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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Exodus 13:1-2, 11-16
Well this morning we are back in full swing as we press forward with the Exodus narrative and of course we're getting to the Exodus proper. We're in these next several weeks looking at how God will finally bring his people out of the grasp of Pharaoh at that last impasse between the Red Sea and the army of Pharaoh.
We're not quite there yet but we are beginning chapter 13 and this morning we're looking at verses 1 and 2 as well as 11 through 16 where God gives a command and instructions about the firstborn. So beginning in Exodus 13, 1 and 2.
Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast, it is mine. With these verses we come to an entirely new concept in the biblical storyline.
We have not seen consecration in this way before. Here the Lord says, whatever opens the womb among the Israelites, whether of man or of their own cattle, their own animals, that belongs to the Lord. He says it is mine.
So consecrate it to the Lord. That's the command. In other words, set it apart. That's what consecration means. Very similar to sanctification as we'll see later on this morning. To be set apart, especially for some sacred purpose or devotion.
And so this fundamental idea of dedicating, devoting, or setting apart unto the Lord the firstborn. And we come again to this in verses 11 through 16. Now verses 3 through 10, we considered some, I think it was last month, in chapters 12 verse 14 through 20, with the feast of unleavened bread.
So we included those verses with our discussion of that feast. We're not going to have any time to look at verses 3 through 10. However, it's important to recognize the flow. Again, God is not only drawing His people through the Passover and Exodus, but He's also commanding them with how they will remember this ever after.
And so these instructions are part of this whole complex of maintaining the Passover and keeping the feast. And the feast of unleavened bread, we said, is how Paul describes the Christians need to not have the leavened bread of malice and wickedness, but the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
So we spoke about this larger picture of purity, of mortification, as part of our sanctification in the Lord. And that, of course, is after the justifying event of the Passover. Christians of all ages are saved through the blood of the Lamb, and therefore, they keep the feast in sincerity and truth.
Sanctification flows out of justification. But getting back to this law of the firstborn, verse 11,. And it shall be, when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as He swore to you and your fathers and gives it to you, that you shall set apart, again the language of consecration, set apart to the Lord all that open the womb.
That is, every firstborn that comes from an animal which you have, the males shall be the Lord's. So we have the command repeated. It's an elaboration of verses 1 2. Set apart to the Lord all that open the womb.
The wording's not clear in verses 1 2. This could speak of male or female, but by the time we get to verse 13, it becomes clear that males are in view for the firstborn law. Why would that be? Well, males would be representative of their future households, representative, therefore, of the next generation of the Israelites, even as the male offspring of the beasts of the earth and the cattle of the Israelites would represent that next generation, the seminal fruit of the former generation.
So we have this idea of belonging to the Lord requiring a being set apart or a devotedness to the Lord. Just as He set aside or set apart or consecrated the seventh day. Just as He set apart, set aside, or consecrated the tabernacle.
Just as He set aside or set apart or consecrated the tribe of Levi. You see this again throughout the unfolding narrative in Exodus. Most of this concept is the bedrock, the soil of Leviticus. This idea of what is rendered separate unto the Lord, that which is holy unto the Lord.
Here, this law of the firstborn applies to both man and beast, and we have that more clearly in verse 13. Perhaps a confusing verse. I can't imagine too many people, if you were looking at this passage ahead of time, said, oh yes, verse 13.
That's the real heartbeat for me of this passage. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. And all the firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.
So here's verse 13, and we have a real elaboration of the principle of the law of the firstborn. Notice, all of the firstborn, whether man or beast, belong to the Lord. But here we have this elaborate principle.
There is a distinction that is made between the sons of Israel and the beasts. But every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, and if you shall not redeem it, then you shall break its neck.
But, we should say, rather than and, all the firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. So the principle is made clear in verse 15, later on. Therefore, the Israelite father would say to his son, I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that open the womb.
There's your biggest title, your biggest umbrella for this law. I sacrifice to the Lord all males that open the womb. However, all the firstborn of my sons I redeem. So all are sacrificed, but the sons are redeemed.
And then we have this elaboration. Well, what about a donkey? In other words, what about an unclean animal? Because donkeys are rendered unclean, ritually impure. They are not allowed to be offered unto the Lord.
Nevertheless, they belong to the Lord. And so you either redeem them as well, just like the sons, or you must kill them. And the idea is you kill them by the breaking of the neck. You wouldn't want to even kill them in a way that shows some intent or some possibility of them being sacrificed.
They must not be sacrificed. So like the male sons, these unclean animals belong to the Lord. And yes, they either are killed or they are redeemed. And we see the logic of the law of the firstborn. All the males that open the womb, they belong to me and they must be given to me.
They must be sacrificed to me. However, the Lord will not allow the sons of men to be sacrificed. So they must be redeemed. And that's the law. All the firstborn of my sons I redeem. Why? Verse 13. All the firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.
So it's a token sacrifice that comes by way of redemption. By the way, Spurgeon drew a wonderful message. If you are prone like I am to read a Spurgeon sermon at least weekly, this would be a great one to look up.
It's one of the few messages he preached out of Exodus 13. But he had a wonderful gospel-focused evangelistic sermon all from this text about the unclean donkey. To me that's just a total flex. That's just Spurgeon just being like, give me anything, I'll make a gospel message out of it.
But in part he draws out this beautiful point. God could not receive the donkey because it was unclean. But still it belonged to the God for all of that. God's claim extends to all the firstborn, clean or unclean.
And that claim is maintained. Sinner, you cannot serve God. You're too sinful. Your heart is too evil. Your service too impure. But still God claims you for a perfectly holy life. And that claim has not ceased.
