THE BLOOD THAT CAUSES THE PASSOVER

“Coming events cast their shadows before” is an adage that sits well with the Bible, wherein things set down are for our examples, for our warning and were foreshadows of the reality to come (1 Co. 10:11). Human suffering has always been used by God to warn of His coming judgment. This judgment has hung over our heads since the day of mankind’s first sin in the Garden of Eden. God uses suffering to hasten and secure our decision to escape it. And He has provided the way of this escape.

Readings: Exodus 12:1-13, 1 Corinthians 5: 7-8

The Gift of Eternity, Not Years
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Left alone, all we humans will remain astray, going on in our pointless ways of eking out nothing but a temporary existence of years (969 for Methuselah, 120 in the days of Noah or 70 as lamented by the Psalmist). But God wants to preserve us well beyond that, and is therefore not so impressed with our shortsightedness.

We are His creation, and His purpose is to give us eternity. (For a foreshadow, Israel were His people, and His purpose was to give them the Promised Land).

God’s Purposeful Use of Suffering
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God could leave us to burn ourselves out in a short time, in our insatiable infatuation with Earthly existence and pleasures. But He presses with determination to move as many as are willing (and therefore as possible) to eternity, and He uses suffering as part of that effort for two key effects:

1. To delay the human end (Left alone, humanity would have destroyed itself off the surface of the Earth a long time ago – Sodom and Gomorrah were fostering homosexuality that is ultimately anti-birth, wars even in these days of multi-party democracy with nuclear bombs that are reputed to destroy the Earth several times over)

2. To give further warning of human helplessness in the coming eternal suffering

In His use of suffering, however, God makes avenue for preservation and creates an opportunity for the recovery and flourishing of righteousness (the doing of His will from the hearts of those made in His image) by a remnant.

The Ark, the Hills and the Blood
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When God unleashes suffering, then, it is judgmental – not mere discrimination – careful to separate the obedient from the rebellious. At least, this norm is very clear in the Old Testament with the following examples:

a. The Ark for Noah (Genesis 7)

b. The Mountain/City of Refuge for Lot (Genesis 19:17-22)

c. The blood of the lamb on doorposts for the Israelites in Egypt (Exodus 12)

Reality is Upon Us – Now or Never
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In the New Testament, it is clear that what God seeks to spare us is not this mere temporal life, but the eternal. All suffering He allows is therefore to press home this point. The refuge therefore is no longer the symbolic (ark, hill, blood of lambs), but the real. And the question now is: “If your life were to end today, as you see happening rapidly all around, why would the bringer of eternal death (or second death, as in Revelation 21:8) pass you over?”

Are you safe in the Ark (Christ)? Have you left all things to flee to the hill (of Calvary, where Christ suffered for the sins of the world)? Are you trusting in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and therefore serving righteousness, rather than still faithlessly slaving for sin? (Mt. 1:21, Rom. 6:19). It is only the blood of Christ that causes the eternal Passover. Are you covered?

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