Published: October 2, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 2 - Exodus, Exile, and Eschatology - Part 7 | Scripture: Exodus 12:1-30
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We're moving a little bit out of order in terms of the account in Exodus, although not terribly because in Exodus 12, the 10th plague,
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Moses goes back and forth between what was going to happen with that plague, the death of the firstborn of Egypt, and then also the the the Passover ritual,
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the Passover instructions. ending the chapter with the u the instruction of the Passover as a perennial feast, perennial memorial dinner. Um, and so
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what we're dealing with here, the reason I have it somewhat out of order is that that I want the the I I wanted to focus on the impact of the 10th plague as part of that cosmic
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battle between God and his people and Pharaoh and his gods. And and so that's that's the the nine plagues leading up
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to that. And then finally the 10th plague which I think I I personally do feel um involves the Egyptian goddess Sahmed um who was
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literally bloodthirsty literally bloodthirsty uh not not in a not in a metaphorical way um she was uh satiated by blood and she was known as the destroyer um which
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is the same word that's used in the Hebrew concerning that which would pass through on the night and enter into the homes that did not have blood on the
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doorposts and lentils. That actually that that whole dynamic that conflict does not end in the morning
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with the death of the firstborn of Egypt. It it ends with the destruction of Pharaoh's hosts in the sea. So that's why we kind of jumped ahead to chapter
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14 to the crossing of the of the Red Sea. And now we're going to kind of jump back and talk about Passover. So if we look at the 10th plague and and we look
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at what's going on, especially as we pull in what Paul has to say in 1 Corinthians 10, there's
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actually a complex of events that are being kind of lumped together as a multiaceted record of God's redemption of his people. And the book
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ends you you have Egypt
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which of course represents bondage. And then you have Sinai
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which somewhat counterintuitively We tend to associate Sinai with the law. But in fact, this is true freedom. It is where the Israelites move from
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being in bondage to the world represented by Egypt to being bondslaves of the one true God. And so I think that's a that's a fair um
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description of of the bookends of this part of the narrative. And it really does block off a part. They don't actually leave Sinai right
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away. And when they do, they do nothing but rebel throughout the whole journey. And we go to the borders of the promised land. And the spies go in and they come
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back uh with a good report about the land. and but they're all craven in fear except for two of them regarding the size of the of the Canaanites and and so we we'll talk about that Lord willing
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when we when we get back together in a few weeks. Um, but the the complex of events that that goes on here, you have
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you have nine plagues and they're fairly rapid fire. And I and I pointed out a few weeks ago that um there there's a distinction uh between what the magicians were able to copy and that
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took them up to the third one which they could not and then a distinction is made between Israel and where Israel lived in Gan and the Egyptians and that's the
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fourth plague and onward. Okay. So there are some distinctions among those nine, but it's fairly clear that the nine are all leading up to something that there's a buildup of tension between Moses and
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Pharaoh, which I think represents a buildup of of tension between God and Satan. That the battle that that was behind the the earthly historical events
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was also reaching a crescendo that God actually had already predicted way back in chapter three and four. So he he knew that the none of these nine plagues were
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going to do it. And even in chapter 12, he tells them the 10th plague isn't going to do it either. The death of the firstborn is still not going to be enough. And God's going to see to it
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that it's not enough. So now you have the the complex of events that consists of basically um four really three
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events, but one of them has two sides. So you have the you have the night of
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And for the Egyptians, of course, that's what it is. But in this, you have the very important establishment of Passover. And that's what we're going to talk about tonight is Passover. But
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when you when you read 1 Corinthians 10 and the context of 1 Corinthians 10 is broadly food sacrificed to idols, but
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more narrowly the Lord's supper and what we call communion. And verse 16 of that chapter makes that very clear that that what that is what Paul's talking about.
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Uh but he does not actually refer to the original Passover when he refers to the Israelites coming out of Egypt. He says they were all under the cloud and they
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were all baptized into Moses through the sea. So we see the parallel between the passing through the sea and baptism.
