43
CHAPTER 3
THE EXODUS: THE
DISRUPTIVE TRUTH OF ISREAL’S SEPARATION FROM EGYPT
The pagan agenda of the Tower of Babel had insisted
upon a definite design for pagan society: man would save himself by ascending
the Scale of Being until he became like God. The underlying presupposition, of
course, was that man already was his own absolute authority, possessing the
knowledge of good and evil along with all other gods and goddesses (Gen. 2:9;
3:6). With the new tool of civil authority placed in his hands, man could now
compel everyone to fit into this scheme like the bricks fit into the Tower of
Babel.
Not all the bricks, however, were set because God
disrupted the would-be Kingdom of Man with linguistic confusion. The dream of a
one-world pagan society would never be realized. Five centuries later, God
formally rejected the paganized Noahic civilization with His call to Abraham.
He upset fallen humanity’s modus operandi of autonomy by revealing election, justification,
and faith. God, not man, had the plan. God, not man, defined righteousness and
insisted upon absolute conformity to it. The new modus operandi was humble
submission to the gracious invitation of man’s offended Creator by faith.
To understand the next step in God’s historic
redemptive plan, we need to get background on the Exodus event. In this
chapter, I will discuss the immediate problem of Abraham’s family, the
structure of Egyptian society, the meaning of the Exodus event, and the
expanded revelation of God’s judgment/salvation.
Abraham’s Family Problem. The call of Abraham appeared
after a while to flounder. The patriarch’s family showed more and more signs of
what we moderns call “dysfunctionality”:
(1) Whereas Abraham valued family unity (Gen.
13:7-12), later generations promoted discord. Joseph was nearly killed by his
brothers (Gen. 37); Onan refused to help his sister-in-law (Gen. 38:8-10); and
Judah deceitfully withheld his son from Tamar, his daughter-in-law (Gen.
38:11-15).
(2) Abraham knew he must separate from Canaanite
culture; thus he sought a bride for Isaac from non-Canaanite society (Gen. 24).
In direct contrast Judah saw nothing wrong in having sex with a Canaanite
sacred prostitute which he thought the disguised Tamar was, referring to her as
a kedeshah (Gen. 38:15,21).
(3) Abraham built altars and publicly worshipped
Yahweh (Gen. 12:8; 13:18; 21:33), but by Judah’s generation no mention whatever
is made of such a testimony.
It is no great surprise, then, to see God withdraw
Himself from direct revelation to this rebellious family. Whereas Abraham
enjoyed many theophanies, in the fourth generation Joseph as a young man is
guided solely by a silent providence. Nevertheless, God also had bound Himself
to the Abrahamic Covenant so He could not let this family self-destruct.
To keep this family from being absorbed into pagan
society, God sent them into an Egyptian “ghetto” where they would be
discriminated against (Gen. 43:32) and abused as slaves (Gen. 15:13). Unable to
assimilate in Egyptian society, the first Jewish family in history would be
forced to maintain its unique identity. In this hostile womb, the family would
grow into a full nation ready to be born. Clearly Israel would be a work of
God, not of men!
The Structure of Egyptian Society. Egypt was
chosen by God as the womb for “out of Egypt” would God “call His son” (Hos.
11:1)[1]. Why? From its founding by Ham’s son Mizraiim until the Exodus a
thousand years later, Egypt functioned like a “Gentile Millennium” featuring
the most artistic and highest level of paganism in the world. As the most
prominent remnant of the Hamitic Tower of Babel scheme, Egypt is referred to
throughout Scripture by Satan symbols: “Leviathan”, “Rahab”, and the “Dragon”
(Pss. 74:12-14; 87:4; 89:10; Isa. 30:7; 51:9-10; Ezk. 29:3; 32:2). Nonetheless,
Egypt is never treated in the Bible as fit for total destruction as Canaan and
Babylon are, apparently because she never so completely rejected God’s
revelation as those nations.
