God was working against them. He would send them a plague, and then he would harden their hearts so that he could send them another one. Egypt was ruined in the process (Exodus 10:7). It was a giant among the nations, unrivaled in economic and military strength. The people also worshiped many gods. But nothing could save them when the true God was working against them. They could not even repent and cry out for mercy because God made them stubborn.

We can make a similar observation regarding God's relationship with nature. God actively controlled nature to produce the plagues, which devastated the land and killed multitudes of people. He did not just "allow" the water of the Nile to turn into blood. It is not as if the natural state of the liquid was blood, and that he had been sustaining it as water until the time of the plague. And it is not as if the water could turned itself into blood by its own initiative and power. We can say the same thing with the frogs, the gnats, the flies, the boils, the hail, the locusts, and so on.

It is futile to assert that perhaps God "allowed" the devil to do it. If the devil had any choice at all, it was not in his best interest to send plagues upon Egypt, so just allowing him to do it did not guarantee that he would have done it. Also, the point of the plagues was to demonstrate God's power, not the devil's. But we need not speculate about this. The magicians, or those who represented the power of the devil, could reproduce miniature versions of the first several plagues, but after that they could not keep up, and admitted that the finger of God must have been at work. In any case, if one would only read through the several chapters and notice the language employed, it would be clear to him that the text describes each plague as planned, produced, sustained, and then removed by the active power of God.

Our passage deals with the final plague that God brought against Egypt, although he would come against them again later at the Red Sea. He declares that he would "pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn – both men and animals" (12:12). Again, we observe the active and deliberate nature of God's harsh and bloody judgment against his enemies. He does not say that he would leave Egypt in judgment and save the Israelites from the self-destruction that the Egyptians would bring upon themselves. He does not say that he would leave Egypt, and somehow their firstborns would fall dead by themselves. He does not even say that he would leave the Egyptians in the hands of Satan.

No, he declares that he would pass through Egypt and kill every firstborn. This is his nature, his method, and his glory. What often happens is that people would construct their own standards and rules about how a righteous God ought to operate, and then they would invent all sorts of complicated arguments and distinctions to explain how God has never violated their standards and rules. It is as if they are embarrassed by the God of the Bible because he is too different from how sinful man functions and because he disregards the standards imposed upon him by spiritual rebels.

The Bible affirms active reprobation, active hardening, and active judgment. Since I have argued for this in other places, exhaustively and time after time, I will not repeat myself now. But I am stressing this point here because it will help us to fully appreciate the Passover and what it represents in Scripture.

(to be continued)

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