40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 75 (Exodus 12:37-13:16)

Episode Date: March 8, 2017

It's the final episode on the Passover. Consecration, baptism, unbroken bones and an incarnation rabbit hole. Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price talk about all these thing in relation to the passover. Check it out!

welcome to another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament i'm daniel emery price joined by chad bird chad hey everybody passover continues yeah yeah we uh passover continues i think i uh i think i made a promise last time or maybe i almost made a promise we were going to finish chapter 12 of exodus do you recall i think you did like you alluded to one anyway so i guess i better live up to that this this time i think we're gonna do it i think it's on this week yeah we're definitely gonna finish chapter 12 uh when i was preparing everything this morning i thought oh yeah yeah we got this we got this we're gonna move into chapter 13 in fact so uh not only are we gonna complete the chapter after three weeks but we're gonna we're gonna get well

into chapter 13 whatever chad you cannot prepare for like the goal you can't prepare for like me derailing this i can't prepare i just have to jump in uh well you could prepare all you want but you don't know what kind of rabbits i'm going to chase what kind of weird stuff that's going to enter this brain that is true that is the one thing we cannot predict are the rabbit holes that pop up that's right you know these little excursions that we take in other parts of the bible they uh they often uh clarify things that we left behind so it's almost like all it's always fun it's almost like the entire bible is connected and like we can't help ourselves sometimes yeah i know i get that impression often there's like all these little connections between this so you

you jump in the the rabbit hole in exodus 12 and you pop out in matthew 24 jump back in and you you pop up in the psalms and yeah there's like this whole network uh underneath the surface that you can explore that's what makes it fun yeah you feel like you're in the matrix and I feel like I'm playing theological whack-a-mole, but whatever. Keeps popping up all over the place. All right. Well, let's get into this. If my memory serves me, we are about at verse 37 of chapter 12.

Does that sound good to you? Sounds good. All right. So the first part of chapter 12 is all about Passover preparation, of various uh elements of that preparation and uh then we we talked about the feast of unleavened bread also at one point and then the the events of the exodus of the passover night really begin in verse 29 at midnight uh when god goes through and strikes down the firstborn in the land of egypt but the firstborn of the israelites are spared because of the blood of

the lamb and the meat of the lamb which they have consumed inside their inside their homes and it wraps up with uh the plundering of the egyptians we've we've heard about this more than once already way back in in the the call of moses to go and redeem israelites we heard about how god was going to turn the heart of the is of the egyptians to hand over these articles of gold and silver to to the israelites and so that's what happened they plundered the plundered the egyptians and that's going to bring us to verse 36 of chapter 12 we're going to pick it up here with uh with 37 and hear a little bit more about uh the passover as well as its connection to to circumcision which we talked about way back in genesis so 37 opens with uh

Some stats, if you will, different ways that people have interpreted these over the years. I'm just going to kind of stick with the biblical narrative rather than trying to delve too much into the numbers themselves. I find it helpful, even if it's a little perplexing, to just kind of accept the biblical narrative as it stands. and if you want to talk more in detail about what the various theories are to do that in some other context. So here's what it says in verse 37. It says, Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Sukkot, about 600,000 men on foot, aside from children. So this is a big company that is described. and a mixed multitude also went up with them along with flocks and herds and a very large

number of livestock now uh the one thing i think that is significant here well there's a lot but the one thing i want to i want to focus on is the fact that it was not just israelites not just uh the the israelites that left egypt there was this uh mixed multitude that's the way my translation has it, a mixed multitude that also went up with them. Now, I think this is fascinating. I suspect here's what happened. Throughout the course of the years that the Israelites were there, and probably especially during the period of the plagues, there were a large number of non-Israelites that attached themselves to the Israelites. I mean, it was pretty obvious. We see this in various ways through the progression of the plagues. It

was pretty obvious that the Egyptians realized more and more that these weren't just bad things that were happening. These were bad things that came from the God of the Israelites. And the Israelite God, Yahweh, was protecting his own people from them. We saw this beginning at, I don't know, maybe the third or the fourth plague. It made it explicit that whatever the bad thing, whatever the plague was, it was befalling the land of Egypt. It didn't happen to the Israelites. So God was making this division between the Egyptians and between his own people. And so this, of course, would have impressed the other peoples who were living there in Egypt. In fact, we heard, I believe it was in chapter 10, that even the servants of Pharaoh looked up to

