"…And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." Exodus 12:13.

Believer, did you know that the blood of the Passover lamb is a picture of the blood of Jesus by which believers are made righteous in God's sight and saved from God's wrath; Romans 5:9 says-

"And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God."

God said in Exodus 12:13- "…And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt."

God did not say "when I see your good works" or "when I see how well you are obeying the law" or “when I see your fasts, tithes and seeds." Wonderful as these things are, they can neither make anyone right with God nor save from death, "For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are." Romans 3:20.

The children of Israel escaped death not because the people obeyed the law, fasted or paid their tithes. It was not because they were doing good things before, during or after the angel of death moved over all of Egypt. They did not even have the law at the time. They were not under law; we who are in Christ "..are not under law but under Grace."

No matter how decent or how vile each individual Israelite was, the blood made the difference between life and death, saving them from God's wrath, as Christ's blood does for we who are in Christ today:

"And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God." Romans 5:9

Christ's blood makes all who believe in Him righteous in God's sight and saved from wrath, even though we are guilty of many sins: Romans 5:16-

"And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins."

We see another faith picture of Christ's blood as our only means of salvation in the life of the prostitute Rahab of the “line of scarlet (red) cord" at her window. Line here is Tikvah in Hebrew, which also means Hope. Hope in Bible terms is not a maybe kind of hope that might end up not happening. It is a confident expectation of good. Christ who shed His blood for us is our hope of salvation.

This is the truth- our obedience to the law in a bid to be godly counts for nothing before God. Isaiah 64:6 describes our own human effort-driven righteous acts as "a menstrual rag." Only God's gift of righteousness to us in Christ (through the blood) suffices to make righteous in His sight.

There may be results when one tries to be godly by human effort but these results are fading away, according to the birth of Ishmael whose birth involved human effort as Abraham and Sarah took it upon themselves to bear fruit; not according to God's will. There is no inheritance of the promise here. But Isaac was not borne of human effort. He was borne of pure Grace. No human effort involved. Believer, we are children of Grace- undeserved, unearned, unmerited favour. Only when we receive God's abundance of Grace and His gift of righteousness to us in Christ can we live in the way He wants us to live and do the works He wants us to do:

"For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one Man, Jesus Christ."

Freed from the captivity of sin and death by His blood, we are able to go out and worship God in the way He wants us to. Only in Christ the Beloved are we accepted (Eph. 1:6.) Those who depend on their obedience to the law and doing its works (tithe, seed, fasts, etc) in order to be acceptable to God and be saved from His wrath reject the Lamb of God and so live under the curse of the law:

"But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under His curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.” Galatians 3:10.

Trying to obey the law in order to be righteous in God's sight after God gave His own Son as a sacrifice to make us righteous is what it means to deny Christ.

Romans 8:32 says: “He who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

Trying to do good/lawful things in order to curry God's favour or get Him to bless us after He gave His own Son up for us so that we can freely enjoy all His blessings is pushing Christ out of the way.

Notice the "all" in “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.” No one can keep all the law. And one is either under law or under Grace. We cannot say: "I will do my best to obey the Ten Commandments and pay my tithe and Jesus will see that I have tried and consider me..." This horrid, abominable mixture that is neither Law nor Grace is the "neither cold nor hot" that Christ spoke of in Revelation 3. One is either "saved by Grace (undeserved, unmerited favour) through faith" or not saved at all. The law is not of faith. Those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under His curse.

Remember Adam did not drop dead physically on the day his death sentence came into effect. Death is a process. So is having life. Like Adam and Eve, many are trying to be godly (be like God) by human effort at doing something. Many churchgoers are experiencing symptoms of death (stress, sickness, lack, disease, stupid mistakes, all earthly ills) because they have been led to reject Christ's blood that makes godly/righteous in the sight of God and have turned to human effort at obeying the law, fasts, tithes and other works of the law to get right with God, escape His anger and to receive from Him - all things that Christ died to do for us. This is akin to the Israelites refusing to put the blood of the Passover lamb on their doorpost and expecting to live because they behaved themselves and tried their best to live sinless lives.

