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The Most Important Son Death of the
Firstborn Israel is my son, even my firstborn.—Exodus 4:22 Richard Suraci After the family of Jacob had settled in Egypt they prospered: “The children ..of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we” (Exodus 1:7-9).
This led to a reversal of fortune when the Egyptians appointed task-masters to
force them to build Pharaoh’s cities. Yet the more they worked, the more
children they produced. It reached the point where Pharaoh told the Hebrew
midwives to kill the male babies and spare the females. But the midwives ignored
the king’s order and many males survived. Moses “Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe. … She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. This is one of the Hebrew babies, she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? Yes, go, she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you. So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water” (Exodus 2:1-10, NIV). How wonderfully God’s providence worked in the life of Moses, who became Israel’s leader and deliverer. Stephen recorded God’s dealings with Moses beginning with his abortive attempt to help his people which resulted in his fleeing to Midian. Stephen continued: “After forty years had passed [in Midian], an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord’s voice: I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him, Take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt” (Acts 7:30-34, NIV).
“Now the LORD
had said to Moses in Midian, Go back to Egypt, for all the men who wanted to
kill you are dead. So Moses took his wife and sons … and started back to Egypt.
And he took the staff of God in his hand. The LORD said to Moses, When you return to Egypt,
see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power
to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then
say to Pharaoh, This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I
told you, Let my son go, so he may worship me. But you refused to let him go; so
I will kill your firstborn son” (Exodus 4:19-23,
NIV). The Firstborns Were Special In the following chapter God sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh with the message, “Let my people go.” Pharaoh refused and God sent nine plagues upon the Egyptians. During each plague, Pharaoh promised to let the people go if the plague was removed, but he changed his mind each time and kept them in bondage. The tenth plague caused the death of all the firstborn males and beasts that were not under the sprinkling of the blood on the doorposts and lintel of the home. Firstborn in the Hebrew language, according to the Septuagint, means to ripen early. The firstborn son in the Jewish culture had many privileges, which required that he be the firstborn of the father and his mother not be a slave or concubine: “If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love. He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father’s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him” (Deuteronomy 21:15-17, NIV). The eldest son received a double portion of the father’s inheritance and a special position in the family. This rule, however, did not apply to the sons of concubines or slave girls: “Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. You are not going to get any inheritance in our family, they said, because you are the son of another woman” (Judges 11:1,2, NIV). This principal was important in relation to Jewish families. God’s promise to Abraham was to come through his seed by Sarah his wife and not his seed by Hagar her servant: “Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac. The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son [Ishmael]. But God said to him, Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring” (Genesis 21:9-13, NIV). The apostle Paul refers to this principle: “It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. For this was how the promise was stated: At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son” (Romans 9:6-9, NIV). Isaac, the Lamb In Genesis 22 God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son in the land of Moriah. Early the next day he traveled with his son and two servants with wood, fire, and a knife. Three days later, when they had reached Moriah, father and son went on alone. Isaac asked about the absence of a lamb and Abraham said God would supply one. Abraham prepared an altar, placing wood and his son on it. Lifting his knife, he heard a voice telling him to not slay his son. In the thicket was a ram which he sacrificed in Isaac’s place. The angel of the Lord said: “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you … and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me” (Genesis 22:16-18, NIV). While God did not allow Abraham to sacrifice his only son, God did not hesitate to let His only beloved son die on Calvary’s cross: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Solomon prophesied of Jesus: “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; … Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind” (Proverbs 8:22,30,31, NIV). The Logos truly loved mankind and his privilege of creating them; later he gave his life for them (see Genesis 1:26,27 and John 1:1-3). “There are two senses in which the true church of Christ may be considered: All who like the early church were fully consecrated to the doing of our Father’s will, amenable only to Christ’s will and government, recognizing and obeying none other —these saints from the beginning of the Gospel Age down to its close, when all of this class are sealed and the door to the high calling closes, constitute the ‘CHURCH OF THE FIRST BORN,’ whose names are written in Heaven. …The other sense in which this same class is recognized, is, by counting a part for the whole, thus all the living of this class may be spoken of as the church; or again any part of this class of living followers who may meet together may properly be called the church; for by the word of Jesus we know that wherever two or three are assembled, he will be among them, consequently that would be a church meeting—an assembly of the ‘church of the First Born.’ ”—Reprints, p. 295.
The “church of the firstborn” (Hebrews 12:23) are the church of the redeemed,
those who are chosen by God through the blood of Christ applied on their behalf,
consecrated to God forever. The destruction of the firstborn was the tenth and
last plague inflicted on the Egyptians (Exodus 11:1-8; 12:29-33). This was a
devastating blow to the Egyptians. It was their custom to rush from their homes
into the street bewailing the dead with bitter outcries. Every member of the
family united in expressions of sorrow. How great was their grief when at
midnight Jehovah smote all the Egyptian firstborn, both their male children and
their animals. Tribe of Levi Substituted for Firstborns The redemption of Israel’s firstborns pointed to a priesthood belonging to the firstborn sons of Jewish families. God assigned the future work of those firstborns to the tribe of Levi in the service of the Tabernacle (Numbers 3:5-13). It was ordained that the firstborn of the other tribes, as well as the firstborn of the animals which could not be sacrificed, should henceforth be redeemed (Numbers 18:15). Redemption of the firstborn child took place when he was a month old. The father gave the priest five silver shekels. Jewish people still observe this law of redemption. When the firstborn male is thirty days old, the parents invite their friends and a rabbi to a meal the following day. The rabbi invokes God’s blessing, looks at the child and the price of redemption presented before him. The rabbi asks the father which he would rather have, the money or the firstborn child. Upon the father’s reply that he would rather pay the price of redemption, the priest takes the money, swings it around the head of the infant in token of his authority, and says, “This is for the firstborn, this is in lieu of it, this redeems it; and let this son be spared for life, for the law of God, and for the fear of heaven.” Peter, referring to this Jewish ceremony, said: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born [or: begotten] again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever. And this is the word that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:18-25, NIV). As the blood of the slain lamb delivered the firstborn from certain death and the nation was thereby delivered, so the blood of Jesus delivers the church of the firstborn and upon that deliverance the world will receive its deliverance from Adamic death. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming [Greek: parousia, presence]. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:21-26). |