Passover v. Promised Land

[Part B: Getting Egypt out of Israel]

“I have come down to rescue them” says the Lord, “from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey”
[Exodus 3:8, 12, emphasis added]

Paul says in First Corinthians that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins…If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” [Chapter 15:17, 19]. Believer – the hope of the Resurrection is the single most important aspect of all existence. If Christ was not raised – your faith is futile. Meaningless, says Paul.

After the Exodus – Israel spent 40 years wandering in this same hope. The hope of future Grace. Mercy is withholding what is deserved; grace is giving what is not deserved. Mercy pardons; Grace promises.

Faith is all about promises. God promised Canaan to Israel, and Christ promises the “new heavens and new earth” to His Church. “Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you on the Day when Christ Jesus is revealed” Says Paul.

What is your greatest hope – believer? Is it the Glory of the Wedding Day – when all faith shall be made sight and we saints cry out with all the heavenly hosts, saying,

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!”

The hope of Heaven is not a reunion of lost loved ones – it is the incomprehensible reality of worshiping God PERFECTLY – as it were in the Garden, forevermore. It is being thrown into a never-ending ocean of ever-increasing joy! Year after year after century after millennium of PURE JOY in the Presence of the Almighty GOD!

If there is anything you hope in higher – dear Christian – take haste to seek God in the Word. Go out to lunch with your pastor and ask him everything he knows about the Wedding Day.

Grace and Mercy are joined in a marriage of their own. Without Mercy – salvation is incomplete, for “all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.” And behold the bride, for with justifying mercy comes glorifying grace; Christ’s righteousness freely given.

It is mercy that passes over, and grace that adopts by a Spirit of Sonship, by which we have been made “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” [Romans 8: 14-17]. Heirs with Christ. We who were once “dead in transgressions” [Ephesians 2:1].

Dead men can’t ask for mercy; a corpse cannot cry out to grace. But when the veil was torn – the engagement ring was given, and now the bride waits in eager expectation for her Groom: Grace and mercy are wed in an irrevocable marriage. For “We have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life" [Romans 5:9-10].

And Grace does not end at salvation. As a Loving Father God Sovereignly works all things for the good of His children [Romans 8:28, Matthew 7:9-11]. God has given us His perfect Word, “the Word of His Grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified” [Hebrews 20:32]. God has allowed us to grow in fellowship with other believers – the Church is Grace. Through Grace we are given not only a Savior, but a Friend in Christ and a Comforter in the Spirit. Such promises are almost to Glorious for words!

O brothers and sisters – let us praise the Lord for His free gift of Grace – and for His Mercies that are new each morning. The purpose of the study of God is the PRAISE of God. For we cannot love Him unless we know Him, and we can not know him unless we seek Him in His Word. We worship not because God has made much of us – but because He has freed us to make much of Him who is worthy.

And He is worthy – He the Lamb who was slain.

- - -

“God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

[Ephesians 2:4-7]

Passover v. Promised Land

[Part A: Getting the people out of Egypt]

My pastor once asked me what thoughts captivate me while I worship. What about God is so inspiring as to write songs and set apart time on a Sunday service to simply rejoice? What are we rejoicing over? What am I, David Ulrich, praising God for?

Among the infinite aspects of God’s excellence – the apostle Paul in 1 Peter commends the Christian to “set your hope fully on the grace to be revealed to you when Christ Jesus is revealed." But grace – like much of Scripture, is a kaleidoscope of wondrous dimension. Within God’s grace is His mercy – and together the two reveal a matrix of unimaginable Love: namely, salvation. And the two are different. Gloriously and perfectly different.

During Israel’s bitter years of enslavement – God chose to unveil this truth in a radical way. Lets start with Joseph. As his father’s favor increases – so does his brothers’ envy [Genesis 37]. An elaborate series of events follow that transform Joseph from treasured son to Potiphar’s slave to Pharaoh’s chief advisor. Joseph later reconciles with his brothers when they come to purchase grains, and his family settles in the Egyptian province of Goshen. After a few generations of peace and prosperity, a new Pharaoh takes the throne “who did not know about Joseph,” and in fear of Israel’s great numbers,  “put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor” [Exodus 1:8, 11].

So the Lord calls Moses to be His servant, saying “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt…So I have come down to rescue them…Now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt” [Exodus 3:7, 10].

So God pours out His wrath on Egypt. He Tells Moses in chapter 11:

"Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt… Then [he] will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.”

There is distinction between Egypt and Israel. He begins the greatness of Mercy – for the wrath to be poured out on the people is dreadful. But the Lord spares for Himself a remnant. In chapter 12 – we read that only by the blood of a spotless lamb with God pass over His people. “It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians” [Ch 12:26].

Jump ahead to Christ. “All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God,” says Romans 3:23. In His perfect Justice – all man is deserving of death – but in Fatherly Love, God’s mercy passes over a remnant, those He “Redeemed… with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” [1 Peter 1:18].  The remnant has been redeemed with the blood of the Lamb. As for the rest of Egypt, “There will be loud wailing…worse than there has ever been or ever will be again... For there [will not be] a house without someone dead” [Exodus 11:6, 12:30]. And herein lies mercy.

Mercy is the withholding of deserved punishment. Christ tells a parable of a two men who were pardoned of debts that neither could repay. His illustrates that with great forgiveness comes great gratitude: one man owes a larger amount. The deeper a well is cut into the earth, the more water it holds when the floods come. This man loves his pardon far more than the man who owed little, for his debt is far deeper.

When I am in my sweetest, most sincere times of worship: I think of mercy. It is not God who is the debtor. He was not obligated to pass His wrath over Israel. We do not have a right to redemption. “But God, who is rich in mercy… even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” [Ephesians 2:4-5 NKJV, emphasis added]. It was in mercy that the Lamb was slain.

But had God been Merciful alone – our story would have ended at Passover. Christ would have stopped at burial. The cisterns of sin would have been packed full of dirt and forgotten. But not so with the Living Water – for His greatest Glory awaits in the flood of Grace.

“Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied...”

Inroduction::Summary

[con·trap·pos·to] : noun, visual arts

etymology: Italian past participle of contrapporre: to set opposite; to contrast

definition: a sculptural scheme in which a standing human figure is poised such that all weight rests on one leg, called the "engaged leg," resulting in asymmetrical and disproportionate posturing.

 This blog is mostly for my own purposes. It is median for me to sort through challenging ideas via juxtaposition. Critical thinking and writing in synergy produce much fruit.

And this blog is all about synergy*. I invite you to come alongside me [see *] as we explore various multi-dimensional ideas. The Bible is riddled with juxtaposition. The Old Covenant and the New. Christ as man and Christ as God. The Lion of Judah and the Lamb that was slain. Worship in Spirit and in Truth. God’s perfect Love and His infinite hatred of sin. Christ’s never-ending glory and absolute humility. His deepest reverence toward God and full equality with God.

What kind of God would we serve if He were only all-knowing, but not all-powerful? Or only fearful, but not still good? And how could we display His image by the strength of a single limb?

There is beauty in complication. Let us explore this, together – and prayerfully seek balance in the footholds of the unchanging Word.

The Word that is both our Rock and Light.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”

Romans 12:2-3