MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 12:43-51
MINUTE INSTRUCTIONS IN REFERENCE TO THE OBSERVANCE OF THE PASSOVER
I. That God not only institutes ordinances for men, but also shows in what way they are to be observed. God had instituted the Passover, and now He gives to the Israelites clear injunctions as to the manner in which they are to observe it. The ordinances of Heaven are not to be kept according to the fearful and arbitrary dictates of the human mind, but according to the revelation and will of God. God tells men how they are to keep His ordinances. Thus they are protected against unwisdom and presumption in reference to them. Men are liable to error in the worship of the Eternal, especially at the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. This is a solemn feast, and must be observed after a pattern Divinely made known.
II. That God will not allow any stranger to the death of Christ to partake of His Holy Sacrament. “There shall no stranger eat thereof.” It would be impossible for a stranger to enter fully into the meaning of the Passover; he would know but little or nothing of Israel’s deliverance from the bondage of Egypt by the mighty hand of God. He would not, therefore, be in sympathy with the ordinance. And so those who are strangers to the death of Christ ought not, and cannot, truly come to the sacramental table of the Lord. That sacrament finds its explanation in the Cross, and no one can enter into it who has not realised in his inner nature the deliverance and blessing consequent on the death of Christ. The believer in the atonement alone can fully realise the blessing of the Lord’s table.
III. That a mere hired and nominal relation to the Church does not give a, true right to the Holy Sacrament. “And an hired servant shall not eat thereof.” There would be many sustaining this relationship to Israel, as there are in relation to the Church in our own age. There are many hired servants of the Church; they are nominally, and perhaps officially, connected with Christian people, but they are not of the true Israel, either by birth or by circumcision; hence they have no right to take part in the Passover, or in the Supper of the Lord.
IV. That circumcision of heart is necessary in order to partake of this Holy Sacrament. (Exodus 12:48.) If the stranger wished to keep the Passover, he was to be circumcised; no uncircumcised person was to eat thereof. Nor should any one eat of the Supper of the Lord unless he be circumcised in heart, and be brought into deep sympathy with the sign of the Christian life, the Cross. None are excluded from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper who are willing to comply with the moral requirements of the service.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exodus 12:43-51. Faith and obedience make all proselytes as home-born, as the children of the Church.
The table of the Lord must not be profaned by unhallowed communicants.
All God’s Israel must observe His ordinance of worship, especially His Passover.
One law of God unites them that be nigh and afar off in Passover worship.
One law of God makes one heart of His people in obedience.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Freedom! Exodus 12:51. Stretching from one end to the other of the mighty continent of South America are the lofty mountains of the Cordilleras. On the summit of a spur of the main chain, at a distance from the city of Lima in Peru, was perched a house of ancient construction, originally built as a fortification to command the pass through the mountains. Behind it rose range above range of mountains, the more distant lowering to the sky, and covered with eternal snows; while from its windows could be seen the fertile plains of Peru stretching away to the ocean, distinguishable on clear days by a silvery line in the horizon. During the rebellion of the hapless Indian descendants of the Incas of Peru against the cruel oppressions of the Spanish conquerors, this building, occupied by an English merchant, became the centre of a terrible struggle. While the army of the Incas rushed impetuously down the mountain side, the Spaniards pressed up to gain possession of the building, as the key to the mountain pass. The English owner and his family remained passive spectators, feeling that the first to reach would be the masters of the situation. The Spanish soldiers gained first the house; but no sooner had they barricaded their positions, than the Indian warriors surrounded and besieged them. Desperate was the struggle; but, step by step, the oppressed natives gained possession of the outworks, walls, gardens, and at last of the building itself. All this was through the bravery, prudence, and resolution of their noble leader Manco. Thus, step by step, did the oppressed people of Israel gain their liberty, through the undaunted courage, matchless judgment, and iron resolution of Moses, their leader; who depended, however, not on human arms, but on weapons from the Divine Armoury, and the dread artillery of heaven. A like deliverance, after prolonged struggles, is at hand for the Christian Church—
“Already she is on her august way,
And marching upward to her final goal.”
—Percival