It has not lost its power. God's law does not change though you have been changed. You see, God's claim upon fallen men has not changed. And this is the gospel which we have to preach to you every time we stand before you.
Namely this. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who's offered as a substitute for the ungodly, the unclean, the unacceptable. That we might not die. Christ died. That we might not be cursed. Jesus was cursed and hung upon a tree.
That we might be received. He was rejected. That we might be approved. He was despised. That we might live forever. He bowed his head and gave up his breath. And then Spurgeon says, if any man wants to understand theology, he better begin here.
This is the first. This is the main point. And in some ways that's a lot like what Moses is saying to the people. If you want to understand the theology of the Passover, you better begin here. With the redemption.
With the substitute. Life redeemed by way of the Lamb. And so once more we see this intent not only for the event to be remembered, but to be instructive. There is a didactic content to the memorial. In other words, it's intended to teach more than just to remember what God had done.
Exodus 13 beginning in verse 14. So it shall be when your son asks you in time to come saying, what is this? This theme that we've seen throughout these past two chapters. Your son will ask and this is what you'll say.
By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt. Out of the house of bondage. And it came to pass when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting the people go, that the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.
Both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord all males that open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem. You see my son, the father would say, you should have died that night if you were there.
But God spared you by the blood of the Lamb. All the firstborn belong to Him and must be given to Him. But just like He redeemed the sons on that night, so I redeem all of my sons still. The Passover theology of sacrifice and devotion unto the Lord.
This, he says, it shall be as a sign, as a frontlet, as a testimony, a visible perhaps testimony. Egyptians were known to wear amulets, papyri often with certain inscriptions rolled up and worn, whether as an armband or something perhaps around the neck.
We know of the Teflim that the Jews wore, the phylacteries that Jesus spoke of that the Pharisees were so fond of. This may well have been a physical aspect to this command. It shall be as a sign, I think that's the right way to understand it, as a sign, but they actually made it quite literally a sign.
Something worn like a frontlet became an actual frontlet between your eyes. For by strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt. In other words, never forget this saving event. Never cease to not only remember, but to walk in such a way that your whole life corresponds to that saving activity of God.
You have so been consecrated to the Lord. The whole event of Passover then is rehearsed with every first birth among the Israelites. Every time a little boy or an animal is born, as soon as something opens the womb among the Israelites, the Passover is rehearsed.
It's brought to remembrance. Now importantly, God's claim on the firstborn is not here connected with his general lordship over all creation. Too many commentators, I think, make the mistake, Terence Fretheim in his commentary is a classic example of drawing creation theology into the chapter here.
Of course, if you're talking about firstborn, if you're talking about birth and God's right or God's claim, you're naturally thinking about God as creator. There's certainly good truth there. God has a claim on all that he has made because he has made it.
He is the creator, therefore all things are for him and unto him. We don't deny that for a moment, but notice that creation is never appealed to in the logic of chapter 13. God's claim on the firstborn is not here connected with his lordship over creation or the fact that he is man's creator.
As we see in these verses instead, it's based on the fact that God had already set apart to himself the sons of Israel as his firstborn. In other words, the whole people of Israel have already been described as the firstborn son of God and that is why he spared them and yet struck the firstborn of Egypt.
Do you remember this from chapter 4 verse 22? This you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. If you don't let my firstborn son go, then I will kill your firstborn son.
So God makes a distinction between this son that he has adopted, his people Israel, and the son of Pharaoh, the people of Egypt. It's the same thing we see in Numbers 8. It's not connected to creation, but rather to redemption.
In other words, and here's the main point, in other words, it is not because the Israelites were delivered, it is not because they were adopted and claimed that God delivered them. No, no, no. It's not because they were delivered that he adopted them.
No, it's because they were his own that he delivered them. Very important point. It's not because he delivered them that he says, well, I guess now you're my son. I guess I'll adopt you now. No, no, no.
It's the other way around. He delivered them because he had already adopted them. They were already his firstborn son, therefore he delivered them. And so naturally this sets them apart unto God. If that was already the case prior to the Passover, how much infinitely more after the fact?
And that's the logic of redemption, intensifying the claim that God has on the life, but also giving the ethical motivation for us to consecrate ourselves unto the Lord, as we'll see in application. So Desmond Alexander, who has a tremendous, it's rather technical, but a tremendous commentary, it's been very helpful in my own understanding, and he spends some time elaborating this idea of redemption going hand-in-hand with consecration because of the nature of the Passover.
And so Desmond Alexander in his Apollos series commentary on Exodus, he says this, God's remarks regarding the firstborn underline a connection between being holy and belonging to God. Being holy and belonging to God.
Both must go together. God's remarks regarding the firstborn underline a strong connection between being holy and belonging to God. Both go together. Anything that belongs to God, moreover, must be dedicated to his service.
If it belongs to God, it is for his use, for his service. Now think back to the logic of that call upon Moses. You shall go to Pharaoh and say thus, let my people go, says the Lord, that they may serve me, rather than serve you.
I have a rightful claim as their God and their Savior. You do not have such a claim, Pharaoh, so let them go that they may serve me. It's the same logic here. If they belong to God, then part of that belonging is holiness and part of that holiness is service.
Later on, the Levites are set apart by God, chosen not only to be those who serve in the tabernacle, but interestingly, in Numbers 3, they serve now as the ransom for all the firstborn of Israel. So rather than Exodus 13 being in play, Numbers 3 begins to shift the way this law of the firstborn works.
Now all of the firstborn sons of the Israelites are considered redeemed because all of the sons of Levi are dedicated unto the service of God. And so now the ransom takes place among the priesthood of the tribe of Levi.
