Message 24
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Scripture Reading: Exo. 12:11-28, 43-51; 13:2-11; 1 Cor. 5:7-8; 1 Cor. 15:45, 47a
The record of the Passover given in Exodus is very detailed. Nowhere else in the Scriptures do we find such a detailed account of Christ’s redemption. The reason for all the detail is that God wants us to know the redemption of Christ in such a thorough way that we could never forget it. Twice the word memorial is used (12:14; 13:9). This indicates that it is God’s intention that we neither neglect the redemption of Christ nor forget it. Rather, we are to remember Christ’s redemption, not in a general way, but in a specific and detailed way.
One of the details in the account of the Passover concerns the eating of the flesh of the lamb. The flesh of the Passover lamb signifies Christ’s crucified and resurrected life that is our supply. In John 6:53 the Lord Jesus said that if we would have life, we must eat the flesh of the Son of Man. In verse 55 He went on to say, “My flesh is true food.” Through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection Christ’s flesh has become our food.
Another detail is related to the bones of the Passover lamb. The children of Israel were told in 12:46 that none of the bones of the lamb used in the Passover were to be broken. This is of great significance. When the Lord Jesus was crucified, His bones were not broken (John 19:33, 36). This indicates that within Christ there is something unbreakable and indestructible. Christ’s unbroken bone signifies the life that imparts life. This is typified by Eve being produced from Adam’s rib. Just as Adam’s bone could impart life into Eve to make her Adam’s counterpart, so Christ’s indestructible life has imparted life into us to make us His counterpart. Adam’s rib typifies Christ’s life that imparts life. In Christ there is a life signified by the unbroken bone of the Passover lamb. This life is Christ’s eternal, divine life that imparts life into us.
We need to be deeply impressed with all the details of the Passover. As we consider these details, we realize that the account of the Passover is not simple or easy to understand.
In this message we shall consider the way to apply the Passover lamb. The Passover lamb is wonderful, but if we do not know how to apply it, the lamb will have little meaning in our daily subjective experience. Therefore, our concern in this message is with the subjective experience of Christ as the Passover.
Exodus 12:11 says, “And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is Jehovah’s passover” (Heb.). As the children of Israel were eating the Passover lamb, they were like an army. Exodus 12:51 says that the Lord brought the children of Israel “out of the land of Egypt by their armies.” Not many Christians today realize that they should be an army. On the contrary, the prevailing concept seems to be that anyone who believes in the Lord Jesus should be placed in a palanquin and carried away to heaven. However, according to the picture in the book of Exodus, the redeemed ones applied the Passover in such a way that they could become God’s army.
According to 12:11, the children of Israel ate with their loins girded. Before we were saved, we were somewhat loose; our being had not been girded up. To be girded is part of the preparation to be a soldier in the army. By girding ourselves we make ourselves ready to fight.
The gospel preached by many Christians today is not complete. When you heard the gospel, were you told to repent, believe in the Lord Jesus, receive Him, and then gird yourself up? Few of us were told that we needed to gird ourselves. However, the matter of being girded is here in Exodus 12. This record is complete. Only when we have girded our loins are we qualified to apply the Passover. If we are still loose, we cannot take the Passover in a proper way.
The children of Israel were also told to have shoes on their feet. This indicates that they were to make themselves ready for a journey. In an army all soldiers need proper shoes. Before we were saved, our feet were not shod. If we would fight the battle for the Lord, we need the right kind of shoes on our feet. I am sorry that the preaching of the gospel in today’s Christianity rarely includes a word about the need to have shoes on our feet in order to apply the Passover lamb. I hope that the Holy Spirit will speak to many concerning this.
Furthermore, in 12:11 the children of Israel were told to eat the Passover with their staff in hand. The staff was also to be used for the journey. In ancient times, when people went on a long journey, they often took a staff. The girdle, the shoes, and the staff were all for the journey that the children of Israel were about to make. This journey was not to be a journey of peace, but a journey of war, for, in a sense, they had to fight their way out of Egypt.
