The Passover
‘• Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinlding of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-bom should touch them.” — Heb. XI. 28.
The ninth plague of Egypt was a deluge of darkness. Neither an eclipse of the sun, nor like anything to which the people were accustomed, it lasted three days, and was so dense that not only was labour arrested but men could not venture forth from their dwellings. A “thick darkness,” a “darkness that might be felt,” coming over a land so serene and so sunny, it was an ominous and appalling visitation, and might almost make them think that the end of the world had arrived. Whatsoever might be the secondary causes employed for its production, the language would imply that artificial lights were of little avail, and that social intercourse and ordinary occupation were generally arrested beneath the murky inundation. And beyond many of its predecessors this judgment seems to have shaken Pharaoh and his subjects. Their god, the sun, was frowning — or, in the grasp of some mightier divinity, he was overpowered and unable to help his worshippers. Goshen excepted, all Egypt was under a funeral pall, and, over and above its actual discomfort, it filled superstitious minds with dread as foreshadowing some dismal catastrophe.
Pharaoh was effectually frightened, but there was no change in his feelings towards either Israel or Israel’s God; and therefore as soon as the murky flood subsided, as soon as the darkness palpable had rolled away, his spirits rose again, and he proposed a compromise. The original demand had been, “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness,”- and now he offered to let the people go, but as a pledge for their return they must leave in Egypt their possessions. Terms like these could not for a moment be entertained, and finding Moses still insist on an absolute and unconditional outgoing, Pharaoh flew into a passion. “Begone! Take care that I never see thy face again: for in the day that thou seest my face again thou shalt die.”
Terror may be a powerful taskmaster, but something else is needful to renew the heart and transform the affections. As he lay in his palace during those days of darkness Pharaoh got time for reflection; and even if he refused to think of
1 Exodus V. 2.
Israel’s rights and of the cruelties inflicted on them by himself and his predecessors, there could be no question that there had come to their rescue a powerful protector. This Jehovah was mighty in battle, and in nine successive encounters he had discomfited Thoth and Phrah, Isis and Osiris, the time-honoured guardians of Egypt, and had put shame on those great idols the sun and the river Mle. Pharaoh for the instant felt powerless in the hand of this unknown God, so awful and irresistible, and inwardly vowed that as soon as the present visitation ended he would make peace with Him by giving up the point at issue. But the visitation ceased, and along with it much of his consternation vanished. Here, on the fourth morning, the sun shone out so clear, and through the translucent margin the water-lilies looked up into the sky which reflected its unclouded mirror under them. Of such a pitchy night it was wonderful that no trace remained: the river was not ink, the blossoms were not black, and as the tramp of footguards crushed the open court, as barges went flashing up the stream, and the gay life of Memphis fluttered forth like the phantoms of a dream, the fears and vows of the monarch fled away, and he had courage to put Moses off with a poor and pitiful concession.
Who knows it not? On the stormy lake, pale as ashes, Volney drops on his knees and cries, “Christ, save me! 0 Christ, have mercy upon me!” and when the storm is over and they are safe on shore, he begs his friends not to reveal his weakness. Detected in a deed of dishonesty which he declares to be his very first — for there never was a thief who was not a liar also — the purloiner calls Heaven to witness that if you will only let him off this once, he will hereafter rather starve than steal; and six months afterwards he is at the bar of the Old Bailey. Laid on a bed of sickness the toper is plainly told how urgent is his case, and how many are the chances against him, “Oh, dear doctor, if you will only set me on my feet this once, I give you my solemn word, I never taste another drop,” and the vow is kept till he is pronounced past danger. In imminent alarm — with lying refuges swept away — like Pharaoh in the dark left all alone with Israel’s God, you have seen the folly of a godless life and the terribleness of unprepared death, and have promised and protested that as soon as this crisis was over you would make God’s friendship your first effort and His service your chief concern. But if it be a yew-tree staff, as soon as the pressure is taken off it will start up straight as ever; and if it be the same proud, self-sufficient, self-indulgent nature as before, it may bend for a moment beneath the mighty hand of God, but like a deceitful bow rebounding is sure to turn back erect and stiff as ever.
