R. Scott Clark Platforms Lems … Embraces Doug Wilson’s View of Ethnonationalism

“Furthermore, once a government separates people into groups based on ethnicity, I can’t imagine such groups existing without any racism happening. As a Christian, I’m fundamentally opposed to any type of political theory or nationalist view that separates people based on ethnicity.”

Shane Lems

1.) Governments don’t typically need to separate people into groups because it is ethnic groups that create governments. What Governments do is slam different people’s together so that the Government can control by dividing and conquering.

2.) Clark doesn’t define “racism” so I have no earthly idea what he is talking about when he uses that word therefore it is not possible to respond to such non-defined claims.

3.) Clark says he’s “Opposed to all nationalist views?”

All Nationalist views?

Acts 17:26 From one man He (God) made all the nationS, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and HE marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.

4.) Here is something that R. Scott Clark and Doug Wilson (mortal enemies) have in common. Perhaps they could start a Bromance based on this shared view?

R. Scott Clark’s analysis makes the analysis of Alfred E. Newman look like genius.

A Horse By Any Other Name is Still Marxism — Pt. I

Many are those who believe Karl Marx to be categorized as an economic theorist. This is false. Marx, like all ideologues was a theologian and Marxism is a theology that competes with Christian orthodoxy. If we realized that all sociology, ideology, macro economic theorists, philosophers, can only be what they are because of the theological a-priories they have accepted to make their theorizing go, we should not make the mistake of not understanding that these men are theologians before they are anything else. This is true of Marx as hope to tease out a little bit here.

Marx’s subset in theology was anthropology. Marx was seeking to answer the question “What does it mean to be human,” apart from presupposing the God of the Bible. Marx is answering, “What is Man,” without considering God. Marx then answered the question by saying that man is “homo economicus.” Marx believed that man was an inherently social being who wrongly understood himself only in terms of his labor. Marx believed if man was to find his true nature he had to release himself from the chains of property, as driven by capitalism with its theories of division of labor and the ownership of private property. Marx followed Rosseau’s theological claim that “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” The chains that Marx sought to loosen men from were the chains of private property. In theological terms private property was man’s original sin and Marx was a sociological prophet seeking to release people from their chains of private property.

We see the theological component in Marx’s emphasis on Revolution. For Marx Revolution is to the proletariat what regeneration is to the Christian. Revolution is the means by which men die to themselves and are reborn as a “New Socialist Man,” finally stripped of all private property and the desire for private property. Revolution then becomes a religious rite for Marx and his followers. This notion of stripping people of private property via the sacrament of Revolution is central and is the key to understanding where we are right now in this cultural moment in the West.

As an aside, as we understand this, we will see why Dr. Gary North was absolutely nuts when he insisted, towards the end of his life, that Marxism had been defeated. Marxism has not been defeated, it has merely morphed into new channels as well shall see. The outer shell may look different but the essence remains.

This anthropology of the necessity for man to be rebirthed and experience renewal so as to become the “New Soviet Man,” or the “New Socialist Man,” or the “New Sustainable and Inclusive Man,” is all over the literature of the Marxist writers. It is another indication that we are dealing with theology here and not primarily economics or sociology. If we don’t realize that we will never be able to think right about our task at hand in championing the cause of our Lord Christ. Not thinking rightly about this explains why so many of our clergy corps has fallen into Marxist like clap trap when they support ideas like “race is a social construct,” or “race doesn’t really exist,” or “race is only about pigment levels and nothing else.” These are all statements that have as their foundation a Marxist anthropology as we shall see.

Marx believed that human beings were perfectly social entities who’s fall entailed being caught up in the snare of private property. Marx believed that the perfectibility of man could be achieved if only he could be delivered from the sin of private property via revolution. Marx believed that the proletariat were kept down by the bourgeoisie and could only return to the garden by Revolutionary activity that eliminated private property. Only then would the workers of the world unite so that they were no longer alienated from themselves. Only by Revolution could man be man again and so build his Utopia.

