through his years shepherding
sheep and from God speaking to him as he dealt with Pharaoh. Being thoroughly convinced of God’s
Attributes, he received this promise of something he had not seen – the death
of the first-borns and the deliverance of the whole nation – as fact. And so he kept the Passover by faith,
believing that God’s Word is true.
The Passover was a type or a
foreshadowing of Jesus, His Work, and also of the Sacrament that He left us. Let us quickly look at how the instructions
about the lamb parallel Jesus and then look at the Passover’s transformation
into the Lord’s Supper [cf. Owen, Hebrews,
vol. 7, 166-167]:
The Passover centered around the
picking of a lamb, killing it, being marked by its blood, and eating it. We read, “The next day [John] saw Jesus coming
toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the
world!’” (John 1:29, ESV).
The lamb was to be taken out of the
flock – he was to be one of many sheep.
So, Jesus is a human being just like us – Jesus, the Lamb of God, was
taken out of humanity, as the author of Hebrews explained, “Since therefore the
children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same
things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death,
that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were
subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he
helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers
in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest
in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people”
(Hebrews 2:14-17, ESV).
This lamb was to be taken out of the
flock – separated for his purpose.
Likewise, Jesus was also separate and separated from other men by His
being free from sin: “For it was indeed
fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained,
separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26, ESV).
It was also to be without
blemish. Peter picks up this language,
writing, “but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without
blemish or spot” (I Peter 1:19, ESV).
It was to be slain for his
people. As Jesus was, and John writes, “and
all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been
written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who
was slain” (Revelation 13:8, ESV).
The lamb was to be slain as a
sacrifice. And Paul writes, “For Christ,
our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (I Corinthians 5:7b, ESV).
The lamb was to be roasted. One commentator points out that this is
symbolic of the Wrath of God that Jesus suffered for all of the sins of all
those who would ever believe in Him which we see in Jesus’ exclamation of the
Father deserting Him on the cross: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out
with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Matthew 27:46, ESV).
In verse forty-six of Exodus 12,
which we did not read, the instructions continue, saying that the bones of the
lamb are not to be broken, which we see fulfilled in Jesus, “But when they came
to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one
of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood
and water. He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows
that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. For these things took
place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be
broken.’ And again another Scripture says, ‘They will look on him whom they
have pierced’” (John 19:33-37, ESV).
And, finally, in commanding that the
lamb be eaten in its entirety, one commentator explains that this is an image
of this being a sacrament that is to be received by faith wholly for the
reception of the grace it was given to deliver.
As we turn to the Gospels, we see
how Jesus turned the Sacrament of the Passover into the Sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper:
In the Upper Room, Jesus celebrated
the Passover with His disciples, and after Judas had been dismissed to his
great sin, we read: “Now as they were
eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the
disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when
he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for
this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the
forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the
vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom’”
(Matthew 26:26-29, ESV).
The Passover and the Lord’s Supper
both pointed to deliverance – deliverance from slavery in Egypt and deliverance
from sin. Both pointed to the
Deliverer: God. By the Father’s Mighty Right Arm, He
delivered the people of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and gave them a
perpetual sacrament which pointed to deliverance from sin by the Mighty Right
Arm of the Savior, Jesus, the Son of God.
And Jesus explained that the Sacrament is no mere memorial – though we
do remember what happened when we receive the bread and the cup, just as the
Hebrews would remember what happened as they received the elements of the
Passover, the Passover had to be – and the Lord’s Supper must be – received by
faith to benefit from it and to have a sure hope of the things to which it
looks forward to – the Savior and His First and Second Comings.
Without faith, the idea that an
eighty-year-old man would lead the Hebrews out of slavery and out of Egypt –
that the mightiest nation at the time would acquiesce and let them go – well,
it would have been laughable. Similarly,
the idea that a carpenter from Nazareth was the Savior was also a laughable
idea without faith. Yet, through faith,
we receive the Sacrament, and receive the grace to believe – not just knowing
the words, but believing with our hearts that these things are true and have
and will come to pass, and gaining understanding of what the symbols mean.
Faith is necessary to receive the
Sacrament.