We thank the Lord that although we may not have heard about these things when the gospel was preached to us, many of us had some experience of them at the time we were saved. When we decided to take Christ as our Savior, inwardly we had the sense that we had been made ready for a long journey. This was my experience. It seemed to me that I had given up my former journey and was ready to start on a new journey, to have a new life with a new beginning. Did you not have such an experience when you believed in the Lord? Were you not made ready for a new journey, a new walk? Perhaps you did not have words for it, but the Holy Spirit did equip you in such a way and did lead you into a journey of fighting. You realized that a new life, a new journey, had just begun.
Finally, 12:11 says that God’s redeemed people were to eat the Passover in haste. Because they had to flee from the land of Egypt that night, they were required to eat the Passover lamb hastily. Soldiers are often required to eat their meals quickly. Those who have been in the army realize that soldiers are trained to eat in this way. Because a battle lies ahead of us, we must eat the Passover lamb in haste. Do not excuse yourself by saying that you were born with a slow disposition. Those who are slow may be the first to be attacked by the enemy from the rear. Those who eat fast are probably those who are at the front of the army.
Exodus 12:22 says, “And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the basin” (Heb.). Notice that the blood was put on the entrance of the house, not on the roof. The function of the entrance is to allow the proper persons and things to come into the house. Anyone or anything that is not proper is shut out by the entrance. The fact that the blood of the Passover lamb was put on the lintel and the two side posts of the door implies that the blood opens the way for us to get into Christ, who is typified by the house. The redeemed ones come into the house, not through the roof or through a window, but through the door that has been sprinkled with the redeeming blood. Hallelujah, our entry into Christ has been guaranteed by His redeeming blood! Coming into Christ through the door sprinkled with the blood, we receive a warm welcome.
Furthermore, the blood on the door protected the redeemed ones from God’s judgment. As 12:13 says, the blood was to be “a token upon the houses” where the children of Israel were. Verse 23 goes on to say, “For Jehovah will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, Jehovah will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you” (Heb.). The same blood opened the way for the redeemed ones to get into the house and closed the gates to the destroyer, thereby guarding God’s redeemed ones from judgment. Praise the Lord that we have a gate that has been sprinkled with the redeeming blood! This gate opens to us God’s grace with all that He is to us and all that He has for us. Furthermore, this gate shuts out every negative thing. Hallelujah, we are in the house whose gate has been sprinkled with the blood!
In the foregoing message we pointed out that both the lamb and the house typify Christ. This means that the lamb is the house and that the house is the lamb. The lamb is the means of redemption, and the house is the means of preservation. Whoever is redeemed by the lamb is preserved and kept by the house. This indicates that whatever Christ redeems, He keeps. As the redeeming One, He is the lamb, and as the keeping One, He is the house. Eventually, the blood of the lamb was on the door, and the meat of the lamb was in the house. The lamb, the house, and those who enjoyed the Passover thus became one. This is a picture of the identification of the redeemed ones with Christ.
A bunch of hyssop was used to put the blood of the lamb on the lintel and the doorposts. First Kings 4:33 says that, in his wisdom, Solomon “spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall.” Hyssop was among the smallest of the plants. According to the revelation in the New Testament, the thing that is the smallest in quantity is our faith (Matt. 17:20). Hence, hyssop signifies faith. God does not require that our faith be as the cedar tree, for none of us could meet such a requirement. God requires that we have just a little faith. Even if our faith is very small, we still can apply the Passover lamb. If a sinner prays, “Lord Jesus, thank You for dying for me,” he will be saved. Even such a small amount of faith will save him. Actually, one can be saved just by saying, “Lord, thank You.” This is faith that is like hyssop that springs out of the wall. It is by such little faith that the blood of Christ is applied.
According to 12:22, the blood of the Passover lamb was in a basin, not in a large vessel. Many can testify that in their experience of conversion the redeeming blood of Christ was made available to them in a way that was small and easy to apply. It was not necessary to have great faith. Even a very small amount of faith was sufficient for them to be saved. This is the significance of using a bunch of hyssop to apply the blood of the Passover lamb. Both the basin and the hyssop were small and could be handled easily by anyone. How easy it is to apply Christ!
Any unsaved person who is reading this message does not need to wait for something great to happen. As he is reading, he can say, “Lord, I thank You.” Even by the exercise of such a small amount of hyssop, the blood will be applied to him, and the entire Passover will be his. The blood of the Passover lamb is applied not by great faith, but by a small amount of faith. Praise the Lord that even a little faith is sufficient! By applying the blood in faith, we have an entrance into Christ, and we are immediately ushered into Him as the house, where the whole Passover becomes ours.
