Exodus 12:13 And the blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you… I. In the history of the Exodus, Egypt and Israel, the opposed nationalities, represent TWO DIFFERENT ESTATES OF THE HUMAN LIFE — the earthly and the spiritual. These opposite estates are presented in eternal contrast throughout the pages of Holy Writ. In the Revelation of St. John the Divine the mystical Babylon represents that earthly, perishable, debased life which is here represented by Egypt; and the everlasting destiny of the spiritual life is represented by the New Jerusalem. The same antithesis is expressed by St. Paul in the fifteenth chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians. The apostle contrasts the earthly and the spiritual in the forms of the personal human life, out of which the national and the civil life have their origin: "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." So also in his Epistle to the Ephesians, the opposed states of life typified by Egypt and Israel, Babylon and New Jerusalem, derived from the first Adam and the Second Adam, are contrasted in the words, "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." The history of the Exodus does not merely narrate facts that occurred in a bygone, distant age. It is also an ever-contemporary history of the struggle of human life going on in every age. The slavery, oppression, debasement, and misery of Israel in Egypt represent to us the bondage, the discontent, and unrest of the human spirit enchained, degraded, and debased by the forces of the carnal and worldly life. The lusts and the passions that goad the human being into the debasing works of vice are task-masters that afflict with sore burdens. Man's eternal inability to find rest and blessedness in the slavery of the sensual and worldly life, is expressed in the words, "The Children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God, by reason of their bondage." The march out of the Egyptian bondage towards the confines of the land flowing with milk and honey, in order to stand before the Lord in "the mountain of His inheritance," is the great historical parable, composed in the providence of God to represent the progress of the human soul out of the sensual life into the spiritual — out of the low life of the earthly level into the communion of the most high life of God. The Divine voice of the Eternal Love, speaking through the Church, is for ever summoning man to travel towards the land of nobleness and freedom: "When Israel was a child then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt." The means which God employed to relax the grasp of the tyrant, are the same which He still employs from age to age. The human soul, enslaved by the overmastering forces of the flesh and the world, cannot escape from its bondage without the aid of a power from above. How does God aid the soul to break its chains? He sends trials, sorrows, sicknesses, disappointments. The plagues are not sent in vain. In the hour of each visitation the tyrant grasp of the flesh and of the world upon the spiritual will is weakened, and the claims of spiritual truth are acknowledged. Old habits are not broken by a single chastening. This passage describes, with exact spiritual accuracy, the nature of the final visitation that carries conviction to the oft-hardened, unyielding soul. What, then, are the leading features of the visitation as here set before us? The manifestation of God's presence; the gloom of a night unlit, save by the flashes of the angelic sword; the slaughter of Egypt's best and choicest lives: the exposure of the vanity and weakness of Egypt's creature gods. The all-pervading presence of God was now to be realized in the Egyptian kingdom, according to the words, "I will pass through the land of Egypt." These words express the truth that God was about to compel those who had been living "without God in the world" to realize the power and majesty of His presence. The godless man, living through long years under the government of hard, tyrannical, untrained self-will, ignores the presence of God: "The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts." When man has lived long without God in the world, lived the sensual, worldly life of Egypt, what power can enable him to realize the presence of the Invisible Lord, and to recognize in the passing hours the form of His Majesty? Nothing less than some overpowering shock that shakes to its very foundations the fabric of his life-habits, and convulses all the recesses of his being. Such a convulsion is here represented in the words, "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night." The times in which God reveals the terrors of His presence to the sensual, worldly natures, are times of darkness. To the children of Egypt the countenance of God comes in the night of trouble, sickness, and dissolution. In the bright day of health, activity, and wealth, the Egyptian soul realizes not the nearness of God. This night is for ever falling upon the land of Egypt. The prospects of the sensual worldly life are for ever subject to the coming of the darkness. There is not a household in all the land of Egypt that does not, sooner or later, feel the growing darkness of the night of trial settling upon it. But another element in the power of the visitation that carries conviction, is the destruction of "the firstborn." In Holy Writ this expression has a secondary and wider significance. It is used to denote all that is foremost in value and strength. Hence the destruction of all the firstborn of Egypt represents the eternal truth, that the choicest and strongest existences of the earthly and natural life are doomed to change and dissolution. The day of visitation is also a day in which the powerlessness of the Egyptian gods is demonstrated: "Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment." The men of the world and the men of the flesh exalt some of the creatures into the throne that should be occupied by God. Thus does God for ever work out the emancipation of chosen souls. If the natural life were for ever undarkened by affliction; unchastened by bereavement; unrebuked by the overthrow of its idols, then the human spirit would never escape out of the tyrannous bondage of sensuality and gross worldliness, never rise into the mountain of God's inheritance. II. THE ISRAELITE LIVES ARE SAVED FROM THE POWER OF THE DESTROYER. In the hour when the plagues oppressed the life of Egypt, Israel was delivered from the destroying power of the visitation: "I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you." Although placed in the midst of the same objective circumstances, Israel and Egypt realized different effects from them. The land in which both sojourned was the same land; but for one people it was a land overrun by the plague of darkness at the very hour when the other people walked