Moses. And I expect that most of the Egyptians were leaning in that direction as well. So when the Israelites left Egypt, they didn't leave alone. There were this mixed multitude that went up with them and this could have been egyptians it could have been other peoples that were living in egypt at the time we really aren't told a whole lot about who they are or what culture they're from all we're told is that uh they were not israelites by uh by nationality but they attached themselves to the israelites as as they were leaving and it's probably fair to assume that i mean if egypt was willing to enslave all the hebrews it's very possible that they had enslaved other peoples that um were also weaker than themselves yes yeah highly highly probable

uh you know they would have uh even maybe these people were living there already and they were enslaved because they were living there or maybe they were captives of war there's you know all sorts of possibilities. But yeah, I'm sure the Israelites weren't the only people group that were living there that had been enslaved. So you have all kinds of people that are part of this mass group that is leaving Egypt. We're going to hear about them again. I believe it's in Numbers where they come up. We're not sure if it's exactly the same group, but there's another another kind of mixed multitude that is going to actually cause problems, problems later on. But anyway, the point that I want to make, and I think that this is, this is, this is an important

point to make, is that not just here, but throughout the Old Testament, it wasn't as if God was only interested in Israel. We hear this again and again, that God's desire is for his promises to extend to the ends of the earth, for his name to be known throughout all the world, for not just the physical descendants of Abraham, but for all nations of the earth to be blessed through the promises that God gave to Abraham. I mean, we have a whole book of the Bible, Jonah, which is about God's concern for people who are outside the land of Israel. So So a kind of a caricature that people often have of the Old Testament is that it's just about God's connection to the people of Israel. That was the only people group that God really, really cared about.

The only people group to which his promises extended. And nothing could be could be farther from the truth. Of course, the main focus is on is on Israel. just like you could say the main focus in the new testament is on the church but that doesn't mean that god is only concerned about the church it didn't mean that yali was only concerned about about israel he was concerned about about all peoples and we have multiple instances throughout the old testament of people who are outside the physical descendants of abraham who joined themselves to the people of israel i mean you think we we're gonna see one

when we get to Joshua, Rahab, who is from Jericho, she joins. You have a whole book, again, Ruth, which is about a non-Israelite who joins the people of Israel. Jonah, again, is about God sending a prophet to people outside of Israel. So if you kind of had this idea in your mind that the Old Testament is only about God's concern for Israel, then that just simply isn't true. and this is a good example of that where god's concern is for not only to bring his people out his own people out of of slavery but also all those who might join themselves to the people of israel so mixed multitude went up with them they have their flocks they have their herds they have all the possessions that they've gotten from uh from the egyptians they uh they put their bread

in these uh in these bags on their shoulders it didn't have time to leaven so it's still unleavened bread we have a a timetable given to us here that the sons of israel lived in egypt for 430 years before he before he brought them brought them out and then verse 42 says it is a night talking about the passover it is a night to be observed for the lord having brought them out from the land of Egypt. This is, this night is for the Lord to be observed by all the sons of Israel throughout their generations. That Hebrew word for observed is the verb shamar, which means to guard or to watch or to keep. And you have here kind of a, the Israelites almost imitating the actions of the Lord. So just as God shamared, just as he guarded over, watched over his people,

having brought them out of the land of Egypt so Israel in imitation of that they guard or watch or keep this night so it's kind of like a you know a child will imitate the actions of his or her parents this is kind of the same way we imitate our heavenly father this way just he guard or watched over us so we guard or watch over this night in commemoration in memory of what he has has done for for the israelites wraps up this first little section now verse 43 to the end of the chapter brings up uh circumcision and the passover and this actually has a lot to do with what i was just discussing in regard to the mixed multitude that joined up with israel so the basic the basic message of 43 through 51 is this you're going to have people in the land

of israel or among the israelites who have who have come from other people groups egyptians or maybe they're philistines or maybe they're from other parts of africa or who knows where they're from the point is that they are they are not natives of israel they're they're foreigners oftentimes they would attach themselves to one of the families of the israelites or they would be living there trading or whatever whatever brought them among the israelites it kept them there often what would happen is they would want to actually take part in the religious ceremonies of the israelites they wanted to to worship with the israelites in fact they wanted to even sacrifice with they wanted in completely we would i guess we would call these you know converts today