The children of Israel were required to stay in the house whose door had been touched with the blood; they were not to go out of it until the morning (12:22). To understand the significance of this we need to see that the basic concept in the Bible with respect to redemption is identification or union. Without identification there can be no substitution, which is necessary for redemption. On the cross Christ died as our substitute. However, His being our substitute requires us to be identified with Him.
In the Old Testament, the ark of Noah as a type illustrates this matter of identification. In order to be saved from the waters of judgment, Noah and his family had to be in the ark. To be in the ark was to be identified with the ark, to be one with the ark. The destiny of the ark was automatically the destiny of everyone in the ark. Whatever happened to the ark became the experience of the people who were one with the ark. After the door of the ark was closed, others may have held onto the ark in desperation. But they were not one with the ark or identified with it. The only way to be one with Christ is to enter into Him. In the words of 1 Corinthians 1:30, it is of God that we are in Christ Jesus. God has put us into Christ. As the eight persons were in the ark of Noah, so we, the redeemed ones, are in Christ Jesus.
Our entrance into Christ is through the door to which the blood has been applied. When we use hyssop to put the blood on the door, we are able to enter into Christ. After getting into Christ, we need to remain in Him. In John 15 the Lord Jesus says, “Abide in Me.” To abide in Christ is to remain in Him, that is, to maintain our identification, our union, with Him.
The effect of many of the teachings in Christianity is to cause believers to be separate from Christ and to lose their identification with Him. No teaching that causes us to lose our union with Christ can avail anything. Anything apart from Christ is human effort or strife. There is no need for us to struggle or strive. We simply need to enter into the house through the blood-sprinkled gate. Once we are in the house, we are one with the house and identified with it.
Many who believe in Christ were in the house at the time of their conversion. But shortly thereafter, as far as their practical daily experience is concerned, they came out of the house. In their experience, not many Christians stay in the house after their conversion. This means that when they believed into Christ and were saved, they entered into the house. But then they began to do many things apart from the house and outside of the house. This means that they did things outside of Christ. This has been the experience of many of us. We entered into Christ when we were saved. But in our effort to please God by ourselves, we came out of Christ. We did not remain in Him.
After we came to the church, we were brought back into the house through the ministry of the Word. Those who came into the church life still may not be in Christ in a practical way. This is a source of trouble in the church. Everyone in the church should be in Christ. However, there may arise an abnormal condition wherein many who are in the church life are not abiding in Christ. Before coming into the church life you may have struggled in your own energy to please the Lord. Now that you have come into the church, which is part of the house, you need also to come back to the house. This means that you need to come back to Christ and remain in Him.
We were all saved in Christ. But, like the Galatians, we may try to go on apart from Christ. Thus, we must be brought back to Christ. There is no need for us to do so many things. We should simply maintain our identification with Christ, with a constant realization that we are nothing and that He is everything. We need to see that we are in Him and that He is in us. As long as we abide in Him, He will abide in us. As the Lord Himself said in John 15, “Abide in Me and I in you.”
Some may have heard this teaching before they came into the church life. The crucial matter, however, is not whether or not you know the teaching about abiding in Christ; it is whether or not you are actually abiding in Him. Where are you at this very moment? Are you in Christ, or are you apart from Christ? The Lord Jesus said that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). To remain in the house is to abide in Christ and to be identified with Him. In other words, it is to remain in oneness with the Lord.
The greatest problem among believers today is that, in their experience, they are outside of Christ, apart from the oneness with Christ. Moses charged the children of Israel to eat the lamb in the house and then to stay in the house. If they had come out of the house, they would have lost everything. In the house they had the full enjoyment of the Passover. Only in the house could the Passover become their experience.
We need to be clear concerning what the house is and where the house is today. We have emphasized the fact that the house is Christ. But where is the house? The house is where there is the sprinkling of the blood. The unique sign of the house is not what we are, have, or do. It is the sprinkled blood of Christ. Where redemption is, there Christ is also. Apart from redemption, we have no standing. Our unique standing is the redeeming blood of Christ.