It is not uncommon to hear people who profess Christ boasting about things like: "God blessed me because I obeyed the law, fasted, sowed seed and paid my tithe..." Notice no blood of Jesus in the equation of salvation? Notice nothing about Christ of whom it is said in 2 Corinthians 8:9-

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich."

"Rich" here is not in terms of things like love, compassion and kindness. Jesus was rich in these when He walked the earth as Man. The entire chapter is talking about money and things of a material nature. Christ does it all. Good works, including our giving, are EVIDENCES of our salvation in Christ; not CONDITIONS. In Christ, we don't do them in order to be godly or to get from God. Christ's blood has already made us godly/righteous and because of Him, God gives us ALL things FREELY- Romans 8:32

"He who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"

In Christ, we get to do works of faith, not works of the law. God fills us with His goodness and mercy to overflowing so much that with what is spilling over we can't help but be a blessing to those around us, even if we tried to be selfish with His goodness.

Believer, there is no hope of salvation for anyone who trusts in His ability to obey the Ten Commandments, tithes, seeds works of the law, any more than the Israelites of old could have been delivered from their captivity in Egypt because they did good things. Only the blood on their doorpost mattered, for us today, the blood of Jesus that makes righteous in God's sight and delivers us from God's wrath:

"And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God." Romans 5:9

As it was with the blood of the Passover lamb, it takes the blood of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God, no more, no less, to be righteous in the sight of God, escape God's wrath and be free from bondage. It takes only His blood to be saved. It didn't matter what the Israelites were doing inside their houses on that night of the first Passover in Egypt. All that mattered was the blood. Look what Joshua told them after they entered the promised land -

Joshua 24:14 “Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord."

Some of the Israelites were serving foreign gods in Egypt! All that mattered was the blood. It is the redeeming power of Christ's blood that makes us turn away from sins and idols, not human effort. Not works of the Law. See Titus 2:14-

“He gave His life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us His very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.”

The nine plagues only hardened Pharaoh's heart but he could not resist the blood. He gave up. God brought the Israelites out of Egypt to serve Him...with goodies! Only by our Saviour's shed blood (believing that we are righteous by His blood, even when our lives are imperfect) can we be free indeed to go and serve God and in the way He wants us to.

Whatever it is that holds you captive today - sins and addiction, foreign gods like money (mammon,) lack, sickness, fear, stress, stupid mistakes, even worrying about the content that your kids watch on TV, everything - His shed blood sets free from ALL bondage. He died our death.

Like the nine plagues that hardened Pharaoh's heart, doing works of the Law in order to get right with God only strengthens that which holds many captive, as it is written in 1 Corinthians 15:56- "...the strength of sin is the Law." Trying to obey the law in order to be godly is an effort in futility that strengthens the grip of sin.

Believers, we are not under Law but under Grace where sin shall not have dominion over us. Why give yourself over to another yoke of bondage to fear? Romans 4:25 says of Christ:

“Jesus was handed over to be crucified for the forgiveness of our sins and was raised back to life to prove that He had made us right with God!”

Why be cut off from Christ because you are trying to get right with God all over again by keeping the Law? -"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace." Galatians 5:4.

This is the only way to get right with God: "For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous." Romans 5:17.

In Christ, we have every single blessing that accrues to the righteous. We have the same standing as Christ has with our heavenly Father; "for as He is, so are we in this world." 1 John 4. We are made righteous by Christ's blood and set free from the captivity of sin and death. With His gift of righteousness comes no condemnation (and thus the Accuser's accusations against us do not prosper.) It is Christ's "Neither do I condemn you" that makes us "Go and sin no more." By His shed blood, we get to be free from the captivity of sin and death.

Let Him deal with how "all these things" including the grace to live right "shall be added unto you." Believe that you are righteous by His blood, and even this, He gives grace to do.