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Again, Peter makes the same connection only with the deluge with the flood. So we see that the sea represents, as we talked about last week, it represents
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really the the ultimate power of evil. And we know that because in Revelation 21, in a new earth there is no sea. So the sea is not a good thing. In um
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biblical symbolism, in biblical typology, seas are are not good things. They're bad things. Um, and so the victory over the sea is, as it were, as
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Paul says in Romans 6, it is a going down into death and rising to walk in newness of life. The Israelites go down into the sea, but they don't drown. They
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come up the other side. Israel's enemies, God's enemies, are buried in the sea. Okay? So, but that doesn't end it. See even after the
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so you have the night of death then you have the the crossing
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and then if you again you read Paul's analysis and remember one of the um kind of the mantras of this whole idea of biblical theology is that we learn how to read the old testament the way the writers of the new
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testament read their old testament. I don't think we can do any better than that. uh and I think it's very dangerous. A lot of modern scholarship thinks that it can do better than that
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and that's not a good place to be. Uh if you have any sense of the inspiration of scripture, then if you're not reading the Old Testament the way Paul and Peter and John read the Old Testament, then
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you're not reading it the right way. So that's what we're trying to do. So we read Paul and he's clearly referring to the Exodus in 1 Corinthians 10, but he talks about they all ate the same
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spiritual food spiritual food in the wilderness. Well, that was the mana. Okay, so mana doesn't factor into Passover, but it does factor in before
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Sinai. It's in that whole block of chapters in Exodus before we actually get to the foot of the mount in chapter 19 and 20. Okay. So, this is all in there. So, so that's where Paul is.
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That's where Paul's mind is. And he's saying this whole complex represents baptism and the Lord's supper. The two Christian sacraments are
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uniquely represented by the events between the Exodus and the arrival at Sinai. So, we have to add the mana in
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And then there's the water from the rock which Paul references. They all drank the same spiritual drink, the water from the rock. And that spiritual rock was Christ. Now it does appear that Paul is
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allegorizing. And unlike Galatians 4 where he actually admits it, he doesn't actually admit it here. And it is interesting to to read some commentators, even reformers,
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as to what they think about what Paul's doing there. It it really it really shreds the lettuce of reformers to
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allegorize. If if you know, I think that's what we need to do when we get to heavens. We need to find John Calvin and start allegorizing. Just go behind him and allegorize. So, we have the water
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from the rock at Horeb. All right. So this what what I'm saying is really
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events God's redemption of Israel. And the the nine plagues that are before that they're they're really just preparatory. They're leading up. This this is what
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what is known in in in literature. This is the dumal and it's also it's the resolution the dumal but it's also the climax which you're not supposed to do in writing except in a mystery. Okay. Um
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so this is this is both the um the the wrapping up
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and the climax of God's redemption of Israel from Egypt. Now given the the way Exodus becomes a motif all the way through the
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rest of the Old Testament and all the way through the New Testament. I think it's important that we understand what was happening. And I think we do tend to think of it as well they they had a
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Passover meal. All the firstborn of Egypt died. The next morning they got up, went through the sea, and went on. There's a lot more than that. And that's what we get when we read Paul. we see him not really quoting, but he's clearly
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alluding to or echoing or even allegorizing this complex of events. Well, in that complex of events is
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Passover, but also the crossing of the sea. So what that means, what we talked about before is that the the the typology of this
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on a broad view
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to these two things, baptism and the Lord's supper. These are redemptive sacraments. redemptive sacraments. And I made the comment I think last week that if if we understand
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the unity of of the idea of the Passover, which pretty much everyone in Christendom has associated with the Lord's supper. We're going to talk about that. That is mostly correct,
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but but not exhaustively correct. There's much more to it than than just making a onetoone connection between Passover and the Lord's supper. But we have that connection in 1 Corinthians
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10, the Lord's supper. And then we have the connection of baptism from Romans 6 as dying with Christ and being buried with Christ in baptism and then rising
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to walk in newness of life. That's the image of Noah coming through the flood. That's the image of the Israelites coming through the Red Sea. So those two things, baptism and the
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Lord's supper, are inextricably tied together tied together with perhaps the supreme redemptive event up to Goltha.
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That a fair statement? Can you think of any other redemptive event that is more significant to biblical redemptive history? Not including Goltha, not including the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but prior to that, can you
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think of any other event that is more significant than the Exodus? >> I wouldn't put that as significant as because it never ended
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in a sense. It was still going on. Um, I would not I would like to see a
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passage where they actually declared it to be greater only because they use the language of the Exodus to describe it. >> But they said things will not >> Oh, well that's that's not the ex Yeah,
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that's that's Isaiah 43. That's not actually the ex return from exile. That's actually the new earth. >> Anti it it really is. It's the It's the final
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final return from exile that he's referring to there. So, that's still prophetic. Okay. So, I mean, there is I I would say there is one more really great redemptive event that's on the on the horizon that hasn't happened yet.
