The Exodus and the Christian Walk: Part 1
We are all spiritual Israelites, slaves being set free.
The night Jesus was arrested, he celebrated the Jewish seder, or passover meal, with his disciples. The comparison between the passover and the crucifixion are well-known and widely discussed. In short, as with the Israelites in Egypt during the original passover, Christians look to the blood of Jesus, our sacrificial lamb, to cover our sin and allow the angel of death to pass us over.
If you step back, however, you can see the whole narrative of the Jewish exodus and arrival in the promised land as an allegory about God’s salvation of man and the Christian walk.
Let’s take a look.
Slaves of Egypt and Slaves of Sin
The story of the Jewish exodus spans all the books from Exodus to Joshua. A few of those books, like Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, describe the foundation of the Old Testament Law. Others, like Exodus and Joshua are almost entirely historical and describe the exodus from Egypt and the eventual conquering of Canaan.
When the story starts, in the first chapter of Exodus, we find the Israelites living in Egypt. They are there because Jacob and his sons moved their families to Egypt during the famine. You’ll remember that Jacob’s sons had sold their brother, Joseph, into slavery and he had ended up as Pharaoh’s second in command as the result of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams (Genesis 37 through 47). In Egypt, the Israelites thrived and grew into a large nation. The families of each of Jacob’s sons became whole tribes.
But along the way, the Pharaoh who had welcomed Joseph’s family into Egypt died and was replaced by a Pharaoh who had no particular fondness for the house of Israel. The Israelites became the slaves of the Egyptians and were used to build cities at the direction of Pharaoh.
But finally, Pharaoh became scared at the number of Israelites within Egypt. This represented a security issue for Egypt. Large numbers of foreign slaves within the country could eventually overthrow Pharaoh himself. This had to be dealt with. So, Pharaoh decided to limit the population of Israelite slaves. He commanded the death of all the Israelite boys by casting them into the Nile river (Exodus 1:22).
Moses was born under this edict (Exodus 2). His mother decides to disobey Pharaoh and hides the baby for three months, but this can only be done for so long before the baby will be discovered. She then decides to place Moses in a basket hidden among the reeds by the river bank of the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter finds the baby in the basket when she comes to the river to bathe. Immediately, she knows that he is a Hebrew child, but she has pity on him and decides to adopt the baby. And so Moses grows up in royal splendor in the house of Pharaoh.
Later, when he is grown, Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave (Exodus 2). Thinking that nobody else is watching, Moses kills the Egyptian. The Hebrew slave is not grateful but fears that Moses might kill him, too. Realizing that the slave might tell others, Moses flees from Egypt to the land of Midian. Moses stays in Midian for years, eventually getting married and having children.
As Exodus chapter 2 concludes, Moses’s step-grandfather, the Pharaoh who ordered the Hebrew boys to be killed, dies. Then God hears the cries of his people.
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
If we view the story of the exodus as an allegory, the land of Egypt is a metaphor the spiritual condition of humanity without Jesus. Egypt represents sin and humans are all born into slavery to sin.
But God does not ignore our situation. He is not a distant God who turns his back on us. Rather, he takes note of our situation and our groaning.
I love verse 25: God saw the people of Israel — and God knew.
What did God know? All of it. This suggests a deep empathy. Not only does God know Israel’s situation, our situation, in an intellectual sense, but he also knows in a deeply empathetic sense. He’s there with us in our groaning. So, God initiates a plan to save Israel out of Egypt, just as he initiated a plan to save humanity out of sin.
Called to Help Save
One day, while tending the flock of his father-in-law, Moses has a direct encounter with God. God appears as fire in the midst of a bush, but the bush is not consumed by the fire (Exodus 3). God speaks directly to Moses and identifies himself as the God of Moses’s ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
God tells Moses that he is going to bring the Israelites out of Egypt to the land of Canaan that was promised to Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12). Needless to say, Moses doesn’t jump at the chance to perform this task. He’s quite skeptical.
7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
Put yourself in that scene. You’re on a mountain with a fire burning in a bush but not consuming the bush, and God is audibly speaking to you. He asks you to go get his people out of bondage, and your reaction is, “No way. Hard pass.”
What is your reaction to Moses’s answer to God?
Now let’s read Jesus speaking in Matthew 28.
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Isn’t Jesus effectively asking the same thing of us that God did of Moses? Jesus wants us to go and liberate his people from their slavery to sin. And just like God, Jesus promises to be with us as we go and do that work (verse 20).
What’s your reaction to Jesus’s call? Like Moses, is it, “Hard pass.” Like Moses, do you say, “Who am I that I should go and do this work?” You might think that’s for evangelists, of which, you know that you are surely not one. And yet, Jesus gives this command to all Christians, everywhere, for all time.
From Slave to Free, From Death to Life
In the latter part of Chapter 3, Moses asks God what God’s name is. Moses wants to be able to tell the Israelites who has sent him.
13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.”[a] And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord,[b] the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.
God tells Moses that his name is “I Am Who I Am,” and tells Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” God’s name is literally “I Am,” which implies someone who is eternal, someone who just exists, who just is.
Jesus echos this use of “I Am” in the New Testament when he tells people who he is.
54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’[c] 55 But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”[d] 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
In verse 58, when Jesus says “I am,” he’s telling the Pharisees that he is God. That’s why they want to stone him for blasphemy in verse 59. If anybody ever tells you that Jesus never claimed to be God, remember John 8.
Going back to Exodus 3, God then tells Moses to tell Israel that he will save them from Egypt and bring them into “a land flowing with milk and honey.” This imagery represents prosperity and blessings for Israel, the fulfillment of God’s promises.
16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, 17 and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.”’
Viewing Exodus as a Christian allegory, the land of Canaan represents heaven. This is a place that God has promised to us, where everything is put right, where there is safety and security, where we lack for nothing.
Conclusion
In Part 1, we’ve just scratched the surface of the Exodus story. We’ve seen how Egypt represents the land of sin, or the world. We’ve seen how Canaan represents a promised land, heaven, for the Christian. We see that God sent a human, Moses, to facilitate the release of Israel from Egypt. In the same way, God sends Christians into the world to bring the message of the Gospel and facilitate the release of sinners.
Looking ahead, in Part 2, we’ll see how Jesus is the Passover lamb whose sacrifice secures our release from sin.
Today’s Prayer
Holy Father, maker of all things, we set ourselves in agreement with you. We ask that your will be done and that your Kingdom thrive here on earth. We worship you, the great I Am, who exists eternally. Thank you for your promises to us, for hearing our groaning in our sin, and for making a way to free us and bring us into your promised land. Amen.
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Perfect timing! Just started going through the Bible for the second time and was not looking forward to Exodus…and then this article popped up and gave me a whole new perspective on the story. God is amazing!