Monday: Consecration of the Firstborn

Daily Lesson for Monday 4th of August 2025

The promised time of redemption, of deliverance, was about to arrive. The people needed to be prepared. They needed not just to believe but to act on those beliefs. God had told them what they needed to do; by faith, they now needed to do it. Though in a totally different context from what James was writing about, the principle fits very well: “But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:17-20, NKJV).

Read Exodus 13:1-16. The Israelite firstborns were spared by God’s grace during the final plague. Why this perpetual command, and what should it mean to us today?

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God mercifully guarded the Israelite families who were under the blood because, by faith, they had marked their doorframes. These new directions came from the Lord through Moses: “ ‘Consecrate to me every firstborn male’ ” (Exodus 13:2, NIV). This legislation was valid for humans as well as for animals.

One principle behind this injunction is that everything belongs to Him because He is our Creator and the Owner of everything: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Psalms 24:1, NIV). “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts” (Haggai 2:8, ESV). The Israelites’ firstborn sons were the firstfruits of God’s blessings, which He had bestowed upon them; they were also a sign of their total consecration to Him and of their understanding that all they possessed came only from Him.

Also, we see the idea of redemption, of salvation, here. The firstborn sons were spared death because they were covered by the blood. They were redeemed from death, as are all who are under the blood of Jesus. As Paul writes about Jesus: “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14, NKJV).

Meanwhile, regulations were given about how this dedication should be offered, a celebration of their deliverance from Egyptian slavery. They were to sacrifice the animals, but their sons were to be redeemed (Exodus 13:12-13,15).

Exodus 13:16 tells about what they were to put on their hands and between their eyes. How does this symbolize the important spiritual truth that, regardless of how much faith we have, we must act upon that faith?

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