The milder warning was thrown away, and now the great woe was coming. God’s ambassador had been dismissed. Under pain of death Moses had been ordered from the presence-chamber; and to the rude rebuff, “Let me see thy face no more,” with the ominous dignity of one who knew his Master’s might, Moses answered, “Thou hast spoken well: I will see thy face no more.” And returning to his Master, the Lord said unto Moses, “Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh and upon Egjrpt: after that he shall not only let you go, but shall thrust you out altogether.”
This plague was so terrible that even at this distance it is awful to survey. By making men courageous the gospel makes them less cruel, and whilst it has braced up men’s energies it has also softened their spirits, so that much as we may enjoy feats of prowess, the excitement of conflict, the exultation of victory, we turn away from the devastation and carnage with which they are purchased. The naked announcement that in a single night a whole nation was plunged into mourning, every family bewailing its eldest son, looked at alone and dissevered from the facts might well afflict our feelings. But we must remember the actual facts.” Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,
I will repay.” Towards the Israelites the Egyptians had for long behaved so cruelly that, if suffering could be weighed or measured, we might safely aver that Israel’s slow centuries of endurance were feebly countervailed by Egypt’s night of anguish. Who can tell the protracted misery — the misery of a high-spirited free-roaming people who had been entrapped into sudden slavery? and what bottle but God’s own could contain the tears of the broken-hearted bondmen, the tears of families torn asunder, the tears of hapless mothers entreating the stony-hearted rufi&ans not to hurl into the stream the babe snatched from their bosom, the tears of trampled abjects who saw their dearest kindred faint beneath their burdens or knocked down by savage overseers, and who dared not remonstrate or complain? And every one must be addressed in the language he understands. The tiger which has grasped your child — ’tis no use to coax or flatter — it is only the flaming fagot you thrust into his face which makes him howl and drop his victim in the shock of sudden pain. “Israel is my first-born,” said God — “let Israel my people go.” But the lion only snarled, and even blow after blow made him only bite the firmer and make the bondage sorer: till an arm of fire gleamed through the night and “a great cry” confessed the burning blow, as the victim dropped from his gory iUb THE PASSOVER.
jaws bruised and palpitating, but still alive and
FREE.
It was destined to prove “a night much to be remembered;” and, with a deliberateness and forethought truly divine, means were taken to engraft upon it a lesson of primary importance, and a celebration which should never be forgotten. This was to be the birth -night of Hebrew nationality, and it was to be further distinguished by a notable addition to the existing stock of revealed religion. Just as on the eve of the great event in human history, the Lord Jesus, in the fulness of His foreknowledge, instituted a Feast which should be at once commemorative and symbolic, so on the eve of the great event in Hebrew history, the Most High instituted a rite, at once a record of that fact and a revelation of God’s great scheme of mercy. In each the fact and the practical lesson are indissolubly intertwined. In the Feast of the Passover, the Hebrew could not recall the outstanding incident in his nation’s history without at the same time rehearsing, as in a sacred pantomime, those outstanding facts — a danger to be dreaded, and the blood of God’s appointed sacrifice, as the sole protection from that danger. In the Feast of the Eucharist, the Christian cannot recall the overmastering incident in the annals of our world — the sacrifice for its sins which love incarnate offered — without also exhibiting in a brief but affecting drama the life which comes through that death, and the close and friendly relation which exists between every believer and that immortal “lover of our unworthy race.”
When the other plagues swept over Egypt, the land of Goshen was specially exempted; but now that this final judgment was about to fall, the preservation of the Israelites, whether in Goshen or elsewhere, was specially provided for; and the safety of every one was guaranteed who obeyed the Divine appointment and took advantage of God’s own ordinance. For the time, every head of a household was exalted into a priest, and was directed to take a lamb and keep it up from the tenth day of the month till the fourteenth. On the fourteenth, in the evening, the lamb was to be slain, and its blood was to be sprinkled on the side-posts and lintel of the dwelling: “For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.”
