The Children For Christ by Andrew Murray

It has often been pointed out that, of all the Old Testament sacrifices,
there is none that gives a clearer or richer revelation of the person and
work of our Lord than the Passover. It has often, however, escaped
observation how the whole institution of the Paschal Lamb aimed at
deliverance, not of the individuals, but of families; it dealt not with the
persons, but with the families, the houses of God’s people. What else is
the meaning of the expression, A lamb for an house? or (as in ver. 21),
Take you lambs according to your families? and of the blood sprinkled
upon the house? As so it is expressly declared, `When your children
shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall say, It is
the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, who passed over the houses of the
children of Israel, when He smote the Egyptians and delivered our
houses.’ Among the Egyptians it was the first-born in every house who
died, as representing the house, as in Israel it was the first-born who
through the blood was saved from the impending danger and
consecrated for God. All teaching how God, in redeeming His people
and revealing the principles on which He is to deal with them, lays this
down as a fundamental law in the Passover and the blood-sprinkling: I
deal with you, not as individuals, but as families. As I chose and blessed
you, as the seed of your father Abraham, so I still bless every household
through the believing father, who sprinkles the blood in obedience to
My command. The lamb and its blood are the consecration of the
dwellings and the family relations of My people. In the hands of the
father, God thus places the destiny and the safety of the whole house.
Christ, our Passover, is slain for us. We love to trace how, in every, even
to the most minute particular, the foreshadowings of the Paschal Feast
were fulfilled in Him. Have we any warrant in God’s Word for excepting
this so important feature, and allowing the type to hold good in every
respect but this? Is, in this one respect, the Old Testament feast to stand
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