How does this ancient ceremony still apply to us today? Well, where it comes to all the Law of Moses, it’s helpful to divide it into three parts. The Moral Law, which is summarized in the Ten Commandments, applies to all people at all times. The Civil Law, which told the Ancient Israelites how they were to govern their life together, still applies to us in its general principles – we try to understand what that law meant to them, and then translate its ideas into our modern context.
Today’s passage describes part of the ceremonial law, all of which has been fulfilled in the Person and Work of Christ. These laws are still helpful to us primarily in the way they help us understand what Jesus did and why He did it.
And today’s passage points very clearly to the cross of Christ. Verse 5 tells us that the Passover lamb was to be unblemished, and Jesus was the only Man Who ever lived Who was without sin. The people were to put the blood on the doorposts and the threshold of their houses – Jesus was nailed to the cross in His hands and His feet. And to make this connection even more clear, Jesus died on the cross exactly at Passover time. Yes, it is Jesus’ shed blood that causes God to remove the death penalty from all those who trust in Him, passing over us and keeping us safe.
So, how do we apply this ceremonial law today? Most obviously, whenever we take the Lord’s Supper, we are remembering what He has done for us. But we can also remember the same sorts of things that God’s Old Testament people remembered when they ate the Passover together. For as they ate it in haste, wearing their travelling clothes, they remembered how God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. Just so, we should remember that in Christ we have not only been forgiven of our sins, but we have also been set free from bondage to sin and death. That’s something we can celebrate every day of the year.
Exodus 12:1-14 (ESV)
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.
3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household.
4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,
6 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.
7 “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.
8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.
10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.
11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover.
12 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.
13 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.
14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.