Now, what was the principle in this procedure? Death was to be abroad that night, but death is the satellite or pursuivant of sin; and on the ground of their personal worth, their actual innocence, the Hebrews could count on exemption no more than the Egyptians. But if sin’s wages be death, with God there is also forgiveness — forgiveness founded on sacrifice; and so to Israel God sent a message. He told them that the Destroyer would take his flight over all the land, but if they would only do as He directed they need fear no evil, for the plague would not come nigh their dwellings.
And so “by faith they kept the passover.” They did not speculate nor argue; they did not say, “If a plague is coming it will be far more sensible to lay in a store of medicine; we should fumigate our houses; we should provide the most approved specifics; or, if an actual angel is to inflict the stroke, he will be able to distinguish us without so much ado. A few Hebrew letters on the door — a dash of red paint on the Lintel, might answer all the purpose; but why insist on sacrifice? Why lay such strees on the blood of the slain lamb?” We do not read that any were so foolish. When Moses told the impending plague, and announced the means of preservation, “the people bowed the head and worshipped.” They believed that a vial of vengeance was about to burst upon a sinful land, and they not only entered into their chambers, but shed the blood of the expiating victim, and hung out over every threshold the symbol at once of confession and deprecation, — the crimson sign which betokened their faith in God’s mercy and their compliance with God’s command.
So “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” He is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world — the Divine and prospective victim who gave to all lesser sacrifices their meaning and their value. Little is the pleasure which God has in inflicting pain. Small is His delight in the death of him that dieth; but where there is evil there must be pain — where there is transgression there must be penalty — where sin exists death must follow. But so marvellous is God’s mercy, He himself comes in between sin and its consequences. Eather than that the sinner should perish, He has HimseK encountered the penalty, and in order to become the pain-bearer, the death-endurer, the mystery of godliness was consummated, and God manifest in flesh offered Himself a sacrifice for sin, and was then received up into glory again.
The blood shed on that great occasion is of infinite value and of ever- during eflicacy; for it is the blood of God’s own Son — that Lamb or Sacrifice of God which taketh away the sin of the world, and which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel, for it cries not for vengeance but for mercy; it proclaims not a crime committed but a penalty exhausted, and shows its power not in hounding the perpetrator from land to land, but in pacifying his conscience and giving it a good answer towards God.
Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, and the case of Israel may help us to understand how we are to derive the benefit. They had faith in God, and did as God directed. Though it seemed a bold thing to do, each head of a household for the time being became a priest. It did not matter what a clown he might be, what a coarse, what a sinful life up to that period he had been leading; it was now an affair of life or death, and if he did not wish death to enter his dwelling, on the head of the unblemished lamb he must lay his unused hands, and as a priest must present the offering. And all the rather because our hands are so impure, we need to lay them on the Lamb of God, and over the head of that great propitiation confess our sin and our death-worthiness; and although a priestly act, it is not presumptuous; for He himself hath made us kings and priests to His Father, entitled to present as ours His one oblation, and to ask the blessings which it bought. And although there is no literal refuge into which we can retire, and there hide us till this night of danger end, and the morning of the great deliverance dawn, “the name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it and is safe;” the promises of God, the perfections of the infinite and immutable I AM, are a secure retreat to those who know and trust them. And although there is no literal blood which we can sprinkle, we know the fact that precious blood was once shed for the sins of many; and if we are satisfied with this divinely- appointed method of escape; if for protection from coming wrath our sole dependence is the blood of Christ, the doom threatening a Christless world will pass over us, and emerging to that joyful awful morrow where on the one side all is gladness, on the other all is weeping and wailing, we shall join the ransomed of the Lord in that final exodus — in the escape of the redeemed from earth’s darkness and the bondage of corruption.
The p’inciple on which the Passover was grounded we have endeavoured to explain; but I ought to add that the preservation of any given Israelite depended not so much on his understanding the principle as on his actually employing the divinely-appointed expedient. And so I am bound to add, in the still more momentous matter of personal salvation, it is not the extent of our knowledge that will save us, but the simplicity with which we receive what God reveals, and do what God desires. We might fancy some intelligent Israelite saying, after hearing the message of Moses,” AVell, it is an
IG-i THE PASSOVER.
admirable provision. The observance prescribed is deeply significant, and it is in wonderful congruity with the whole course of the Divine procedure;” but if he neglected to adopt it for himself, his theology would not save him. Whereas we could equally imagine some plain unlettered labourer, some guileless Israelite, who, listening to the message, understood no more than what merely met the ear, saying, “A great desolation is to sweep the land this night, and if you wish to escape, you will sacrifice a lamb and sprinkle on your posts and lintel its blood,” we could imagine him comprehending little more than the plain warning and equally plain prescription; but believing what was spoken, his faith would save him. “By faith, keeping the passover and sprinkling the blood, he that destroyed the first-born would not so much as touch him.”
