SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service Theologian
REDEMPTION TRUTHS
CHAPTER 2
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PASSOVER
"The kindness and love of God our
Saviour towards man appeared." Titus 3:4
THE Bible is the story of
redemption. Its opening chapters are a preface which tells how God made man in
His own image; how man fell by sin; how iniquity abounded until there was no
remedy; how the judgment of the Flood prepared the way for a new departure; how
man again apostatized; and how God then took up a favoured people, a
"first-born" to serve as His agent and witness upon earth. The rest of the Old
Testament is the history, not of the human race, but of "Abraham and his seed."
Its deeper spiritual teaching relates to the true "Seed," the true
"First-born," the Lord Jesus Christ.
Genesis closes by telling how the
favoured people came to be sojourners in Egypt. As we open the Book of Exodus
we find that, from being the honoured guests of Pharaoh, they had become
slaves, oppressed by hard and cruel bondage.
Their struggles for freedom
only served to rivet their fetters. To work out their destiny was impossible
until they had been delivered from Egyptian slavery; and deliverance was
impossible save by the power of God. But before they could be redeemed by
power, they must needs be redeemed by blood.
The key-picture of our
redemption story is perfect even in details. Being in Egypt, they came under
Egypts doom; for in the types the first-born represented the family, and
the Divine decree was that "all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die."
There was no exemption for Israel. But a "way of salvation" was proclaimed. The
paschal lamb was to be killed for every house, and its blood sprinkled upon the
door. Here was the Gospel message which Moses brought from their Jehovah God"
When He seeth the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the Lord
will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come into your
houses to smite you." (Exodus 12:23)
The blood of "slain beasts" could
never take away sin, or change a sinners condition or destiny. But it
could foreshadow the death of Christ, the great Passover of our redemption. And
the meaning of "blood" is death applied. Therefore it is that, in the Divine
accuracy which marks the language of Scripture, redemption is by "blood." It is
only for those who by faith become one with Christ in His death.
We
learn from the typology of Exodus, and from the express teaching of the New
Testament, that the Passover was but the first step in the full redemption of
the people. But it was the foundation of all the rest, and therefore it is well
to pause here, and to mark its significance. But why, it may be asked, should
we study Exodus, when the New Testament lies open before us? The ready answer
is, that never in the history of Christendom was the typology of the Pentateuch
more needed than today. So utter is the blindness, so deep the apostasy, of the
present hour, that on every hand popular leaders of religious thought are
commending, as the outcome of a new enlightenment, a Gospel that betrays
ignorance of "the first principles of the oracles of God" - the very A B C of
the Divine revelation to mankind.
In this theology sin is but a defect,
inevitable in the progress of the race toward the perfection which is
mans natural destiny. The underside of the tapestry, of course, looks
blurred and foul. And "evil is only the underside of good." But all will come
right in the end. The doctrines of original sin and vicarious sacrifice belong
to the childhood of the race, and ill these days of ours it is time to break
with the nursery.
We may well exclaim, in the words of Bonars
"Hymn for the Last Days": -
"Evil is now our good,
And error is our
truth!"
Written half a century ago, these
words were almost prophetic. No less so are words that follow: -
"The cross
is growing old,
And the great Sepulcher
Is but a Hebrew tomb;
The
Christ has died in vain."
"The Christ of ages past
Is now the Christ no
more;
Altar and fire are gone,
The Victim but a dream."
We have
come to such a pass that the most elementary truths of Scripture need to be
restated - mans utter ruin and hopelessness, consequent upon the
spiritual depravity that is his heritage from the Fall; and his need of
"redemption by blood" - salvation through the death of Christ. And we need not
only to have Scriptural truth, but to have truth Scripturally expressed. The
present day revolt against orthodox doctrines is due in part to the manner in
which those doctrines have been formulated. One great school of theology has
taken its stand upon the sin-offering, and, ignoring the redemption sacrifices,
it unduly limits the scope and efficacy of the work of Christ. Another school
bases its Gospel on the teaching of the Passover, and ignores all that follows.
As already indicated, the sin-offering, in its various aspects, was only for a
redeemed people; and it was by the Passover that they obtained redemption. And
further, as we shall find in the sequel, the full revelation of grace in the
New Testament transcends all that the types can teach us.
