Exodus 12:43 says, “This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof.” Verse 45 goes on to say, “A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof. These verses indicate that strangers and hired servants were not permitted to eat the Passover. In the Old Testament, strangers represent two categories of people: the unbelievers and the natural man. We may readily agree that the unbelievers are strangers, but we may not agree that our natural man is also a stranger who is not allowed to partake of the Passover. Actually, our natural man is no different from an unbeliever, for our natural life is always quick to go along with the way of an unbeliever Hence, the natural man and the unbelievers are of the same family.
Notice that in Exodus 12 the natural man is the stranger linked to the hired servants. A hired servant is one who serves for wages, for compensation. The natural man always works for God in order to receive compensation. This is commonplace in today’s Christianity. For the most part, Christianity has become a religion in which strangers are hired to work for wages. Although a hired servant may receive wages, with him there is no grace, faith, or enjoyment. If we try to enjoy the Passover according to the principle of a hired servant, we shall find that we have no position to partake of the Passover.
Those who work as hired servants have the attitude that they labor and God pays them their wages. But in Romans Paul indicates that we are not to work for our salvation. Romans 4:4-5 says, “Now to the one who works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt. But to the one who works not, but believes on Him Who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.” Speaking of the selection of grace, Paul declares in Romans 11:6, “But if by grace, it is no longer out of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.”
In the words of Galatians 4:7, we who believe in Christ are no longer servants; we are sons. Children simply enjoy the family life. They do not labor as hired servants in order to share in this enjoyment. Our enjoyment of God’s salvation is according to the principle of free grace, not according to the principle of a hired servant who works for recompense. As far as salvation is concerned, our labor means nothing. God allows us to enjoy the Passover not as wages, but only as a free gift of grace.
It is clear that the natural man cannot enjoy Christ as the Passover. If a person is still in the natural man, he has not come to the month Abib, which means sprouting or budding. This means that he has not experienced a new beginning in Christ. With such a one there is no sprouting of the divine life through regeneration. To have a new beginning is to no longer be a stranger, to no longer be a natural man. On the contrary, it is to be regenerated and to become a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).
Do not partake of the Passover as a natural man or as a hired servant, and do not have the attitude that you work for God and that He pays you. We do not receive God’s salvation because of our labor. If we remain in the natural man or regard ourselves as hired servants who work for recompense, we have no right to partake of the Passover.
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