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About Jesus Steve Sweetman This Chapter 12 ch. 12:1-30 ch. 12:31-42 ch. 12:43-51
This chapter is one very
important chapter in the Bible and in Jewish history.
The chapter begins the exodus of the Jews out of In verses 1and 2 we note
that at this point in time, God is rearranging In verse 2 God then tells
Moses and Aaron that on the "tenth" day of this month, each
man needs to take a lamb from his flock for his family, only one lamb
for each household. In verse 4 God makes
provisions for small families. If
your family is too small to eat a whole lamb, then the lamb can be
shared with a neighboring family. In verse 5 we begin to
learn about the animals that would be eaten in the Passover meal.
The animal could either be a lamb or a goat.
It had to be one year old and had to have no blemishes. Of course
there is no debate among conservative Bible scholars, this lamb or goat
is prophetic of Jesus. Jesus
was cut down in the prime of His life.
He was perfect. He
had no blemish. He was the
cream of the crop, so to speak, but He was the one to die which in turn
provided salvation for us, as the lambs did in this case. The lamb was to be killed
on the fourteenth day of the month. Back in verse 3, God said that the
lambs were to be gathered up on the tenth day of the month.
Here in verse 6 God says to look after the lamb until day
fourteen and then kill him. The
animals must be killed at twilight, about the same time that Jesus
actually died. In verse 7 we learn that
once the animal was killed, the blood must be placed on the door frame
of their homes. That would
be on each side of the door and over top of the door.
There's been much debate concerning the cross that Jesus died on.
The symbol that we know of as the cross today was probably not
what Jesus died on. The
cross most likely looked just like this door frame.
It had two upright sticks with a cross bar attached to the top.
Some actually believe that the two upright sticks were trees.
The cross that Jesus walked with, was then a long piece of wood
that was placed from one tree to the other.
Jesus hung on that bar. After the blood was
sprinkled on the door frame, and after the lamb was roasted on an open
fire, verse 8 tells us that those in the house would eat the cooked meat
with bitter herbs and bread without yeast.
This is exactly the meal the Jesus ate with His disciples just
before His death. Yeast in the Bible is
always symbolic of pride. Yeast
makes the bread puff up, and that is what pride does to a person.
Yeast then represents pride, and in a more general sense, sin
itself. Verse 9 is the cooking
instructions. The whole animal must be cooked, inside and out.
Nothing must be taken from the animal prior to cooking it.
It must be cooked over an open fire, not with water.
Fire always represents the judgment of God.
Jesus death was in fact God judging and punishing Him for our
sins. Verse 10 tells us that
the whole animal must be eaten. If
for some reason there was too much, the remainder must be burned. So,
the lamb was first cooked by fire, completely eaten, or in New Testament
terms, applied by man for his salvation.
If there was any left it had to be burned, burned by the judgment
of God. Besides knowing how to
cook the animal, the Lord told Israel
how to eat it. They had to
eat it with their sandals on, with their cloak tucked into their belt,
and with their staff in their hands. This means that this was not a
relaxing meal. They were to eat the meal with the anticipation of
leaving Concerning salvation as
seen in the New Testament, we don't just enter salvation and sit down
and relax for the rest of our lives.
We have places to go, things to do, and the work of the Lord that
needs to be done. Initial
salvation, as I call it, is only the beginning of our new lives as
Christians. This hastily
eaten meal portrays this point quite clearly Verse 11 specifically
tells us the name of this meal. God
says, "this is the Lord's Passover". In verse 12 God says that
very night He would bring judgment on the gods of Egypt. Some see all the plagues
of the past few chapters as being God not only judging Pharaoh, but the
Egyptian gods. All of the
plagues had some kind of symbolism against the Egyptian gods.
The way in which God will bring this final judgment was by
killing all first born mails, even first born mail animals.
We should note here that when I use the term "final
judgment", this is the final judgment of the ten.
There is yet one more judgment and that is when the Egyptian army
is drowned in the Red Sea. The firstborn in the Old
Testament is always important. It
is carried over into the New Testament concerning Jesus being the first
born among many brothers. Jesus was one of a kind, and always will be,
but in the end, we will be like Him in many respects, that is why He is
called the firs born among many brothers.
