Good Friday Bible Study: The Lamb Slain
Today’s longer than usual post is for believers and unbelievers as we celebrate Good Friday with a gaze at Exodus 12:1-13. We will barely scratch the surface of all the ways the Passover Lamb tells of Jesus throughout Scripture. Our goal today is to see that Jesus died for us in order to rise again and conquer the grave; this plan being instituted before time began.
As we enter Exodus 12, Moses and the people were in real time being rescued from Egypt. But as the Lord gave instruction, He knew it was instruction for their exodus, and it was speaking of His Son. Exodus 1:1-3 says,
“The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
‘This month shall be for you the beginning of months.
It shall be the first month of the year for you.’
Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month
every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses,
a lamb for a household.”
As God shares these instructions, He knows the lamb represents His Son who would die in our place. Let’s pause to worship Him with Revelation 5:11-12,
“Then I looked,
and I heard around the throne
and the living creatures
and the elders
the voice of many angels,
numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,
saying with a loud voice,
‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!’”
Worthy indeed!
Exodus 12:4 instructs,
“And if the household is too small for a lamb,
then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons;
according to what each can eat
you shall make your count for the lamb.”
The lamb was to be wholly consumed. As we count the cost to follow Christ, it is all or nothing. He is worthy to be wholly followed. Exodus 12:5-6 continues,
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old.
You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,
and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month,
when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel
shall kill their lambs at twilight.”
Without blemish.
Jesus was the only human who ever lived who was sinless, spotless, without blemish. Because of His perfect life, including obedience to die on the cross, Jesus made a way for us to be rescued from eternal death. To those who trust in Him, He accounts His perfect life to us. The lamb was to be a male, because Mary would give birth to her firstborn Son, Jesus.
They took the lamb on the tenth, and kept it until the fourteenth. On that day, what would the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel do at twilight? They would kill it. Let that sink in. It was our sin that sent Jesus to the cross.
The previous plague in Egypt was darkness that could be felt. The lambs would be killed and their blood applied to spare the firstborn Hebrews from the next and final plague. Before Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, breathed his last there was darkness. Luke 23:44-46 says,
“It was now about the sixth hour,
and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour,
while the sun’s light failed.
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said,
‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’
And having said this he breathed his last.”
He made the way for us to come to the Father. He was obedient all the way to death.
Exodus 12:7 instructed them,
“Then they shall take some of the blood
and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses
in which they eat it.”
It’s all about the blood that atones.
Exodus 12:8 says,
“They shall eat the flesh that night,
roasted on the fire;
with unleavened bread and bitter herbs
they shall eat it.”
Jewish families eat a Seder meal during Passover. The bitter herbs cause them to remember that the Egyptians made their lives bitter with hard service as we read in Exodus 1:14. The unleavened bread reminds them that they ate it in haste. Leaven or yeast is, of course, what causes bread to rise and there was no time for that. Passover begins at sundown beginning the fourteenth day of the first month. The Feast of Unleavened Bread starts on the evening of that fourteenth day and lasts for seven days. Leaven sometimes represents sin in Scripture. Matthew 1:21 says, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” For those in Christ, we are no longer in bondage to sin and its ability to make our lives bitter with hard service. As Jesus went to the cross on Passover, His substitutionary sacrifice would afford us the victory cry against sin in 1 Corinthians 15:54b-57!
“‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’
‘O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Darkness.
Blood and death.
Glorious light, life, and freedom.
Exodus 12:9-11 says,
“Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted,
its head with its legs and its inner parts.
And you shall let none of it remain until the morning;
anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.
In this manner you shall eat it:
with your belt fastened,
your sandals on your feet,
and your staff in your hand.
And you shall eat it in haste.
It is the LORD’s Passover.”
Are we living watchful and ready today? Free of the constraints of loving this world system? Free to run our race with endurance until we cross the finish line? Please take a minute to meditate on this verse. It is the LORD’s Passover.
Praise Him for instituting rescue for the people of Israel, and eternal rescue for us. Exodus 12:12 says,
“For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night,
and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt,
both man and beast;
and on all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgments:
I am the LORD.”
Hebrews 10:31 says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” So Jesus became our Passover Lamb and took on God’s wrath in our place. Pay attention to the distinction in Exodus 12:13,
“The blood shall be a sign for you,
on the houses where you are.
And when I see the blood,
I will pass over you,
and no plague will befall you to destroy you,
when I strike the land of Egypt.”
When Yahweh saw the blood He passed over. When we trust Christ for our salvation, God sees us and He sees the blood of Christ and we are spared from damnation to receive no condemnation.
Are we trusting in anything other than the blood of Christ for our acceptance from God? Good works? Much religious activity? The list could go on of the things we might try to do to earn His favor. We are so grateful for our salvation that of course we want to be with Him, hear from Him, and obey Him in His strength! But He alone purchased our forgiveness and entrance into eternal life. To reject that gift and try to save ourselves is unthinkable and an affront to the One who offered it.
“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood,
much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”
Romans 5:9
In a few days we will celebrate as a Body the resurrection of Jesus. Mark 8:31 says,
“And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things
and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes
and be killed,
and after three days rise again.”
Oh, Lord, what You have done! You are worthy.