Egypt placed great stress on the changeless and static
elements of life as opposed to Mesopotamia. The University of Chicago
Egyptologist, Dr. Henri Frankfort wrote: The Egyptian belief [was] that the
universe is changeless and that all apparent opposites must, therefore, hold
each other in equilibrium. Such a belief has definite consequences in the field
of moral philosophy. It puts a premium on whatever exists with a semblance of
permanence. It excludes ideals of progress, utopias of any kind, revolutions,
and any other radical changes in existing conditions. . . .In this way the
belief in a static universe enhances, for instance, the significance of
established authority.”[2]
The individual was so submerged in the state and the
state in nature that apart from the Exodus there was a total absence of popular
uprisings and revolutionary movements in Egyptian history. This scheme of
things centering on the Pharaoh shows through Egyptian art like the four
examples in Figure 3.1..45 Drawing “A” is a design found
on an ivory comb of the First Dynasty (pre-Abrahamic). Even at this early
period the classical Egyptian art symbols appeared. The god Horus, whose symbol
was the falcon, is represented on the comb in three ways. At the top he is the son
in the boat sailing across the sky. In the middle he is the outstretched wings
that depict the sky. At the bottom he is represented by Pharaoh as he stands on
a box containing a serpent and the name of King Djet. The two vertical symbols
are scepters denoting “welfare”. The sign ( ) refers to life. The
interpretation of the art on this comb, then, is that the nature of the god
Horus, manifested in the sun and in the sky, is also manifested among men in
the person of Pharaoh. Because Horus is in Pharaoh, life and welfare come from
Pharaoh.[3]
Drawing “B” in Figure 3.1 shows a temple column also
from early Egypt. Again there are two vertical welfare scepters, but in this
example they are capped above by the sky symbol and below by the earth symbol.
Between them is written the name of King Sahure. The implication is that
Pharaoh acts within the harmony of nature and was himself a vital part of it, a
sort of mediator between heaven and earth.
Drawing “C” shows how closely the sun and serpent
appear in Egyptian art. Apparently to the Egyptian mind the sun and snake
shared certain characteristics: both move without normal means of
propulsion.[4] The sun illuminated the physical world; and if pieces of
primitive revelation were remembered in distorted form (cf. Gen. 3:1ff), the
snake “illuminated” the spiritual world, giving “knowledge of good and
evil”.[5] Pharaoh was known as the “son of Re” (“Re” being the sun god), and on
his headgear he often wore the serpent.
In drawing “D” the deity of Pharaoh is clearly proclaimed
by the Egyptian artist who drew Ramses II the same size as the gods Horus
(left) and Khum (right) with whom he keeps company (rather than with mortal
man). This type of picture prompted Frankfort to write:
“[Pharaoh] was the fountainhead of all authority, all
power, and all wealth. The famous saying of Louis XIV, l’etat c’est moi, was
levity and presumption when it
was uttered, but could have been offered by Pharaoh as
a statement of fact in which his subjects concurred. It would have summed up
adequately [Egyptian] political philosophy.”[6]
The structure of Egyptian society, therefore, had in a
peculiar fashion perverted the Noahic Covenant and the divine institution of
civil authority. The universe and man and government should be united--but in
dependence upon the Word of God. They do not belong to the same level of
existence as the Creator. Civil authority, moreover, is a restraint upon sin
and not the means to salvation..46
Israel, like Abraham’s elect son, Isaac, was born
miraculously. No nation ever had an origin like Israel. With surgical precision
God separated His elect nation from its historic womb in a mighty demonstration
of His power and wisdom. In the historic progression of events since creation,
the Exodus expanded upon the judgment/salvation theme of the previous global
flood catastrophe. The Exodus event, in fact, is to the Old Testament what the
birth and death of Jesus Christ is to the New Testament. It provides one of the
great pictures of what God means when He speaks of redemption.
The Catastrophic Disruption of the Exodus. To a reader
not under the influence of modern theories of historical reconstruction, the
Scriptural account leaves little doubt that the Exodus event was a catastrophic
disruption in ancient Near Eastern history. A series of gradually escalating
ecological crises struck the most advanced civilization then existing. All
Egypt was affected--the people, the cattle, and the fields; and its
agricultural economy was devastated (Exod. 7:14-10:29).