Here we see the core of the issue. Property is man’s primal sin and the elimination of property by way of Revolution that tears down the social order that countenances property is how man returns to paradise.

This, of course is clearly seen in classical Marxism where the oppressors are the Capitalists/bourgeoisie property owner who are guilty of oppressing the proletariat. Some of us know and understand this story and have seen it played out in history.

But what if the category of “property” is fungible? What if a nuanced Marxism arises that relocates and redefines property to be other than material extrinsic possessions? What if a Marxism arises that finds property as a defining characteristic of immaterial intrinsic qualities like race and gender? Well, then, consistent with Marxist theory a Revolution must occur that seeks to strip that intrinsic property from the oppressors so that they can not lord it over the oppressed who do not have those intrinsic property markers.

If the possession of extrinsic property leads to class warfare in order to loose the chains of men born free, then possession of intrinsic property like whiteness, or maleness, or heterosexuality likewise can, should, and must lead to race warfare to pull down the bourgeoisie oppressor white man who is oppressing the proletariat pigmented man, lead to the war of the sexes where revolution pulls down the bourgeoisie male oppressor oppressing the oppressed female gender, lead to the war of the proletariat pervert class who is being oppressed by the oppressor bourgeoisie heterosexual class.

You see the claims of property have changed but all the theory surrounding the varying Revolutions remains Marxist at its core. The oppressed vs. oppressor class category remains. The Bourgeoisie vs. Proletariat conflict remains. The absolute necessity of revolution unto the destruction of social orders because of the sin of property remains. And though we have not spoken of it yet, the dialectical methodology that drives the Revolution remains. It’s all Marxism again all the way down.

Indeed, that the dialectical methodology is working is seen in the fact that the Revolution in classical Marxism has jumped the shark and is now operative for gender, race, sexuality. Marxist dialectics required that Revolution eventually find its way into other areas besides class.

All of this then demonstrates that the Marxist Revolution always leads to a leveling where any and all notions of property (both extrinsic and intrinsic) are destroyed. The old Saturday Night Live routine, “It’s Pat,” was prophetic in this regard.

Of course political tools are needed to eliminate private property. In order to eliminate extrinsic private property we see the rise of socialism and then communism. In order to eliminate intrinsic private property such as whiteness we see the rise of “Critical Race Theory.” In order to eliminate the intrinsic private property of heterosexuality we see the rise of “Queer theory.” In order to eliminate the intrinsic private property of assigned roles in femaleness and maleness we see the rise of feminism. From all of this we are reminded again that “the issue is never the issue, the issue is always the Revolution,” and the Marxist Revolution is about setting man free from all his social givens. If man was a text, Marxism’s goal is to release man from all context that defines the text.

Perhaps it is helpful here to employ the Roman Numeral system. Were we to outline this we would have;

I.) Marxism

A.) Classical — Communism
B.) Gender  — Queer Theory
C.) Sexual – Feminism
D.) Racial – Critical Race theory
E.) Able studies
F.) Fat studies

Or if we were Scientist we would talk about;

Genus — Marxism
Species — Classical, Gender, Sexual, Racial, Ableism, Morphism

The point to see here is that the chief opposition to Biblical Christianity remains Marxism, and one titanic application here is that when clergy like Doug Wilson, Voddie Baucham, J. Ligon Duncan, Albert Mohler, and countless others inveigh against Kinism or Christian ethno-nationalism they are that moment wearing the colors of team Marxism, and frankly are being anti-Christs. What other conclusion can be settled upon?

The ultimate goal is to abnormalize the normal and to normalize the abnormal so that man is free from his chains, free from any social givens, free from the defining hand of God.

Of course this isn’t going to relent. The dialectic continues. There are those out there now, continuing to press the boundaries of post-modernism, who are insisting that meaning and knowing are intrinsic properties that the intellectual bourgeoisie have and are using to oppress those clueless and dumb proletariat. This means that even meaning and knowledge must be deconstructed via the Marxist model of social order Revolution.

As near as I can tell, it is the Kinists alone who get the above in a consistent fashion and who alone are doing the grunt work of opposing the Marxists.

