Verse for the day:
The Levites are mine for all the first born are mine. (Numbers 3:12 – 13)

The first-born of the father in the family was extremely important. Now we must remember here that the term first-born referred to the males, and it didn’t matter if he had 7 older sisters, he was still the first born when he finally arrived.

The first-born was in first place after his father, treated with honor and respect in all things. He had direct authority over his siblings, he received a special blessing on his father’s death, he was successor as head of the family, he received a double portion of his father’s estate (in countries with Primogenitor he received the entire estate) and he became the family priest and the patriarch. Is it any wonder that Joseph’s brothers were angry. Jacob was giving him rights and privileges that belonged to Reuben. And Esau’s anger is seen because in the end he lost every first-born privilege to Jacob.

In the plague of the first-born, God claimed all the first-born as His own, both man and beast. All first born males belong to God. When God took the Levites to be his own, he took them (for they were obviously not all first-born) “in place of” the other first-borns of the Hebrews. First-born animals were sacrificed to God. First born sons were redeemed.

Now Jesus was the first born son of both his mother, Mary, and his father, God. He was also the sacrifice for our sin, in place of us. He is the first-born from the dead. He is not a spirit that walked around for a few days and disappeared. He was new-born, with a resurrection body. He is the first-born of the Father into the new Resurrection world. He is our older brother, head of the family, the priest, the patriarch.