protection

Why the blood on the doorways? 

That question ended last week’s post. I hadn’t finished going through Exodus 12, so now I’ll quote one more section.

“Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. ¹⁸In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. ¹⁹For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. ²⁰Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.” ²¹Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. ²²Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. ²³When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, He will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and He will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.” – Exodus 12:17-23

We can split this passage into two parts. The first half (verses 17-20) refers to yeast and unleavened bread. The second one (verses 21-23) deals with the blood of the Passover lamb. We’ll talk about these in reverse order.

The blood on the doorposts kept the residents of the houses safe. In a final blow against Egypt’s powers, God was going to strike the firstborn throughout that nation. No one would be spared; not even the animals owned by the Egyptians.

But the Israelites, under the cover of the blood, would suffer no losses.

In ancient cultures, firstborns held special significance. They enjoyed a status that their siblings and relatives lacked. So this plague struck at a core value of Egyptian society.

But God had Moses warn Pharaoh about this judgment.

“Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: Israel is My firstborn son, ²³and I told you, “Let My son go, so he may worship Me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’” – Exodus 4:22-23

The ruler of Egypt would bring punishment upon himself and his entire kingdom because they were abusing God’s firstborn, Israel. That’s how the Lord viewed the Israelites; He saw them as His firstborn.

The night of the Passover realized the threat.

Besides favoring the firstborn, ancient cultures were also quite familiar with animal sacrifices. Any society that domesticated animals had something–be it sheep, goat, bull, ram, etc.–to offer God or the gods.

And Israel was no exception.

The people knew that holiness required purification, which in turn required the sacrifice of blood. So God sanctified His people by the blood of the lamb. That sacrifice distinguished them from the Egyptians; it separated Israel from idolaters and oppressors. So when judgment fell, the blood kept Israel safe.

The Passover and the death of the firstborn took place in one night. But in future commemorations, the Jews were to engage in a weeklong feast leading up to the Passover meal. This was the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the subject of verses 17-20.

It takes time to work leaven into dough and then let the bread rise. Since the Israelites were going to leave Egypt in a hurry, they didn’t have time to leaven their bread. They had to bake it fast, eat quickly, and get out of there!

But God put the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover on the Israelite calendar so the people could relive the experience of deliverance.

I can understand the point of consuming unleavened bread on the night of the annual Passover meal. But why precede it with a weeklong, yeast-free feast?

The New Testament can help us out here. In 1 Corinthians 5, the apostle Paul upbraids the church for tolerating a congregation member who was sleeping with a woman who was likely his stepmother. Many of the Corinthian Christians believed that physical behavior had no effect on one’s spiritual life. They also privatized sin, supposing that one’s personal foibles would not impact the greater church.

But they were wrong on both counts!

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? ⁷Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch–as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ⁹I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people– ¹⁰not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. ¹¹But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. ¹²What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? ¹³God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” – 1 Corinthians 5:6-13

This passage recalls several themes in the Exodus 12 passage above: Passover, sacrifice, yeast and leaven, and outsiders. Whether Paul is instructing Christians to observe Passover isn’t the point. He’s applying the spiritual lessons of that occasion to the Christian life.

(By the way, the word “lamb” isn’t in the original Greek text of 1 Corinthians 5:7. Paul says “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.” It makes sense to assume he was referring to the lamb, but the actual word isn’t there.)

In Exodus, Moses writes about yeast in terms of haste. In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes about it in terms of sin. Moses describes the first Passover as God’s judgment on Egypt. Paul tells Christians not to judge people outside the church because God will do that. The blood of the lamb kept the Israelites safe from the death of the firstborn. The blood of Jesus keeps believers safe from…

What?

It’s easy to say “sin,” but the Passover lamb wasn’t slain for the sins of the Israelites. It was offered to protect Israel from a lethal judgment.

In the context of the church, does Christ’s death safeguard us from death?

Yes.

Paul doesn’t ignore sin, but he doesn’t connect it to the Passover lamb. Instead, he relates sin to yeast and leaven. He tells the Corinthians to get their spiritual houses in order. They were tolerating a sexual sin they should have rejected. The man engaged in such behavior needed discipline, not approval.

And Paul was willing to let him die so he wouldn’t lose his salvation.

“So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, ⁵hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.” – 1 Corinthians 5:4-5

The act was one man’s sin, but it was an issue that affected the whole church. To enjoy protection from death (which is the recompense of sin [see Romans 6:23]), Christians must keep themselves right with God.

For their own sake and for the sake of the church.

We’ll end here by emphasizing the point that Christ is our Passover. He is the Lamb of God, slain for our protection from death. And we are to enjoy His mercy and blessings by holding ourselves accountable to the Lord and to His people. We can’t let sin distract us and drain our time and resources. We’re on a journey and we need to follow Jesus!