Christian Churches, Universities/Colleges, Clergy Should Not be Entrusted with Your Children

“One study by Samuel Abrams found an astonishing 12:1 ratio of liberals to conservatives among administrators on University Campuses (71 percent identified as “liberal” or “very liberal”; only 6 percent identified as conservative)….

For faculty in the humanities, the ratio was 32 Democrats for every one Republican.”

Jonathan Barth

It’s Time To Upend the Modern University

Real Clear Politics

“The fundamentalist parents of our fundamentalist students think that the entire ‘American liberal establishment’ is engaged in a conspiracy. The parents have a point. We do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.”

Prof. Richard Rorty

Philosophers and Their Critics – pp.21-22

As Biblical Christians (as opposed to those who masquerade as Christians) we must realize that the Universities/Colleges (hereafter U/C) are utterly lost to us. This is especially true to those U/C that adopt the adjective of “Christian.” Christian U/C are merely 10 or 15 years behind the “secular” U/C in worldview treason and moral turpitude. At best Christian U/C will give a Christian coating to this or that subject, or maybe they will open class with a prayer or maybe even still have chapel three times a week, but the substance of what they teach and what they model smells of sulfur.

I am reminded of a Mother who contacted me a few years ago, asking for advice about her son who had attended both of our Alma Mater (Indiana Wesleyan University). She was weeping that her son had lost his faith while there and that the reason for that was the teaching he had received from the IWU (formerly Marion College) professoriate.

A couple of years following that I had a student contact me who had been bounced from his honors track at Indiana Wesleyan University for simply wearing a Halloween costume that was not accepted as politically correct. I don’t remember if he was wearing an Indian (Feather, not Dot) costume or exactly what it was, but I do remember the young man was turned into an example for future students who wouldn’t kowtow to the DEI agenda of the University.

Similarly, Calvin University (formerly Calvin College) strives to be left of Chairman Mao. Grove City college, as another example, finds Dr. Karl Falseman, who supports socialized health-care, teaching students, while misrepresenting the Reformed faith to his students. There may be one or two exceptions out there but on the whole it really doesn’t matter which Christian U/C you name, as the general lot of them have been infected with one form or another of humanism.

But why should the Christian U/C be any different though, given the state of the Christian church? Most Christian Churches, along with the clergy, don’t object to their Christian U/C because they are themselves bollixed up in the same manner. The PCA couldn’t discipline Greg Johnson. The OPC lost some fine ministers over the whole Aimee Byrd/feminism fiasco where the clergy of the OPC decided to turn on the young clergy as opposed to turning on Byrd’s feminism. The OPC also had the ghost racism General Assembly where they were flailing and flinging about denouncing “racists” in their midst before they realized they really didn’t have racists in their midst, and it all was a case of clergy going in circles chasing their Geneva gowns.

All this to say to Biblical Christian parents… “You can’t entrust your children to the clergy. You can’t entrust your children to the Churches. You can’t entrust your children to the Christian U/C. You have to do all that work yourself.” Parents could get away with trusting these Christian Institutions and men once upon a time but in this climate if parents turn their children over to these Institutions their children are not likely to hit 18 or 22 and remain Biblical Christians.

Caveat Emptor

 

Believing in Race Makes One A Darwinist?

I had a friend and supporter of IronInk write in asking me to respond to this article;

https://1819news.com/news/item/amie-beth-shaver-black-history-month.

I will write a few words but the articles I link below completely demolishes the premise of the article in the first link;

https://www.businessinsider.com/boy-needs-bone-marrow-transplant-mixed-race-finding-match-difficult-2022-3?op=1

We are told by the author of the article of her listening to a pod-cast. She learned from that podcast of;

“Their two-part Episode 19 – in which they discussed National Geographic  2018 article about race being a primarily made-up label with no scientific or genetic basis – reminded me about Acts 17:26.”

So, race has no scientific or genetic basis, per this idiot podcast (a view that is even heard from many if not most pulpits today) and yet the second article linked above clearly demonstrates that when one needs a bone marrow transplant suddenly race is real.

