Death and Blood = Freedom

April 22

Read: Exodus 7:13 - 12:32

*Feel free to skim over / read in chunks

Death and Blood = Freedom

Freedom is always preceded by death. Something has to die so that we can live… so that we can be free. Just think in a very practical sense: plants and animals die so that we can live. Now consider conceptually: “opportunity cost” is the idea that something else dies - an opportunity / the potential to do something else during that same time - so that the other option can be realized… come to life… be set free from the realm of ideas to enter into reality. Most importantly, this is true spiritually:

“By this we know love, that (Jesus) laid down his life for us…” (1 John 3:16)

“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matt. 16:25)

“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:7,8)

“You used to be dead because of your offenses and sins…” (Eph. 2)

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)

It is Christ’s death that brings us to LIFE. It is a dying of one’s old self that precedes the entering into newness of life in Christ. (cr. Rom. 6) It is a “letting go” in order to find. Death and blood always precede life and freedom.

The plagues are a graphic, and dare I say tragic, demonstration of this truth. The blood of a lamb on a doorpost. The death of a first born. Death and blood before freedom. Freedom for who is the question. The freedom of the people of God was brought about through the death and blood of another… both here in Exodus as well as through Christ.

There is something sinister that holds on to us… traps us… enslaves us. God is declaring “LET MY PEOPLE GO.” This phrase or idea is repeated over 10 times in this passage… God’s desire is to FREE his people from that which enslaves them. That freedom has come with a price… and Jesus PAID THAT PRICE… Jesus is OUR “blood and death”. Jesus suffered the “10th plague” for us - the death of God’s “only begotten”. (cf. John 3:16)

You have been given freedom in Christ. You are no longer a slave. God has declared, “Let my son go! Let my daughter go free!” He has rescued you in Christ. It wasn’t a pretty process.The plagues show us the length to which God will go to free those who are his own. Love you guys! - JDP