Day 3 of 14 — The Blood on the Doorposts
Yesterday we witnessed Abraham climb a mountain with his son Isaac, prepared to obey a command that appeared to destroy the promise God had given him. But, on the mountain, the angel of the Lord stopped him just before the knife fell, and God provided a ram that died in Isaac’s place. What happened on Moriah established something that would increase with every generation that followed… a life given in place of another, provided by God Himself. Abraham named the place “The Lord Will Provide,” and the significance of the name is bigger than just one morning on a mountain.
Today we move ahead centuries, and the span between Genesis 22 and Exodus 12 is important to understand. During this period, Abraham’s family grows into a nation, but by the time we come to Exodus 12, that nation is in slavery in Egypt. The people who carried the promise of God in their lineage had fallen into slavery under Pharaoh.
And because God has never made a promise to a person or nation that He will not keep, He sends Moses and, through Moses, brings a series of plagues on Egypt. It’s the final plague that gets our attention today, because in the final plague, the pattern of substitution that first showed up on Moriah comes back in a way Abraham never anticipated.
God told Moses that He was going to pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn, and the judgment would fall on every household without distinction. But He also gave His people a way out, and that way out was tied entirely to a lamb.
“Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household... Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old... Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.’” (Exodus 12:3, 5–7)
Each household was to take an unblemished lamb and keep it for four days before killing it at dusk. The blood of that lamb was to be painted on the doorframe of the house, and when God passed through Egypt in judgment, the blood on the doorposts would mark the homes He would spare.
“The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; 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 12:13)
The Passover lamb had no blemish, and its blood was the only thing standing between the house it covered and the full weight of God’s judgment.
What Exodus 12 shows is the same principle Abraham witnessed on Moriah, but now on a much bigger scale. On Moriah, one ram was killed for one son to live. At the Passover, thousands of lambs were killed so that thousands of firstborn could live. And in both, the people being set free added nothing to their own rescue. It came completely through the blood of a lamb, applied in faith and obedience to what God commanded.
The scope of the promise given in Eden had now grown into a picture of what atonement looked like when an entire nation stood under judgment. And the only thing between them and complete and total extermination was the blood of an innocent lamb. Every year after this, Israel would celebrate the Passover and remember what God did in Egypt. And every year, the lamb on the table would point forward to a Lamb they still didn’t know.
Tomorrow the story continues as we go to Isaiah 53.