in the light. This miracle, accomplished historically in the contrasted destinies of the two typical nations, is repeated spiritually in the experience of all the souls that bear in themselves the two different types of human character, the earthly image of Egypt and the spiritual image of Israel. The land of our sojourning is still subject to the plague of darkness. For instance, the great mystery of human suffering is a problem which casts abroad a "darkness which may be felt." Why do pain, want, and agony exist? To the sensual and worldly man the question is one for which no answer is to be feared. As the darkness of Egypt is for ever recurring, so also is the light of Israel. The very same trials which are inexplicably gloomy to the unspiritual man, are intelligible in their purpose, and full of light to the Christian soul. To the question, What is the purpose of suffering? he is taught to answer, that pains and agonies are means of spiritual discipline for perfecting strength and beauty of character. The Eternal Light of the world was shining in the Divine-human soul of Jesus Christ, at the very hour when He voluntarily passed under the visitation of the power of darkness, as the Captain of our salvation, to be made perfect by suffering. So for the members of His Body, the souls united to Him, the promise is fulfilled: " He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." As the hour which was dark to the Egyptian was bright to the Israelite, so the sword that smote the firstborn of the earthly race passed by the children of the chosen. This miracle, also, is for ever repeated. But for the Christian, the "firstborn," the chief, most cherished object of His being, is the hidden Divine life of Christ in the soul. In the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus, we behold the fulfilment o! that eternal spiritual law, which gives safety to the firstborn of Israel. For us men and for our redemption He mortified the natural life, and sacrificed it upon the cross. To the earthly soul, in that self-sacrifice unto death the God man seemed to have yielded the chief treasure, the "firstborn object of preservation, to the destroying sword. But on the morning of the third day, it became manifest that the true Firstborn was not the life laid down upon the Cross, but the risen life that had survived the sword of the Destroying Angel in the night of Calvary, and come forth in safety and triumph out of the hour of gloom, and out of the pains of death, "because it was not possible that He should be holden of it." So also in all the living members of Christ this destiny is for ever being accomplished anew. The Christian never loses his cherished treasure, the " firstborn" of his heart. Why? Because in the voluntary self-sacrifice of his own natural will he has given up the natural earthly "firstborn," in order to receive him again in a risen, restored form, ensured against the destroying sword. He who belongs to the moral commonwealth of Egypt, and knows no higher laws in the regulation of his inward life than those of natural flesh and blood, will lose the dearest firstborn of his being. He `who is enrolled in the commonwealth of Israel, as a living member of Christ, having inscribed on his heart the laws of the spiritual kingdom, has received that "firstborn" of the Eternal Life, who will be found unscathed in the darker hour "when the Destroying Angel passes through the land: "He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." The plague can only be escaped by the spiritual franchise of Israel. They who give their hearts to the external treasures of the sensual and temporal life, will find their firstborn smitten down in the day of visitation. II. THE TOKEN OF THE COVENANT THAT MARKS THE HABITATIONS OF ISRAEL. "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." The Destroying Angel, according to the eternal order of God, passed harmlessly by the blood-sprinkled houses, and was not authorized to use His sword against the lives of any that presented that token. Throughout Holy Writ the saving efficacy of bloodshed in sacrifice according to God's commandment is declared. "Almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission." So in this passage, the power that redeems human nature from slavery and ruin is represented as dwelling in the blood: "When I see the blood I will pass over you." But let us ask again, What is the connection between salvation through blood and the mystery of love? The hidden attribute of love can only be communicated to man by. outward expression. The true expression of love is sacrifice. The most precious sacrifice expresses the strongest love. In order to give expression to infinite love, a sacrifice of infinite value was required. Man knows of no treasure equal in value to the gift of life. "The life of the flesh is in the blood." Thus the shedding of the Divine-human blood was the expression of that love which "is the fulfilment of the law." Therefore the power that redeems man from Egypt, and neutralizes all the influences that tend to debase and enslave his nature, is the power of Divine Love working in his being through the presence of the Holy Spirit, that came into humanity as the consequence of that infinite self-sacrifice on Calvary of Him, concerning whom the appointed witness testified, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." But we must bear in mind that the blood of the sacrificed life was sprinkled upon the habitations of Israel. What is the truth that we are to learn from that? The power of the Divine Love must influence the forms of our earthly human life. The means of grace in the Church are ordained for the purpose of bringing us under the saving power of the Cross of Christ. The highest of these means is the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. We must live the life of earnest Christian activity: "Thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded." We must live in the desire of spiritual progress, earnestly preparing ourselves "to walk henceforth in His most holy ways." We must try to live above the world, in the consciousness that we are hastening on towards another scene of existence: "Ye shall eat it in haste." If we are crucified with Christ, and living the risen life in Him, the tokens of the saving power will be evident in all the habits of our being. The signs of the grace of God that bringeth salvation are for ever the same. They who are marked by them "live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." The sobriety that enables us to control our own inward life, is one of the effects of the atoning blood. The sensual, the proud, the self-indulgent man has in the character of his life no sign of the spirit of self-sacrifice. (H. T. Edwards, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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