SERMON TITLE: The Perfect Sacrifice
TEXT: Exodus 12:1-14 (ESV)
SPEAKER: Robert Tansill
DATE: 3-28-24
Watch the sermon here
Good evening, Gateway Church! I'm Robert Tansill, the Pastor of Care and Counseling. And, as always, it is a pleasure and joy to worship with you. This evening, we are going to look at a passage in Exodus 12 that we should all be familiar with. The event that occurred in our passage is so crucial to the story of the Bible that it is alluded to numerous times throughout Scripture. However, if you are like many who read this passage, you might miss how it connects to the bigger picture of what God is doing as his plan to redeem humanity unfolds throughout the Bible and history itself.
So, tonight, we want to think about the significance of the Passover. In particular, we want to discover how the slaughter of a lamb, deemed by God as a perfect sacrifice, would not only deliver his people from bondage in Egypt but also deliver all of God’s people throughout the generations from the bondage of sin and death once and for all. And the big question we want to ask is, “Why a lamb?” What about a lamb makes it the perfect sacrifice?
To find the answer to this question, let’s look at our passage for the evening in Exodus 12:1-14, which says this...
1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. 7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’S Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. 14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.
As Moses and Aaron are preparing to lead the Israelites out of Egypt after 430 years in captivity and oppression (Exodus 12:40), God tells them to do something that seems out of the ordinary. After having just displayed his overwhelming power to Pharaoh through Moses by confronting each of Egypt’s gods in nine plagues, in one final strike, God reveals not only his sovereign authority over all of creation but he also reveals another very important thing about himself through the sacrifice of a lamb, which we can sum up this way…
Previously, after having just been cursed by God with flies that covered all of Egypt in the fourth plague, Pharoah relents from oppressing the Israelites. As Exodus 8:25 says, “Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.’ 26 But Moses said, ‘That would not be the right thing to do, for the sacrifices we make to the LORD our God would be an abomination to the Egyptians. If we make sacrifices that are an abomination to the Egyptians right before their eyes, will they not stone us?’ (NLT) Why is that important?
In Egypt, one of the most revered gods during this time was Amun-Ra, who is depicted as a ram and honored as one of the most powerful and widely worshipped deities in ancient Egypt. What did Amun-Ra represent? Kingship over all the other gods and ruler over all of creation who was seen as a symbol of strength, power, fertility, and virility. In the mind of the Egyptians, he was not a god to be trifled with but rather a god they were obligated to serve out of fear of punishment.
And this is why the words in Exodus 12:1-5 are so important, especially verses 3 through 5. Listen to them again, “3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.” (ESV)
Why does a lamb represent the “perfect sacrifice” in God's eyes? Just as a ram depicts the power and strength of the Egyptian God Amun-Ra, as removed and distant as he was, the lamb also represents the God of the Israelites, who is depicted as gentle, innocent, pure, and perfect.
Is that how you view God? Do you see him as gentle, innocent, pure, and perfect? Or do you view God more like Amun-Ra, powerful, distant, and one to be served like a slave? If the latter, you have misunderstood who God is. God is all-powerful, completely sovereign, the creator of all things, and the one true living God. But he’s also gentle, innocent, loving, and perfect.
And, though the Israelites at that time couldn’t see fully the impact that the sacrificed lamb would have, we do. How? In the person of Jesus. In Jesus, who is God in the flesh, we see the lamb alluded to in our passage, and we know the impact that he has had and will have. In fact, in the gospel of John, Jesus is referred to as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, 36). And in Matthew’s gospel, he is described as “gentle and humble in heart" (Matthew 11:29). Here is how one author describes Jesus, “Meek. Humble. Gentle. Jesus is not trigger-happy. Not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated. He is the most understanding person in the universe. The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger but open arms.” (Dane Ortlund, “Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers”; Crossway. 2020) Again, in the lamb, which is the perfect sacrifice, we see the character of our God on display. More importantly, we also see it in the person of Jesus, for they are the same.
So, with that in mind, what does God tell the Israelites to do with this lamb? That is the second thing we learn from our passage, which can be summed up this way…
After describing the lamb as the perfect sacrifice, we read these words in verses 6-11 of our passage, “6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. 7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’S Passover.