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But from a biblical typological even even uh lexical view, the Exodus is is the big one. It's in
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all the psal it's in the Psalms. It's in the prophets. And and even when it's when it's not directly cited, it lies in the background. This idea of God redeeming his people. God redeeming his
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people. And even even returning from exile is a redemption of his people. But it's couched in the language of Exodus. So my my point being that I I said
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toward the end of class last week is that there there really is no way to separate theologically. There's no way of separating baptism and the Lord's
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supper. They're they're not two distinct sacraments. They're redemptive sacraments. They were united at the Exodus. And if they are the typology of what we
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now do in the church, they remain united with the redemption in Jesus Christ. Does anybody have a problem with that?
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>> Question. Well, that's fine. >> You don't have to take, you know, even if you had a problem, you >> do. So, so do Italians, but go ahead.
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>> I was the salvation. the salvation. >> The what's that? >> Salvation. >> Well, I I think that's somewhat
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salvation and baptism. >> Well, you're just a Baptist. >> That's what a Baptist would say. >> And I would agree with you. But um yes, that when I say redemption, one of the
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reasons I don't use the word salvation is because that word biblically is used in a lot of different ways. The word itself has a very broad meaning. And so I I don't want to I don't want to to use
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a word that if you're reading in scripture and you read the word it it may not actually be used in the context of what we call redemption which is a form of salvation definitely. So this
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was Israel's salvation. This was coming from death to life. Okay. And we've talked about that whole idea that paradigm of of incarnation of coming from death to life. and life is always
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associated with Yahweh and death is always everything that is disassociated from him. So I think you're right we can use the word salvation and I think that
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from our perspective that's that tends to be what we use um when we when we as Christians we tend to talk about somebody getting saved but
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it wasn't always that way. the church used to talk about people being redeemed being redeemed or being regenerated. Okay. So, you know, and I think those
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words actually are probably better um because they they have more intrinsic meaning tied to what the biblical
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history that led up to Jesus Christ and his work. That was a work of redemption. And then the Holy Spirit is a work of salva of of regeneration. Okay? But the
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the whole complex we could say is salvation. But Paul actually talks about our salvation as something yet to be revealed. So So you can you can get into the problem with the fact that salvation
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as a biblical term is in the past, it's in the present, and it's in the future. But regeneration isn't. Regeneration is a one-time thing. Okay?
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So again, words words can get you into trouble. You have to be careful how you're using them because you read, you know, uh, Paul talking about a salvation yet to be revealed and you think, what do you mean
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I was saved when I was 14? You know, what do you mean yet to be revealed? Well, that word is very broad. Okay, so if you want to think of this in terms of salvation, I have no argument
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whatsoever. and and then you see that whether it's redemption, whether it's salvation, these two can't be separated.
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Now, what I said last week is this theologically, especially in the debate between the reformed view and the and the pobaptist
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view. This this theologic leads leads to only one of two conclusions and that is either credto baptism
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which is a thing. And it's a thing among fringe Presbyterians. That seems like an oxymoron. Fringe Presbyterians. Those are radical Presbyterian. Um like jumbo shrimp.
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Um, yeah, there there are some that that advocate pedo communion because if you accept pedo baptism, by what biblical logic do you deny
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I had this conversation in seminary. The answer was just as astounding. And what's ironic and somewhat funny is that the Presbyterians deny that they
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have the sacred of sacrament of confirmation. At least the Roman Catholics admit that. But if you separate in time baptism and the Lord's Supper, then you will
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practically have the sacrament of confirmation at which point you admit the person to communion. What is confirmation? The admittance of someone to communion. So
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if it quacks like a duck and it waddles like a duck, you know, it's >> even call it communicant membership. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. But they will not Oh boy,
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you get them really riled up if you say that's that's confirmation. >> Yeah. Um but you you you see you have a real problem here. The Presbyterians have an insurmountable problem here in
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that they're taking uh and and what they're doing and and we'll talk about this, Lord willing, when we get back together again, because um what they do is they take baptism completely out of its context and link it 400 years
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earlier with circumcision. Okay? They they they fail to see what's going on here. And what Paul's what's important is what Paul's doing with it.
