Nothing but the Blood - 10. Before I Pass Over

     From Nothing but the Blood Audio
Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families, and slay the Passover lamb. You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you.  —Exodus 12

With the path we’ve traveled here (seeing that blood is the way back, but there’s a heart piece, except that even the righteous fall short, so God will stand in the gap because One, the right One, covers for everyone and God will provide that One) we’re now in a position to put it all together.

Abraham’s son, Isaac, has Jacob. Jacob has twelve sons who (more or less) become the 12 tribes of Israel. Everything goes well in Egypt (Exodus 1:7, Exodus 2:24), for a while, until the descendants of Israel fall into 400 years of slavery (Exodus 1:11-14).

God raises Moses up (Exodus 3:2) and calls him back to Egypt to demand freedom for the slaves. Nine plagues scourge Egypt, but God (Exodus 10:27). . .

. . . and Pharaoh (Exodus 9:34) hardened Pharaoh’s resolve to keep Israel in chains.

Look at the progression of these plagues. They are:

• • something useful (Aaron’s staff) becomes a serpent (Exodus 7:10),
  • unclean (Exodus 7:20),
  • unclean (Exodus 8:6),
  • unclean (Exodus 8:17),
  • letting of blood/death (Exodus 9:6), 
  • unclean (Exodus 9:10),
  • destruction (Exodus 9:23),
  • locusts (Exodus 10:13) which were technically clean (Leviticus 11:21-22) but may represent burdensome toil or God’s judgment (Revelation 9:1-11),
  • darkness  (Exodus 10:22), and finally
  • blood (Exodus 12:29).

I don’t purport to understand this, but there seems to be a progression similar to what we’ve been discussing. Eden (universally useful) is rendered useless (no access) by our response to a serpent. Sin follows sin follows sin follows sin, destruction of the world, tearing at the rightness of nature. Burdensome toil leads to a darkness of the knowledge of the rightness of God. And only blood leads to freedom, for those who chose it, at least.

This story is a type of the Gospel Story.

Billy Graham tells the story of a young man, an Israelite, being tucked in that night. He’s the oldest in the family and he’s heard the rumors. He’s nervous and looks to his father saying, “You know dad, I haven’t had a good day. I got into a fight this morning and I’m the one that stole the extra cake last week. I’m worried about tonight.” And the father looks down, brushes his hair aside, and says, “Don’t worry son. When the angel of death sees the blood on our doorposts, he’ll pass over.”

In my giving this lesson to classes, I’ve said something that I completely made up. I’m sorry and I’m coming clean now. I can’t find any evidence that a doorway would have been notched during this time to provide two crosses on each side of the door. But I’ve found a lot of evidence that a longer beam would have been placed across two vertical beams like in the above photo.

The truth is that this story is a type/shadow/foretaste of Calvary like this doorpost is a type/shadow/foretaste of the Cross.

Imagine the dad that forgot to put up the blood. Or he’d just painted and didn’t want to mess up the front door. Scripture tells us what happened to those in Egypt that night that failed to show the blood (Exodus 12:30).

What makes us think we’re any different? Did a dad get credit for doing everything EXCEPT showing the blood? Will I? Will you?

I love you.                                                                                  

This is the tenth part in a multi-part post expanding on an exceptional talk Billy Graham gave at the University of Cambridge in 1955 with influences from Tim Keller's sermon series Christ: Our Treasury (The Book of Hebrews). To hear an overview of this material, consider listening to the original Nothing but the Blood audio, linked here (it'll stream from a mobile device), read all the posts to date by clicking #nothingbuttheblood, or hear the most recent version of the Nothing but the Blood talk by streaming it on the player, below. If you'd like to get these posts sent to you via email (and you're not already), click here to register and make sure to tell us that you're a Back Porch Friend.

The next in this series, Part 11. Strengthen Yourself is available by clicking here.