For the Israelites, this moment will define their history forever. Again, God is calling them to do something where the significance of this event won’t be fully understood for generations. And it is seen in the sacrifice of the lamb in three ways. How? First, in the blood. The Lord instructs Moses to tell the Israelites to “take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.” (ESV) Why? Because blood signifies numerous things for both the Israelites and us. It means those who placed the blood on the doorposts and lintels were purified and set apart for God. It was a sign of faith that God would protect them from the judgment and the impending death that was to come, just as he promised. It was a sign of redemption as the blood of the lamb delivered the Israelites from the plague that struck Egypt. Finally, the blood, representing life, was a unique sign that showed their sins had been forgiven and they were restored to a right relationship with God.
So, how does that event thousands of years ago relate to us here and now? Through the blood of Jesus, who is the lamb of God, we, too, are cleansed from our sins and are no longer under the judgment of God because of Jesus's sacrifice on the cross. As the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2:13, “But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.” As the old hymn says, “There is power in the blood.”
Second, the lamb's sacrifice is seen in the eating of the lamb itself. Again, listen to the words of the Lord, “They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.” By eating the lamb with the unleavened bread, they identify by faith their trust in the God they serve, who is gentle and humble in a culture whose god is tyrannical, wrathful, and indifferent to suffering.
And, like the blood, this act is a foreshadowing of what is to come as Jesus, thousands of years later, would say to a crowd in Galilee, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. 54 But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57 I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me.” (John 6:53-57, NLT)
Do you identify with Jesus in that way? God called the Israelites to do this in Egypt, and he is calling us to do the same. By symbolically “eating his flesh and drinking his blood,” you are confirming and declaring that, like the Israelites in Exodus, you have been set apart, completely forgiven, and now claim your identity as one who fully trusts God by faith in Christ before a watching world. God calls us to identify with Jesus in this way if we are going to have any part of him. Nothing less will do.
However, there is a final reason why the lamb was sacrificed, again a foreshadowing of Jesus. That reason is because it is a call of preparation for deliverance. In verses 10 and 11, we read these words, “And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’S Passover.” (ESV) As God instructs the Israelites on the perfect sacrifice, his words show a clear sense of urgency. As they are eating the lamb together in community, they are told in verse 11 to do so “in haste.” The word in the Hebrew for this phrase means, “to be in a state of watchfulness and readiness as necessary.” (The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament, s.v. 364)
Why eat “in haste”, or as the translation called the Message puts it, “Eat in a hurry”? Because, after 430 years, I’m sure that the Israelites had most likely given up on the thought of ever being delivered by God from their suffering and torment under the cruel hands of the Egyptians. Even though they continued to grumble and complain, most likely, they had grown apathetic, weary of waiting, and given up on believing that there would be a day of deliverance in the midst of their suffering. So, again, the sacrificed lamb, the perfect sacrifice, calls them to be ready by faith because deliverance is at hand.
And the sacrificed lamb is calling us this evening to do the same. In Matthew 24:42-44, Jesus, the lamb of God, says, “So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. 43 Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. 44 You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.” (Matthew 24:42-44, NLT)
Like the Israelites, many of us have grown weary and apathetic and have given up believing that a day of deliverance from this fallen world is going to come, even though we say the words, sing the songs and go through the motions as if it were going to occur. And, honestly, to believe differently would be an act of faith. And that is exactly what the lamb of God calls us to do. To believe and trust that God, who said he would come to deliver us and redeem what has been lost, is faithful to that promise. And like the Israelites who are told to do so “in haste,” we are to have the same mindset. As Jesus said, we must always be ready, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.
But there is one final thing I want us to see as we think about the perfect sacrifice, which, again, applies not only to the Israelites but to us as well. And we can sum it up this way…
At the end of our passage, we read these words, “12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.” (ESV)
This leads us to ask, “What are we getting ready for?” For the Israelites, they were getting ready to be liberated from the oppression of Egyptians. Finally, after 430 years! What awaits them? The promised land! Though they can’t see it at the moment as they carry out the plan God has given them, eventually, they will be at their final destination. But what about us? Since everything else from this passage foreshadows Jesus, is it possible that this does, too? Yes. Absolutely! How?
