The Passover

Many people think that the Old Testament is irrelevant to us as Christians. They say "Well, that was the old covenant, we are under the new covenant." Or "Those are only stories of the old days. We need to focus on the stories of Christ." The more that I get into the Old Testament though the more I see just how important it is. You see, the entire Bible is God's story of redemption to humanity. The Gospel can be seen even in the Old Testament! Here is something that I discovered yesterday in Exodus 12 with the passage about the Passover. The passage tells of God helping the people of Israel escape Egyptian slavery. The passage reads:

3 "Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs."

God then tells the people the specific way to go about cooking and preparing the lambs. Then he goes on to say: 

12 "On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt."

Now here are some key points to focus on: By having the blood of the lamb on their door frames the people were passed over so that their firstborn would not be slaughtered. This was the tenth plague that was sent to try to get Pharaoh to release the Israelites. 

Now think to what Christ did for us! God's judgement has passed over us because we are covered with the blood of the lamb, Jesus! How awesome is it that God was foreshadowing what was to come in the person of Jesus Christ. God's story of redemption runs throughout Scripture. He always intended to make a way to bring us back to Himself and what a testimony we have to His faithfulness in His Word!