A USA Today article from 2019 also reinforces that idea;

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/30/family-3-year-old-leukemia-plead-bone-marrow-transplant-donor/1293400001/?fbclid=IwAR1Ga8b-ANH_miBY_912zk5uq7P0rRRJh-uOH2d9i-Y0ifu1bdPbkWdbfRo

“It’s difficult for any (multiracial) person to find a match on the registry,” Schatz said, explaining that while white people have a 77% chance of finding a perfect match on the registry, people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds have much lower odds.

Latinos, for instance, have a 46% chance of finding a match, and blacks have a 23% chance of a match, according to Schatz.

She didn’t know how likely it is to find a multiracial match though the registry, only that the chances are even lower for people like Ailani, whose life now depends on it.”

Look, though it seems painfully obvious, you can’t tell me that “there is no such thing as race,” or that, “race is a social construct,” or that, “race is merely about pigment,” (all jejune drippings we get from modern clergy as well as others) and then turn around and tell me that the genetic realities of race become an obstacle when doing a bone marrow transplant. Clearly, race exists and no amount of denial is going to change that reality.

Further, this also makes it clear that believing that race is real does not make one a Darwinist anymore than believing that “Fudruckers” is the best Burger joint makes one a hamburger. Darwin, and his intellectual heirs may have wrongly obsessed over race, and even made wrong conclusions and theories regarding race, but Darwin did not invent race anymore than Newton invented gravity.

Elsewhere in the first linked article we find,

  And when did people start buying into the hideous notion that one race was superior to another?

Superiorities and inferiorities run through all the distinct races. Look at the National Basketball Association (NBA) and you’ll discover by way of observation that Blacks are, generally speaking, superior athletes when compared to other races. Likewise, when one looks at building beautiful civilizations, one discovers that White Christians are, generally speaking, superior at building beautiful civilizations to other races. Secondly, all superiorities of all races in all fields is completely according to the God of the Bibles appointment and sovereignty so that no race should boast as if their superiority is by their genius absent of God’s ordaining decrees.

So, there is nothing hideous in the notion that differing superiorities and inferiorities run through different races.

In conclusion, we quite agree that there is indeed one human race but within that one human race God has, in His providence, created a diversity of races. Further, within the diversity of each race God has, in His providence, ordained a diversity of ethnicities within each race.

This is clearly hinted at in Acts 17:26

26 From one man he made all the nations…

One man… many nations. Keep in mind that nations in the NT understanding means “a descent from a common patriarch.”

God Himself is both One and Many and the creation that fell from His hand is likewise both One and Many. The reality of race is one illustration of the creational One and Many. The different races though descending all from their Father Adam are a portrayal of God’s unity and diversity.

So, remember there is just one race, and all the distinct races God ordained comprise the human race.

10th Plague — Exodus 12 — Passover

There is a great deal here to examine so let us get right to it.

I.) God & the New Passover Time

Here in chapter 12 the 10th plague is being explained and the Hebrew children are being told how to prepare for the coming Angel of Death so that He will pass over.

An immediate matter of interest here that presents itself is found in vs. 2

2 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. 

Israel, living among a pagan people marked time in the same way as the pagans around them. God tells them that the event that is about to occur requires them to mark time in a new way. The calendar is to be remade by the Passover and the new calendar would begin with the time of Israel’s redemption.

Today, though changing, we still mark our time as BC & AD. BC stands for “Before Christ and refers to all time prior to the birth of Jesus the Christ. The abbreviation AD stands for “Anno Domini” in Latin. In English, this means “in the year of our Lord.” This abbreviation refers to all time after the birth of Jesus Christ.

The humanists have sought to change this back to reflect their preferred pagan presuppositions. In France during the French Revolution  during October 1793, the Christian calendar was replaced with one reckoned from the date of the Revolution, and Festivals of Liberty, Reason, and the Supreme Being were scheduled and mandated.

Something similar is happening now in academia. Now the Christian time tags of BC & AD are being changed out for BCE (before Common Era) and Common Era.

