A Lesson on God’s Mercy

Exodus 12:1-12:32

The mercy of God is a theme that runs throughout the entire Bible.

Exodus 34:6 – The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth.

Psalm 103:8 – The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.

Jonah 4:2 – For I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness.

There are many other passages that also describe God as compassionate or merciful. These are words that are often interchangeable. In the account of the Passover in Exodus, we witness God’s mercy vividly.

The Blood of an Unblemished Lamb
“This month will be the beginning of months for you”. This event was so significant that the birth of a nation would be marked by the start of a new year.

The children of Israel were to take an unblemished one year old male lamb, kill it at twilight, and then spread the blood on the doorposts and the lintel of their houses using a hysop branch.

The first born would be spared (saved!) because the lamb died as a substitute. God said that when He sees the blood, He will pass over them and that no plague of death would destroy them (v.13). There is no clearer foreshadowing of Christ than this!

Who is the ‘destroyer’ in verse 23? It’s actually a verb in the Hebrew, meaning to corrupt, to decay, to ruin or to lay waste. This is the same word when God said He would ‘destroy all flesh’ with the flood (Genesis 6:17). It is the same word when He said ‘the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah’ (Genesis 13:10). This is non other than the hand of God. He was clearly the cause of all the other plagues and it is He that struck down the first born in an act of judgment against the hardened Egyptians.

What must the people have been thinking during this time? What do you think the children were thinking, knowing that the destroyer was coming through the land and something big and terrible was about to happen? Were they scared? Were they confident? We often say our fears are rooted in the ‘unknown’… but if we ‘know’ what is going to happen according to God’s word, does that do anything to abate our fears? It’s a strange thing to ask families to paint the blood from a dead lamb on their doorposts and lintels, but doing it was an act of faith by the household leaders who were expecting God to do what He said. They believed God that the firstborn would be killed – and they believed if they were under the blood, they would be spared.

What About the Blood?
When I see the blood I will pass over you (see Exodus 12:13).
The blood was from a substitutionary lamb. And not just any lamb. It had to be spotless, perfect, unblemished (Exodus 12:5). It had to be in the best condition.
The members of the household had to put the blood on the doorposts and lintels. They had to eat the flesh of the lamb (Exodus 12:8). This represented their personal interest in the lamb.
God said that He would see the blood and pass over that household. God was ‘satisfied’ with the death of the lamb when He saw the blood and so He had mercy upon those who were under it.
There was no salvation without the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22)!
The life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11).

Jesus is called the lamb of God (John 2:29) who takes away the sin of the world! God is satisfied with His substitutionary atonement. His wrath is appeased, and we are saved.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread

This feast was to be a permanent memorial to the nation of this event (Exodus 12:14,17,24). When their children asked what this rite meant, it was an opportunity for their parents to teach them about how God had spared them from death in Egypt (Exodus 12:26-27); a reminder to them all of God’s mercy upon His people.

We have memorials of celebrations in our own culture as reminders. Thanksgiving dinner reminds us of all the blessings we enjoy. Independence Day reminds us of our freedoms that were paid for by brave warriors in the past.

Firstborn Killed

God said all the firstborn in the land would die (Exodus 11:5). When God says He will do something, He always does it. We see in Exodus 12:29 that the ‘Lord struck all the firstborn’.

The Deliverance

When God brought the people out of Egypt, it demonstrated a couple things:

God’s Salvation is Dramatic

No one has a boring testimony. Every person that God saves is a trophy of grace. It is nothing short of amazing that God would save anyone. And yet in this passage hundreds of thousands of people are delivered from bondage. God continues to free people from the chains of their sin every day in dramatic fashion. Just ask anyone who is a Christian to tell you what they have been delivered from and how it happened!

God’s Salvation is Inclusive

It wasn’t just the children of Israel that God delivered from Egypt. Exodus 12:38 is a profound verse: it tells us that a mixed multitude also went with them. The literal rendering is, “a great rabble”, “a crowd of mixed ancestry”, “a large and motley group”. This was a mixed ethnicity of slaves and people of the lowest social class.

God’s kingdom consists of a mixed multitude. It’s not just a select elite ethic group. It’s not just people with money. It’s not perfect people. It’s certainly not the proud. In fact it is the opposite: it’s the lame, the broken, the downcast, the downtrodden, it’s the humble…

“The one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37). People who genuinely look to the Lord to be delivered will find eternal life. It is an offer for everyone. John 3:16, the most famous verse in the Bible affirms this when it says, “that whoever believes in Him (Jesus) shall not perish, but have eternal life”. Whoever is comprehensive. It is inclusive. Sadly though, many people will reject this offer.

God is Compassionate

When the Egyptians were treating the sons of Israel brutally, God did not just sit back or turn a blind eye. Early in the drama of the redemption of His chosen people, God said, “I have seen the affliction of My people” (Exodus 3:7). It was now time for action.

Compassion is not simply seeing affliction. It is entering into the suffering in such a way as to relieve it. God said he would deliver them from their bondage and bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8).

God also sees our sin and the scourge that it is upon mankind. He has done something about it because He is compassionate. When Jesus saw the crowds in Matthew 9:36, He had mercy upon them. He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Compassion here is ‘pity’. But because God is personal and active in our lives, He has a response of serious action: entering into our suffering and doing something about it to bring relief. The giving of His one and only Son as a substitute is an act of mercy that brings us out of darkness and into His marvelous light. We are delivered in dramatic fashion!