COME AS A CHILD LESSON 126 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE FIRSTBORN

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

The study of The Exodus is a lot like going on an archaeological dig!  It is always better if you leave no ground un-turned.  You cannot leave one part of the exodus story without looking further under the surface; where you will begin to see multi-layers of huge important discoveries.  If you move on too fast, you will miss something!  All of the things lying underneath the surface of the actual story help us to grasp the whole picture that God wants us to see. 

We cannot move on from the last plague until we consider more of its deep spiritual significance. This was so much more than just God freeing the slaves of Egypt!  

In the last plague (the plague that finally persuaded Pharaoh to really let the people go) the firstborn children of all of Egypt died.  This is a hard plague for many to grasp and understand because of the fact that the innocent suffered.  Many have asked why God would allow such a thing.  It is true that whenever evil is allowed to prevail over and over again for long periods of time; the innocent usually suffer.  It often takes this to bring about a change.  That still does not make it right!  

Look around you today and notice the innocents suffering from evil decisions and greedy plots in our own society. We are living just the same scene in so many ways.    Let's dig a little further and see what we can discover about how God let certain situations transpire.  Perhaps He had more of a reason than we can see at first glimpse.  We have already pointed out that God could have just wiped Egypt off the map completely and been done with it.  Was this last plague really the decision of God?  Didn't Pharaoh decide what would happen?   He was warned and he was given a choice over and over again.  It is terrible that innocents suffered, but let's be careful about blaming God for the decisions of Pharaoh.  God was simply, like always; planning a way to make something good come out of something very bad.  Let's also keep in mind that at any point Pharaoh could have changed the whole situation by obeying and recognizing the One True God.  

These facts go much deeper than just another one of the plagues.  This was the plague that actually accomplished God’s purpose.  This was the plague that God Himself implemented.  He did not delegate it to Moses and Aaron, but tended to it personally.  The death of the firstborn is a perfectly painted portrait that shows us the depiction of God’s sovereign power over all.  If we look closer we will begin to see that this plague displays a perfect pattern of how God brings and gives salvation to mankind.

Long before the Israelites lived in Egypt God made a promise to Abraham.  The ancestors of Abraham living in Egypt might have forgotten; but God never forgets.  He never forgets, and He never fails to keep His promises.  The death of the firstborn of Egypt was a very firm reminder to the children of Israel that God can be trusted to keep His promises.  As God kept his promise to Abraham, He was at the same time showing the children of Israel who He is.  He wanted them to wake up and remember the power and might of the God they served who was definitely NOT a god of Egypt.  He wanted them to know for sure that He alone is God.   We too can know that God is sovereign.  We too must realize that He always keeps His promises.  The more we travel into the allotted time for mankind to walk the earth, the more we need to remember these facts of the Exodus from Egypt.   They will be a helpful guide for anyone living in end times. 

Have you ever thought about the significance placed on firstborn children?  It is often through

the firstborn that God exerts His rightful claim as the Creator of the Universe. If you are a parent you might be able to identify with this.  When you first looked on your firstborn child, did it not cross your mind that only a great and mighty God could have made this child possible?  Are you not totally amazed? Can you not feel the presence of God that envelops and surrounds a newly born child?  God is always there. He attends every new birth.  He is everywhere all the time!  He is the creator of all life; the founder of all new beginnings; simply enjoying the fruit of His awesome creation.   He might be invisible, but He is there at every birth! This is especially true of any firstborn.

Even as the people were coming out of Egypt, God was instructing Moses about the significance of the firstborn.  The fact that the first of everything belongs to God is very important.  We can read it in Exodus 13:1-2 when right after the people began to leave Egypt the Lord said to Moses, “Consecrate to me every firstborn male.  The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.

So Moses was quick to instruct the people about this.  His words are found in Exodus 13:11-14; (he was instructing them early to prepare for what was to be later) “After the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as he promised on oath to you and your ancestors, you are to give over to the LORD the first offspring of every womb.  All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the LORD.  Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck.  Redeem every firstborn among your sons.  In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed the firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt.  This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’  And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the LORD brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand.’”

There are many things to consider in this passage.  Moses was explaining to everyone that every firstborn belonged to God.  If you had a son and it was your firstborn child, you were expected to redeem that son back from God through a sacrifice (perhaps a lamb) in order to keep your son alive and with you.  If you had cattle and they had their first calf and it was a male calf, it was to be sacrificed to God.   You were able to keep and use or eat every other calf that was born, but the firstborn was always given to God.  If you did not give it; a redemption sacrifice had to be made in the place of the firstborn.  Moses knew that for some reason this was very important to God.  Personally, I think Moses knew and understood a Messiah was coming.  I think he got more of  the whole picture of what God was doing than we give him credit for.  He instructed the people that this was important and that it should be done.