But notice even there, and we'll see this in the consecration when we get to Exodus 29, even there we see the same elements of Passover at play. These main elements of the Passover. An atoning sacrifice.
In other words, a sacrifice that answers the guilt, the thirst for justice, and spares from the the angel of death. So we have an atoning sacrifice that comes about through paying a ransom. A ransom that is paid by the blood of the Lamb, or later on we see that ransom is actually given a monetary figure.
For males, that's five shekels in Numbers 18. And so there's a ransom that is paid. And then there's a element of purification. There's a purifying from sin, the Feast of Unleavened Bread as part of this Passover complex.
And then there's a holy meal to eat, just like on the night of the Passover. So notice these elements. An atoning sacrifice, a payment of ransom, a purification from defilement, a holy meal that is consumed.
All of these things are at play, not only in Exodus 12, but also when Aaron and his sons are consecrated unto God in Exodus 29. So what does that mean? Well, I think Desmond Alexander is right on the money.
The Passover is rightly understood as a consecration ritual. And I think the implication here is massive. The Passover, in other words, is not merely an event of deliverance, but in its very substance, ongoing, ever after, is a consecration ritual.
It's the means by which God not only delivers His people, but consecrates them unto His service. They're brought through the blood of the Lamb unto the service of God, just like the Levites in Exodus 29 will be brought through the blood of the Lamb unto service for God.
And so the law of the firstborn being connected to here, even as Exodus 29 connects to Numbers 3, helps us understand that God brought about the Passover for the sake of the service, for the sake of the consecration.
In other words, there's no cheap grace here. Passover was always about consecration. Salvation was always about service, do you see? Matthew and Mark, in their own unique way, especially emphasize this.
What does Jesus say? One of the most pivotal aspects, the sort of crowning moment in the Gospel of Mark. Remember our years in Mark when we came to that beautiful divide and this unfolding revelation of who Jesus is and why He has come and what He will do?
And what does He say in 1045? The Son of Man came to give His life as a ransom for many. Now is that ransom mere deliverance? Or is that ransom a deliverance that brings about consecration? John has the vision in Revelation 5.
You see the same elements in Revelation 14. Worthy are you? Who's worthy? The Lamb. Why is the Lamb worthy? Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people from every tribe and language and people and nation.
And what did that ransom accomplish? What did that deliverance bring about? Well, what does John go on to say? By your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and made them a kingdom and priests to our God.
Do you see? The ransom, the deliverance, the Passover in its fullness is for consecration. By this you have made them this. They were ransomed for God. The Passover then is rightly understood as a means of consecration.
And yet for all of this we do not commonly think about consecration. For all of this we hardly use the language of consecration. I'm ashamed to say it, Roman Catholics speak far more often of consecration than we do.
The closest we get are Pentecostals. For some reason Pentecostals love to think of themselves as consecrated. Amen! You say, I'm just consecrating this to God or I'm trying to consecrate myself today.
Amen! That's a right view, right language, right application. So I think in our perhaps inability to connect the Passover as a consecration ritual, in other words to connect our salvation, our deliverance to consecration, I think we end up reducing or misapplying what sanctification is or the logic of sanctification in the life of the Christian.
That's my main thrust of application this morning. I don't think it only affects sanctification, that's just one part. In fact, I think if we rightly understand the logic of consecration, it has application in every direction.
Most of what we'll cover now in application, I'm just giving three points, I'd be just as happy to have an extra week and maybe look at more of the horizontal dimensions of consecration, what that means for a church body or ecclesiology, what that means for all sorts of aspects of the Christian's life.
But here let me highlight three things. So we're trying to recover the concept, the language, the logic of consecration being intimately connected to salvation, toward the salvific event. Why are we doing that?
Because Exodus 12 is followed by Exodus 13, because the night of the Passover is followed not only by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but also the Law of the Firstborn. The logic of Passover is consecration, okay?
That's why we're looking at application in this way. So let's consider how consecration comes to bear on three things. First, consecration and conversion. Consecration and conversion. In other words, holiness discovered.
When you're converted and you discover the holiness of God and are rendered holy by God. Holiness discovered. So that's first, consecration and conversion. Secondly, consecration and sanctification. Consecration and sanctification.
In other words, holiness devoted. And then third, consecration and evangelism. Consecration and evangelism. In other words, holiness directed. So if holiness discovered, holiness devoted, holiness directed.
So beginning first with consecration and conversion. When we talk about conversion, we talk about that initial act of repenting and trusting in Christ for salvation from our sins. We talk about justification as a declaration from God by faith that we are righteous in His sight because we have been united to Christ by faith.
We're no longer our own. We recognize that now we are in union with the Son, and as the Father looks on the Son, so He looks on us. We are declared to be righteous. Just is the sentence, the verdict that is laid down because of the blood of our Savior.
Well, that's justification, and we see it right there at the very dawn of conversion. It's what it means to be converted, whether that process is like a lightning strike in the confines of a day or something that's drawn out over time.
These things will always be at play, but just as the Passover is followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so that repentance and faith is followed by a life of sanctification. And when we talk about sanctification, we always think of this lifelong pursuit of holiness with all of its ebbs and flows, when in fact the Bible more commonly speaks of sanctification as a position rather than as a progression.
Now there's some who would say we too readily take any language of transformation or renewal and we just throw it into the bucket of sanctification. So when we come across verses that speak to being transformed from one degree of glory to the next, or being renewed by the washing of the water of the Word, we tend to just say, oh, that's sanctification, right?
We have transformation or renewal, that's the language of sanctification. And there's some scholars who have said we should separate that move, we should not throw automatically into the concept of sanctification any aspects of renewal or transformation.