If you read the book of Galatians, you will see that the Galatians had been distracted from the standing of redemption. They had come out of the house and were thus deprived of the benefit, the profit, of being in Christ. If the children of Israel had not remained in the house, they would have been deprived of the benefit, profit, enjoyment, and experience of the Passover. To participate in the Passover there was the need to remain in the house.
The reason we do not agree with so many of the teachings of today’s Christianity is that these teachings cause Christians to get out of the house, to no longer remain in the standing of redemption. Once we are saved, we need to remain in the very place where we have been redeemed, in the place where the blood has been sprinkled. Here in this place we have the house.
The redeeming blood keeps us in Christ. Whenever we try in our own energy to do something for God, we violate the principle of redemption. The principle of redemption is that there is no need for us to do anything other than to exercise our hyssop, our faith, to apply the blood. Whenever our hyssop applies the blood to the gate, the way is open for us to be in Christ. Let us remain in the place of redemption, in the house with the blood-sprinkled entrance. We should not practice those things which cause us to come out of the house. Rather, we should stay in the house where we participate in the Passover.
The longer we remain in the house, the more light we receive; and the more light we receive, the more we see that everything we need is in the house. If you stay in the house, you will be filled, qualified, equipped, and formed into an army. Our only need is to remain in Christ as the house.
When I was young, I heard a number of messages on the Passover. All these messages emphasized the one point that when God sees the blood, He passes over us. A well-known gospel song even uses the word from Exodus 12:13, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” But in all these messages I heard on the Passover, not a word was spoken about remaining in the house. Only twice are we told that when God sees the blood, He will pass over us. But time after time Moses spoke of the house.
If you are enlightened of the Lord, you may realize that even now you may be outside of the house, outside of Christ. The only way to get into the house is through the redeeming blood spread on the gate. It is impossible to separate the redeeming blood from the house, for the blood and the house are one. Whenever we maintain the standing of the redeeming blood, we are in Christ. However, whenever we endeavor in our natural energy to please God, we leave the standing of the redeeming blood and are outside of Christ.
Do you know what the children of Israel were doing inside the house? They were eating the flesh of the Passover lamb. Exodus 12:14 indicates that they were feasting. This verse says, “And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it as a feast to Jehovah throughout your generations” (Heb.). What does it mean to have a feast to the Lord? It means that we remain in the house and enjoy a full participation in the lamb. In this way we feast on the lamb. However, the Lord enjoys this feast more than we do. To have a feast unto Him means that we feast for Him and with Him. We eat, but He enjoys. We feast, and He is happy. The more we feast, the more enjoyment He has and the happier He is. However, the more we endeavor to do things, the more displeased He becomes, for our endeavors do not give Him any enjoyment.
What a poor situation there is in today’s Christianity! Most Christians are outside of the house trying to do things for the Lord; they are not in the house feasting unto the Lord. Praise Him that we in the local churches are in the house feasting unto the Lord!
This principle of staying in the house by keeping the standing of redemption must govern our whole Christian life. All day long we, the redeemed ones, should remain in the house. When some hear this, they may point out that the children of Israel left the house in order to make their exodus out of Egypt. However, the time they spent in the house signifies the full course of redemption.
As we remain in the house feasting on the Passover lamb, we are equipped. Actually, the feasting is the equipping. When the children of Israel were filled with the Passover lamb, they were ready to march out of Egypt. Hence, they were equipped by being filled with the lamb. This is the reason we say that remaining in the house involves the full course of redemption.
Do not think that the blood sprinkled on the lintel and the door posts is sufficient for everything. It is sufficient to usher us into the house and to keep us from the judgment of God, but it is not sufficient to equip us. It cannot enable us to make the journey. For this, we need to roast the lamb, eat its flesh in the house hastily, and be filled with the lamb. Every part of the Passover lamb must be eaten, including the head, the legs, and the inward parts. Nothing should be left over. Perhaps the children of Israel had to encourage one another to eat certain parts of the lamb. Some may not have cared for the inward parts or the head, but nevertheless they had to eat the whole lamb in order to be fully equipped for the battle.
As we feast on Christ as the Passover lamb, God is happy and full of enjoyment. Then He can say, “Satan, look at My people. They are being equipped by feasting on the Passover lamb. Because they are being equipped in this way, they will be able to defeat you.”
