Exodus 12: A Just God Who Provides the Lamb

Introduction

At Christ Church Mayfair, in the heart of London, the church is working its way through the book of Exodus. This Sunday evening, Phil, associate vicar, reaches the central moment of the story: the tenth plague and the Passover. He recalls the thread of the book: God reveals himself and gathers a people. The week before, eight times, God had stated the same intention: to act so that people would know that he is the LORD.

Up to now, Israel has learned that God keeps his promises, that he is almighty over creation, that he is a fearsome judge and that he is good in saving his people. But one question remains open: is the God of Exodus simply good, or only good to his own? Like the gods of that era, is he like a mafia godfather, who strikes those who touch his protégés and turns a blind eye to their faults as long as they stay loyal to him?

The preacher acknowledges that Christians sometimes give that impression: "as long as you believe in Jesus, what you do doesn't really matter." The Passover answers differently. God loves justice so much that he punishes the sin of his own people, and he loves his people so much that he takes the punishment himself. Without this, he warns, we end up with a distorted view of God, of sin and even of forgiveness, to the point of never being sure we are forgiven. The message follows three steps: the Lord judges the sins of the oppressor, he judges the sins of the oppressed, and he saves from judgment through a lamb.

Message outline

1. The Lord judges the sins of the oppressor

After ten chapters and nine plagues, God is about to break Pharaoh's stubborn refusal to free the slaves he is working to death. Driven from the palace by an enraged Pharaoh, Moses turns for one last message: around midnight, every firstborn in Egypt will die, from Pharaoh's son to the son of the servant girl who grinds at the mill (Exodus 11:4-5).
Pharaoh's anger must have terrified his officials, since he held the power of life and death. But something far more fearsome is approaching: not a rage that flares up, but the calm, measured, judicial anger of God.
The preacher invites us to step outside our own culture: what seems normal and obvious to us is not necessarily true. In most cultures, the firstborn son represents the family and carries its future. Striking the firstborn is therefore judging the whole of Egypt.
This judgment is just retribution. God had announced it as early as Exodus 4:22-23: "Israel is my son, my firstborn." Since Pharaoh refuses to let this son go, God will put his to death. You killed my son, I will kill yours.
To show that this is not a mere epidemic, God makes a distinction: among the Israelites, not even a dog will growl at anyone, so that you may know that the LORD makes a difference between Egypt and Israel (Exodus 11:7, paraphrased). And God will execute judgments "against all the gods of Egypt" (Exodus 12:12).
Even if the death sentence troubles us, most of us approve of the verdict: here is a God who takes the side of the oppressed, who hears the cry of the slaves and who uses his power to break injustice.
Yet, the preacher reminds us, classical Greece and Rome, so admired in the West, would have been "on Pharaoh's side." No pyramids or temples without an army of slaves. Aristotle taught that some people are slaves by nature, and in Rome a third of the population was enslaved with nobody being outraged.
The historian Tom Holland, in Dominion, argues that Christianity is the main reason our post-Christian society takes for granted that it is better to suffer than to cause suffering, and that every human life has the same worth. If we stop caring for people with disabilities, refugees, the homeless and those who have "nothing to offer," we stop acting like the God we claim to worship.
This God does not merely care for the lowly: when the time comes, he becomes one of them. In Jesus, he does not come as a king or a warrior, but as a humble carpenter, a member of a people subject to the Roman Empire.

2. The Lord also judges the sins of the oppressed

In chapter 12, the message addressed to the Israelites is no longer the same. Moses tells them to dip a bunch of hyssop in the lamb's blood, to mark the lintel and the two doorposts with it, and not to go out of the house until morning. The destroyer will pass through, and only the door marked with blood will be spared (Exodus 12:22-23).
In other words, God no longer makes a distinction at this stage: judgment comes upon Israel too. A people enslaved by a genocidal empire would, by our categories, sit at the top of the scale of virtue. And yet God says: they too come under my judgment.
The point is not political. No category of people can say: "On the day of judgment, everything will be fine for me, because of who I am, where I come from, my family, what I have done or what has been done to me."
We instinctively play the game of moral comparison. The preacher pictures the line of humanity moving toward the Judge's throne. An angel offers you the chance to go just after Mother Teresa or just after Hitler. Instinctively, we pick Hitler: we would look so much better. But God does not play that game. He judges us according to our life, not according to our rank compared to others.
The Israelite slaves were doubtless objectively better than the Egyptians, but they were not perfect. God's standard is not "better than average" or "better than Hitler": it is perfection.
And what if God judged us by our own standards? Imagine a device that recorded every time you demanded something from others or claimed to be a good person. "I think it's called an iPhone," the preacher jokes. Who could pass that test? And would God, perfect in goodness, truth, integrity, compassion and love, have lower standards than ours?
This is good news in theory, because it shows that God is just. It is less good news in practice, because none of us is good enough to pass the exam.

