Bible in 90, Day 10: The First Born

Leviticus 26-Numbers 8

*image courtesy of ugaldew at www.sxc.hu

Ten days!  We are 1/9th of the way there!  We picked up a thread today that we began back on days 5 and 6 – the first born.  The first born occupy a special place.  I should know, I’m one of them!  In the Old Testament, the first born, especially the first born son, had certain rights no other child had.  Some of these rights (known as the rights of primogenitor, which is a fancy word for “first born”) were prevalent in ancient cultures.  However, the first born occupied a special place in God’s economy for more than just cultural reasons.

In Exodus 11, God struck down the first born son of all livestock and people in Egypt.   Think of the magnitude of this.  It goes beyond children, because it refers to all the first born.  That means you could have lost your oldest child, oldest grandchildren, an older brother, your father, a grandfather, anyone who was the one to open the womb.  While this happened, God spared the first born of all the Israelites.  Because of this, God declares later that all the first born in Israel belong to Him.  They are to be devoted to Him.  For animals, this meant that the first born of every animal was to be sacrificed to God.  For humans, this meant that a redemption price was to be paid.

There’s something about a first born.

Later on (in our reading today), God sets the Levites apart in a very special way.  He makes them the servants and keepers of the Tabernacle (and later the Temple).  In doing so, He claims them as His special possession in place of every first born son in Israel.  He takes them as wholly His, and makes them the substitute for every first born son.  From now on, the first born son is to be redeemed instead of being completely devoted to the service of the Lord.

This is part of why my son’s name is Corbin.  It is a Hebrew word (originally Korban) that means “dedicated to the Lord.”  As my first born son, he dedicated in a very special way to God.  While I’m not going to ship him off to a monastery, I have very intentionally dedicated him to the service of the Lord.  I desire that all my children serve God, but as I contemplated the coming of my first son, I had a special desire to see him consecrated to God.  My mother, too, dedicated me as a child, asking God to use me in a special way.  I know that this is a big reason that I am in the ministry today.

But let us consider God’s Firstborn.  Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten (or One and Only) Son of God.  When we become Christians, we become joint-heirs with Jesus, but never the Firstborn.  Jesus is the Firstborn of the Resurrection, and we will join Him in it.  Unlike the first born sons of Israel, whose lives were spared through paying a redemption price, God’s Firstborn died to pay the redemption price for our very souls.  As the Passover lamb was killed, and its blood spared the first born in Israel, so the final Passover Lamb, Jesus, died and His blood spares all those who call upon His name.