Great numbers of the general population were killed
(Exod. 11-12), and economy looted of its gold and silver (11:2). Egypt’s
formidable army was completely destroyed (14-15) and Pharaoh himself along with
his military staff killed (14:8,10,17- 18,27-28; cf. Ps. 136:15). Egypt
virtually disappeared from history according to Scripture with no mention of
Egypt as a contemporary power from Moses until the time of Solomon five
centuries later (cf. Deut. 11:4). News of this catastrophe spread terror
throughout neighboring countries (Jos. 2:9-11)
Unfortunately what appears so clear to a naive reader
of the Exodus story “can’t be true” according to modern scholarly consensus.
Having established a chronology of ancient history upon the “assured” results
of a series of inferences from alleged astronomical observations and
evolutionary theory, modern historical reconstruction of this period insists
that Egypt was in her zenith of political power in the so-called New Kingdom
period. The New Kingdom candidates for “Pharaoh of the Exodus” did not die, nor
was there any disruption in Egyptian control of neighboring Palestine. No
evidence can be found, it is claimed, of the ecological disturbances recorded
in the Scripture. Similar conflict continues with the later Conquest (see next
chapter).
Even the best evangelical scholars accept wholesale
this background chronology as an assured fact.[7] They strain mightily to fit
the Exodus event into the New Kingdom era, somehow explaining away why no
mention is made of Egypt as a contemporary power between Moses and Solomon, why
the Pharaoh really did not die, why no evidence of Egypt’s economic.47 destruction appears at this time in Egyptian history,
and why Israel fought numerous nations for control of Palestine but never once
encountered Egyptian armies.
Pagan scholars, of course, forthrightly mock the
Scriptural narrative as mostly mythological with a few possible historical
reports thrown in. The fancy footwork, however, of godly scholars reminds us of
the debates over creation, fall, and flood in Genesis. In Part II of this
series I explained the false reasoning and pagan presuppositions involved in
trying to reconstruct natural history. Very similar logic applies here. Again
there are the Capitulation, Accommodationist, and Counter-attack strategies
involved. I give a more detailed analysis of the chronological problems of
ancient history in Appendix B.
If, like the creationists in the creation controversy,
we dare to rethink the so-called assured results of historical research,
possible solutions to this dilemma appear. If Egyptian history is
re-interpreted according to Scriptural data, then the Exodus event coincided
with the end of what is called the Middle Kingdom period, not with the middle
of the New Kingdom period. Precisely during the collapse of the so-called
Middle Kingdom, a papyri records events remarkably similar to those of Exodus
7-12:
Papyrus Ref. Text Exod. Ref.
2:5-6 “Plague is throughout the land. Blood is
everywhere” 7:21
2:10 “The river is blood. . .Men shrink from tasting
it” 7:20,24
2:10 “Gates, columns, and walls are consumed by fire”
9:23-24
2:13 “He who places his brother in the ground is
everywhere” 12:30
3:14 “It is groaning that is throughout the land,
mingled with lamentations” 12:30
4:14 “Trees are destroyed” 9:25
5:5 “All animals, their hearts weep.” 9:3
6:3 “Grain has perished on every side.” 10:15
7:1 “The fire has mounted up on high.” 13:21
9:3 “Each man fetches for himself those that are
branded with his name.” 9:19,21
9:11 “The land is not light.” 10:22
-----------------------------------------
Fig. 3.2 Comparison of the Lamentation of Ipuwer
(Gardiner’s translation given in Velikovsky, Ages In Chaos, with Exodus..48 As I explain in Appendix B, radically re-interpreting
Egyptian history not only resolves the Exodus problem, it resolves and
illuminates Joseph’s role in Egyptian history, the Conquest era, and later
interaction between Egypt and Israel in the period of the kings. It resolves
the report by the Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, Bk II,
Chap 9, Para 1) that Jewish slaves built pyramids. Since the standard
chronology insists that pyramids were no longer built when the Jews were in
Egypt, this report is seen as a figment of Josephus’ imagination.
Notice that to do this re-interpreation, we have had
to challenge completely modern reconstruction of Ancient Near Eastern history
just as earlier we “offended” the modern historical sciences. This is just more
evidence of what I mentioned in Part I of this series that the world suffers
from global deception and lies in profound darkness. The Exodus event was a
public judgment that revealed God’s holiness and omnipotence to the world, not
a minor hiccup barely noticeable in Egyptian history!
