God’s Redeeming Grace
If someone were to ask you what the Bible is about, what would you say? How would you describe the content of God’s word? What would you tell people to convince them that the Bible is the most important book ever written? The Bible is more than a history book, a theology book, a book of practical everyday wisdom, or a book of hope for troubled times. The Bible is essentially a grand origin-to-destiny narrative. It’s God’s story, accompanied by his explanatory and applicatory notes. One big theme holds together all the different parts of the Bible and all its different genres of literature. That theme is the theme of redemption. The Bible is the story of God’s unleashing his power in order to provide the one thing that everyone needs: redemption. We need to be redeemed not just from the trials of life or our inadequacies or our weaknesses. No, we need to be redeemed from our sin. The main target of God’s redeeming grace and power is not something outside of us, but something dark and destructive that lives inside of us.
The biblical story is marked by moments when God unleashes his redeeming power, so that his plan marches on until sin is finally and completely defeated and peace and righteousness reign on earth forever and ever.
Paul David Tripp offers 30 selected readings for Easter, adapted from his book Everyday Gospel, with questions to help readers reflect on and celebrate how the resurrection of Jesus Christ radically changes life today.
The liberation of Israel from Egypt is one of those redemptive moments. The children of Israel cannot be exterminated in Egypt because the Messiah must come out of Egypt to provide final redemption for the chosen children of God (see Hos. 11:1). God demonstrates his lordship over every aspect of creation by unleashing his power in ten mind-blowing plagues. He is a covenant-keeping King, and he will do whatever is necessary, in his incalculable might, to deliver his children. This demonstration of his almighty power makes it clear that he will not abandon his promises. His will will be done (Ex. 12:33–42).
You have to stand as a witness to this incredible physical display of the enormity of the power and rule of the Lord and ask, “Who is a God like our God? Who loves his children like our God? Who is faithful like our God?” As you stand in awe of this picture of the power of God’s redeeming mercy, it is vital to remember that in this moment God is not just moving to redeem Israel from its slavery in Egypt, but he is also moving to redeem us from our slavery to sin. If there had been no redemption from Egypt and no delivery to the promised land, there would have been no Messiah born in Bethlehem to live a perfectly righteous life, die a substitutionary death, and rise victorious over sin and death. All the redemptive moments in the Old Testament are not just for the people at the time, but they are for us too. In each moment God is fulfilling the promise he made in Genesis 3 that he would send a Redeemer to crush the head of the serpent, defeating sin and death. The story of the plagues is your story. The redeeming grace is not just for the Israelites back then but for you right here, right now.
God intentionally does things in a way that defies human understanding, explanation, and credit-taking.
A Sacrificial Lamb
It is a major understatement when the Bible says that God’s ways are not like our ways and his thoughts are not like our thoughts (Isa. 55:8). No human being, no matter how brilliant, insightful, or experienced, would have been able to write the grand biblical story. The way God chooses to work and the instruments he chooses to use surprise us again and again. The apostle Paul expresses it this way: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor. 1:27–29). God intentionally does things in a way that defies human understanding, explanation, and credit-taking. He works in ways that cause us to step back and say, “Only God could have done this,” and in saying this, humbly run to him for the help that he alone is able to give.
Such is the story of the final emancipation of God’s chosen children from Egypt. Despite Pharaoh’s resistance in the face of the terror of the plagues, God would not grow weary, and he would not turn his back on those who were the object of his covenant promises. He would deliver. No one would stand in the way of the divine and holy will of the King of kings and Lord of lords, not even the most powerful ruler on earth. But the way the people would be freed could never have been anticipated by any Israelite. By God’s wise and holy plan, the Israelites would be saved from slaughter and emancipated from their bondage by the blood of a I lamb. That blood, sprinkled on the doorpost of an Israelite house, meant that God would pass over that house. God chose a lowly but spotless lamb to provide both salvation from death and liberation to a new life for his covenant children (Ex. 12:3–7).
Our hope, too, rests on the shoulders of a Lamb. Jesus didn’t come as a conquering general, to throw down the kingdoms of men. No, he came to be a sacrificial Lamb. He, too, was a Lamb without blemish, who would be sacrificed for the salvation and liberation of all who believe in him. By the power of his shed blood, we are delivered from our bondage to sin and death and liberated to a new life of freedom as the children of God. We never could have written this story. We never would have anticipated that death would be the portal to life, that God would send a Lamb to do what kings, queens, and generals could never do. Now, that’s a radical story, but it’s very, very good news.
This article is adapted from Everyday Gospel Easter Devotional by Paul David Tripp.
