Sin disenfranchised me and left me a homeless pauper. But God’s Firstborn came looking for me!
The church is called “the general assembly and church of the firstborn” (Heb 12:23). The principle of the firstborn begins at the doorway of history. When his parents had made the fateful decision that blocked them from Eden and fellowship with a holy God, Abel understood the way back in. “Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock…And the Lord respected Abel and his offering” (Gen 4:4). If God is God, He deserves the first. So Moses told Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn’” (Ex 4:22-23). And Pharaoh’s response? He offered Jehovah a place alongside the frog god and cockroach god in his pagan temple! When God had done proving the impotence of the idols the Egyptians worshiped, He finally laid His hand on the firstborn of Egypt. Everything first in the universe is His by sovereign right! And now that Israel was redeemed, the Lord had the right not only to the firstborn cows and lambs of the Israelites, but could claim every firstborn son as His own. But God said, No. Instead, “I Myself have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of every firstborn” (Num 3:12). Levi and his brother Simeon had committed an atrocity at Shechem long ago, and, as a result, their father had told them they would have no real estate with their name on it as an inheritance in the land. And what did God do? You can be Mine, He said to Levi. I find myself in the same place. Disinherited from Eden, impoverished by sin, without hope in the world, yet the Heir of all things said to me, “You can be Mine, and I will share with you all that I have.” What breathtaking grace!