BLOOD ON THE DOORS
The Israelites were at one time slaves in Egypt. This lasted for some 400 years. When the children of Israel prayed in their bondage in Egypt, God raised up a deliverer named Moses to lead his people out of it. Pharaoh the king of Egypt did not want to let the Israelites leave the land of Egypt. in fact, he refused.
God sent plagues into the Egyptian kingdom to force Pharaoh’s hand, and the final one was the death of the Egyptian firstborn. But God warned the Israelites of what was going to happen, and gave them instructions to avoid the death of their children. “For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will kill all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be a sign to you upon the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:12-13).
The Israelites were commanded to put the blood of a sacrificed animal over their doors. The blood on the doorposts would be a sign to the Lord that death had already occurred in the Hebrew houses. Understanding all of the mysteries involved in this process is not required. But the point is simple. If they obeyed, they were spared from death.
The blood of Jesus is what keeps us from being punished and judged by the wrath of God. Only the blood of Christ can cleanse us from sin so that we have nothing for which to answer before the righteous throne of God’s judgment. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7).
The lesson we learn from the “passing over” of the Hebrew children because of the blood on the doors is the New Testament teaching that without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins (Heb. 9:22). When we trust in Christ, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from sins. God is looking for the blood. When he sees it, his wrath passes over us.
The blood on the doors in Egypt was a shadow of what was coming in Christ—salvation from sin through the sacrifice of Jesus. “And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).
Dewayne Dunaway
