Show thy son in that day.
Lessons
1. The instruction of children is a duty upon parents.
2. God commands continuance of ordinances for instruction of posterity.
3. The reason of God’s ordinances must be understood by parents and children (Exodus 13:8).
4. Sacramental signs, and memorials of God, He is pleased to give His Church.
5. God would have these signal memorials at hand and before the eyes of His.
6. The Passover was a true sacramental sign and seal of God’s covenant.
7. By sacraments rightly used God’s covenant is confirmed on hearts and in profession.
8. God’s mighty gracious redemption is a just cause of such memorials (Exodus 13:9).
9. God’s sacraments are His statutes and positive laws.
10. It is God s prerogative, to make anniversary memorials of His mercies (Exodus 13:10). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Truth embodied
As the soul is clothed in flesh, and only thus is able to perform its functions in this earth, where it is sent to live; as the thought must find a word before it can pass from mind to mind; so every great truth seeks some body, some outward form, in which to exhibit its powers. It appears in the world, and men lay hold of it, and represent it to themselves, in histories, in forms of words, in sacramental symbols; and these things, which in their proper nature are but illustrations, stiffen into essential fact, and become part of the reality. (J. A. Froude.)
Importance of commemorative days and ordinances
The following sentence is attributed to Voltaire:--“I despair of destroying Christianity in any country, so long as millions of human beings meet on Sunday to worship God.” Many things have been fathered on Voltaire of which he never heard, but if he really said or wrote this he uttered an unusually sensible thing. It is curious that sceptical writers have regarded so little the testimony of Christian rites to the facts with which they are indissolubly connected. How did the Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Day come to be established institutions? Rites and observances do not establish and perpetuate themselves. The origin of these two Christian institutions can only be explained by their connection with the events they commemorate. If the written records of the apostolic age could be blotted from the memory of man, the Lord’s Supper would still bear testimony to Christ’s death for man’s salvation, as the Lord’s Day would eloquently witness to His resurrection from the dead.