Picture of the Blood

He will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway. These are words from our week’s text, as was quoted from Exodus 12: 23.

My mind is taken to the picture of a destroyer, a huge army war-tanker, with mission to cut down all the houses in a particular place. However, if the buildings are red in colour, the destroyer has specific instructions to skip those houses, pass over and not touch one single one of them.

The size of the house matters not. Whether the house is a humble hut or palatial palace, does not matter in the least. The one and only sign for salvation is the Red Colour on the house.

The material of which the house is made has no bearing on its salvation, none whatsoever. Whether the house is made of straw, wood or brick is not the determining factor. One thing and one thing only is needed. The one and only sure hope of salvation is the Red Colour on the house.

The age of the house is not a consideration whatsoever, in this exercise. The house can be very new, recently built with all the modern architectural features or it may be an old, tottering, dilapidated house. That is not of the destroyer’s concern. The one and only guarantee of sure salvation is the Red Colour on the house.

The occupants of the house do not matter, believe it or not. The one with the mandate to take down houses does not care who is inside. In the house may be the deserving and the undeserving, the wicked and the righteous, the sick and the well, none of those conditions are counted in this moment. The one and only criterion for promised salvation, is the Red Colour on the house.

Does this not give a most graphic and terribly worrisome picture for some, yet a totally calming and joyful picture for others, about our own salvation from God’s wrath? You see, just as the one criterion for the destroyer is the Red Colour on houses, so too we note in the Bible text about the blood. Here is the text again. When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

There is one consideration and one only that causes the destroyer to fly over a place and that is the sight of blood on the building.

For the first time, I see power, promise and preservation, at the sight of blood. I hear people talking about the sight of blood and the powerful effect it has on them. I have heard from close friends and family, how they get ill at the sight of blood and some get all queasy and weak. My sister, the nurse, has told the story of how, as a young, green student, other green students had to be taken out of the room when the group was taken to observe surgery. She even spoke of a young man fainting and dropping to the floor. Here though, at the sight of blood, people are spared the death of the wrath of God.

As I’ve already indicated, it is the very first time I have been made to see these Three in this act of salvation.