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Okay? Okay, not what I'm doing with it, but but you go to Ro 1 Corinthians 10 and Romans 6 and then add in 1 Peter 3 and you see what the writers of the New Testament are doing with these vast
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bodies of water that kill everybody but a few. Okay? And they and there that's what's b that is what is the the typological fulfillment of baptism in in
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the New Testament understanding of it. The idea of baptism having anything to do with Abrahamic circumcision is purely a re reformation idea. No one ever
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thought it before then. They had other reasons. They washed away original sin. You know, there were other reasons to baptize infants and they were doing it. But no one ever thought to link it with
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>> right? I think it's important to know it is >> about just something I do
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>> and it's not really optional. >> It's not >> it's not optional. >> Okay. And and certainly it has it had always been the position of the church
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as we were talking about confirmation that you're not admitted to communion
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No, you you you you have to be baptized to be admitted to communion. And that I'm just saying that's been the position of the traditional church in all its denominations. But the the reason I think and we've talked about this in
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church history um and in ecclesiology um is is this word here
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versus this word.
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prefer. This word is too Roman Catholic for them. But this is the word that actually involves mystery involves mystery and the sacred.
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This is something we do because we're told to do it. It's an ordinance. It's been ordained. Do it. And that's what's really emphasized in many um Baptist
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congregations in terms of the Lord's supper. And and well, first of all, baptism is nothing more than a public profession of faith. I don't know what you do with the um the
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people in the in the book of Acts who were clearly not in a public place like the Ethiopian unic, okay, who's out on on the road or even the Philippian jailer in the middle of the night. I
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guess the other prisoners were there, but you know that that's not what it is. But then the Lord's supper is simply a memorial meal. Do this in remembrance of me. Okay. So, but but we're told to do
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it. So, we do it. It's an ordinance. Well, yes, it is an ordinance, but it's also a sacrament. Uh again, when you when you read Paul in 1 Corinthians
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10:16, and we've looked at this many times, um you really you can't read this without understanding that the Lord's supper has meaning deeper than just
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remembrance. He says, um, oops, again, 2 Corinthians
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Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? That sounds almost like transubstantiation.
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You know, it's it's um if you if you if you read what he's saying or or even what he says in Romans 6 about baptism, he says, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
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have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been united with him through baptism into death in order that as Christ was raised from the dead
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through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life. When you read those passages, baptism, the Lord's supper, you can't come away thinking that they're just ordinances,
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just things we do, right? There's absolutely no uh strictcture in the scriptures that demands that baptism be done in a public place.
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That's something that we've added and really very much modern um is a very much a modern uh addition to do that. So I think you're right, Abe, we've we've
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um we've really u domesticated u domesticated these two sacraments and and uh divested them of of any real meaning. um
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certainly any biblical meaning and and so what I want to do is I want to look at how Paul is reading it and then go back and reread it ourselves and and see that Paul is not just allegorizing it.
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It's all there. And when we understand as as I I hope you do more now, when we understand the significance of Mo Noah passing through the deluge, 1 Peter 3,
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or the Israelites passing through the Red Sea, 1 Corinthians 10, this this is not just a forgiveness of your sins. your sins. This is a is a conquering of the powers
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and principalities arrayed against every one of us. because of sin. This is a crushing of Satan's head on our behalf. We're dying
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to sin and rising in Christ to walk in newness of life. That's the gospel. It's not just metaphorical. I think that's what you were kind of, you know, that it doesn't, you know, it's just kind of a
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picture and it didn't really happen when you were baptized. Yes, it did. Now does that make the problem also it comes in is that it starts to sound like baptism
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saves you know so you get in the idea of baptismal regeneration which if you read the 39 articles of the Anglican church that's basically what they say but you
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know that's what the Presbyterians are saying when they're saying that when we baptize this infant this infant is baptized into the new covenant community. Well, how can you be in the
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new covenant community if you're not in Christ? And how can you be in Christ if you're not born again? If you're not regenerate. See, the logical implications of infant baptism, whether
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it's the washing away of original sin, whether it's regeneration, whether it's the equivalent of circumcision, they all have major problems. Just rolls and rolls of duct tape needed to hold the
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hold them together. And I think this is one of the biggest ones is that you see that in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul understands the Exodus complex of events, including baptism as well as the
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Lord's supper as hearkening back to the to the ultimate the one author calls it the supreme act of redemption in the Old Testament and that is the
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Exodus. So Passover, what what is it? Uh we talked a little bit about it last week, but I want to spend a little bit of time talking about how Passover
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has been exed how it's been approached hermeneutically in the church. And so there's a little bit of a hermeneutics lesson here to
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start with. So what are the Well, there's there's three options.