Those who are true Christians are the many brothers. In verse 13 we see the
importance of the blood on the door frames.
When God sees the blood, no death will come to that house.
Israeli families were thus save by blood.
We are saved by blood as well, that is, the blood of Jesus.
Blood is important to the gospel.
It is fundamental to Biblical thinking.
Right after Adam and Eve sinned, they tried to cover their
nakedness with leaves. That
did not satisfy God. God
killed an innocent animal and made clothes of skin for the couple. God
told Adam in the very beginning that death would enter creation if he
ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Death came into creation in many ways. The first to suffer
physical death was that animal which covered their nakedness. Ever since
then, God's provision includes the shed blood, first of animals, then of
Jesus. The term
"Passover" came into existence because God passed over the
houses where the blood was on the door frame.
That is why the meal is called the "Passover meal".
God protected His people from judgment, as a hen would protect
her babies under her wings, but only if they obeyed by applying the
blood on the door frame. There
is no salvation without the shedding of
blood. In verse 14 we note that
the Passover meal was to be something the Jews would celebrate on a
yearly basis. The KJV says
that this would be a celebration "forever".
The NIV says that it will be a "lasting" celebration.
The KJV seems to be stronger than the NIV on this point. The word
"forever" suggest no end to the celebration.
The word "lasting" might suggest "no end",
but could easily suggest a celebration lasting a long time.
I'd suggest that God intended this celebration to continue
forever, and that would mean celebrating this meal on the new earth when
God makes all things new. I
don't know what this meal will look like on the new earth.
I can't see us killing animals at that point, but I do believe in
some shape or form we will be celebrating this meal, not just to
remember God delivering Verse 15 introduces a new
aspect into the feast. It is actually seen as another feast that last
seven whole days, and would be called the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Sometimes when the Passover Feast is mentioned in the Bible it
includes the Feast of Unleavened Bread and sometimes it doesn't.
There is the Passover meal, and then there is Passover, that
often times includes the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but not always.
It is really two separate feasts. In verse 16 we see that a
sacred assembly must be called for day one and day seven of the Feast of
Unleavened Bread. No work
could be done on those two days except for meal preparation. In verses 17 to 20 we see
how important it is to God not to eat leaven in bread.
If anyone is caught eating leavened bread, he must be cut off
from In verses 21 and 22 Moses
proceeds to explain all of this to the elders of In verses 22 and 23 Moses
continues to give instruction to the elders, that which God already told
Moses, which we have already talked about.
One new thought is seen
in verse 24. We see the word
"destroyer". This
is most likely and angel that God uses to go through the land
of In verse 24 we note again
the difference in wording between the NIV and the KJV.
Moses tells the elders that this must be an ordinance that must
be "forever", so the KJV puts it.
The NIV says "a lasting ordinance".
I personally believe, as I stated earlier, that we will be
celebrating this feast on the new earth in the next life.
The thing we will be celebrating is what this event in Exodus
symbolized, and that was the death and resurrection of Jesus. From verses 25 to 29 we
see the reason why this celebration was to continue.
It was to remember this deliverance.
Children of all generations must remember how God delivered Verse 25 tells us that By now, In verses 29 and 30 we
note that at midnight, God's predetermined time, since He does have a
time table of events, He struck down and killed all the first born sons
in Egypt. Even Pharaoh's first born,
who would take the title of Pharaoh after Pharaoh was dead.
Great weeping and wailing could be heard throughout the land.
This was the last and great judgment placed on In verses 31 and 32
Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron in to see him.
He finally tells them to leave.
But before they do, Pharaoh asks to be blessed.
Even in the midst of all this death, Pharaoh is still looking for
some kind of blessing. I
guess he feels the need for some kind of blessing in the midst of such
disaster. What he really
wants is an end to all of his trouble. In verse 33 we see that
the Egyptians urged the Jews to hurry up and leave.
They were afraid that not only the first born would die, but all
of them would die. This is
only natural. All the
plagues were getting worse, and what would be worse than the first born
being killed would be all of them being killed. In verse 34 we see that
the Jews took the unleavened dough with them as they left.
