40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 74 (Exodus 12:13-36)

Episode Date: March 1, 2017

Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price are still digging into the passover. It's all blood, lambs and unleavened bread in this episode but God is about to deliver His people. Have a listen!

welcome to another episode of 40 minutes in the not in the new 40 minutes in the old testament I'm Daniel Henry Price. I am joined by Chad Bird. Chad, how's it going? I was going to have to ask you what the New Testament was. I was confused there for a minute. I forget that's the inspired commentary on the back of the Bible. I always get confused there.

It also is the podcast that I recorded right before this one. Right, yeah. It's hard to keep them straight. 30 minutes in the New Testament, 40 minutes in the Old Testament. We get 10 minutes more, right? That's it. well it's a little bit bigger yeah a little bit yeah a little extra time to cover the material i saw a guy said that he was holding out for uh 20 minutes in the apocrypha

yeah yeah we let's start that in uh two more years i think that's a that's a long range plan right yeah 20 minutes in the apocrypha it'd be great you know chad we're we're all covered we're recording this uh in the afternoon which never happens we always record in the morning way early in the morning where you've been awake for a couple hours i feel like i've been up a whole day yeah i'm uh let's see uh in about 30 more minutes i will have been up 12 hours yeah here's the thing so uh we are we're usually recording when i've been awake for about five minutes chad's been awake for about three hours uh now we're recording right where i'm just like hitting my prime during the day and chad's like winding down to go to bed yeah i'm like yeah i'm yeah i'm going i'm

counting the hours right now won't be long so uh we're i think we're right in the thick of uh the passover where we we heard some instructions last week and yeah we are we're right in the middle of the right in the middle of the uh the plague coming up and the passover getting prepared and uh israel has their loins girded staffs in their hand they're ready to they're ready to rock and roll. So I guess we better, we better jump back in here and see what else Moses has to say in chapter 12 of Exodus. That's where we're at. So I think we, we made it through about verse 13 or 14 of chapter 12, kind of skipped around a little bit because there's, there's so much to cover. And, and sometimes the, the material that's covered in the first half of the chapter, it gets

revisited in the latter half of the chapter. So we'll kind of be going back over a little bit more of this stuff as we go through, but that's fine because there's so much here and I'm sure that I'm missing some details as we work our way through. So what I'm going to do, I'm just going to pick up here with Exodus 12, 14, and I'm going to talk about one part of that verse and then we'll move on and talk about unleavened bread for a few minutes. So verse 14 says this, Now, this day, that is this Passover day, this day will be a memorial to you and you shall celebrate it as a feast to Yahweh. Throughout your generations, you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. There's a little bit different way you could translate that Hebrew, but that captures the gist of it.

So the the important point that a couple of important points that that are being made here in this first one is that this is not going to be a singular historic occurrence. I mean, it was a singular historic deliverance that took place. Of course, it wasn't like Egypt traveled back. I mean, Israel traveled back to Egypt every year so they could relive this. So it was a one time act of redemption. however it was to be perpetuated on this first month of the year the month of aviv on the 14th day of the month throughout the generations of israel so this became one of the three major festivals of the israelite calendar so that they had passover and then uh 50 days later they

They had Pentecost, which we'll get to eventually. And then in the fall, they had Sukkot or tabernacles. Those were the big three, the big three feasts. So Passover is the first of these. Now, there were aspects of the Passover celebration subsequently that were not repeated, but which had been done in the original Passover. So, for instance, only in this original Passover, in this actual act of salvation, did the Israelites use hyssop to paint the doorposts and the lids of their homes. That was not repeated as the Passover was celebrated from generation to generation. Of course, they did still sacrifice a lamb.