“and sprinkled the blood,”
God told Moses to have the Hebrews
mark the doors of their homes – the doorposts and the lintel – with the blood
of the lamb. The blood of the lamb was
substituted for the first-borns of the families who marked their doors. The Wrath of God did not come down on the
first-borns of all of the families that offered up a substitute in the form of
the blood of the lamb as God had instructed.
And we understand that the offering
of the blood of the lamb in the place of the first-borns was a temporary
diversion of the Wrath of God. After
all, it was God, Himself, Who sent the nation of the Hebrews into captivity as
a punishment for their sin against Him:
“Then the Lord said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your offspring will
be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they
will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation
that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions’”
(Genesis 15:13-14, ESV).
As Paul explains: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their
unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18, ESV). Due to our first parents’ sin, God’s Wrath is
against us, and there has always only been One Way to be delivered from that
Wrath – to have an acceptable substitute take it on for us. The Sacrificial System, as we have seen in
the book of Hebrews, was a system of partial, temporary forgiveness for sin –
without something more, all would be deserving of the Wrath of God and eternal
Hell.
James explains that only the
Promised Savior could be the Acceptable Substitute in God’s eyes to take our
sins upon Himself and suffer the Wrath of God for our sins and yet survive – as
he explained from the prophecy of Isaiah:
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like
a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers
is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7, ESV).
As we saw in the parallels of the
Passover Lamb and Jesus, Jesus is a real human being, so He was able to take
the place of real human beings, and Jesus is God, so He is able to survive the
Wrath that poured down upon Him for all those who would ever believe. As Jesus said, “For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but
have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).
Out of love, God sent His Only
Begotten Son to bear God’s Wrath against all those who would ever believe in
the Son for salvation, so we would never have to suffer that Wrath, but would
receive salvation – deliverance – just as the people of the Hebrews did from
Egypt.
Jesus received the Wrath of God on
Himself that was due us.
“so that the Destroyer of the
firstborn might not touch them.”
And so we that God delivered the Hebrews
out of Egypt by receiving God’s instruction by faith and putting blood on the doorposts
and the lintel of their doors. For all
those who did this by faith we delivered from the Destroyer Who came to kill
the firstborns of the Egyptians – all those who did not have the mark of the
blood on them.
And here we have something
interesting in the text – Who is it that is said would come to kill the
first-borns of all those who are not marked by the blood? God repeatedly says that He will come and
kill them, and then He says that He will send the Destroyer in or tell Him to
pass over. The commentators do not
agree, so let us leave it, for now, that God determines whether or not the Destroyer
comes in, based on whether or not the household is marked by the blood.
The parallel ought to come quickly
to us now, does it not?
Paul tells us, “Since, therefore, we
have now been justified by [Jesus’] blood, much more shall we be saved by him
from the wrath of God” (Romans 5:9, ESV).
And, “For God has not destined us
for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for
us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (I
Thessalonians 5:9-10, ESV).
For all those who believe in the
Savior by faith – all those Who receive what God has said through His Word
about the Savior Who would come and reconcile a people with God – for them,
Jesus shed His Blood on the cross, taking our sins and God’s Wrath upon
Himself, and delivering us from the Destroyer – from the wages of sin that we
would be responsible to pay, if we did not have Jesus for our Substitute before
God.
We are not touched by the Destroyer,
because Jesus bled for us.
And so we see, that all we who
believe in the Lamb of God Who received the Wrath of God as our Substitute, and
covered us in His Blood that we would not be subject to the judgment of the
Destroyer, are delivered from our sin and its wages.
As Paul explained: “There is therefore now no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you
free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the
law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order
that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk
not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
“No, in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor
life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:1-4,
37-39, ESV).
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for
saving Your people through the Blood of the Lamb. We thank You for the foretelling of the work
of Jesus Christ, the Son and Lamb of God, through the symbols of the
Passover. We ask that we would receive
these symbols and this history by faith and believe with all our heart. And as we turn to receive the Sacrament that
You have given to the Church, we ask that the Holy Spirit would help us to
receive the elements of the bread and the cup with greater understanding and
fuller devotion that we might witness to the deliverance that You have
accomplished for us. For it is in the
Name of this Jesus, our Substitute, that we pray, Amen.
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