By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

These statements may seem at first glance to be merely chronological in nature and not systematic, but further thought reveals otherwise.  Moses’ refusal to find his identity as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, his choice to suffer with God’s people instead, his regard for meaningful disgrace over earthly treasures, his persevering abdication of the privilege into which he had been born, and his sacramental foreshadowing of judgment and redemption were all parts of a very intentional whole.  It took God a hundred and twenty years to work through these things with Moses, so we had better deal with them one at a time.

Inheritance is a powerful thing in the Scriptures.  There is a certain sense in which you could choose to carry on the torch of your father’s calling (or you could choose not to, as notably did Esau and certain kings of Judah), receiving the mantle of sonship by your obedience, but there is a greater reality in which you have no choice in the matter at all.  Esau’s punishment and his subsequent bitterness over it were so real because he was Isaac’s firstborn son, and by rights he was supposed to have received the blessing and been the head of his clan.  The disappointment God showed over the faithlessness of David’s sons was because they did sit in his throne, and by rights they should have enjoyed the benefits of the covenant made with their father.  Their status as men from whom God had a higher expectation served as their condemnation, and in the same way Moses knew that as one called out by God he could not claim the rights of a son of Pharaoh’s daughter.  If he chose the latter it would have cost him the former, for the son is always unconditionally expected to live up to the family reputation.  That is why every person’s sin nature originated with Adam’s iniquity; it is why whole families were obliterated in the Old Testament for the sin of the parents; it is why God forbade the intermarrying of his people with pagan nations; and most importantly it is the means by which the Gentiles were able to be grafted into the line of Abraham.  Unless we had been made part of the covenant family we would have had neither the expectation nor the inclinations that the children of that family have.

Knowing this helps us to understand why Moses so strangely took umbrage with the benefits of growing up in the royal household of Egypt.  It is not always the case that you have to choose so violently as he did, though.  Joseph, Daniel, Naaman, the Roman centurion – all these lived in the high courts of the world of their day, and served God faithfully in them.  Of course they did not commit a heinous crime and hasten their departure as Moses did, but I think we can see more of God’s hand at work here than that.  Because God’s kingdom is not of this world, the lines between the two are interwoven at his pleasure and are not always obvious from man’s point of view.  There are moments when it is time to “go to the land I will show you” or “get thee out of Sodom” or “let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains”, and it is not a good idea to hang around and ask questions.  Then there are periods, indeed whole epochs, where God’s people sing their songs in a foreign land, and hang their harps on the willows.  How do you know the difference between the two?  Only faith can tell, for only faith hears the voice of God.  There is always enmity between Zion and Babylon; but by her birthright the one is greater than the other, and being the greater she does not need the crutch of visible conflict to remind her of that truth.  Though Moses heard the voice of God calling him out into the wilderness, Joseph heard the same call toward the throne of Egypt; Daniel heard it calling him into a position of trust and power and influence in more than one kingdom; Naaman heard God forgive him for kneeling in a pagan temple as part of his duties; the centurion was taught of God through Roman discipline about the authority of God; and each of them knew where his true allegiance lay.

Shifting gears a little, the disgrace of calamity is very difficult for me to think about Christianly.  There are few feelings in the human soul so devastating as when others look on the ruin that has been made of your life and lay the charge for it at your own feet, saying that if you had not been so intractable about your principles, everything would still be OK.  And that seems unjust!  I want to tell myself (and anyone else who will listen) that my misfortune came about because I was following Jesus and not because of my own stupidity.  I want to make sure everyone understands that the people God gave me to lead died in the desert because of their unbelief, not mine; that they were unable to enter the Promised Land because of their timidity, not mine; and that on the contrary, I was the one who rescued their sorry butts from God’s wrath time and again.  But grace reminds me that we are a covenant community, and that the problems we go through are never simply those of a specific sub-group of people, but rather that we bear responsibility for them as a whole.  Grace reminds me, as it did Moses, of my own anger leading me into sin, and of the penalty for that sin: “You will not bring this community into the land I gave them.”  Disney never got closer to the truth than in A Bug’s Life when the grasshopper says to the ant princess, “First rule of leadership: EVERYTHING is your fault.”  It follows, then, that when some of us at Holy Cross struggle with sin we will all be affected.  Did not Christ bear the consequences for our sin, though he was sinless?  Then as we follow him we will also certainly bear each other’s burdens too.

