Passage: Exodus 12:1-30

The Big Idea

The final plague threatened every household in Egypt, Israelite and Egyptian alike, because all were sinners. How can God be just and still spare some? Through a substitute. A spotless lamb died in place of the firstborn, and its blood on the door was the only thing that mattered: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Christ is our Passover Lamb. Not our goodness, not our feelings, not church membership. Only the blood, applied by faith.

The Big Questions

The plague was coming on all the people, all the sinners, Egyptians and Israelites.
Justice said they all deserved to die.
But God made a distinction, and spared Israel.

How can that be? How can God be both just and merciful? Doesn’t letting some off the hook lower His justice?

Exodus 12 answers with one of the most beautiful pictures of the gospel in Scripture: how we’re delivered from death by faith alone in Jesus Christ.

The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

Who has sinned? Egyptians? Israelites? People of every nation, color and religion? All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

Sin must be punished. God never simply overlooks it. He didn’t spare sinning angels (2 Peter 2:4). And He didn’t spare His own Son when His Son carried our sin.

God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

The soul who sins will die (Ezekiel 18:4). God will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:7). If justice isn’t satisfied, God would stop being just.

So what’s the solution?

God’s grace provides a way without compromising justice, and the solution is a substitution.

God provides a lamb to die in place of the people being redeemed, so they don’t have to die themselves. A pure, perfect substitute.

Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7).

That makes Exodus 12 one of the most important chapters in the Bible, a chapter to study, ponder and soak our weary souls in. John the Baptist pointed at Jesus and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

The Lamb and the Blood (Exodus 12:1-7)

The Lord told Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month will be the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man must take a lamb for his household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share with their nearest neighbor, based on the number of people and how much each will eat. The lamb must be a year-old male without defect, from the sheep or goats. Keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and then the whole community must slaughter it at twilight. Then they’re to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and top of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.”

The natural mind says, “How could that possibly matter?” The natural person doesn’t accept the things of the Spirit of God; they’re foolishness to him, and he can’t understand them, because they’re spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

God required faith, not reasoning or intelligence.
“By faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them” (Hebrews 11:28, KJV).

Think about what it meant to live by faith that night:

A promise of deliverance had been made, and nine plagues had come and gone.
Pharaoh was no closer to letting them go.
The people were still as idolatrous as they’d been at the start.
Why would this plague be different? What would it do that the others couldn’t? Why would smearing blood on a door be the miracle?

Everything you could see and understand stood against faith. Only God’s word, only His promises, gave a reason to trust Him. Only faith could keep this feast with all its specific instructions.

How to Eat It (Exodus 12:8-11)

“That night they’re to eat the meat roasted over the fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Don’t eat it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, head, legs and inner parts. Don’t leave any till morning; burn whatever is left. And eat it like this: belt on, sandals on, staff in hand. Eat it in a hurry. It’s the LORD’s Passover.”

Satan always draws your eyes to the difficulties.
The Holy Spirit always points you to God’s promises, His faithfulness and His Word.

“When I See the Blood” (Exodus 12:12-13)

“On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn, both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”

Two houses

Imagine two homes that night.

House one: an unbelieving father.

His oldest son is worried.
The father tells him not to worry. He says he’s put up the blood, but he hasn’t.
The son feels calm. He has no fear at all.
And he dies. His feelings lied to him. He was comforted by words, but not by the blood.

House two: a believing father.

His oldest son is worried.
The father shows him the blood on the door.
The son is still scared. It’s a terrifying night.
But he lives. His feelings lied to him too. He worried, but the blood was there.

The blood overrides feelings every time. Only the blood of the Lamb, personally applied, makes any difference.

Under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22).

Church membership, good works, better character, personal sacrifice, religious devotion: none of these saves anyone. Only faith in the blood of Jesus does what needs to be done.

God put Jesus forward as a propitiation by His blood, received through faith, to show His righteousness, because in His patience He had passed over sins committed before (Romans 3:25).

Faith is how we apply the blood of our substitute.

Why would the destroyer pass over a house with blood on the door? Because death had already done its work there. The price was paid. The innocent had died for the guilty.

“When I see the blood.” God’s eye wasn’t on the house, but on the blood. He made no distinction based on how good or bad the household was, only whether they had applied the blood in faith.

Logic and reason say, “How can the blood of a lamb make any difference?” Reason makes us doubt the blood, and then we don’t apply it because we feel foolish trusting something so “silly.” The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18).

Those who reject it will see its power, but too late. Believe in the blood of Jesus with all your heart today. Live under it. Stay in the house.

“By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).

His blood does the work.
His offering makes you perfect in God’s sight when nothing else could.
How wonderful is Jesus!

A Lasting Memorial (Exodus 12:14-24)

“This day will be a memorial for you. Celebrate it as a festival to the LORD for all generations.” For seven days they were to eat bread without yeast and remove all yeast from their homes, beginning and ending with a sacred assembly.

Then Moses called the elders: “Go pick out lambs for your families and slaughter the Passover. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood in the basin, and put some on the top and sides of the doorframe. None of you may go out the door of your house until morning. When the LORD goes through to strike down the Egyptians, He’ll see the blood on the doorframe and pass over that doorway, and He won’t let the destroyer enter your houses.”

“What Does This Mean?” (Exodus 12:25-28)

“When you enter the land the LORD will give you, keep this ceremony. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean?’, tell them, ‘It’s the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck down the Egyptians and spared our homes.'” Then the people bowed down and worshiped. The Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron.

That’s the response of faith.
They received the grace and bowed in worship for favor they hadn’t earned.
Then they did it. They showed their faith by obeying.

Jesus says, “I’ll save you. Abide in Me and in My word.” Feed on Him.

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:53, 56).
And He explains: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst” (John 6:35).

Midnight (Exodus 12:29-30)

At midnight the Lord struck down every firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up in the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there wasn’t a house without someone dead.

In every home in Egypt that night, someone died. In the Egyptian homes, it was the firstborn. In the Israelite homes, it was the lamb.

Grace Takeaway

God doesn’t spare sinners by ignoring sin. He spares them through a substitute. That night in Egypt, the only question at every door was: is the blood there? It’s still the only question. Not how good your house is, and not how you feel, but whether you’re trusting the blood of Jesus, our Passover Lamb. When God sees the blood, He passes over.

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Passover: The Big Picture