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One is to start with the original Passover and work from there to the Lord's supper. Okay? So I call this the forward
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view, the forward hermeneutic. So we go from Exodus 12 forward to the Lord's supper.
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to Passover and we try to see in the Lord's supper the the the reflections of Passover. over
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the third view is what I introduced a week or two ago and that is the reciprocal view
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and that view takes the Passover and the Lord's supper and with the complex of scriptures both in the old and new testament that refer to either the Passover or the Lord's supper they shine
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reciprocally on each other. You go back and forth. Okay? And I do think that that is the right way to do it.
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But I think the Lord's Supper and Passover give us perhaps the the most excellent example of this idea of a reciprocal hermeneutic. I think we should always not be moving from the Old
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Testament to the New, not from the New Testament to the Old, but back and forth between the New and the Old. the Old. If we go from the Old Testament to the
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New, we will fall into the trap of simply looking for proof texts and prophecies, the little stars in the in the margin of your Bible.
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If we go from the New Testament back to the Old, we will fall into anacronism. In other words, we will interpret Old Testament events in the light of later
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events and say that the same thing is happening that happened later. Now, that's exactly how most reformed commentators treat Passover.
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And I'm going to we're going to talk about that next. Just move into that. But does anybody have any questions about the idea of kind of going back and forth between them?
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blood. It's very fair and in fact I quoted Lewis Sperry Schaefer in one of the notes uh we're talking about that very fact that the whole idea of the Old Testament shedding light on the New
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Testament is anathema to a dispensationalist. That is pure allegory. They'll say that in fact he says it that that's allegorical interpretation and
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therefore it is illegitimate. You can't do that because these promises were made to physical Israel and you and if you try to make these promises fulfilled in
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the church, you are allegorizing, you are spiritualizing and you're not taking the word literally. And and that does have a certain plausibility to it again
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until you read the what the New Testament writers do. The dispensationalist thinks he's smarter than than Paul. See, that's what I can't understand. I used to be dispensational.
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I think most American Christians used to be dispensational. It's it's kind of how we get started. But when you read the New Testament, you realize these guys thought this was all coming
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from the Old Testament, right? They didn't think there was anything, you know, as the scriptures prophesied, you know, as it was written. So this was fulfilled. And so they don't
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seem to have any such idea that that this dispensation of Israel is hermetically sealed from what God is doing now. They seem to think that what's God is doing now is the fulfillment of what he had promised to
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do with Israel. And so dispensationalist has a major hermeneutical problem. They start with the wrong premise, develop the wrong method, and then defend their
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conclusions as right. Yeah. Yeah. They this I think is a very rich heritage that they lose when they when they do not go back and look at the new at the
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Old Testament as the as the source the headarters of what we now believe. I don't even know what it is they're grafted into. Frankly, what is a dispensationalist grafted into?
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Probably a Bradford pair. I mean seriously think about that. You read Romans 11 that we unnatural branches have been grafted in. What does a dispensational say we're grafted into?
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We cannot be grafted into Israel because we're not Jews. Has anybody I've never heard a dispensationalist on that chapter. Has anybody heard a sermon on Romans 11 by a
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See, I don't know what they do with that. I I would agree with you. >> Well, yes, you you just don't go there. Yeah, you just don't go there. Um,
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and that is true and but that's also true of reformed theologians too that you just don't go there. If there's something that seems to to somehow hurt your case, you just don't go there. But, you know, anything in Romans, not going
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there is not a good idea because Romans is kind of the backbone of New Testament theology. Um, now what they could say, what they could say is Romans 9:10-11
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are kind of like the sermon on the mount and they're millennial. Paul's talking about the millennium. I don't know that they say that, but they could. I've heard other things they said
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were a lot sillier. Uh, so I wouldn't put it past them to say that, you know, because they they think that the sermon on the mount is the law of the millennial kingdom. So, I don't know. I don't know what they do with that, but I
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think that's a good observation. I wouldn't spend a lot of time finding out what they do with it. I think we have better things to do. But, um, I'm glad, you know, I'm glad you're seeing the the
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depth of God's revelation and the and the the the um the unity of it that it's it's not just a progression so that we can get rid of the early stuff. We've
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moved on to the later stuff. No, it's it's all woven together and it's we can't understand we can't fully understand this understand this except in Christ.
