Exodus thoughts

I'm reading Exodus again, and it struck me that you won't find a better summary of the book than 3:8:

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

Often we think of Exodus as release from physical slavery. We then compare this to Jesus who releases us from spiritual slavery. However, as someone pointed out to me recently, the Israelite's exodus is more spiritual than we think and our exodus more physical than we think.

The Hebrews were not able to worship YHWH while in Egypt because if they tried they would be stoned (8:26). Pharoah was their God, and while they lived in Egypt they had to worship him. YHWH is very clear, and Pharoah understands that the reason they want to be freed is to "serve" God by "sacrifice" on his holy mountain (just try these searches on for size: "that they may serve me", "sacrifice"). They were freed from worship to other's false God's to worship their true God.

But our bondage is physical too. We are in "bondage to corruption" (Rom 8:21), because spiritual slavery ends in physical death. We need physical freedom as well as 'spiritual' freedom. But for Moses and for Paul there is no tension, because the two always come together and are always achieved by our great liberator, Jesus Christ.

Our exodus is greater, because our saviour did not just achieve it but went through his own exodus which was also both physical and spiritual (Luke 9:31).

Finally, Tim Keller's sermon on Exodus 14 at TGC is worth a watch, or listen on MP3.

Getting Out - Tim Keller - TGC 2011 from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.