I have read this verse countless times over the years. What struck me today is how utterly and totally foreign a text like this sounds to fallen ears. After all, this is God pronouncing a judgment on Pharaoh, on his house, and on his dynasty—one that would take the life of Pharaoh’s own child. What kind of God does this? The answer is that only a sovereign and holy God could rightly pronounce such a judgment upon sinners like this. 

My daily Bible reading had me in Exodus 4-7 today where God is calling a reluctant Moses to go back to Egypt to lead the children of Israel out of slavery. This particular command from God to Moses jumped off the page at me:

Exodus 4:22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I said to you, ‘Let My son go that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.”‘”

I have read this verse countless times over the years. What struck me today is how utterly and totally foreign a text like this sounds to fallen ears. After all, this is God pronouncing a judgment on Pharaoh, on his house, and on his dynasty—one that would take the life of Pharaoh’s own child. What kind of God does this?

The answer is that only a sovereign and holy God could rightly pronounce such a judgment upon sinners like this. And that is precisely the sort of God that the Exodus account reveals. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 10:31; 12:29).

Who can accept this? No one, actually, apart from grace. For the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. Such thinks are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised (1 Cor. 2:14). This is not a God who can be domesticated within the parameters of the fallen imagination. God is good all the time, even when taking the life of Pharaoh’s firstborn. If you cannot accept this, then you cannot accept God as He truly is.

Oh, how much we need our fallen minds conformed to the God of the Bible. Sadly, too many of us try to conform the God of the Bible to fallen minds. The result of such folly is that the mind remains fallen and inoculated from the God of the Bible.

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