Let’s start out by reading Genesis 15:12-16, “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then He (God) said to Abram: ‘Know certainly that YOUR DESCENDANTS will be strangers in a land not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also, the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete”. God gave Abram (who later was named Abraham) a revelation of the time HIS DESCENDANTS (who eventually became the “nation of Israel”) would become slaves in the nation of Egypt for 400 years, yet He promised him that He would judge Egypt for enslaving them. They would then leave Egypt with great riches and would return to the land of Canaan which God had promised Abram as an inheritance (read verses 1-7). You can read about the fulfillment of this revelation in Exodus chapters 1-12.

What type of people were Abram’s descendants? They were destined to become a great nation because of God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 12:1-3, but they would have to learn important lessons in the land of Egypt before God would deliver them and make them HIS PEOPLE and bring them into the Promised Land. Even though Abram (Abraham) was a “man of faith” and chosen by God’s sovereign grace to inherit that land of Canaan, his descendants failed, for the most part, to live by faith. In Egypt they learned that God’s love would deliver them by His power from their enemies and that He would redeem each family by the “blood of a sacrificial lamb” on the night that the angel of death would pass through Egypt to destroy the firstborn of each family (read Exodus 12:1-30). This was called “the Lord’s Passover” (verses 11-14). They were thus REDEEMED by the blood, and this redemption became the BEGINNING of their relationship with God; it was, in essence, the “BIRTHDAY of a nation” (see verses 1-2).

The slavery of these people teaches us they were SINNERS, yet God’s grace made them “His people.” As sinners, they were in BONDAGE in Egypt and would eventually cry out to God for deliverance. God heard their cry (Exodus 3:7-8) and then He DELIVERED them from their enemies and REDEEMED them by the blood of a sacrificial lamb. These truths give us a picture of ourselves. We were all born in sin (Psalm 51:5) and have all practiced sin (Romans 3:23). Because of this we were in “BONDAGE to sin,” as we see in John 8:34 where Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a SLAVE OF SIN.” We were also in “BONDAGE to Satan and the world (pictured by Pharoah and the nation of Egypt). We see this truth in Ephesians 2:1-2, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the COURSE OF THIS WORLD, according to the PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.”

If we see this truth of our sinful condition, we can then relate to what we read in verses 4-5, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loves us, even when we were dead in trespasses, MADE US ALIVE TOGETHER WITH CHRIST (by grace you have been saved).” How did God accomplish this? Ah, just as He delivered and redeemed Israel with the “blood of a lamb,” so He sent His Son to take our place on the cross where He would suffer, die, and His blood was shed to redeem us (see 1 Corinthians 15:1-3; John 19:28-30, 33-34; and 1 Peter 1:18-19). Each believer in Christ can say, “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7). Praise God for His saving grace and praise the Lord Jesus for being our “Passover Lamb!”  (DO)  (737.1)