This is not insignificant. It is a attempted means to create standards which would strip us of being able to be known, by objective categories, as a Christian people.

With God giving to His people a new way of measuring time God is giving Israel an objective marker by which they could be known as distinctly His people. It is one way that the Israel who are not “the Israel of God,” remain in some sense God’s Israel. There are these objective markers that mark out Israel as Israel.

Similarly, when we erase Christian time markers such as BC & AD we erase an objective marker that connects Westerners to the objectiveness of Christianity even if they individually are not subjectively Christian. To erase these is one more step into the void of the complete dechristianization of a people.

II.) God, Passover & The Family

In the Egyptian plagues God goes after the gods of Egypt…. their religion and their Temples. This demonstrates the centrality of religion in the life of a people. However, when God goes for the kill shot with the 10th plague, God does not go for the people’s gods, religion, or temples, instead God goes for the family. This demonstrates that should one desire to destroy a social order one has to attack both their religion and their family structure. These two are the foundation upon which all social order rests.

With God’s killing of the Egyptians first born we see that the family is a central Institution in the life of God’s people. By killing the first born God was going after the strength of the family and its nearest future in carrying on the place and responsibility of the family into the future. God’s attack on that Institution demonstrates that the family is every bit the foremost entity in a biblical social order as is the religious assembly of a people.

This in turn reminds us that the family is every bit as important as the Church in terms of the institutions of a godly social order and that in turn destroys both the ecclesiocentrics (CREC) and the familiocentrics when either or both of them insist on being the one and only institutional center of a Godly social order.

In the way God destroyed Egypt we see that both of these institutions (Church & Family) are co-centers of our undoubted catholic Christian faith.

Our enemies well understand this, even if we do not. The Marxists for example in the Communist manifesto desired to rid men of private property and they understood that the family was an extension of private property. One could not be destroyed w/o the other being destroyed.

Marx wrote,

On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie,”

The family, by God’s design, is a foundation for any social order and if one desires to destroy a social order then one goes for the family. God does that in this final plague.

The flip side of this is the way God protects Israel in their family units. What we are noting here is the centrality of the family in God’s design. We have seen that in the fact that when God goes for the kill shot in Egypt He goes for the family.

But we see also the importance and centrality of the family in this final plague in the way that the Passover is kept. All of the language throughout this text demonstrates the centrality of the family to God’s social order.

The Passover is to be a family meal. The centrality of the family here is also stressed in the fact that the children participated in the Passover ritual by asking the questions, thus being taught the meaning of the Passover and of course children who could eat table food would have partaken of the Passover meal.

And as a brief rabbit trail, this mindset was carried over in the early church where the children were trained to ask question concerning the meaning of communion as a part of the earliest liturgies, and they then partook of the elements.

The administration of the Supper standeth not in a private usage, as belonging to some chosen and appointed persons, but it is public and common unto the whole church, so that as many as be reckoned among the members of the church, for whom Christ’s body was given, and his blood shed upon the cross, are to be admitted thereunto. And the very tradition of the Apostle, and the custom of the primitive church doth sufficiently declare, that the use thereof is common unto all faithful, in so much that the fathers did admit the infants of the faithful also, as we may see in Cyprian and Augustine.

It is known that the sacrament was given to the children of the faithful also in the time of Pope Innocent, Cyprian, and of Augustine, as well in Europe as in Africa.

Wolfgang Musculus
2nd Generation Reformer

One of the errors of the modern Church over the past few 100 years has been the constant and ongoing shedding of the centrality of the family in our faith and our living.

The text here describing the Passover demonstrates that we should be re-centering the family. The community then was a family of families and the Church today should be the community that is a family of families sharing a common faith and confession.

Strong churches imply strong families and strong families imply strong churches. You can only have one without the other without great difficulty. The enemy knows this better than we do, which explains his ongoing attack on both family and church.

III.) God and Passover Atonement

A.) God & His spokesmen Declaring Passover

Here we get to the crux of the matter. What I’m about to set forth is really Christianity 101 and the substance is that which we should all be as familiar with as the names of our family members.