So someone who, you know, they come to church and they kind of like what's going on there. And, hey, they really they want to be part of they don't want to just like kind of be on the fringe and watch and observe. They want to be part of what God is doing among among his people. So Israel, Israel had this, too. And when it came time for the Passover, if a foreigner, whether it was individual or a group, if they wanted to participate in the Passover, they could do that. But they had to, all the males had to be circumcised. That's what this section is mainly about. that god god is very god is very willing and open to have these people part of his community

wants to be part of his community and to celebrate the passover with the israelites but for them to be circumcised in order that they may thereby enter into the covenant just like the israelites themselves through circumcision enter into the covenant and thereby are able to partake so this is analogous to the way that, at least historically, the Christian church has always practiced the connection between baptism and the Lord's Supper, so that nobody's welcome to the Passover meal before they are baptized, because baptism is the means whereby they are brought into the community of faith, and then once they're in that communion, once they're in that community, then they partake of the communion or the community meal so just like circumcision

brings them into the covenant pulls them to eat at the passover so baptism brings people into the communion of christ and thereby they receive this new passover his his supper the only one the only other detail i think that is that is significant here because it's going to come up later is in verse 46. There are a couple of other details that are added here in verse 46 when it's talking about the Passover. It says, first of all, you eat it in a single house and you don't bring any of the meat outside the house, the roasted meat of the lamb or the goat into the home. You leave it there and you consume it all. That's this detail at the end of verse 46. It says, nor are you to break any bone of it. Now, the reason this is important is because it comes

up twice in other parts of Scripture as a means of connecting the work of Christ to the Passover. So we hear about this, first of all, in Psalm 34, verse 20. This is quoted or alluded to. and let's see if i can find that here psalm 34 verse 20 says the afflictions of the righteous but the lord delivers him out of them all he keeps all of his bones not one of them is broken so it's this idea of god keeping something intact or keeping someone intact or or watching watching over them yeah yeah and when it talks about the affliction of the righteous certainly we can you know the righteous refers to the uh the believer i mean many times in scripture but but ultimately when we talk about the affliction of the righteous we're talking

about the affliction of christ but the only the only true righteous and so that when you're talking about bones being broken ultimately those are those are his bones since he is ultimately the one the only reason that we can be called the righteous is because christ is actually righteous not because we are yeah exactly our our righteousness is entirely a gift from the from the righteous one and uh so anytime that you're i'm talking about the righteous uh the righteous crying out or the righteous being preserved by god well that that righteous one is certainly you but it's you because of your connection excuse me to the righteous one itself to christ our righteous his righteousness is that which he has by nature is what we have by gift

so we are gifted with the righteousness of christ that's why it's often theologians will talk about as an alien righteousness things that comes from outside ourselves it's something that is not native to us it's it's alien in that way so it's something which is external and given to us by god so He is the afflicted righteous one who is preserved by God. And then just kind of bring this around all the way. I had this Bible verse marked, and now I just lost it, but it's John chapter 19. This is the crucifixion scene, and this is toward the end of their time on the cross. They're in a hurry to get it over with, and so the soldiers come,

and they break the legs of the two criminals on either side of Jesus. When they get to Jesus, he is already dead. And so they didn't break his legs. Instead, a soldier puts his spear through his side, out comes blood and water. This is John 19, verse 36 says, For these things came to pass that the scripture might be fulfilled, not a bone of him shall be broken.