They did still consume the lamb along with bitter herbs and all the other parts of the Passover meal. but this painting of blood on the doors on the doorposts a little of the homes that was it was the only time it happened was in egypt and that was as we talked about last time that was to serve as a as a shield so that when the destroying angel or yahweh however you want to describe it passed through egypt they would be protected from from destruction so that only happened that one time, but most aspects of the meal that were part of, I mean, most aspects of the Passover, original Passover, were perpetuated throughout the generations. Now, another thing that I think is significant to point out here, and I am jumping a little bit ahead here, but I'm going to pull it

in here because I think it's significant, is that every time the Passover was celebrated, it was more than simply an act of remembrance. It was an actual participation in this original Passover meal. Now, what do I mean? I mean that it wasn't like every Passover, the Israelites got together and they remembered, they called to mind everything that God had done for their forefathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. No, the language that's used is in the Passover liturgy itself. The language that's used is that we were in Egypt and we were being oppressed by the Egyptians. And God brought us out of the land of Egypt.

So there is this sense in which every time in which the Israelites celebrate the Passover, It's sort of a trans-historical event, if you will, and it's above history so that as they celebrate the Passover, they are in, I guess, a mysterious sort of way is the one way you could describe it. or I would tend to say more of a sacramental kind of way, they were participating in that original Passover meal so that what happened one time in Egypt, the benefits of that continued to be given to the Israelites throughout the generations so that when they celebrated the Passover

in the second year, in the third year, in the 450th year, it was like they were there at the original one being protected by God and redeemed by God and fed by God and brought out of slavery by God. So there is this idea in which every subsequent Passover is sort of a re-Passover. It's a real participation in that original Passover. and and i think uh i think we could we could certainly draw some some uh very uh very helpful parallels here between that and what happens in in the lord's supper which is our fulfilled

passover or the new passover the passover the new covenant however you want to talk about it And so Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper one time on the night in which he was was betrayed in the upper room with his disciples. And that was never repeated. It was a one time occurrence, just like his crucifixion and his resurrection are one time occurrences. But what happens as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, not like the Passover annually, but most of us celebrate the Lord's Supper once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. But every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, then what we are receiving are the benefits of that original institution of the supper so that Christ gives us his body and his blood to drink, just like the Israelites consume the flesh of the Passover lamb. So we consume the body of our Lord, and we are participating in that original institution, and we are receiving the same benefits that the disciples received in the upper room, forgiveness of sins and life and salvation. Yeah, it's no accident that the Lord's Supper was instituted during the Passover. No, yeah. I mean, the correlation between these two is not just interesting. I mean, it is eye-opening because I don't think, I say this often, that you can understand the Lord's Supper, you can understand the truth of the Lord's Supper just from looking at it in the Gospels, but you can't understand the whole truth of it.

it's like that so many so many parts of the of the new testament you might can you might can understand the truth of what's going on but if you really want to understand the whole truth you really want to delve into the depths of what is being shown us by god that you got to get the background so it wasn't like you know they were celebrating the passover and all of a sudden jesus thought you know i think i'm going to go ahead and institute the lord's supper this This is as good a time as any. He did it on purpose within the context of that meal so that his disciples might understand that what he was giving them, what he was doing for them, and then, of course, what he does for us, what he gives to us, is only fully understood in connection with this original Passover in Egypt. So all of these reflect on each other and enrich our understanding of exactly what Christ gives to us in his suffering. Yeah, I mean, I think even just taking the point where obviously they take the blood of the lamb and they got to put it on the doorpost.

And so there's a real sense in which, you know, you're saved by the blood of the lamb. So this is where the wrath of God passes over you because it sees the blood there. So obviously this is a striking image of what takes place in the cross and then as people of faith how the wrath of God passed over us because of the blood of Christ, that kind of stuff. But it wasn't as though God said to Moses, kill the lamb and you're going to put some blood on the doorpost. And you know what? If you want to eat it, that's cool too.

