We are in chapter twelve of Exodus with our word. דָּם blood, shedding of blood, bloodshed, slaughter, blood-guilt, slaying. It is used 359 times in the Old Testament, 6 times in our chapter. Let’s look at how it’s used in our chapter today. Exodus 12:7, 13, 22-23 Then they shall take some of הַדָּ֔ם the blood and put it on the two doorposts....of the houses in which they eat it… Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it בַּדָּ֣ם in the blood that is in the basin, and touch...the two doorposts with הַדָּ֖ם the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees הַדָּם֙the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. Like we mentioned yesterday why were the Hebrew people passed over by YHWH because he sees the blood. Blood is one way to represent the life of a creature that God made. Here the blood comes from the lamb who was killed its life or blood was now used to mark the doorposts as a substitute for the life of the people inside the house. We see this idea of life being in the blood and atonement which means a sacrifice to turn away wrath or sin in Leviticus 17:11 For the life of a creature is בַּדָּ֣ם in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is כִּֽי־הַדָּ֥ם [literally because of] the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. Now let’s contrast this sacrifice of substitution with what happened to those who did not chose to take God up on his offer. Without accepting God’s alternative sacrifice for sins the only option left is judgment which is what happened to the Egyptians. This phrase וּבְכָל־אֱלֹהֵ֥י מִצְרַ֛יִם “on all the gods of Egypt” says so much about what God is doing. God said that on the very night at midnight, after the Israelites had eaten the Passover lambs, He would kill the firstborn son and animal in every Egyptian family. The purpose of this final plague was like the others: to bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt, showing that God is the Lord. Pharaoh’s eldest son and successor supposedly had divine properties. Min, the Egyptian god of reproduction, and Isis, the goddess of love who attended women at childbirth, were judged as impotent by this climactic plague and catastrophe. God is also showing that there is no other reality other than himself this is why I believe he calls himself YHWH, I Am meaning I am reality. There is no ideology that anyone can create that can successfully avoid God himself and his reality for every creature he has created. This contrast of what happened to those who tried to create this alternative reality to the true reality the great I Am YHWH is death and separation from God. Because sin is not taken care of. The good news is that God himself because he loves us offers us a better reality one that allows us the guilty to be set free because of the blood of the lamb sacrificed for us in our place. Romans 3:22-25 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. Hebrews 9:22, 25-26 The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness …But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. This good news just gets even better because not only does Jesus death in our place save us when we come to God through Christ but it continues to purify us and make us more like himself as we live our day to day lives as his children. 1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
