The Weekly Perspective
by Burke Shade, Assistant Pastor
If you are looking for a great paedo-communion
passage to talk with your friends about, Exodus 12
is it!
First, God invites His people to a feast — a saving feast. The Passover feast! They didn’t earn their place there; they were granted it. Invited! The whole household was (v. 3).
Second, there was a lamb or goat for the whole household; for the number of persons (Hebrew ‘souls’) in the household (v. 4). Do young children not have souls?! They are part of the household. They eat what’s on the table with everyone else. Or else they starve.
Third, they are there. God says to the Israelites, “You shall observe this rite as a statue for you and for your sons forever” (v. 24). Those sons ask, “what do you mean by this service” (v. 25)? Why are you doing this feast, daddy/mommy? And the answer includes them; “…when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses” (v. 27).
Lastly, we know all the children ate of the Messiah in the older covenant! The Apostle Paul makes that clear in 1 Cor 10.1-4. The whole congregation was baptized into the type of Christ, Moses, and all ate the same spiritual (of the Spirit) food, and all drank the same spiritual (of the Spirit) drink. How so? “For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (v. 4).
Nobody earned any of these blessings; it’s all of God’s favor! God’s goodness and kindness towards sinners, inviting them all to sit down at table with Him. Just like the praise song says, “God and man at table are sat down!” Old, middle, and young!