so this is uh this is actually a great example of what we were talking about earlier with with all the scripture being being connected where there's this great network of rabbit holes if you will where you enter one you pop up someplace else this is one of those so you you really have uh psalms and the gospel of john all joined here through this this one verse about bones not being broken but it's it's really not just about this one verse phase in which the scriptures point us through a single example to a whole network of of examples so that the the scriptures won't necessarily give us like reference to some whole section that'll give us one detail psalm verse or one maybe one phrase from a section and that becomes

the connecting point that drives us back to that whole section so for instance one of the new testament writers will quote something like this from from exodus and from and from psalms and they expect us to either in our bibles or in our minds to think back to that and to realize that there's this whole web of connections between what they're talking about in reference to christ and then what the Old Testament is talking about. Well, it's awesome that while you have his bones not being broken, which is alluding to the Passover, where you have to eat all the meat of the goat or the lamb,

and this is the means of your salvation, in the fulfillment of that, where Christ's legs aren't broken, instead he is pierced, and out flow blood and water, which out so then out of the lamb of god flow the new means of salvation which is rad yeah that's pretty that's pretty amazing yeah some of the uh if you if you're a if you're a fan of of older christian art sometime uh uh google some images of the of the crucifixion of christ And in many of them, what you will see, you see a lot of these, especially in connection with the Reformation, but earlier than that, too, what you'll see is from the side of Christ, blood and water will be flowing out. And commonly, the art will depict angels capturing that, capturing the blood in the cup or the chalice used in the Lord's Supper.

And then catching the water in the font of the fountain used for for baptism. So it's really a beautiful portrayal of how from the side of the Lamb of God flows forth the means whereby God brings us into saving communion with that with that lamb. So even though the blood and water flow from Christ, through the blood and the water, we flow into Christ, into communion with Him. That's pretty amazing. So I can't remember what we were talking about the goddess there. Oh, yes, the lambs. I mean, the bones not being broken. One detail from Exodus chapter 12, verse 46.

So, yeah, that kind of wraps up the chapter. There's a summary A couple of verses It says the sons of Israel did so They did just as God commanded Moses and Aaron And it came about on that same day That the Lord brought the sons of Israel

Out of the land of Egypt By their hosts Hey look at there we did finish chapter 12 Alright We feel good about ourselves Yeah with time to spare Alright Okay, so it only took three weeks before we finished the chapter.

We're still not through the Passover. We're not still through the Passover, no, no. We have to get out of Egypt. I think we can do that pretty easily. So chapter 13, at least the bulk of it, has to do with another aspect of the Passover, which we have already alluded to. That's why we don't have to spend a lot of time here,

and that is the first one. So there's kind of, there's really, I don't know how you want to count it, three or four different things that are connected with Passover. I mean, you've got the Passover celebration itself. You've got the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As we just heard, circumcision is connected with it as the means whereby people are brought to the Passover meal. And then a fourth component of this has to do with the firstborn. Now, the first one, of course, are important because that really was the 10th plague. Altogether, plagues, of course, had been in one way or another an irritant upon the body, either directly or indirectly.

But really, there was nothing that happened through the course of the first nine plagues that necessarily directly killed someone. There was suffering. There were boils and all sorts of bad things that happened. And no doubt, some people did die. But there was never an outright attack upon the human body, which resulted in death until the 10th plague. And that was the death, of course, of not only the firstborn of the Egyptian people, but even the firstborn of their animals, of their cattle.

So what chapter 13 is going to do is talk a little bit more about the firstborn and why they're important and what you are to do in the succeeding generations with the firstborn as a means to remember what God did at the time of the Passover with the firstborn. So all this goes back to the Passover. I mean, the Passover, as I think I said when we first started talking about it, is really the foundational saving act for the people of Israel. So if they had like our equivalent of the Apostles or Nicene Creed, the Passover would be at the very center of that because this is the central saving act of God for his people. So when they think of how God worked to redeem them, this is always what they're going to refer to. So God is the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt. That's the way they think of them. So God for the Israelites is always a God of saving, always a God of redeeming, always a God of bringing out of evil and bringing into good.