If you're hungry, go ahead. Have a barbecue. You know what? Like, if you feel like it, you know, go ahead. Go ahead and eat it. No, I mean, like the eating of the lamb after you killed it was part of the whole deal. I mean, it's part of the passing over, of the wrath of God moving over you, skipping you. that's part of the deal much like and I think that we lose this so often within Christianity

modern sort of at least in western Christianity where you know we'll all agree I think that you know hey we're saved by the blood of the lamb you know we're washed white in the blood of Jesus that you know

because of the blood of Jesus that God the wrath of God passes over us uh we are cloaked in his son's righteousness all this kind of stuff um but we sort of dispense with the eating but the the truth is is that the israelites they put the blood there the the blood is is marks them as ones to be passed over but they also eat the means of their salvation which is what we do same thing like i'm i'm gonna eat i'm gonna eat my salvation And yeah, I mean, the blood of Christ certainly has marked me. And this happens, obviously, in baptism as well.

But so I'm marked as one whom God is not going to pour out his wrath on because that has been poured out on Christ. But I also eat my salvation. It's not one or the other. It's both and. Both of these things happen, much like the Passover. They mark the door and they eat the body of the lamb. You got to love how tangible and how earthy God's ways are.

That's one of the things I appreciate about these sections like the Passover and parts of Leviticus and other parts of Exodus that we'll be getting to as well. You can see how when God wants to give gifts to us, he anchors those gifts in the stuff of our creation. So he doesn't just, you know, zap us from heaven. Instead, he says, I want you to eat that lamb. I want you to take this blood and I want you to put it on the doorpost. I want you to use this oil and put it here on a person's body as he does in the ordination of the priest in the Old Testament. Or I want you to take this water mixed with blood and sprinkle it on someone who has leprosy. So he's a God who loves to put his promises into the things that we can taste and see and smell and experience.

I mean, we're creatures. And so God comes to us in a creaturely sort of way, like here in the Passover. Eat this lamb. Take this lamb's blood and put it. Don't just look at it, but actually get a hyssop and dip it in that bloody basin and smear it on the doorpost in the middle of your homes. Because when you do that, you are seeing how God's promises of protection are tangible. this is a i think this is really missed in so much modern christianity uh we're missing out on the real comfort that we have because there is this this this tangible quality

to the way that to the way that god works so that you know when i go up to the lord's supper i'm not just thinking about jesus i know that i am going to actually he's going to enter into my very body, not just like swoop into my soul. He's actually entering into my body as I, as I participate in, in his meal. And so I can taste and see that the Lord is good. I can taste my salvation. I know that he, his body's becoming a part of my body, my body, his blood is becoming a part of my blood. So there's this, there's this real tangible, intimate union that, that takes place and it's a tremendous comfort because just just as i taste that wine and taste that bread i know that i am actually tasting the lord's the lord's salvation because because that's where god

has promised to be yeah i like how he amps it up too like in the lord's supper you know so so the passover you have you take the blood and you're gonna put it out here and then you gotta you're have the unliving bread you're going to eat that and you got the the lamb and you're going to eat that uh and the lord's supper he like sort of like condenses it all down and it's uh it's like that bread that body i'm going to combine those two things so this bread is my body this is the the bread is the body of the lamb going forward so we don't we don't have mutton at the lord's table we just got the bread which is the body of christ and he's like and we don't like mark the door of the church with the wine but he said he says that this wine is my blood and you know what

go ahead and put that inside you too uh and so this all happens i mean hey just so you know nothing against you guys that don't do this but like we are like in our church we actually bake on we usually use unleavened bread we bake unleavened bread uh every week for the lord's supper which is what we use because we're legit like that no pressure but if you i'm just saying sometimes some things matter you know if you want to use the the necco wafer with the cross carved in it that's cool too i just want i don't want people to have to like have an extra hurdle like whenever i whenever i approach the altar and i get one of those things and i'm thinking like i'm not i'm not thinking like is this the body of christ i'm thinking is this bread so i'm like one degree

off it's like i'm taking all the faith i have to believe that this is bread i want it to at least tastes like bread right well i think that's great that you i think that's great that you do that i mean that that's that's the way it was the Passover that's the way it was when Christ instituted the supper this was real bread it was more than just uh more than just a wafer but yeah i mean it's uh he does he does take it up a notch big time in fact uh i know we're good i know we're going far astray here but uh just bear with us uh i've always thought that when christ instituted the supper that i i would love if there's any moment during that whole uh whole evening when i would love to have have seen you know a snapshot of the disciples face it would