Let renewal and transformation be renewal and transformation. Perhaps we should strictly view sanctification as being set apart unto God, being set apart by God for God, our position, our standing before Him.
Now I think that goes a little too far. I would be hesitant to say there's nothing progressive or transformational about sanctification, so I think that goes too far, but it's a good point to make. We tend to assume sanctification is exclusively progressive, when in fact the New Testament pictures sanctification as primarily positional.
You're standing, you're status before God. So when we talk about positional sanctification, we have verses like 1st Corinthians 6 verse 9, and such were some of you, he says, you know, we know that the unrighteous don't inherit the kingdom of God, he says, such were some of you, but you were washed, tense is really important here, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Notice in the word order here, sanctification comes before justification. We were sanctified, we were justified. Paul, you've got it all wrong. We were justified and we will be sanctified. No, no, no, Paul says, you're misunderstanding.
You were sanctified with the same concrete finality as your justification. But of course we have other language where we have the concept of sanctification and the reality of it, whether or not the words are used.
And I think there is something to say about the progressive idea of sanctification. Ephesians 1 3, just as he chose us and him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy. Notice, we should be holy.
It's what he will do. He always begun a good work, will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. But notice that it's the should be, not the were, should be, holy. By the way, that word holy, holiness, it's all connected etymologically to sanctification or consecration.
Hebrew actually has a few different terms, but when the Hebrew was brought into the Greek, it was all just hagiazo. From the noun in Greek, hagios, holy. So sanctification or consecration is to render holy, to set apart, to devote.
So when we're talking about holiness or sanctification or consecration, in one way or another we're talking about the same thing. But my argument here is we need to be very careful and thoughtful about how we use language, as you'll see I hope.
It is because God is holy that He sets apart His people to be holy. In setting them apart, they are made holy, right? To be set apart is to be made holy, and yet they must also make themselves holy, right?
All the firstborn belong to me, so consecrate them to me, right? In other words, I have made you holy, so be ye holy. It's the same logic. God sets them apart, by that very act they are holy, and yet they must be holy.
He set them apart so that they would become holy. Now that holiness is a response, as we've seen, to redemption. Because He's delivered them, they are set apart unto Him, to image Him in His holiness.
For God is holy, so we must also be holy. Not conforming ourselves, as Peter says, to former lusts, as in our ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, so you also be holy. In all your conduct, as it is written from Leviticus 11, be holy, for I am holy.
When we understand the logic there, we see this consecration has at its very heart a relationship with God. You are mine. That's a language of possession. It's a language of relationship. I will be your God.
You will be my people. Why? Because I've set you apart unto myself. I've delivered you so that you would be mine, and I am holy, and if you would walk with me, then you must be holy as well. So consecration and conversion, or holiness discovered.
D. A. Carson points out the same point that's been made earlier, that sanctification can sometimes speak to the process of purification in our life, but in Paul, he notes, it commonly refers to that initial setting aside of a believer unto God at his conversion.
So consecration and conversion. We are sanctified by God when we first believe. When we were saved by faith in the blood of the Lamb, we were consecrated to God. We are set apart unto God, and this has brought, I think, a very important point into how we describe holiness.
Peter Gentry, who's an Old Testament scholar, he teaches at Southern, who's just phenomenal. He's, you know, he's excellent. I've sat under some of his lectures, and he's a very eccentric man, but he just has this incredible grasp of nuances in the text, and he's very thoughtful about how we sort of steamroll a certain understanding, and it's quite painful to go back and unlearn things that are just taken for granted.
So he has some very seminal thoughts on how we understand the word holiness, and he says this, I doubt that holiness should be primarily understood in terms of separation. I'm painting myself here because that's usually my go-to.
The idea of holiness is separateness, separation, right? And he says, I doubt that holiness should be primarily understood as separation, and he goes through the history of the lexicons and reasons why this has become the case, and he says, for holiness to be seen as primarily separation or transcendence runs against the evidence we have from its early usage, and if we follow its early usage, we find a through-line throughout biblical understanding that the basic meaning of holy is consecrated, in other words, devoted.
Sinclair Ferguson, by the way, has the same view in perhaps more layman's terms. Sinclair Ferguson has this tremendous book called Devoted to God, Blueprints for Sanctification, and he makes the point that when we're talking about the attributes of God and what's the thrice-claimed attribute of God, holy, holy, holy, we talk about the holiness of God, but Ferguson says if it is an attribute of God, it must be true of God irrespective of the fact that he has a relationship with creation, right?
It could not be an essential attribute of God if it can only be discovered or revealed in relationship to something he has created. It must be within reference to himself if it is an essential attribute.
So he says this, any attribute of God must be true of God as he always existed in the eternal Trinity before creation, and since there is no attribute of God in this case that involves separation, holiness cannot be defined fundamentally as separation.
Do you see the point? We can think of holiness because God is separate, transcendent from what he has made, but if holiness is an essential attribute of God, he was holy before he made anything. So if we think of holiness as separation, what is he separate from?
It's only him, and he would not separate himself from, you know, the Father from the Son or from the Spirit, right? There's a perfect communion within the Godhead, so holiness then can't be fundamentally separation.
So then what is it? It's devotion. Ferguson says we mean this, holiness is the perfectly pure devotion of each of these persons to the other, and this is his conclusion. To be holy, to be sanctified therefore, is in simple terms to be devoted to God.
So you see the beauty of this picture of consecration. What is God doing when he sets apart the sons of Israel unto himself? He's telling them what sanctification is. You are now to be utterly devoted to me.
I have delivered you, therefore devote yourselves unto me. So here you see the positional merge with the progressive, because as you're devoting yourself unto God, because you've been devoted by God unto himself, there will be this progressive conformity to his image.
