#16: February 2, 2008

Today's reading was Exodus 10-12.
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I find it extremely intriguing that it was called the Passover. My initial thought has always been along the lines of the fact that God passed over the houses with the blood of the lamb painted on their door posts, and therefore that is the reason why it’s called the Passover.

But it was also a foretelling of God’s future plans. Romans 3:25 uses the term again.

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

In His divine forebearance, God had passed over former sins. The Israelite firstborns were technically no different from the Egyptian firstborns. All had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God could have wiped them out as well. But God spared the Israelite firstborns because of the blood of the lamb, which looked forward to the time when the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, would eventually be the propitiation for our sin. Jesus is not only our Saviour today, but He was already the Saviour of the Israelites back in Moses’ time. God had only passed over them, and all the sacrifices from here onwards looked to the day when Jesus would eventually pay the penalty once and for all.

Is it relevant today? Yes. God is righteous and just and will punish all sin. But we are spared. And this is not because we have simply been passed over, but in fact because His wrath against us has been spent in Jesus. While the Israelites in the time of Moses could only marvel at the mercy of God in passing over their sin, we are so much more privileged today to stand in the grace of God, knowing that we have not been passed over, but have been redeemed.