THEY SHALL TAKE TO THEM EVERY MAN A LAMB

The momentous night of the Passover was drawing near. Jeho­vah had seen the afflictions of His enslaved people in Egypt. He knew their sighs and tears and He had heard their groanings under the lash of their taskmasters. Now He had decreed that He would redeem them. He would bring them out from their bondage. He would emancipate them, deliver them, and bring them to a better land. But He would do it in His own way.

This would be a memorable night in Israel’s history. It would mark a new beginning for the nation, and this month would afterwards be the first month of the year. The oppressed nation would live again. For each family a lamb must be selected. If, per­chance, the household might be too little for the lamb then it could be shared with a neighbouring family, but there was never any question of the lamb being too little for the house. The sufficiency of the lamb was never in doubt.

The lamb must be without blemish. It would be a foreshad­owing of the sinless Lamb of God who was to come, and therefore must be unblemished. For three days, and into the fourth day, the lamb would be kept apart, destined to be slain at the appointed time. Similarly, for three years, and into the fourth year of public ministry, men would scrutinise the Lamb of God, but His impeccable sinlessness was beyond question.

Then came the evening when the lamb would be slain. Its blood would be shed and caught in a basin. With a bunch of hys­sop the shed blood would be sprinkled on the two side posts and on the upper door posts of their houses. As the hour of judgment approached the people sat safe in their homes, sheltering behind the blood. The message of the sprinkled blood was that death had already entered that house, and the promise of God was, ‘When I see the blood, I will pass over you’.

So does the Apostle use the Passover story to typify the gos­pel message, ‘Christ our passover is sacrificed for us’, 1 Cor. 5. 7. It is, therefore, our duty, he argues, that we should keep the feast of unleavened bread in lives of holiness. The Lamb has been slain, we have been delivered from bondage and from judg­ment, and we must live as those that have been redeemed.