You will inevitably be holy as God is holy. This relationship of consecration demands it. So that's consecration and conversion. Secondly, consecration and sanctification. If conversion is holiness discovered, then consecration is holiness devoted.
And we've already seen this with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, right? This calls for a uncompromised purity among God's people. Sweep out all of the leaven. There must not be any leaven, and we saw how Paul takes that up in 1st Corinthians 6.
And so coupled with this consecration of the firstborn, the Israelites were to remember their deliverance, and they were to set apart or consecrate their lives and their ways, even as they had acknowledged they had been set apart for this very reason.
So this is a perpetual testimony. The Israelites were born remembering that they had been set apart unto God. Think about that. Every firstborn son was brought into the world in this relationship of consecration.
Now think about the logic of the new birth. When God has brought about the new birth in the life of a believer, what does that new birth demand? Consecration. It's the law of the firstborn. I am now yours, utterly, exclusively.
My life will be a service unto you. I have been born unto you, and we see new birth tied with deliverance. I have been delivered by you, and I've received this new birth. Therefore, I am yours, holy, completely.
Here, Lord, I give myself away. It is all that I can do. That's holiness devoted. Again, the Lord's judgment on the firstborn in Egypt is the explanation for why he has delivered and consecrated the firstborn of Israel.
The sons of Israel were not exempt from God's judgment. They should have been struck down just like the sons of the Egyptians, but instead of receiving judgment that they deserved because of the blood of the Lamb, they received mercy.
But you, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people but now are the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
So again, we see the logic of consecration, right? God has a rightful claim on all things, but that is not the basis for his claim upon us. He claims us as believers because when we deserve judgment, we received mercy instead by the blood of the Lamb, and for that reason he has delivered us.
We're born again unto him, and so our lives are now devoted to him. It is mine, he says. If you've been born again unto God, you cannot have the New Hampshire license plate as your life motto, you know, live free or die, my way or the highway.
It's mine, the Lord says. I saved you. I birthed you. You're my son. I've redeemed you, and now you belong to me. For an unbeliever, this sounds like cosmic tyranny. You can listen to old debate recordings from Christopher Hitchens.
This is one of the reasons he hated God so much and went around the country promoting his books and his debates about his hatred for God. It was the father who never lets go, the father who demands everything, and he had this rejection for this cosmic tyrant.
But for the believer, when you understand the price that has been paid and the love of God in Christ is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit, this is the most magnificent thing you could ever hear.
I've been working through a volume of essays in honor of Sinclair Ferguson called Theology for Ministry, and I was reading at the end a little biographical sketch by Chad Van Dixorn of the life of Ferguson.
And he grew up in a devout home, and yet, like so many in perhaps our own homes, was very disinterested. Sundays were the worst day of the week. All the things I can't do. I have to go listen to teaching, and when will it be over, and I could just do what I want.
It was the drudgery of all things divine. And then he began to wrestle with his own sense of sin, and after his conversion, a great ordeal of wrestling and wanting to close with Christ and feeling conviction of sin and having great hopes and even an interest in the world and yet not closing with Christ.
And as he has told it in many different settings, one day he slipped and he fell, and when he kind of came to, an older man was there and noticed that he had a Bible in his hand, and he said, son, are you saved?
Are you saved? And it struck right through Ferguson's heart. But he recalls after how Sunday became the greatest day. Now it was the delight of the week, and all the things that had been drudgery were now great joys to him.
And it was this work of transformation that brought about consecration in his life. He realized now I want to serve God with my mind, with my heart, and with everything I can. I want to help others come to know this God who has made himself known to me.
And so this deliverance became devotion. That's how it always must be in the life of a Christian. For Ferguson, everything was new. He spoke about in this sketch how after some months he sat under preaching, and I mean he was in the right place to do it.
He sat under some of the best preaching that Northwest Scotland had to offer, and he says he'll never forget when a sermon was preached about Christ being present in him. This is what? Christ is in me?
And he walks down the street in the cold of the night, and when eyes weren't looking he'd start to skip and jump around all happily. He was just floored, amazed at the thought that Christ is being formed in him, is present in his life.
And so you see this picture of absolute consecration to God. It sounds like tyranny, it sounds like a burden, it sounds so tyrannical to those who have not experienced the love of God in Christ, but to those who have.
This is the most wondrous, joyous doctrine that we could ever possibly understand. Do you not know, Paul says, that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you're not your own?
You were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. You see the logic of consecration there? Don't you know you're no longer your own? You were reborn, born unto him at such a cost. You were bought with a price.
Therefore, glorify God. Because you've been delivered, devote yourself. You have been consecrated, and so consecrate yourself. You are a treasure, his own special possession. You are his joy. He loved you at this expense.
So now, devotion, as our brother said at prayer time, it's your reasonable, or a different translation, your acceptable service. The love of Christ, it constrains us, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5. This love undergirds our consecration.
And dare I say, Christian, you will not persevere in this life of sanctification, in this work of putting to death those sins that so easily entangle you. You will not persevere in that if the motive, if the basis for it, is not the constraining love of God in Christ.
I say again, the love of Christ constrains us. Roman Catholics get so far, whipped by guilt. Southern Baptists can get so far, whipped by guilt. But you will not get very far if you're not constrained by the love of Christ.
Paul says you were bought at a price. Stop and think about that price, and only then may you say, therefore, I glorify God with my body. We sang it from Francis Avergill. Take my hands, let them move at the impulse of thy love.
Not rest my hands, make them move by anxious guilt. Have I earned enough? No, no. Why are the hands being moved? Why is the life being consecrated? It's at the impulse of thy love. The impulse of thy love.