If there is a lesson here, it's that when doing God's work, you
have to travel lightly, and if leaven symbolizes pride and sin, you
can't have pride and sin while doing God's work.
It won't work out. Way
too often the ministers of the Lord are prideful these days, and that
should not be. In verses 35 and 36 we
note that the Jews obeyed Moses. They
asked their Egyptian neighbors for silver and gold and the Egyptians
gave it to them. The reason
why the Egyptians were so kind is because according to the text God made
them view the Jews in a favorable light.
It might be debatable just how God did that.
The ten plagues pretty well devastated the Egyptians, they might
well have been glad to get rid of the Jews, so that is why they helped
them on their way. That
being said, the lesson to be learned here is that God can, if He so
chooses, have the world bless His people, and He can help the world in
the process to do just that. God
can intervene in world events in both a negative and positive way.
It's not always in a negative way.
Again, it shows us that God is often behind things that happen in
world events, although it isn't apparent to everyone. Verses 37 and 38 tell us
that there were six hundred thousand Jewish men that left Egypt. This is why I said earlier
that there were well over two million people fleeing the God never forbade other
nationalities joining the Jews. The only stipulation was that they had
to live as Jews. The men had
to be circumcised. And, when
the Law of Moses came into effect, they had to obey the Jewish Law as
well. Simply put, they had
to convert to Judaism. In verses 39 and 40 we
see further comment on the dough without yeast.
Verse 40 tells us that the dough did not have yeast because they
were driven out of Egypt
and had no time to put yeast in and have it rise.
This is the first mention of this reason for bread without yeast.
Prior to this we just knew that God said make bread, make dough
without yeast. There was no
time to sit around and wait
for the yeast to rise. They
had to eat in a hurry, with sandals on, staff in hand, and ready to
hurry up. Again, yeast symbolizes sin.
Once God makes the call on your life, you get moving.
There is no time for sin. We
are to lay aside all that hinders us from doing the will of God.
The yeast in this case would have slowed the process down. In verses 40 through 42
we see that the Jews were in Passover
Restrictions (ch. 12:43 - 51) Verse 43 begins the
regulations that God gave Moses for the Passover.
The first is that no foreigner is to eat the Passover meal.
God distinguishes between Israel
and the other nations of the earth.
We've seen the word "distinction" during the plagues a
number of times. We've seen
the concept of "distinction" since God picked Abraham to be a
special person, the founding father of the special nation of Israel. Some people suggest that
this Passover meal is the forerunner to the Christian Communion, also
known as the Lord's Supper. I
tend to agree with this mainly because the Last Supper that Jesus ate
with His disciples appears to be the last Passover, and the first of the
Lord's Suppers. I suggest
that our Christian Communion is actually the Passover that looks back at
our redemption. For this
reason, I do not believe that non-Christians should partake in the
eating of the Lord's Supper. It
is only for Christians, and the liberal churches who allow anyone to
partake of the Lord's Supper is in error. We've already seen that
God does allow non Jews into His family of Israel, as long as the men were circumcised.
Therefore these same
people could also eat the Passover meal, and this is confirmed in verse
44. The text states
that foreign slaves bought by Jews could eat the meal as long as they
were circumcised. Verse 45 says that a
temporary resident or a temporary hired hand cannot eat the Passover
meal. This temporary person
would not be a Jew. That is
why he could not eat the Passover meal.
The same would apply to the Lord's Supper.
A visitor who is merely investigating the gospel of Christ should
not eat of the Lord's Supper. Verses 48 and 49 confirm
the point that foreigners can eat the Passover as long as they were
circumcised. They must be as
a national Jew. They must
convert. So we see that God
has always allowed non-Jews into Israel as long as they converted
So when it comes to the early church and Christians, there should
not have been a problem with Gentile Christians being part of the church
because God always allowed for such conversions, but this was a problem
to the early Jewish church. Verse 49 states that
"the same law applies to the nation-born as it does to the
alien". Thus a Jew who
was not circumcised could not eat the Passover meal.
We've learned before that such a Jew should be cut off from among
Verses 50 and 51 state
that all |