First, just as God passed over those who, by faith, applied the blood of the lamb as a sign, protecting them from the judgment that was to come, the same applies to all those who, by faith, trust in the blood of Christ and what he accomplished on the cross. As the Apostle Paul said so clearly in Romans 5:9-10, “And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. (NLT)” Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, has accomplished this through his death on the cross.
But there is a second thing that we need to see that is often overlooked in our passage, and we see it in verse 14 in the words, “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.” (ESV) For the Israelites, the sacrifice of the lamb and deliverance from Egypt was to be remembered and to serve as a reminder of God’s faithfulness to his people. In fact, the word the ESV uses as “memorial” is defined as “remembering something in the past that has a particular significance that invokes praise.” (The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament, s.v. 291.) This is what the lamb sacrificed at Passover did for the Israelites as they departed Egypt and in the following years. It was a call to remember the faithfulness of God in delivering and liberating them from Egypt.
But it's not only a memorial to be remembered. It’s also a feast to be celebrated. That’s the other significant word in our passage. It’s repeated twice in this one verse just for emphasis. As Israel stands between two worlds, the one left behind in Egypt and the one they are moving towards, the Promised Land of Canaan, the lamb that was sacrificed reminds them of all God accomplished for them through the blood and flesh of the lamb.
And the same goes for us. Like the Israelites, we stand between two worlds. One is the world where Jesus was crucified on a cross, fulfilling the prophecy by Isaiah mentioned roughly 700 years earlier in these words, “He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7, NLT) Fulfilling the Passover in Exodus 12, through this act of giving himself for our sins, not only did God assert his sovereign authority once again over the principalities and powers, but also atoned for the sins of his people, protected them from the wrath of his judgment by the blood of Jesus who is the perfect sacrifice, liberated them from the power of sin that held them captive, and began the process of delivering his people to the new Promised Land. And as we look back at that event, we are called to remember it in a way that invokes praise and trust for the faithfulness of our God.
However, not only do we look back, but we also look forward with anticipation to the day we will feast together with the rest of the Saints throughout history in the New Heaven and New Earth, which we read about in Revelation 19:6-9. Listen to these words, “Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a vast crowd or the roar of mighty ocean waves or the crash of loud thunder: ‘Praise the LORD! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. 7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. 8 She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear.’ For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people. 9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” And he added, “These are true words that come from God. (NLT)”
When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper on the Passover, the night before His crucifixion, he did so to show that he is the fulfillment of all that the Passover lamb foreshadowed. He is the perfect sacrifice. A sacrifice that only Jesus could fulfill, as God in the flesh, who gave himself for the sins of his people. Only he could do it because only he is worthy (Rev. 5:1-10). His blood, the blood of the new covenant, averts the wrath of God for those who place their trust in him. And in both his body and his blood, which was given for us, we are meant to identify with him fully by taking him as our own as we trust him with our very lives. In the Lord’s Supper, a new exodus would begin.
So tonight, as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together, we not only remember Jesus's death, the perfect sacrifice, and all he accomplished for us on the cross but also celebrate what is to come by feasting on the bread and cup, which not only reminds us of our deliverance from God's wrath but also of the feast that awaits us when he returns in all his glory.
Let's pray together.
Father, words cannot express how grateful we are to you for giving your Son's life on our behalf. Through his blood shed on the cross, which we claim by faith alone, we are forgiven for our sins, protected from judgment, and promised an eternity with you. As we prepare to eat the bread and drink the cup, may we not take this act lightly but see it as part of the bigger story you are writing to reconcile humanity with yourself. Thank you for forgiving us for our sins and for the promise in 1 John 1:9 that “If we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Taking you at your word, in a moment of silence, we quietly confess our sins to you now. Hear our silent prayers of confession.”
Father, all praise, glory, and honor belong to you, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We long for that day when we will stand before you face to face, worshipping you in all your glory. Until that day, continue to strengthen our faith, help us endure trials and struggles, and protect us from the evil one who seeks to destroy us. And may we rest in the finished work of Christ alone, the perfect sacrifice, for our salvation. For to you and you alone belongs all the glory. - Amen
“Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. 25 All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time! Amen.” (Jude 24-25)
Brothers and sisters, you are sent!
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