So when they think of firstborn, they also connect that back to the Passover. over so this is the this this is this is kind of what chapter 13 is about uh it talks about how the firstborn and this is this is the the male firstborn uh that that's the way it was in the ancient world uh if if the first if actually the first born of the family was a daughter she would not inherit really the uh the blessing of the firstborn it was it only went to it only went to the males. So when the firstborn male was born, that child was guaranteed certain rights and certain blessings by virtue of being firstborn. We saw this already in Genesis with the whole story of Jacob and Esau. So the firstborn was the one who would really take over the

leadership of the family as the father aged or after he died, the firstborn would assume leadership of the family. The firstborn would receive twice the inheritance that the other sons would receive. He would receive the blessing that the father would give to him, which again, we heard about in the story of Jacob and Esau. And there's very good evidence that the first, up until later on, which I believe it's either later in Exodus or in Numbers, we'll get to this, But up until later on, it seems that the firstborn served as the priest of the family. The reason I say that is because later on, the Levites will take the place of the firstborn as those who offer sacrifices for the people of Israel. so if they're taking the place of the firstborn as really the the priest for israel then it stands

to reason that before this time the firstborn are those who offered sacrifices and served in other priestly functions for for uh for the israelites so there's a lot of blessings connected with the firstborn but they they they belong to god and because they belong to god they uh they inherit certain certain uh certain blessings certain responsibilities as well and here's what's here's what's to happen so if if uh if the firstborn is a person then they have to be redeemed so the redemption takes place uh at around 30 days of age something like that and even though exodus doesn't tell us how much the book of numbers tells us how many shekels are to be given over to the priest to redeem to buy back this this firstborn if the firstborn is is an

animal is a lamb or a goat or an ox or something like that that firstborn is actually sacrificed as a way of giving it over to the lord and then if it's one of these animals like a like a donkey that can't be sacrificed the lamb is is uh sacrificed in its place to to redeem it now the reason that i think that this is so this is so interesting is because all of this is the background for christ being called the firstborn of the father or the firstborn of all creation or the firstborn from the dead because he is the firstborn well first of all because he's the firstborn of Mary he actually has to go through the same same ceremony you're about this Luke chapter 2 they bring him to the temple and he's he's redeemed as the firstborn as the firstborn

of Mary but above and beyond that he's the firstborn of the father he's the firstborn of all creation he's the firstborn of the resurrection as well and because of him because of our connection to him we thereby inherit the same blessings that are given to him as part of as those who are baptized into his body as those who are part of him whose identity is wrapped up in him the blessings that accrue to him as the firstborn also then accrue to us who are who are part of his part of his body well this is this is why one of the reasons why it refers to jesus as you know the first and the last too right the um it's because he's the firstborn of all creation and uh and in a lot of ways is the is the last born of all creation in the sense that his

resurrection is your resurrection his consecration is your consecration his life is your life all all of it uh he he you are brought into everything that is him and so uh all the blessings and all the things that that christ receives you receive by virtue of being in being brought into him so he's he's the first uh even though like you know there were these people that had to go through these things before him christ obviously predates them he's he's the the word who with whom through whom all things were created so he ultimately is the first and he ultimately is the last because for all these things all these things to actually all the things that these that these acts and everyone that undergone has undergone any of this stuff they're they're all just uh shadows of of

the ultimate reality that that is done in christ where all these people and you and me and the listener are brought into the actual one that this is going to happen to and so he's he's the first one and he's he's the last one um not that uh he's the last one to be raised from the dead we'll all be raised from the dead but we'll all be raised from the dead because we're in christ and christ was raised from the dead yeah that's that's a great point there is a there's a certain sense in which uh there's a uh you might call it something like a the unification of all humanity in the one person of christ so that we all understand who we are we all understand who god is and what our relationship to god is based upon this one man christ so that he is the first

and the last and wherever we fall in between uh we who who we understand ourselves to be is completely determined by by him so he is the representative human being well he's the one he's the only one who is who is truly and fully and gloriously human uh all sinners have in a sense lost a bit of their humanity, and that is restored by our connection to Christ. We become fully human. We become fully as God intends us to be in Christ. It's everything that happens to Christ is how we understand what happens to us as well. He's born, and we are born in Him. He lives a perfect life. We live a perfect life in Him. There's the phrase where Paul talks about one Lord, one faith, one baptism? I don't think he's talking about the fact that all of us are