Now, if God's deliverance is the basis for God's command, if God's deliverance is the basis for God's command here in Exodus 13, then consecration is everywhere. Consecration is everywhere. Don't make the mistake that the doctrine doesn't exist unless the word that we connect to the doctrine is present.
For example, we don't find the word Trinity, and yet we have the doctrine of the Trinity that's rightly understood from the scriptures. You say, well, it's not biblical. Well, the word famous, the famous punchline for that is the word biblical is not found in scripture either.
But when you understand this connection, what I'm trying to hold together between chapter 12 and chapter 13 in Exodus is that deliverance leads to devotion, that the redemptive salvation of God comes with this desire to consecrate a people unto Himself.
And I dare say He would not have done the former if it were not for the sake of the latter. There would be no Passover if it was not God's desire to consecrate a people unto Himself. That's the very heart of redeeming the fall, that God would be with His people in a land that He would bring them to.
So when you understand that, you see, consecration is everywhere. Let's just take a look at Colossians 3. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth. Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. You see what Paul's getting at? Now, we don't have the word consecration here, but consecration is everywhere.
If we could summarize this in SLBC one-sentence fashion, we would say this. Because you've been delivered, devote yourself. Because you've been delivered, if you were raised with Christ, for you died, your life is hidden with Christ in God.
So what? So seek those things which are above. So set your mind on things above. So put to death those members on the earth. You see the logic here. You have been delivered, so devote yourself. We have a new identity.
We're in Christ, no longer dominated by the categories of our old nature, of old creation itself. We're now new creations in Him. We've died with Christ. We're raised with Him. Our life is now hidden in Him.
I've been delivered, translated from a kingdom of darkness and the dominion of that kingdom into a kingdom of light and freedom and peace. And so I think through the logic of this. Look at verse 12. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy, beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering.
As the elect of God, as the chosen, as the adopted, as the firstborn, as the consecrated, put on tender mercies. Here's where, I don't think we'll do it, but if I had a whole other week to talk about consecration, I'd be talking about this.
Notice that part of being consecrated unto God is how we treat one another and how we look at and regard one another. Putting on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, bearing with one another.
That's part of what it means to be consecrated, you know. God forbid we have a church with dirty Levites. We've been rendered clean unto God and that means we must humble ourselves in meekness with ferocious gentleness, bearing with one another.
That is a high and holy calling, brothers and sisters. But if we've been delivered, we must be devoted even to that. Above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful.
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching, admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts of the Lord, and whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
What is that? That's devotion. That's consecration. Why are you doing that? Because God in Christ forgave you and delivered you through the blood of the Lamb. You've been delivered, so devote yourself, Paul says.
Now lastly, last thing I'll connect consecration to is evangelism, which is holiness directed. So at conversion, we have holiness discovered. In our sanctification, which we should understand as consecration, we have our holiness devoted.
And with evangelism, we have our holiness directed. And this is all, again, the logic of this Passover complex. We already had it rehearsed for us. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God.
Now don't read past that too quick. It's by the mercies that we did not have, but now we have obtained. It's by those same mercies that we present our bodies a living sacrifice. Again, by the deliverance we devote.
By the mercy we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable or acceptable service. So consecration means, I'm in your employ, Lord. Just like some of us were talking this last Sunday night, I think Dan Hume mentioned it.
We're talking about just proper names for Lord and so on. Somehow we talked about how the title for Lord in the New Testament is simply Lord. There's no divine name that's used in reference to Jesus. It's simply Lord.
He's addressed as Lord. A title like Christ is very important, but Lord is how any ruler, any master would be addressed. You know, a governor, the master of a house, it's Lord. And so it's interesting to me that servants in the house would be calling their master Lord.
We still get that if you watch, you know, Downton Abbey. Oh, you know, my Lord, let me get you some tea. You have this old English quaint way of still using his lordship or her ladyship. So Lord is the address from the servant to the master.
It's interesting that the early Christians spoke this way. Many early Christians were probably slaves. They had many lords, earthly lords, but they still recognize even when I'm done serving my earthly masters, and even as part of serving my earthly masters, I'm serving my heavenly master, Lord.
Now we've dropped away from this idea of devoted service, and so for us the idea of of consecration is more foreign. But Paul here says, because you've been delivered, lay your life down that you may be a profitable servant.
Let my people go that they may serve me. Therefore, 2nd Timothy 2 .21, if anyone cleanses himself, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, oh interesting, sanctified, consecrated, and useful for the master, prepared for every good work.
So this is holiness directed. I'm not just made holy so that I can go and do my own thing with a new status and a new nameplate. I am made holy, I am consecrated for service unto God, prepared for every good work, useful for my master, my Lord.
Andrew Murray says this, in Israel all the firstborn and as their representatives all the children of Levi, that's numbers three, were exclusively claimed by God to be continually in the service of his house.
The church is now to maintain her hold on what they once occupied. Let me say that again, in Israel all the firstborn and as their representatives all the children of Levi were exclusively claimed by God to be continually in the service of his house.
The church is now to maintain her hold on what they once occupied. Her calling and her redemption from sin is distinctly and essentially aggressive. I love this. Her calling is distinctly and essentially aggressive to teach all of the nations and extend the kingdom throughout the whole earth.
So the Levites are set apart among the Israelites and the nation of Israel as a whole is set apart from all other nations. Why? So they could just kind of do their own thing, build walls and ignore what the pagans were doing?
Kind of make a monastic nation, as it were, to move to some compound and really work at holiness? No, they were made holy so that they might be light and salt that Gentile rulers would come funneling to the Mount of Zion.