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You know, we really cannot understand the whole concept of Exodus and exile, which frankly exile comes first when Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden.
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That's the first exile right there. And so exile comes first. We were exiled from the presence of God. And so the idea of exodus or return is
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redemption and that comes also in different different places. We can't understand them at all if we don't see them in the light of the New Testament. But we can't understand what the New
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Testament writers are saying because they speak the language of the Old Testament. If we don't know the language of the Old Testament, then we basically what we have done in the church largely
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is we make up our own language. We make up a Christian language to deal with the New Testament. We call that systematic theology,
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systematic theology, but it's not the language of the Old Testament often. Testament often. What do you think? What do you think about
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trying to say not read the scriptures. >> Yes. >> I think absolutely that's what that what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus is that what he was teaching when he says you must be born again. You must be born of
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the of water and the spirit. I don't know exactly I won't be dogmatic about what that phrase means. because I think there are several valid possibilities
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but it is very certain that what he is saying is that there must be a radical change in your nature and Nicodemus understands that how can a man enter
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again into his mother's womb and the most we talked about this a few weeks ago one of the most important statements in that whole dialogue is when Jesus says to Nicodemus are you the
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teacher of Israel and you don't know these things. these things. That that's really a powerful rebuke not only to Nicodemus but to most of the church
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because we are not students of the Old Testament and we profess to be teachers of the church and we don't know these things. So I think if you know if if what Jesus
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is saying and and I don't think there's any condemnation as you're learning them. The writer of Hebrews says in chapter 5, "By this time you ought to be
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teachers." You see, their ignorance was culpable. Now that you can't, there's no excuse. Even if you say, "Well, I I didn't have good teaching."
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good teaching." Do you know how to read? Do you have the Holy Spirit? Then there's no excuse. Now, it's certainly hard and harder when
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you're you're sitting under a a false paradigm. And I think you all understand that I believe both covenantal theology and dispensationalism are are both false
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paradigms. They are false frameworks of hermeneutics. And if you sit under those types of teaching, then yeah, your your growth is definitely going to be stunted. And and I think those who
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teach, as James clearly says in chapter three, will incur a stricter judgment. But that doesn't let everybody else off the hook. You know, it's like you have
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the textbook, you can read, and you even have the ultimate instructor within your heart. How can you blame it on teachers? Yes, it they didn't teach right. They
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didn't teach correctly. They may have even wrong. They will deal with that. But what about you? You can't hide behind that. You know, if if you have the Holy Spirit and you don't grow in
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the knowledge of God through his word, then you are culpably ignorant. Well, let's talk about the Passover. Let's kind of cheer it up a little bit.
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what we've done with the Passover.
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We've turned it into a sacrifice. How many of you have heard a sermon about the blood of Jesus being applied to the doorposts and lentils of your
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Throw up in my mouth. That is absolutely nothing to do with Passover. It's a it's a cute illustration, but it's wrong. Well, I shouldn't say it's wrong. I'll
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just say it's unbiblical. There there's no such illusion or allegory of your heart being a door and you let that's very Armenian in the idea that you let
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Jesus in. What the scripture does say is not that there's blood applied to the doorpost and lentils of your heart, but that God takes out your heart of stone and gives you a new heart of flesh. So
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if it is a door, he rips it out and puts a new one in. Okay? And by that time, he's already inside. So that's not what we're dealing with here. But this is the
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problem of working from the New Testament backward exclusively. And that is what's called anacronism. So the blood is spread. So all right, I
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don't know how to really do this. Okay, I'll do it this way. Um, this is
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and this is fairly widespread but but really prevalent within reformed circles. I'm going to read some quotes that um will kind of indicate what what people
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think um in terms of let's see here. Where's Morales? Where's Morales? Well, let me let me read Delich.