But let us
begin at the beginning, and trace the successive steps indicated in the
key-pictures of the Pentateuch. No one must suppose, of course, that the
blessings prefigured by the types come to the believer in a chronological
sequence, or that they are separated by intervals of time. But in the
key-pictures these stages are clearly distinguished, in order that our minds
may dwell upon them, and that thus we may learn in all its fullness what the
redemption of Christ has won for us.
We all know the story, do we not?
Well, we think we do - how God passed through the land in judgment, and how
when He came to the bloodsprinkled door He passed it over, instead of entering
in to slay the firstborn. But what if we should find that this is not at all
what the record teaches?
In dealing with a dead language, etymology may
sometimes afford a clue to the meaning of a word, but the only safe and certain
guide to its meaning is its use.
This verb, pasach, which occurs
three times in Exodus 12:(verses 13, 23, and 27), is used in three other
passages of Scripture, namely, 2 Samuel 4:4; 1 Kings 18:21 and 26; and Isaiah
31:5. A careful study of these passages will confirm a first impression that
the meaning usually given to the word is really foreign to it.
In 2
Samuel 4:4 it is translated, "became lame," a rendering which its use in 1
Kings 18:26 may serve to explain. We there read that the prophets of Baal
leaped about their altar. Their action was not, as has been grotesquely
suggested, "a religious dance"; it betokened the physical paroxysms of
demon-possessed men. Having worked themselves into a state of religious frenzy,
they leaped up and down, round the altar.
The meaning of the word in the
twenty-first verse may seem wholly apart from both these uses; but it is not
so. "How long halt ye between two opinions?" The word "halt" is here used, not
in the sense of stopping dead, like a soldier at the word of command, but of
hesitating to take the decisive step to the one side or the other. If the verb
pasach meant to "pass over," it would express precisely what the prophet called
upon the people to do, and what they ought to have done, but would not do. But
a careful study of its use in the passages cited - going lame, halting, leaping
- will show that the essential thought is the kind of action implied in each
case, and that the thought of passing away is foreign to it The action of a
bird in fluttering over its nest would exactly illustrate it.
And now,
with the help of the clue thus gained, the last of these passages will shed a
flood of new light upon the Exodus story. "As birds flying, so will the Lord of
Hosts protect Jerusalem; He will protect and deliver it. He will pass over and
preserve it." (Isaiah 31:5) How does another bird - the word is in the feminine
- protect her nest. Is it by passing over it in the sense of passing it bye.
Deuteronomy 32:11 describes the eagle "fluttering over her young." Though the
word here used is different, the thought is identical. As a bird protects her
nest, so does God preserve his people. He "rideth upon the heavens for their
help"; He hides them under the shadow of His wings, "the wings of the
Almighty." (Psalm 17:8; cf. Ps 36:7; 13 57:1; 61:4; 63:7; 91:4) And thus it was
that He preserved them on that awful night when the destroyer was abroad in the
land of Egypt.
What is done by Gods command, He is said to do
Himself. Hence the language of verse 23, "The Lord will pass through to smite
the Egyptians." But the words that follow make it clear that it was not the
Lord Himself who executed the judgment - words indeed could not be clearer,
"And when He seeth the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the
Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto
your houses to smite you." The highest thought suggested by the conventional
reading of the passage, is that He spared them; the truth is that He stood on
guard, as it were, at every blood-sprinkled door. He became their Saviour.
Nothing short of this is the meaning of the Passover. The faith of His people
in the old time might well put to shame the half faith of so many of His people
in these days of the fuller light of the Christian revelation. They learned to
sing, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the
Lord Jehovah is any strength and my song; He also is become my salvation."
(Exodus 15:2; Isaiah 12:2)
The Divine religion of Judaism was marked by
festivals based on sacrifice - joy in the presence of God, based on atonement
for sin. And so is it in Christianity. Hence the exhortation, "For our Passover
also hath been sacrificed, even Christ, wherefore let us keep festival!" (1
Corinthians 5:7, 8 (R. V., marg.) And this should be realized in every
Christian life. Festival-keeping speaks of joy, and joy is the very atmosphere
of Christianity. Not the gaiety of fools, which any passing sorrow kills; but
joy so firmly based on eternal realities, that passing storms of sorrow, let
them be never so fierce, cannot quench it. "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" is
one of the paradoxes of the Christian life.
Go To
Chapter Three
Literature | Photos | Links | Home