God has given us two great foundational books to the Old Testament. Exodus is the second, full of utterly vital things: What is God like? How does He set people free, and what’s that for?
These are questions crucial to our whole existence!
As Exodus starts we find Israel trapped in slavery. Not unlike us: we often find ourselves trapped in bondage to habits, addictions, emotional scars, hurts, fears; to our work environment, or internal workaholism; above all, to sin. And God comes to us as the great Liberator. But how? This book helps us learn how.
And then, we’re going to find that this liberation isn’t just negative. We’re not merely being set free from something, we’re being set free for something wonderful. What? From Ex 3:8 onwards, God proclaims His desire to bring Israel into their `inheritance’, the `promised land’. 1 Peter, which is full of Exodus themes, emphasises that our own redemption’s aim is likewise that we receive an `inheritance` – one `that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you’ (1:3-5); something mindbogglingly glorious, says Paul, something that `No eye has seen, no mind has conceived` (1 Cor 2:9), something more wonderful than we can ask or imagine (Eph 3:20). That’s what God’s freed each of us for, to give us that…
It’s fascinating how Peter speaks of his own death, his journey into that wonderful glory, as his `exodus’ (2 Peter 1:15). Likewise this word `exodus’ is used of Jesus’ death and resurrection in the Greek of Luke 9:31. So we learn that our own journey through the desert to glory is an `exodus’; and an `exodus` Jesus has gone through first – as we pursue it, we’re `following Him’. We can expect that reading a book actually called Exodus will bring us a better grasp of all this…
But we’ve not just been redeemed for glory on death’s other side. God has a glorious purpose for His people on the way through the wilderness too. We realise that once we ask, Why does Exodus end as it does? God spends most of the last 16 chapters of Exodus telling Israel how to build a place where He can dwell among them; and when we read the book’s final verses we see how the devastating glory, God’s tangible presence, comes down and fills it. Why end like that? Because God is a God of colossal love; and that means (astonishingly) that He wants our company; He wants to live in the company of each person He has created and liberated!
So there are at least two issues in Exodus. One, how does God set people free, how do you get people out of Egypt (chapters 1 to 15)? Then two, how do you get Egypt out of the people, so that they can enter into all God has for them, and He can dwell among them (chapters 16 to 40)? How, in short, does God ready His people (like us, Heb 3:6, Eph 2:22) for the unbelievable privilege of being His house?
Look through the book and we’ll find at least seven ways:
Passover: they’ll be set free from slavery if they shelter under the blood of a lamb that’s been slain (Exodus 12)
Then, by keeping that story (gospel) central, of just how they were set free (12:14 onwards)
Then, by God publicly promising them His love (ch 19)…
By giving them principles to live by (ch 20)…
By a long learning journey, through difficult territory (ch16 onwards)…
By God sorting out their idolatry (ch 32)…
And revealing Himself and His glory (chs 33,34)…
Two halves of Exodus, then; and two themes that make it our story. How does God get us out of slavery? And how does He then get the slavery out of us? Deeply foundational issues, and we want to learn from both. And God wants us to learn from both; that’s why the book’s here! It’s going to be good…