And so it is very important for us to remember that it is neither the extent of our erudition, nor the vividness of our fancy, nor the grasp of our philosophy, that ‘svill save us, but the readiness with which we fall in with God’s requirement and do as He directs us. And happily for us His directions are exceedingly plain. Christ is set forth as a propitiation for sin, and all receive remission who have faith in His blood. Wherever there is a child of Adam there is guilt, and there the sword of the Destroyer should come down; but wherever the
THE passoyi-:e. 165
blood of Christ is put forward as the piaciilum or plea, there is pardon, there is protection, there the destroying angel passes by. And it is neither because he is a saint who hangs out the crimson sign, nor because it is a strong tower or a stately palace in which he dwells, but because God recognises the appointed token that He passes over, and says to the believer “Live.”
My friends, suffer me to ask how it stands with you? I can quite imagine that some are a little tired of frequent iteration, and would be glad if we went on from these first rudiments; and perhaps in a stated pastorate we should. But yet what should be better news to those who are sinning every week than the gospel of forgiveness? or with all the wrath which God has revealed against unrighteousness, what hint can be more opportune, what exhortation should be more urgent than, “Get within, keep within, your blood-protected refuge”? My hearer, are you there? It is only on such that the morning of eternity will arise bright and gladsome, and it is only there that you can even now dwell with any reasonable sense of security. What right have you to be cheerful whose sins are not yet forgiven, and who have not yet got your sentence of condemnation cancelled? How can you be merry who, like an Egyptian, like a mere infidel, are going to lie down this night, and going to lie down ere long in your last sleep perhaps, with no pardon entreated in a Mediator’s name, and with no protection provided against the second death and the wrath to come?
Nor can a word by way of remembrance come amiss to any. The only serious evil is sin. The sight of it filled the Son of God with such concern, that in order to save some, — probably the whole of Adam’s infant progeny and a large number of the up-grown and responsible, — He assumed the body which the Father prepared for Him, and as the Lamb of God He offered up Himself a sacrifice.
“0 thou hideous monster, Sin,
What a curse hast thou brought in!
All creation groans through thee,
Only cause of misery!
Thou hast ruin’d wretched man
Ever since the world began;
Thou hast God afflicted too;
Nothing less than that would do.
Christ relieves us from thy guilt;
But we think whose blood was sjjilt.
All we feel or hear or see
Serves to raise our hate of thee.
Dearly are we bought, for God
Bought us with His own heart’s blood.
Boundless depths of love divine!
Jesus, what a love was thine!”
And if you want to have done with sin, — if you would not go on carrying its guilt to the grave, and
iHart, Hymn 41.
its germs of immeasurable, illimitable evil into eternity, — cast yourself on the Saviour’s proffered mercy, and take refuge beneath the protecting covert of His most precious blood. In so doing you comply with God’s command, and cast yourself, not only on His pity, but on His truth and faithfulness. In so doing you honour the finished work of His beloved Son. In so doing you at once confess sin’s enormity and proclaim the atonement’s efficacy, and surrender the two main points of dispute between God and the gospel-rejecting mass of mankind. Like Israel on the night of danger, you put forth the crimson sign of confession, the red flag of deprecation, and in return Heaven waves the white flag of truce, the Saviour plants over the spot the banner of His love. ‘Ev tovtcm arjfieia) — under this standard you are safe. The penal consequences of sin are intercepted, for the sin is forgiven; and its prolongation beyond the present life is made impossible by that most merciful arrangement which in the case of Christ’s redeemed leaves all their besettino: sins on this side, — all their corruption in that house of bondage from which death delivers.