only baptized once. There's really only been one baptism, and that was the baptism of Jesus. And all our baptisms wash us into that one baptism of Jesus. So his is the first and last baptism as well. And our baptisms are simply part of his one baptism. So all of our stories are really a part of his own narrative so that we understand who we are in connection with the firstborn, firstborn of the Father. Yeah, it's interesting. I had a guy tell me once that, he's like, well, you know, Christ wasn't, how can Christ be fully human

when he didn't have a sin nature? Like, everyone else has a sin nature. So he's mostly human, but he's not fully human the way we are because he doesn't have a sin nature. And I said, dude, having a sin nature doesn't make you more human. It makes you less. Like, Christ is more human than anyone that's ever lived. That is a marring of the original image of God.

Like, that's not, that doesn't make you more human. Your sin does not make you more human. It makes you less human. like christ is more human than you than you could ever be outside of him yeah yeah like that that uh that old adage about the air is human actually no the air is to be so human it is it is it's like it's like it is divine yeah that is that is true but uh not to air that is to be fully human not to sin not to do anything wrong that is to be the way god intended us that's that that's like saying like hey he didn't you know jesus didn't like saw off his own leg so he's not therefore

fully human and you're like no man have you that's not making they have limping around doesn't make you more human yeah it's the exact opposite of what we usually what we usually assume which is to goes to show how you how we uh we really understand ourselves really uh just from the the fallen perspective. Instead of seeing ourselves in Christ, we tend to see ourselves in sin, or understanding of our own identity and the identity of others as well. But if we see ourselves and our neighbors in Christ, we understand ourselves rightly as those who are made in the image and likeness of God, as those who are loved by him, as those who in Jesus are just the way that god wants us wants us to be yeah the only two yeah the only two fully human

people are the first and second adam one of them messed it up real bad yeah the resurrection is is sort of our uh our our final our climactic being brought into the fullness of fullness of the humanity that god intended for us where even our our bodies themselves are just the way that god wants him wants him to be right now this is where like a lot of people get get it all messed up in in abrid culty type religions where um where you're where the struggle seems to be or to be to reach some point of god god likeness or to become a god but that's not what salvation is about salvation is about becoming human full like fully human as god intended it to be to have the image of god completely restored not to be god but to actually be human yeah that's a

great point it's we don't discover some spark of divinity within us the goal is to discover our own humanity in christ uh that that's one of the purposes of uh of the incarnation christ didn't just come to didn't just assume a human body like as as a tool you know he couldn't suffer unless he a human body and so all right well he got a human body and that way he could be crucified that's that's to reduce the incarnation to a utilitarian means of earning salvation for us the purpose of christ's incarnation is to unite humanity to divinity and so to perfect our human our humanity in himself and not only that but to fill it with with uh with his own divine nature so because he is god and man in one person so because of his incarnation he is the perfect god and

perfect man in one in one person and because of our union with him through baptism we become the people that god really created us to be and not only that but those who are in in a a one flesh communion with god through through christ yeah i've become a little bit obsessed with the incarnation as of late um and the i i think the underplayed aspect of it where in the womb of mary god condescends and as he's being knit together uh knits himself together by and unites himself with all of humanity i mean that's really where the work of salvation starts where where christ is connected and uh and unites himself to the mass of humanity yeah that is that is absolutely it uh salvationism again on holy week on paul's sunday or good friday salvation begins

the moment that uh the son of god enters the virgin's womb and unites himself inextricably and everlastingly with our human nature so that He becomes one of us to make us His child, those who bear and reflect His image so that we too are the firstborn of the Father in Him. That's right. And what that has to do with the Passover,

you can figure it out. We left off here at verse 16, so we're going to pick up at 13, 17 next time. And it's all about exiting. They're leaving. They're saying goodbye to Egypt, and they're heading to the Red Sea. All right. Well, guys, thank you so much for joining us.

We will be back next week. Hey, rate and review on iTunes. Share this content if you like it. All that stuff helps. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Thanks for watching!