“Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their father’s houses, a lamb for a household…Your lamb shall be without blemish; a male a year old…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. 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…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.
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.”
Exodus 12:3-13
Even as the people whom God had chosen, this final plague would have meant death for them – if not for the blood on their houses. These people, these families, were each saved by the blood of a lamb through a salvation written and instructed by the Lord. Foreshadowing our hope of salvation, one that would be complete and last forever, by the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Israel’s salvation that night was not because they did not also deserve judgment. They were sinners, just as those in Egypt were. Their sin, perhaps, did not look the same or reach the same levels (because there are levels), but all sin is a rejection of the Lord’s glory and authority as the Sovereign One. All sin creates a deep, separating chasm. All sin deserves wrath from a holy God who is just. Because justice does not allow those who do wrong to go free.
But the Lord chose these people and revealed to them a way of salvation, and through their faith and their surrendered obedience to His plan, they were saved.
Without the blood, without His mercy, the Israelites’ outcome would have been the same as the Egyptians’.
Oh, may this truth resonate in our hearts. A reminder of how undeserving I am. How utterly reliant on the mercy and power and love and faithfulness of God to save. And may it increase our thankfulness to know that He does, that He is faithful to save us to the uttermost when we choose Christ. We have a confident hope, a steadfast anchor for our soul, because Jesus has passed through that curtain beyond this life and He will not lose one of those who are His (Hebrews 6:19-20; John 6:37-40). Each one of us will reach our home safely and will be clothed with life (2 Corinthians 5:1-5). Joy is set before us, not fear. Because our Lord is here.
I am saved not by my own merit, but by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was sent because God so loves us. And oh, what freedom there is in that. Not freedom to do evil, but freedom to stop trying to gain acceptance and salvation and perfection with my own power. I can’t do it. No one can. Sin’s stains are permanent.
But God.
God made a way. The blood of Jesus, willingly shed on His cross, cleanses us and washes the stain away. Satisfying the justice of God while making a way for the mercy and glorious grace of God to be demonstrated. Clothing us in His righteousness and beginning His transforming, purifying work. A work He will see to completion.
For all who trust in Christ, responding to the plan of salvation revealed by the Living God who is mighty to save, we have been brought from death to life. For “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). And He will keep us there.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved–and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:1-10
In Pleasant Places 