have been when jesus told them to to drink the blood yeah because that was that was a huge huge big no in the old testament i in the book of leviticus it is uh it's it's it's as explicit as you can get that no one under any circumstances whatsoever is to consume blood not directly or not blood mixed with with meat but no it it's it's on the lord's altar so you you definitely you put it on the altar that's fine that's where god wants it but you don't put it inside you uh so this this was a huge deal in the old testament well and the reason for this i mean one of those descriptions they give you probably know the text i'm drawing a blank on it but it says i mean it says the reason you don't do it because the life is in the blood right yeah leviticus 17 yeah the life is in the

blood and he says so you don't need the blood because the life is in the blood and i've given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls yeah i i hear this thing going on all the time like you're saying like where for so long it's been like don't you drink the blood the life is in the blood and then jesus i think says drink the blood for the exact same reason so so don't read the blood the life is in the blood you don't drink it he's like hey drink the blood you know because the life is in the blood so drink it like that it's an awesome thing i don't know it is it is an awesome thing uh and and i think that's also why you have this uh this verse in the book of hebrews where he's talking about how as christians we now enter into the holy of holies

in christ our great high priest he says our our body's been washed with pure water and it says our hearts have been have been sprinkled well that word for sprinkle is the word that's used throughout the old testament for the sprinkling of the blood but actually sprinkled upon our hearts and upon our conscience so the blood is internalized and this blood is not and it's not just lamb's blood this blood is is the very blood of god the the blood of life itself and that's what we that's what we take take into us so yeah i mean that's one of the reasons why uh in john 6 you know when jesus is like hey uh if you want to live forever here's the deal you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood it's one of the reasons why all these jews are like okay look now we know for sure

This guy's a heretic You don't drink blood All his disciples leave Except for the twelve And even there That's the freakiest thing anyone's ever said We just got nowhere else to go We can't go anywhere else

You have the words of eternal life But just so you understand I don't know about that That's one of those That's one of those sermons that Belief just cracks your head for a while If you're a Jew that's for sure I feel like the Pharisees, if they had heard that one,

they were searching high and low to try to get something on Jesus. The second he's like, yeah, you're going to have to drink my blood, they could have been like, ah, got him. That's a huge no-no. Can you imagine how many Pharisees would have been blogging about that sermon if they had heard it from Jesus? Right. Scandalized, all of them. Yeah, right.

Okay, I guess we better reel ourselves back in here and get back to Exodus. We've covered a whopping one verse so far. Actually, we've covered more than that. We've covered the whole Bible. We're just jumping around a lot. So we're back to Exodus 12. Around verse 15 is when we have 15 through 20.

The next five verses talk about a feast that's kind of joined to the hip of Passover. It's called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. There's really two different celebrations. You got Passover, which is, strictly speaking, one day, the 14th day of the first month. But then on the next day, you have the Feast of Unleavened Bread beginning, which lasts a total of seven days. But these two are always celebrated together. So for seven days, no leavened bread.

You got to take it out of your houses. I mean, this is kind of a serious deal. If you eat leavened bread, then it says you're cut off from Israel. So the Feast of Unleavened Bread is joined to Passover, but it's distinguished from Passover as well. One of the things that the Feast of Unleavened Bread commemorated was the fact that when the Israelites came out of Egypt on this night, they had to leave in haste. I mean, it says that in verse 11 of chapter 12, that they're supposed to eat the meal in haste. And it says that again in verse 33, that the Egyptians urged the people to send them out of the land in haste. So there's this kind of this hurry up flavor to the festival Unleavened Bread, which is kind of ironic because it lasts a whole seven days.