In this whole plagues narrative we have seen Moses & Aaron serving as types of Prophet, Priest and King of God unto Pharaoh. They are types of Christ to the antitype that will be fulfilled with the coming Christ. Which is to say that they are those who prefigure the Messiah who is to come.

Now where do we see this type – anti-type dynamic? Well, we see it first here in the work of Moses & Aaron before Pharaoh. Moses and Aaron have been to Pharaoh prophet, priest and king, which serves as a type to Christ’s fulfillment anti-type. Christ is the great prophet, priest, and King of Scripture but all of that is anticipated in the OT. Here Moses and Aaron have been the anti-type prophet who have spoken forth God’s Word to Pharaoh at every turn. They have been God’s mouthpiece to Pharaoh and in doing so they have spoken with God’s voice. In this sense Christ is the greatest prophet who speaks forth as Prophet the Word of God… indeed He does so as the very Word of God. So when we look through Moses and Aaron here in the plagues narratives as coming to Pharaoh to speak the mind of God about what will be, we see the anticipation of a coming Christ who is the antitype .. the fulfillment of all they prefigured. In brief, when we see Moses and Aaron here we see Christ the prophet. Christ comes and speaks as God’s great Prophet.

In noting this we are reading the passage Christologically — in a Christ centered fashion. We are seeing Christ adumbrated and foreshadowed. And it is proper we should read the text in such a fashion for all of Scripture breathes the presence of our magnificent Lord Jesus Christ.

In the same way in these plagues Moses and Aaron have been anti-types — prefigurements — of Christ in His Kingly role. When Moses and Aaron command Pharaoh, “Let my people God that they may serve me,” this is the voice of the King. This is not the way of a negotiator, or the way of a manipulator, or the way of the salesman. This is the the way of a King saying, “Do this, or suffer the consequences.” Moses and later Christ in a much more fulsome capacity is a Great King and He is not selling something, He is not negotiating in His commands, He is not trying to manipulate. He comes to the sinner who is in great rebellion as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and He says to the sinner, just as Moses says to Pharaoh here … “Do this or die.”

Listen my friends, Christianity is not a religion where God’s spokesmen are beggars or cajolers or grifters. We are all here prophet priests and kings under sovereign God and we speak with the voice of Kings where our great God has spoken. We say to sinners as Christ says to Moses, “Repent or die.” There is a certain imperiousness to the Gospel command. This is why it is so often said of us, “you sure have a lot of confidence,” and even with frequency, “you sure are arrogant.” I’m sure Pharaoh thought the Kingly bearing of Moses and Aaron was “arrogant.” I’m confident that no one ever spoke to Pharaoh the way that Moses and Aaron spoke to Pharaoh. Of course the man thought it was arrogance on steroids.

I’m sure the Pharisees opposed to Christ also thought that Christ was imperious in the way He spoke. People who are sitting on the top of the social ladder are not used to be spoken to as if they are at the bottom of the ladder.

But there it is. We are not glad handers or grifters. We speak with earnest as Kings before God and His Christ, saying, “REPENT.”

Finally, Moses and Aaron serve as Priests before God in the larger Exodus narrative. Remember one of the key roles of a Priest was to speak to God for the people. We find that most glaringly in the plagues in Ex. 8

Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the LORD to take the frogs away from me and my people. Ex. 8:8

Pharaoh was imploring Moses and Aaron to do Priestly interceding work for him.

Later in the Exodus account when Moses intercedes before God that God might spare His people for their sin we see again the anti-type role of the Priest being raised up. It is a anti-type to Christ who is the fulfillment type who prays for His people as the Great High Priest in John 17 and who continues in His priestly role in Praying for us right now at the right hand of the Father. Hebrews 7 teaches that our Lord Christ ever lives to make intercession for us.

All of these offices are here in the plague narratives. These great truths of Christ as our Prophet, Priest, and King foreshadowed in the OT via the way that Moses and Aaron deals with Pharaoh.