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The blood was to be be to them a sign. For when Jehovah passed through Egypt to smite the firstborn, he would see the blood and would spare these houses and not permit the destroyer to enter them.
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The two posts with the lintil represented the door which they surrounded and the door through which the house was entered stood for the house itself.
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house itself. Thus far so good. Okay. So again I'm again I'm what do we do with this? Right. The
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blood is a sign. We might even call it a marker. Okay, we can look at Exodus 12 verse 13 that's what the text says
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when the blood is seen. And interestingly the text the passage actually says in one place God says when I see it and the
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second place he says when the destroyer sees it and there's that word that is that is um analogous to the Egyptian description of Smed the goddess of
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destruction. So I think most theologians and I think they've correctly interpreted that it wasn't actually God himself who went through and killed the firstborn of Egypt and all the
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livestock. I think it was an avenging angel and it may even have been Sahmed herself because all all of the angelic host are submissive and subjected to
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Yahweh even Satan. So we we know that that he can use and and the writer of Hebrews calls angels ministers ministers of fire sent to do his will. So you have yes I
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do it but that's the ultimate cause and then you have the proximate cause the destroyer but the text simply says they see the
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blood or he sees the blood and passes over he does not go into that house. So in this view um the blood is a sign and that's fine
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and we can we can even say as Ditch says the door posts and lentil and lentil equal the doorway
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and the doorway represents the house and and he quotes other passages where
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the gateway represents the town, you you know, the entryway represents what you're entering into. And that that is simply um
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um I think a very straightforward way of looking at the blood as a marker. But then he goes on and this is where
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most um conservative commentators go. He says, "By the smearing of the doorpost and lentils, lentil with blood, the house was expated and consecrated an
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>> Yes. >> Yes. He's It's anacronistic. He's reading back now. He's not reading back from the New Testament. He's reading back just from Sinai and from the Levitical system that we've been
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studying on our opposite the alternate sessions. That's what he's doing. And and that that is a real danger.
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It's a real danger to all of us because we live on this side of the cross and the empty tomb. It's very easy to fall into anacronism where we're simply superimposing something that came later
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onto something we're reading in the past. Okay. So again, that's the conventional wisdom um here. And that is the blood.
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the blood. What did he say? It cleanses. How did he say it? It expedates and consecrates. expedates and consecrates
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becomes an altar. What is the Well, I I won't I won't phrase it that
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way. Let's let's look at it a little bit more. Um so again this is a very common way of looking at the um
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Passover but the language of Exodus 12 is not the language of sacrifice. In fact even the words that are used with respect to the lamb now the lamb is to be a year old and unblenmished either
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from the sheep or the goats. Now that kind of language is Levitical, okay? But it's it's simply to be killed and the blood it's not to be killed in any particular place, but the blood is
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to be is to be killed in the home and the blood is to be smeared on the doorpost and lintils. So the reason the connection is made is that the manipulation of blood
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I can't say it's reminiscent because it happens first but it's kind of forward reminiscent of the manipulation of the blood in the tabernacle. So we get thinking about okay this is a sacrifice
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this is an altar this expedates. This consecrates this is a forgiveness of sins. There's no mention of that. No mention at all. How many of those
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houses that were marked by the blood were homes lived in by Israelites who by their unbelief will perish in the
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>> How about all but two, >> right? All but two. Unless Joshua and Caleb live together, then you only got one, right? there's no mention of forgiveness of sins. And you know, and I think that's
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really um tragic because by by doing that, you're taking away something from the new covenant. Because it's Jesus who says, "This is my
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blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins." See, you you don't catch that difference. I think that's the problem with covenantalism.
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with covenantalism. They are they are so continuous through the whole thing that they can't catch what Jesus does that makes it all work.
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They can't. It just is like why did Jesus even come? But Jesus takes this same it's his obviously what he was celebrating was a Passover meal.
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>> right sacrifice in their homes. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it it is a gross malpractice of hermeneutics. It really is. But so is all anacronistic interpretation. You're not even bothering to deal with the text as it
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is. You're superimposing your understanding of a later text back on it. You are sacrificing an animal. >> No, you're not sacrificing an animal. You're killing it.
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>> Yeah, you're killing it. Now, there's always that idea that, okay, that the animal stood for the firstborn. Well, that doesn't really work because it had to do with how many people were in the house. If you didn't have enough people
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to eat a lamb, you invited your neighbors over. So, if there is a sacrifice, now see if you can remember your your your Levitical sacrifices.