But that's what it commemorates, that when God delivered the people of Israel, they didn't just kind of mosey their way out of Egypt slowly. They had to leave in a hurry. Probably one of the reasons they had to leave in a hurry was Pharaoh might change his mind, which we know he did later on. So they had to leave in haste, and because they left in haste, there wasn't time for the dough to get fully leavened and then to bake it. All they had time for was unleavened bread. So it's really the bread of haste, the bread of hurrying up. But there is also this connotation to leaven. That leaven is, if not evil, then certainly it has this kind of element of corruption to it.

Or connection with fermentation and corruption. that uh that you see not so much in the old testament itself at least not explicitly but you certainly have it you have it much you have it much later on in fact paul talks about this in in first corinthians when he's talking about uh the passover he says uh i'm in first corinthians chapter five uh he says your posting is not good do you not know that a Little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. Clean out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, just as you are, in fact, unleavened. For Christ, our Passover, also has been sacrificed.

Let us, therefore, celebrate the feast not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Now, Paul is packing a whole lot into those three verses that I read. But notice that he associates leaven with malice and wickedness. And we know from some other Jewish sources that early Passover liturgies had this same connotation to the leaven. So, for instance, you never brought anything leavened to the Lord's altar. It was only unleavened bread that was allowed within the holy space around the altar. So there's this idea of haste in commemoration with their departure from Egypt,

but also this connotation of leaven in connection with corruption and evil. So no leaven in your houses during the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Okay, so let's keep moving. Picking up here with 21, verse 21. This is, we've talked about the Passover, And we talked about what all they're supposed to do. Now, Moses is going to tell them once more what to do, kind of summarizing it. And then they're going to experience the Passover.

So it says Moses calls all the elders. He tells them to take the lambs and to slay the lambs, to take the hyssop, to dip it in this basin of blood, to put it on their lintel and the two doorposts. And this is significant too. Don't go outside the door until morning. So stay where you're at. Don't leave the house because of what's about to happen. He says the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians.

But when he sees the blood, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your homes to smite you. And then he goes on to talk about how they celebrate this when they enter into the land. And then we have this very interesting verse. This is 26. He's talking about, you know, when you eventually reach a promised land and you're settled there, you're going to celebrate this Passover every first month of the year. and then we have this uh this this interesting kind of insight into one aspect of the passover

liturgy or worship and this is probably the most well-known part of it it says it will come to pass when your children will say to you what does this right mean to you that you shall say it is a passover sacrifice to the lord who passed over the houses of the sons of israel and egypt when he smoked the Egyptians, but spared our homes. And then it says the people bowed low and worshiped. So one of the elements of the Passover liturgy that's still celebrated by Jews today is a child is to ask the father or one of the adults something like, you know, why are we celebrating this? What does this mean? Why are we doing this? And then the adult explains basically what I just read there in verse 27 that it is a passover sacrifice so there's just there's also this

element of the passover that it's uh it's a it's a teaching moment in which the sal saving work of christ for his people is uh is is remembered and is explained from generation to generation yeah i think that's something that's cool about the passover is that the the children are involved and so uh you do have uh it's not like the children uh they they sit in the other room or they sit up far off and observe the adults uh you know remember the passover but they're involved in fact they're they're asking questions the liturgy is actually built with with parts for them right uh yeah now you get into some sticky territory when you're when you're bringing this into into communion but whether or not you're uh you're pro uh pedo communion that's so young

communion young children or not i do think that there is a strong argument for allowing children to approach the altar whether it's to commune them if you're cool with that practice or if it's just for them to receive a blessing um from the pastor so a lot of times uh children will come up and the pastor will make the sign of the cross over them or something like that and remind them of their of their baptism or whatever it is that they choose to do but i do think there is there's something about that that is in harmony with the way that the passover was suffered was celebrated i think it's unfortunate when children just remain in the in their seats and don't come up to the altar whether they get communed or not that they that there is a role for them to play

