The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 290

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHOHS. Vora. 2!l-31.-The death of the first-born, On this see eh. xi. 4-7. Observe hero- I. 'l'ms JUDOMENT 18 BASED ON TUE PRINCIPLE OF REPRESENTATION. Hitherto, the plagues had fallen on the Egyptians indiscriminately. Now, a change is made to the principle of representation. Egypt, Israel also, is represented in its first-born. When e. death-peunlty wns to be inflicted, the lines had to be dra.wn more sharp and clear. We are reminded that this principle of representation holds a vitally important place in God)fi moral government. 'l'he illustrations which more immediately affect ourselves are, first, the representation of the race in Adam, and second, its representation in Christ (Hom. v. 12-21), Hence it is not altogether fanciful to trace a relation to Christ even in this judgment on the first-born. 1. Christ is the great first-born of the race. We catch some glimpse of this by looking at the matter from the side of Israel. Israel, as God's son, his first-born, is admitted to have been a type of Christ (cf. Matt. ii. 15), Much more were the first-born in Israel-the special representatives of this )Jeculiar feature in the calling of the nation-types of Christ. They resembled him in that they bore the guilt of the rest of the people. But Christ, as the Son of man, sustained a relation to more than Israel. He is, we may say, the great First-born of the race. Egypt as well as Israel was represented in him. 2. The death of Christ is not only God's great means of saving the world, but it is Gocfs great judgment upon the sin of the world. It is indeed the one, because it is the other. There is thus in the death of Christ, both the Israel side and the Egypt side. There is some shadow of vicarious endurance of penalty-of the one suffering for, and bearing the guilt of, the many- even in the destruction of Egypt's first-born. 3. The death of Ghrist, which brings salvation to the believing, is the earnest of final doom to the unbelieving portion of the race, This also is exhibited in principle in the history of the exodus. In strictness, the first-born were viewed as having died, both in Israel and Egypt. The Egyptian first-born died in person; the Israelitish first-born in the substituted lamb. The death of a first-born in person could typify judgment in the room, or in the name, of others; but the first-born being himself one of the guilty, his death could not (even in type) properly redeem. Hence the substitution of the lamb, which held forth in prophecy the coming of the true and sinless first-born, whose death would redeem. But Christ's death, to the unbelieving part of mankind-the wilfully and obstinately unbelieving- is a prophecy, not of salvation, but of judgment. God's judgment on sin in the person of Christ, the first-born, is the earnest of the doom which will descend on all who refuse him as a Saviour. And this was the meaning of the death of the first-born in Egypt. That death did not redeem, but forewarned Egypt of yet worse doom in store for it if it continued in its sins. 'l'he first-born endured. passed under, God's judgment, for the sin of the nation; and so has Christ passed under, endured God's judgment, for the sin even of the unbelieving. Egypt, not less than Israel, was represented in him; but to the one (Egypt as representative of hostility to the kingdom of God) his death means doom; to the other (Israel as representative of the people of God) it means salvation. II. Tms JUDGMENT COMPELLED PHARAOH TO RELAX HIS HOLD ON ISRAEL. It was the consummating blow. Imagination fails in the attempt to realise it. As we write, accounts come to hand of the terrific storm of Oct. 14 (1881), attended by a lamentable loss of life on the Berwickshire coast of Scotland. The storm was sudden, and preluded by an awful and ominous darkness. Cf. with remarks on ninth plague the following: -" I noticed a black-looking cloud over by the school, which shortly spread over all the sky out by the Head. l:lea, sky and ground all seemed to be turning one univers:.11 grey-blue tint, and a horrible sort of stillness fell over everything. The women were all gathering at their doors, feeling that something awful was coming. No fewer than 200 fishermen and others are believed to have perished, the village of Eyemouth alone losina 129. So connected by intermarriage is the population of the villages and ho.ml~ts, that there is scarcely a family in any of them which is not called to mourn its dead. 'l'he scenes are heart-rending. Business in every shape and form is paralysed." Au image this, and yet how faint, of the cry that went up in Egypt that night, when in every house there was found one dead. Yet no stroke less severe would have serve..l  28.J Tim DOOK OF EXODUS. [err. xn. 31---30,