A Holy Work - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2025

Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.
Exodus 12:9-10

A Holy Work
The children of Israel were under the shelter of the blood of the Paschal lamb, protected from the judgment that came upon the land of Egypt on that night. The Passover lamb is a well-known type of Christ who has been sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7). There were other things they were to observe in connection with the lamb that night: besides applying the blood to their doorposts and lintels, they were also to eat the lamb "roasted in fire" (Ex. 12:9).

It was not to be "boiled at all with water." Water boils at 100°c (212°f), but for roasting it needs to be much hotter, generally the temperature must exceed 150°c (302°f). The meaning of this as a "type" is that there should not be any weakening or mitigating in our thoughts concerning the awful reality of Christ's holy sufferings and sin bearing. It is a false doctrine to teach that there was no bearing of wrath on the cross, or to deny substitutionary atonement. The solemn reality is that Christ was "made sin for us." He was not a mere martyr.

Eating the flesh of the roasted lamb means, as a type, that Christ's work needs to be appropriated by us internally by faith. They were not to let any of it remain until morning, and if they did, it was to be burnt with fire. If the roasted lamb was separated from the Passover night, it might become common food of the household, and this was never to be allowed.

There are two things we learn here: (1) never diminish in our thoughts the Lord's work on the cross—He was the Sin Bearer; (2) never think of it as a common or an everyday thing—it was a holy work.

Brian Reynolds