in the participation of of the sacrament even in the in the new covenant yeah i agree i agree wholeheartedly uh the more in fact i believe the more that children are involved in in every aspect of of the service that the better the better it is so that they don't grow up kind of with the impression that worship is for the adults you know church is for the adults and we'll we'll kind of grow into that over time no i mean it's everything that happens there is for the sake of everyone who's there you know so it's not like this part's for the older people and we're going to do this part for kind of the middle-aged people and then this part to the young people and then we'll save a little part for the children too but it's one aspect of of worship which is uh which

which i think is beautiful is that it's not it's not a performance it's not just something that one person does for everybody else or one person does for a certain group but that everybody is is involved with this and that the the passover illustrates this beautifully because it really is it is a is a family it is a family meal a family celebration not just for the family but it's for the whole people of israel but it's very family focused in that way in which the children are just as important in this festival as the as the adults are yeah yeah another thing this is maybe a little circling back to something you said but i always think that this is cool and uh you know that they use hyssop when they to dip it in the blood and then because hippest hyssop is a a spongy kind

of thing right it soaks stuff up so they would tip it dip that in there so they gather it gather a bunch of blood and then you could use that to apply it it's like a paintbrush also um when you have hyssop turn up in other places like you have it like in psalm 51 where david talks about uh purge me with hyssop and there's sort of like there's this reversal that goes on where uh in the passover the hyssop was used as the instrument to apply the blood because it was it absorbed it and david is saying purge me with hyssop uh not just like hey purge me with that thing that had the blood on it but also like if you were to purge with hyssop it would draw things out so he's he's saying uh to have to have iniquity or sin drawn out at him which is this weird this weird cool

thing that happens with you know this this thing that you wouldn't otherwise even really pay attention to and uh so in one sense it soaks up the blood and is applied to the to the uh doorpost and in another sense it's it's applied to you and soaks up uh all the all your iniquity and sin yeah yeah and uh since we're we're kind of exploring this uh if you look in john chapter 19 this is the whole crucifixion scene it says a jar full of sour wine was standing there so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it to and brought it to the mouth of jesus yeah so you've got it uh the the hyssop which we first meet in passover uh we meet again in psalm 51 and then we meet now here in in john chapter 19

uh so that it bridges the gap between this original passover and then the capital t the passover that happens at the at the death of our of our lord yeah i recently preached on psalm 51 and actually talked about that the david asking god to uh soak up his sin as it were with hyssop and then that sin of david being placed in the mouth of christ uh it's a crucifixion oh very nice yeah it's a it's there's the bible is crazy like that it is crazy like that you know there's a there's this whole web of connections that that are there and and it made it it helps when you kind of see the big picture that way when you can see how exodus is interacting with john and john's interacting with with the psalms and the psalms interacting with revelation or whatever

it is. I mean, it is all one beautifully interconnected web of the Spirit's words. And sometimes, you know, we discover connections we just never saw before. And it opens up our eyes to a whole new way of looking at a story or a text or whatever it might be. That's one of the beautiful things about studying the scriptures is you're never going to walk away dry. There's always going to be something there that that quenches your thirst and makes you makes you thirst for for even more i mean i've i've i've studied i've taught uh this chapter from exodus many times but every single time without fail when i look at it i learned something new i learned a connection i've never seen before so it's a it's inexhaustible in in that way and that's why we

have completed this episode and run out of time and still have not gotten through uh the passover I knew, Chad, I thought maybe we were going to do it today. I knew it was going to take two. I didn't expect it to take three. It is what it is, man. There's just too much there. It is a long chapter. It is a long chapter.

There's a lot going on there, too, man, a lot going on. Yeah. Well, I would make a promise that we're going to finish it next time, and I'm sure we will, but I've learned not to make too many promises about how quickly we're going to move. That's it. I've been wrong 10 times.

Yeah. Well, especially if we're recording in the afternoon as is today, because more energy, more bunny trails. That's how it goes, guys. That's true.

Well, I hope that even on our bunny trails, everyone picked up a few things along the way and learned something. So thanks for, thanks for listening as always. Yep. We will see you guys next week. Thank you for watching!