And we have the same logic here with the church. Murray rightly says we must maintain that same hold. We're made holy so that we can aggressively seek to extend the kingdom throughout the world. Why? This is the promise made to Abraham, I will make your seed a blessing to all the nations of the earth.
So how do we maintain that hold? Well, in part we remember. That's why God gives them the Passover rite to be practiced year by year. It's because, like the Israelites, we're fickle, we're prone to forget.
So God says you will celebrate and you will learn from this every time you rehearse it. You'll be reminded of the deliverance that has called forth your devotion and you will be renewed by this great celebration to the great work in the world that I am doing.
Now if you followed after last Sunday we could say the same thing is still in view with the new covenant Passover meal, the Lord's Supper. Whenever we eat and drink we are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.
And just like the Israelites, year by year they are being renewed by that Passover remembrance to the Abrahamic promise to the nations that Zion must rise above all mountains, that the light and the holiness of Israel is to correspond to all of the tribes and tongues of the earth.
And the church now, when we celebrate this meal, is proclaiming his death, his delivering death, and his return. And the work of extending the kingdom is held forth from it. Such a declaration, Gordon Keddy has written, such a declaration is both evangelical and evangelistic.
He says this, the Lord's Supper is an ordinance that claims our hearts and commands consecration. It captures the abiding character of our commitment. In coming to the table I declare my heart is for the Lord and I'm a witness to the cross and I desire to lift him up not only to myself but before all as a Savior.
Such a declaration is both evangelical and evangelistic. Evangelical because it's coming from a heart that has been transformed by the gospel. Evangelistic because it proclaims to the world that there is a Savior they need to know.
So holiness is being directed. I don't know that we've approached the meal in this way as we ought. That's not only for our own individual examination leading to the objective appreciation of the cross and the objective accomplishment of our redemption, but it's also something thereby that we are consecrated, renewed in our consecration to go forth and tell the nations the good news of what God is doing.
Joel Beeky, if you've ever read a tremendous book by Beeky, it's a short read, Puritan Evangelism. He talks about how the Puritans approached sharing the gospel and preaching the gospel and he says this, preaching Christ with winsomeness and grace was the greatest burden.
They often repeatedly presented Christ in his willingness to save and the preciousness as the only redeemer of lost sinners. They did so with theological articulation, grandeur, and passion. They extolled Christ to the highest as both an objective and a subjective Savior and in doing so they abased man to the lowest.
It's not interesting. Listen to what he says, but they were not worried about injuring the self-esteem of listeners. They were far more concerned about rightly esteeming God. They were not concerned about offending the self-esteem of listeners because they were far more concerned to esteem God, to lift up Christ before the eyes of all, and if the only way to highlight and magnify his holy redemption is by showing the sinful, fickle, fallenness of man, then so be it.
They would not tickle the earth. Now what does 1st Peter 3 say about that? 1st Peter 3, Do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that's within you.
Now what do you see held together there? Peter says, don't be afraid, don't be threatened, but sanctify the Lord in your heart. Set him apart. Realize you've been consecrated by him for him, so sanctify him in your heart.
Sanctify yourself by sanctifying him in your heart, and therefore you will always be ready to give an answer for the hope that's within you. So what do you notice? Consecration and evangelism are bound together, but if we understand we've been delivered so that we may be devoted, it goes hand in hand that as we're sanctifying God in our hearts, we will be prone to speak to the hope that is within us.
We will be like Levites shedding light and salt, bringing foreigners to us. Notice we just read past it, but again 1st Peter 2 .9, you are a chosen generation adopted by God, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people.
Why? So that you may proclaim his praises. You see? Consecration and evangelism bound together. You are not saved to dwell in four walls behind a screen. You were saved to proclaim his praises. That's the foundation for why, if we are truly held by the gospel, we will truly hold forth the gospel.
Consecration belongs to evangelism. This recognition, this wonder that causes us to say truly and sincerely, take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, for thee. I wonder if I could close just with some reflection on the life of Frances Ridley Avergall, who wrote that hymn.
She deserves honorable mention for this reason only. I think the only time we ever use the word consecrated is when we're singing her hymn. So a few times a year our lips say consecrated and that's it, and it's all because of Frances Ridley Avergall.
But she understood that conversion is consecration. She understood that her whole life, and she understood that her growth in grace is actually a growth in devotion to God, a cleaving and a parting with anything that has a grasp on her life, on her thoughts, on her resources, on her affections that does not have God's name stamped upon it, or is not in service unto him.
And of course she understood that her consecration was bound up with evangelism, that she could not but share the hope that was within her because God had set her apart to himself. She lived a relatively short life, born in 1836, died in 1879.
She grew up in a home that both parents were very warm, very keen to teach their children to love the Savior, and she grew up not with missionary parents but with parents devoted to mission. She knew when they had to skip certain treats or certain luxuries because that was what they had devoted to the work of mission.
They were very faithful to support several international missions, and so she grew up seeing the the belt tightening as a result of devotion to the work of God. Sadly her mother took ill at a young age as well, and when she was 11 her mother died.
It really shook her to the core. Before she died something that stayed with her for many years was her mother's words, pray that God would prepare you for all that he is preparing you. Pray that God would prepare you for all that he is preparing you.
This was said to young Frances before she was a believer. She wrote in her 20s that one of the turning points in her life was a sermon she heard at about the age of nine, and the effect of that was she began to feel uneasy about the state of her soul.
She appreciated the warmth of her home and the Christian light that she saw in the church, but at this time she wrote, I don't think I had any clear idea about believing on the Lord, and so ridding myself of this burden that had pressed on my little soul, my general notion was I didn't love God at all, or at least not comparatively to most things in my life, and I was very bad and very wicked altogether, and if I went on praying very much something would come to me and change me all at once and make me like so many I had read about and so many that I had saw, but when I tried to be good that seemed to be next to no use.