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You sacrifice the animal. You do not burn it. You eat it. You eat it with your family and with your neighbors or friends. If it takes more to eat a particular
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lamb. So of the sacrifices, which one is this? >> This is a peace offering. You go back and look at your your burnt
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offering, your ola. Look at your sin offering. Look at your guilt offering. Uh-uh. Your trespass offering. Uh-uh. If there's any analogy between what
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happened on that night and the later Levitical sacrifices, it's with the peace offering. peace offering. And yet there's been no burnt offering. There's been no sin offering. And so
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it's really not sacrificed. It's killed.
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and he says the firstborn are mine >> so they are in a sense dedicated and they must be redeemed by payment the firstborn of any animal as well as the firstborn of of the the household So
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there is meaning there, but but I think it's very uh misleading to look at Passover as a sacrifice because all of the sacrificial
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uh framework that we have from Leviticus tells us no, it's not anything like that. And and we talked before when we when we're in Leviticus, you you can't
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just show up with a peace offering. Frankly, I think that was Cain's mistake. I honestly do. I think he came with a peace offering and Abel came with a sin
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offering. And Cain assumed that there was peace with God. But there's no peace with God when there's sin. There must be atonement before there can be peace. And so the peace offering in Leviticus
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always comes after the other bevy of offerings that are wholly consumed. The burnt offering offerings that are partially consumed and what's left over
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goes to the priest, not to the sac the offerer. Okay? Only the peace offering is eaten by the one who brings it. So JH Johannes Kurtz says this. He says if
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then now he he accepts it as a sacrifice. So he says if then the sacrificial character of the pasual lamb must be admitted. The question arises to which of the classes of sacrifice in the
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Mosaic economy does it belong? Strictly speaking to none of them. For the peculiarity belonging to the purpose of its institution gives a
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perfectly unique character to many portions of the ritual. with which it was accompanied. It stood nearest, no doubt, to the peace offering, and since it has all the
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characteristic marks by which they were distinguished from the rest of the sacrifices, we feel perfectly justified in following nearly all the commentation commentators both early and later, and
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placing it among the shim, the peace offering. Well, I don't know who he was reading. Uh, but he was 19th century, so he probably was reading good stuff. Uh,
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nowadays, it's atoning, it's cleansing, it's expeating, it's expeating, it's a sin offering, but it's not a sin offering.
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You you can't take this paradigm of a sin offering from Leviticus, which is later, not long after, but later, and then put it back on Passover, which has
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none of the characteristics of any other offering but a peace offering. So, okay, we say it's an offering. It's a peace offering. But if you say it's an offering, if you say it's a sacrifice,
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you are saying more than Exodus 12 says, okay, you're saying more. Now, one of the reasons that we do that is again it's anacronistic. We we can go
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from Leviticus back to Exodus 12, but we can also go from the institution narratives where Jesus institutes the Lord's supper and he says, "This is my blood which is
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given for you. This is my body which is broken for you." So, the idea of the sacrifice is very and and it's for the forgiveness of sins.
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But you know, when you read Exodus 12 and then you read the institution accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John's different. We're going to get to John in a minute.
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If you read them, you realize that the meal that Jesus was having with his disciples
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was not like what the other Israelites were having that night. or the next night, depending on who you're reading. He did not do it the way they were doing
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it. He did not do it the way they were told to do it.
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>> Passover, >> right? They were because the day began at sundown. They were required to eat unleven bread that evening
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>> Right. Right. That's there's no lamb and the bread is an issue. an issue. >> That's that's the other innovation. We we associate Okay, let let me ask another question. Okay, first of all, we
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associate the Lord's supper with Passover because clearly it was Passover week when Jesus instituted the Lord's supper.
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And it's clearly Passover week when Jesus died and rose again. No doubt whether it's John, Matthew, Mark, or Luke, they're all in agreement. This is
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Passover week, right? So, we associate it with Passover. And then we read 1 Corinthians 5:7. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. So we're not wrong in
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associating the Lord's supper with Passover. I'm just saying that is not exhaustive when you read the rest of Paul and what he has to say about it and especially this complex of events that's
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going on here. Now >> go ahead.
59:59
>> probably been spared. I thought about that too. I don't think