Moving on from the thought of who we ought to fear, having already dealt with that in the context of Moses’ parents (an inheritance is a powerful thing), let us consider the destroyer of the firstborn.  Our modern minds recoil at the thought of this kind of slaughter on this kind of a scale.  What kind of a God would condemn a nation’s innocent children to death because he was angry about their king’s decisions?  Is that not comparable to what Pharaoh himself did when he issued his edict of unprovoked reprisals against the Israelites’ infant sons?

The answer to that is yes, in a way it is comparable.  There is no such thing as innocence in this world anymore.  That dimension came to an end in the Garden of Eden when we cast our lots with the rebellion against God.  The Scriptures teach us that from birth we are sinful in God’s sight and in need of salvation.  Every person is either serving God and furthering his kingdom for the life of the world, or serving Satan and furthering his kingdom for the death and destruction of all who live under its power.  If this is true, then the ultimate condemnation for sin (eternal torment and separation from God) is deserved.  The punishment for sin is, in a manner of speaking, to give us what we spent our lives working for.  Sometimes God does this ahead of time as he did in the case of the firstborn Egyptian sons, and he does this to strike the fear of God into those who see and understand what is truly going on.  Harsh?  Yes, but not on God’s part.  To choose against God is to choose against life.  It is to choose against anything good that ever was, and to call down destruction on the universe as we know it.  The harshness of the decision is ours to bear, for it was we who made it.  God simply brings the consequences – the truth, so to speak – of our decisions out from the shades of gray behind us, into which we cast the consequences when we chose.

Thanks be to God that he brings more than just the consequences of our decisions.  He also brings a Savior.  Do not suppose that the destruction of the firstborn of Egypt was unfair.  It happened to both Jew and Gentile in that story.  It happened to every family since Adam and Eve, and it happens still today.  By Law the firstborn has to die for the sin of the family.  What was the sign of forgiveness that was stipulated, the notice that stopped Death dead in its tracks?  It was the blood over the doorways of the houses that feared God.  Something died on their behalf, and by the eyes of faith we know it was not merely a lamb, but it was The Lamb, the One who took on himself the consequences of our sin.  He was the firstborn among many brothers, and it was to him the lot fell to suffer and die under the sword of the destroying angel.  He drank of the cup we could not drink from, and he was baptized with the baptism we could not stand up under.  Let it never be said that God is unjust, for the salvation of the firstborn of Israel because of him was duly bought, and at the full price.

In Christ we are descended from Israel, and our inheritance is to do the things God’s people do.  In Christ we are called to go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore and bearing the consequences of our corporate sin.  In Christ the penalty for sin has been paid and the firstborn has gone like a lamb to the slaughter, and his blood is over our doorways.  In Christ we are drawn out of the water, even as Moses was, and consecrated by the sacrament we go forth to speak the truth of the fearful mercy of God to a disbelieving world.  I pray that we will not forget the power of this story as we prepare to take Communion together.  What would have become of the Israelites if they had said, “Oh this is just a symbolic thing, and we know that we are really God’s people; don’t worry about that blood on the doorway tonight…”  As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Author: Jeremy Vogan

My name is Jeremy Vogan. I live in Staunton, VA with my wife and four kids. I love to write, and seek to honestly explore the intellectual and emotional implications of following Jesus as a deeply broken person in a twisted, cruel world that is full of veiled beauty and meaning. Writing is part of how I faithfully look for Jesus Christ to someday make all things new. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback! JV