It was like struggling in quicksand, the more I struggled the deeper I sank. Then she was converted. Her stepmother saw in intervening years how the Lord was working on her heart, and they'd often have conversations late at night around the fire, and Frances could say, I truly hope that I can be forgiven, and her stepmother would say, if you're speaking like that, you're not far off from it, dear.
And at one point in the night, having a conversation, her stepmother asked if the Lord Jesus were to come now and stand before you and bring about the the end of all things, could you not in that moment flee to him and embrace him and trust him?
Could you trust him if he were to come now? And she said, well yes, if he came now, I believe I would trust him. And she said, then why can't you trust him even when you can't see him, when he has not come yet?
And that seemed to be the spark of conversion in her life, and from that point forward, the change was immediate, and it was consequential. For the next decades of her life, she would constantly search out the scriptures.
She was an incredibly intelligent woman, brilliant. She went to Germany, and among native German speakers, finished first in the class on German. She also spoke Greek and Latin, understood Greek and Latin fluently, and she was a brilliant woman.
French. As a meditator on them for years. For instance, she would take the fruits of the Spirit, and every morning she'd begin with the first fruit, and she'd meditate on it and pray. And then in her journal, she would record that fruit and the impact it was making in her life, and how she was praying for it to increase.
Ways that it was not increasing, areas where she was falling short, and she would meditate and pray and ask the Lord, increase this quality in my life, give me more of your spirit in this way. The very year that she died, she had begun writing a journal of mercies.
Every day she wrote down God's kindnesses, however small they may have been. She had a heart to appreciate all the goodness. She never married. She died young, had very poor health, and always, despite sickness or disappointment, she found something to write down as a kindness from God.
She wrote devotional books for children. She had a passion to teach young children. She also visited the homes of married women, like a solid Titus II woman. She'd spend time with them and point them to the Lord and give them counsel.
Her whole life was filled with spiritual self-discipline, but when she wrote this famous hymn, Take My Life and Let It Be, it was toward the end of her life. Remember, she died in 1879. In 1873, towards the end of her life, though she didn't know it at the time, she became increasingly aware of how serious sin was and very zealous that no one would be caught up in it and risk breaking their fellowship with God.
She wrote, sin, in any compromise with sin, spoils fellowship with God, even if it's for a moment. We cannot receive it back until we repent and ask forgiveness. So she became zealous that no one would have a spoiled fellowship with God, and she became increasingly convinced of this need to utterly devote herself to the service of God in this way.
When she wrote the hymn, she had been staying with a family for five days. She often did this, she'd go and spend a week with a family and just help out and also observe and be able to speak into their life, and at this particular house she saw there was an opportunity to speak to Christ.
She wrote this, there were ten persons in this home, some were unconverted and they had long been prayed for, some were converted but they were not joyful Christians in the least, and so the Lord gave me a prayer, Lord I kept praying, give me everyone in this house, and by the end of the week he did just that.
Before I left the house, everyone was blessed of God. So the last night of my visit, I was entirely too happy to sleep. I passed the whole night in praise and wonder that God had consecrated me in this way, and so these cupboards began to form and one after another they fell in place as I was caught up in the rapture of that constant refrain, ever only all for thee.
So you see this woman's experience in sickness, in disappointment, in loss, she's recording all the kindnesses of God and she's examining her life, Lord is there any part of my life that's not constrained by your love?
I want to be profitable, I love you, and I want to show you that love, and here she is at this house and she realizes there's some who aren't saved and some who if they are saved they're not very joyful, and she recognizes, Lord I'm here for this reason, set me apart, give me some word, make me a light, make me useful, make me evangelistic, Lord.
She understood that her deliverance and her devotion was for this very reason, that she would be the cause of others to be delivered and devoted unto God. So beautiful that she desired to share Christ with others.
It was said of her, this was the pattern of her entire short life. It didn't matter how old, how young, how far away, her short life was geared towards sharing the hope of Christ and the joy of Christ and the joy of His service.
In reading about her this week, I wondered what would Frances Ridley Havergal estimate of my house if she were to spend five days with me and my family? What would her prayers be for us? What would her encouragement be?
What difference would her example make? Would I come away more devoted to God? Would I be able to say like her, take my life, take my hands, take my feet, take my voice, take my lips, take my silver, my gold, my intellect, my heart, my love.
Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, for Thee. Brothers and sisters, if we've been converted but we've not been consecrated, something is entirely wrong. And I hope we understand the logic of the Passover and the law of the firstborn.
If we've been delivered from death into this new life, reborn as adopted children of God, then it's for this very reason that God lays a claim upon us and says, you are mine. And constrained by that adopting love in the Spirit, we cannot but help to devote ourselves entirely to His cause, His work in this world.
We may not be able to change the nations, but we can by grace and effort change the neighbor. God, help us to do so. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for the beauty of not only what is said but just how it's structured, how things are put before and after that help us to see the brilliance and the clarity and the logic of what you have done and what you desire to do.
I pray, Lord, that in my own life I would start using the word consecration far more. Not just the word, Lord, but the reality that it speaks to. I pray for this church, Lord, that we would understand more as a church, both outward facing and inward toward one another, what it means to be consecrated unto you, totally devoted to you, giving no place for the flesh, no place for grumbling or division, no place for condescension or judgment.
But as those who had once not received mercy but now have received mercy, let us remember that our deliverance is to be our devotion to you, to your people, to this whole fallen world. Take our corporate life, Lord.
Take our family life. Take our individual lives. Consecrate them to you. May our lives resound with Havergals, ever only all for you. These things we ask in your Son's name. Amen.