3. The Lord saves from judgment through a lamb

God announces the most destructive force the world has ever known, able to cut through the world's leading power "like a hot knife through butter." And the protection offered is... a lamb. "The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Exodus 12:13).
The preacher compares this to a missile defense shield whose plan boiled down to handing out an umbrella to every household. Absurd, on the face of it.
The lamb was not chosen for its strength against the destroyer, nor for its skill as a lawyer pleading the family's case. It has neither competence nor power. It has only its life, and that is all that is needed, because the lamb saves by substitution: it takes the place of the people.
Two features show this. First, it is without blemish: "Your lamb shall be without defect, a male a year old" (Exodus 12:5). The substitute who bears the judgment cannot have any sin of its own.
Second, it is part of the family. Chosen on the tenth day, it is kept until the fourteenth. The preacher imagines the children's tears when the father explains that the lamb must be sacrificed, or the eldest son will die. The lamb becomes one of them, so that it can truly bear the penalty the family deserved.
By marking their doors with its blood, the families were saying: "Here, the punishment has already taken place." Judgment can pass over this house, because it has already struck the lamb.
Why does God not simply forgive? Because sin is real; it does not evaporate with a few words. If a friend betrays you and reveals a secret that ruins your reputation, you can take revenge or cut off the relationship to "make them pay." You come out bitter, hard and self-righteous.
You can also forgive: a harder path, but a healthier one. Harder, because the offense does not disappear: you are the one who bears its cost, the damage to your reputation, the struggle against dark thoughts. Sin creates a debt, and someone always pays: either the guilty party or the one who forgives.

4. Jesus, the true Passover Lamb

A lamb, even a spotless one, cannot truly take the place of sinners. But it helped Israel understand how God would grant forgiveness. Many centuries later, in the Judean wilderness, John the Baptist sees an ordinary man of about thirty coming and cries out: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).
The preacher compares the details of the Passover story to the hidden winks in films, like the Pizza Planet truck that appears in every Pixar film. We do not notice them right away, but they show that everything is connected. He points out three of these links in John's Gospel.
First link: Jesus dies during the Passover festival, at the moment when thousands of lambs are being slaughtered in Jerusalem. The true Passover lamb sheds his blood.
Second link: on the cross, he is offered a drink on a branch of hyssop (John 19:29), the very plant used to mark the doors in Exodus 12:22, and found again in the purification rites of Numbers 19 and Leviticus 14.
Third link: the soldiers break the legs of the crucified men, but not those of Jesus, already dead. Now, concerning the Passover lamb, Exodus 12:46 specifies: "neither shall you break a bone of it."
At the height of his revelation, we expected to see God in the judgment that sweeps across Egypt. No one would have thought to find him in the lifeless body of a slaughtered lamb, in the blood running down a lintel. Jesus is the Lamb without moral blemish, who became a member of the family of God's people, slain in their place without a bone being broken, so that judgment passes over all who trust in his blood.
God is just and punishes oppressors: good news. He shows no favoritism to his own people: very good news, here is a God worthy of worship. And he opened a path of salvation by bearing the judgment himself: "it goes beyond good, it is the best news the world has ever heard."

5. Taking sin seriously, trusting in the Lamb

The preacher admits recognizing in his own heart a long-standing tendency among Christians: becoming casual about sin, "since I am forgiven." On a train, he overheard 18-year-olds considering giving up shoplifting, not because it was wrong, but because they now risked prosecution.
Christians can reason like this: "There is no more judgment for me, no need to worry." But Exodus reveals a God who takes sin very seriously, even that of his own people. If you want to know God as he reveals himself in Scripture, and not as you imagine him, hate sin, flee from it, put it to death.
But do not live in fear: trust in the Lamb. Like every inhabitant of Egypt that night, each of us will have to face judgment. God has provided a way for anyone to be sheltered.
If you stand under the cross, marked by the blood of Jesus, God's judgment will pass over you, because Jesus absorbed it entirely. If you put your trust in him for the first time, you are safe forever. All that remains is gratitude and joy.
The message leads into communion, where the church remembers Jesus, our Passover Lamb, who gave his body and shed his blood.

Key takeaways

The God of Exodus is not a godfather who protects only his own: he loves justice so much that he judges his own people too.
By striking Egypt, God takes the side of the oppressed. Our concern for the most vulnerable comes from the God of the Bible.
No one escapes judgment by comparing themselves to others: God's standard is perfection.
The lamb saves by substitution: without blemish, part of the family, it bears the penalty in their place.
Jesus is the true Passover Lamb: take sin seriously and trust in him, without living in fear.

Personal application

Does the way you talk about God suggest that what you do does not matter as long as you believe?
Who around you is considered to have "nothing to offer"? How can you reflect God's care for people on the margins this week?
In what area do you reassure yourself by comparing yourself to others rather than looking at God's holiness?
Is there an offense for which you are making someone "pay"? What would it cost to bear it by forgiving?
Do you live in fear of judgment, or in the peace of someone sheltered under the blood of the Lamb?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

Why does God strike the firstborn of Egypt in Exodus 11?

According to the preacher, it is a targeted act of judgment against the oppressor. As early as Exodus 4:22-23, God had warned Pharaoh: Israel is his firstborn son, and refusing to let him go would cost the life of Pharaoh's firstborn. The fact that no Israelite family is touched shows that this is not an epidemic, but God's judgment.

Why did the Israelites also have to shelter under the blood?

Because God's judgment concerned them too. Exodus 12:22-23 warns that anyone who left their house that night was in danger. No category of people can claim to escape judgment because of their origin, their actions or what they have suffered. God's standard is not to be better than others, but perfection.

How does the Passover lamb point to Jesus?

The lamb had to be without blemish and to be part of the family for a few days, so that it could take their place. John the Baptist points to Jesus as the Lamb of God. Jesus dies during the Passover festival, he is offered a drink on hyssop, and not one of his bones is broken, just like the Passover lamb of Exodus 12:46.