What is the most significant event in the Old Testament? It is the exodus. It is an event where God looked down on his helpless, enslaved people and came down to rescue them from a tyrant. God led them out of Egypt to freedom.
It is important for us to remember that this story was the prominent story in the minds of the writers of the Bible. They thought in terms of the exodus.
This may be hard for Christians to see because we think in terms of the death and resurrection of Christ. But how did Christ think of His own death and resurrection? I remember when I first studied Greek and began using it to study the New Testament text in order to prepare my sermons. One sermon I prepared was on the transfiguration of Jesus in Luke 9. I remember this sermon very distinctly because I preached it in Jordan Station, Ontario, Canada. When I started talking about the cloud, it got very dark. We heard the sound of thunder and saw the lightning. It was a memorable preaching experience!
The other reason I remember the sermon is because this was one of those times when the Greek just jumped out at me. When Moses and Elijah appeared in glory with Jesus, what did they talk about? In English it says that they talked about his “departure.” However, in the Greek, it says, they talked about his exodus. Jesus thought of His death and resurrection as an exodus! We can, too.
In 2 Peter 1, Peter refers back to the transfiguration, “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (1:16). In the previous verses, he says that he was going to remind them of these things while he was in the “tent of this body” (a reference to the wilderness and the Exodus, by the way!). Then, he says that he was going to make sure that people were there to remind them of these things after his departure.. Same Greek word as in Luke 9, an exodus. Death is Peter’s “exodus,” freed from the dominion of sin, he would now be free from the presence of sin!
I could go on and on. The biblical writers were saturated with thoughts about the exodus. It is how they thought about God, humans, the world, and themselves.
So, why does the exodus event matter to us in the 21st century? First, it can help us understand the Bible. The Bible speaks from beginning to end of the God of the Exodus, the God who delivers his people from a narrow place where they are stuck and brings them into a place of openness and abundance.
Second, it can help encourage us in our struggles. How often do we find ourselves stuck in addictions, sins, emotional issues, dead ends, bad relationships, or organizational lethargy? It’s easy to look at these situations and see ourselves as helpless and hopeless. If we could think of God as the God of the Exodus who leads His people out of the bondage, we could have a lot of hope. We could stop looking at these seemingly helpless situations and start looking up at the God who sees our suffering and can and will, in His due time, provide an exodus for us.
Third, it gives us a positive orientation to the future. We can think of ourselves as those who need an exodus and will one day experience one. Thinking bigger, we can think of the whole world as stuck and in need of an exodus. That’s how Paul thought of the creation. He thought of the creation as being in “bondage” (Rom. 8:21) like the children of Israel: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (8:22). The creation is groaning like the enslaved Israelites groaned in Egypt! But there is good news! “The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). The whole world is eagerly awaiting an exodus!
Knowing the God of the Bible as the God of the Exodus means knowing God as the God of all hope. However hopeless or difficult or stuck a situation may seem, there is always hope in the God who comes down and delivers His people out of bondage into glorious freedom! The God of the Exodus is still in the exodus business.