And this is what we are called to now. Each of us buried in baptism with Christ are united to Him and in being united to Him we now are ourselves prophets, priests, and kings, under sovereign God assigned and delegated with the work of making his name known. Even, at times, saying to people, “Repent or you will die.” Even saying to men, “In times past God winked at your ignorance, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent.”

And if we need anymore support our own Catechism asks;

Question 32: But why art thou called a Christian?

And then goes on to give as the answer (and I am summarizing here) we are called Christians because we are prophet, priests, and kings under sovereign God.

B.) God and His Passover Lamb

Here the text describes the requirements of God in order to be passed over by the wrath of God.

3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without[a] blemish, a male [b]of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. 7 And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two  doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.

There is a great deal to speak off here.

Of course, once again, we find anti-type and type all over the passage. The Passover Lamb is an anti-type of the to come type of the lamb of God who giveth his life for the sins of the world who Himself was without the spot or blemish of imperfection/sin.

Here we find the reality of danger. God is going to kill dead the first-born of of every household where the blood does not cover the lintel of the home. If Hebrew homes don’t have the blood, Hebrew homes are going to wake up with fewer family members then they went to bed with.

God’s wrath is coming upon all men, and the only place of safety is to be found as under the blood of the lamb that was sacrificed as a means of protection of the just wrath of God. God is an avenging and jealous God. He will by no means clear the guilty apart from His proscribed way of escape.

And so that passover lamb in this 10th plague is a lamb of propitiation. The blood of this lamb turns away the just and fierce wrath of God against sinners who will not repent. This is propitiation. God see’s the blood on the lintel and His wrath is turned away and He passes over the household.

Of course the blessed Lord Jesus Christ is the lamb of God who provides our needed propitiation. God sees the blood of Christ covering us and His wrath passes by because it was already spent on the sacrifice.

And so we can understand why it is said that, “without the shedding of blood there is no turning away of wrath.”

Of course there is the idea of substitution here as well. That Passover lamb was dying a substitutionary death in the place of those whose household was under the blood. By recognizing the necessity for shed blood they confessed their need of a substitutionary and vicarious sacrifice to spare them the just wrathful judgment of God.

This idea of vicarious points to substitution. The language in the NT is that Christ died in our place, on our behalf, in our stead, for us. The word ‘vicarious’ (vicarius from vicis, ‘change,’ ‘alteration’) means acting, or suffering, for another, or in the place of another. The idea of change, transfer, or substitution pertains to the term. It has the same root as ‘vice’ in ‘vicegerent,’ ‘viceroy’ or ‘vicar,’ and other words which signify that one person has assumed the place, position, or office of another.

That lamb assumed the place, and position of the one who deserved the treatment that the Passover Lamb received in their stead.

All of this is screaming at us. It not only screams propitiation, and vicarious substitution, it screams sacrifice.

God’s wrath is just and God determines that the only way it can be turned is by a sacrifice that He determines. The sacrifice has the purpose of appeasing the just wrath of God. Pharaoh didn’t take seriously the wrath of God and so didn’t bother offering up the requisite sacrifice.

With the consequence that the first born of all of Egypt died.

Here, modern man plays the role of Pharaoh. He does not take God seriously. He does not flee to the sacrifice that God provided for his safety. Instead he seeks to provide his own sacrifices to assuage his conscience. He offers up his children as sacrifice by sending them to Government schools and by sometimes literally burning them in the fires of Molech.

If man will not have God’s sacrifice he will find his own sacrifice to desperately find forgiveness for his offenses He cannot escape.

How can we preach this or hear this apart from a sense of burden? Burdened that God’s glory is so routinely neglected? Burdened that modern man would rather die eternally …. would rather experience the wrath of God then flee the wrath to come by trusting in Jesus Christ as God’s only place of safety.

The weight of God lies so lightly upon me … lies so lightly upon all of us.

Looking at the plagues, reminds us that we needs be a people who fear God and consequently are a people who command all men everywhere to repent.

My friends… much of this is the core of the Christian faith. I trust that all of us here have this at our fingertips and know this truth better than the names of our family.