This dedication of the firstborn should always be remembered.  God said it would be like a sign on your hand and symbol on your forehead that the LORD brought the people out of Egypt with his mighty hand.  This was a vital fact that was to be remembered, not forgotten.  It was to be commemorated annually.  It was to be remembered like a sign on your hand.   Your hand could be placed over your heart as a gesture of honor, and so this basically meant you would remember it inside your heart.  It was to be remembered like a symbol on your forehead; which meant that you would remember to always think about who God is and what He did with Egypt and the offspring of Abraham.  This is something to reason out with your head as you remember that God has been good to you, and that He is sovereign forever. 

All of these things were how God helped the people to form habits that helped them to remember who He is.  I am speaking of the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the redeeming of the firstborn sons.  (This is why much later phylacteries came to be popular.  The scriptures inside the little leather boxes wrapped around the hand and on the foreheads of the ancestors of those who lived in the wilderness after Egypt held the scriptures that told them what to remember about God and how God performed the Exodus.) 

Otherwise; without these memories clearly engraved on their hearts, they would become like those who had spent so many years in slavery again.  They would soon forget about God and gravitate toward the ways of the men around them instead of God’s ways and they would turn to false and foreign gods.  There would be no salvation, no freedom, no promised land.  This was not God's will for them; so God devised many ways for them to remember the exodus and how and why He brought it all about.  

This last plague was also God’s way of beginning to explain the wonder of the plan of salvation.  He was informing all of the soon to be ‘firstborn” that they must be redeemed!  They were headed somewhere as a people, this meant they were not just “redeemed” but they were being “redeemed to a purpose.”  The story widens and grows into many stories, and much later Jesus is called by the same name;“the firstborn son.”  Luke 2:7 speaks of this; “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger.”

God was showing a pattern to Israel.  Israel was to take that pattern to the whole world.  Then God was bringing about his purpose of showing the pattern; salvation through Jesus Christ.  First look at Israel; then open your eyes and see Jesus!  Israel was a type of “firstborn son.”  The firstborn Son of God is seen following the path of Israel.  Hosea 11:11 says; “Out of Egypt I have called my Son.”  This prophesy of Hosea described the flight of Jesus and his family to Egypt after his birth.  It was the path of the Son of God following the pattern that God had already laid out through Israel. 

Paul too, much later than the days of our present story, spoke of Christ.  He stated in Colossians 1:15-17; “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or rulers or authorities – all things were created through Him and for Him and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

Can you see, like Paul looking at the lives of the people of Israel and the life of Jesus Christ, that redemption from the slavery of sin is accomplished by the death of the firstborn?

Jesus bears our penalty and satisfies the divine demand for justice.  God could not be God without justice.  What God is not just?  Yet; through Christ, God combined both mercy and justice.  God accomplished through the life of Jesus what I have come to call the “glorious impossible.” 

Jesus was perfect and sinless and that is how He was qualified to redeem us.  This is something no other human can ever imitate, no matter how hard they try.  There IS something about Jesus though that we CAN imitate and achieve.  We too can become a part of the “firstborn.”  We can come into The Body of Christ!   

When you allow Christ to live within you, this makes you a part of the firstborn!  This is yet another of those things I like to call the “glorious impossibles!”  From the point of your trust in Christ as you move ever forward your salvation comes and makes you a part of The Lamb of God.  He is in you and you are in Him and you and He are in God.  You become a part of the Body of Christ who becomes The Lamb of God.  He was the lamb who was slain; but He is also the risen lamb, the only ONE who has the power to take the scroll in the end of times and open the seals.  (Revelation 5:9-10).  If you are with Him, you are safe; no matter what happens.  You are redeemed by God’s mighty hand!  That is why when we sing of Exodus we sing “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.”  It is an exodus song of a people delivered; redeemed by the death of another; free and walking into total freedom to a land flowing with milk and honey.  All made possible because of the blood of the Lamb of God.

 

So we see with the death of the firstborn, first with the people of Israel, and later with Christ, then again when we reach the final days of this life on earth; that God was both warning us of His sovereignty and the fact that He owns everything, yet at the same time also proclaiming His everlasting love and our salvation through our Messiah, Jesus Christ.  Through this redemption process of His firstborn people and His firstborn Son, God is telling us that we are safe in His mighty protection.  He will led us home!  He will help us find our way.  He will take us to a promised land; a land like no one has ever known before. It may be a tough, rough journey, full of fearful things; but He will be with us and all will be well in the end.  

He silently proclaimed all of these wonders when he sent the plague of the firstborn, in order to create the pattern to teach us His ways so that we could be redeemed and live with Him forever. There is a way to freedom, but it involves the death of an innocent life.  It requires innocent blood.  The innocent has paid the redemption of the guilty.  It is hard, but it is just. Never, ever take that for granted.   Also remember that God has never required anything of mankind that He has not been willing to give of Himself.

God has kept His promises.  He has told us how to have salvation through the story of a people walking out of slavery in the middle of of the darkest night into a long hard wilderness journey. 

Will we trust Him to lead us too? 

Will we do our part and honor His request to keep His ways? 

Will we always remember that He is God and what He says is all that matters? 

It is very, very important.