The Reluctant Israelites. There has always been the tendency to regard Israel
as more righteous than Egypt. The Bible, however, denies that Israel had any
superior righteousness of her own. Ezekiel records that the Israelites were
thoroughly integrated into Egyptian idolatry and even rebelled against God’s
call for separation (Ezk. 20:6-10). Joshua, too, mentioned this Hebrew apostasy
in Egypt (Josh. 24:14; cf. Lev. 17:7). When Moses first preached, Israel was no
more responsive than Egypt (Exod. 6:9,12). Later, Moses told Israel clearly:
“Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you” (Deut.
9:24).
The Israelites had to be persuaded by the miraculous
series of events to trust the God of Moses their leader. Although they cried to
Him over their servitude to the Egyptian taskmasters (Exod. 3:7), they had a
strange sense of security in Egypt that was threatened by the Exodus disruption
(Num. 11:5; 14:22; 20:3-5). Thus the Exodus event involved two mighty works: a
terrible judgment upon Egypt and salvation of a reluctant people.
The Meaning of the Exodus. What, then, is the big picture of the Exodus? Egypt
was one of the most advanced versions of the pagan Kingdom of Man. It offered
rebellious man a “home” of his own making in God’s creation. Man appeared to
have freedom to live in perfect security. Had not Joseph years before provided
food relief against nature’s worst famine? The state in the person of Pharaoh
had become a savior and redeemer to bring man upward along the scale of being.
Egypt offered unbelieving mankind an apparently secure cocoon of order in an
otherwise chaotic, threatening world.
In reality the apparent freedom pagan man enjoys is
slavery—slavery to his counterfeit of the Kingdom of God. As Rushdoony
observes:
Slaves, true slaves, don’t want to be rescued from
freedom; their greatest fear is liberty. . . .Even as a timid and fearful child
dreads the dark, so does the slave mind fear liberty: it is full of the terrors
of the unknown. As a result, the slave mind clings to statist or state slavery,
cradle-to-grave welfare care, as a fearful child clings to his mother. The
advantage of slavery is precisely this, security in the master or in the state.[8]
The Kingdom of God, in stark contrast, collides with
this pagan modus operandi. As God demonstrated in Abraham’s day, the basis of
His redeeming interference is given in election and justification. Plans of
family life require economic support; and economic support, as well as all
other requirements, comes from God’s sovereign, incomprehensible,
partially-revealed plan. God electively initiates; man can only respond.
Thus God brought a series of plagues against Pharaoh,
increasing the pressure with each one. At first his magicians were able to
counterfeit the miracles with their demonic powers, but finally they could not
(Exod. 8:18). The crescendo of plagues eventually revealed a physical and
miraculous separation between the Israelites as the Lord’s people and the
Egyptians as Pharaoh’s people (8:21-23). God’s election was becoming clearer.
The crisis centered on the pagan worldview and its conception of society.
Egyptian paganism insisted that Pharaoh was the saving mediator between the
gods and man. It was a completely worked-out scheme in which society could
flourish as long as Pharaoh preserved order. Against this view Moses came as
God and Aaron as his prophet (7:1). Moses spoke of the Creator God separate
from and over all creatures Who had His own scheme of how mankind should live.
The conflict was set: either Pharaoh had to submit to God’s Word through Moses
and give up his role and the entire pagan scheme that went with it; or Pharaoh
could resist and hold on to the pagan agenda.
We all know what happened. He “hardened his heart”
(Exod. 5:15ff; 8:15,19,32; 9:34-35; 10:27-29), yet even this action was not
ultimately of Pharaoh. The electing God is said to have hardened his heart
(Exod. 4:21; 9:12; 10:20,27; 11:10; 14:4,8,17). As we learned in the last
chapter, when God elects, He intervenes in a situation already evil. Pharaoh as
a fallen creature was already in rebellion before the hardening process began.
What God did was to present him repeatedly with further revelation which only
served to strengthen his rebellion. The judgment was ultimately caused by God
but immediately caused by Pharaoh. The separating work required by election
began. The intrusion of the Kingdom of God into the fallen
world in the exodus demonstrated a modus operandi of election. It overwhelmed
all opposition and separated Israel from Egypt. Instead of the orderly society
of Egyptian paganism based upon man’s autonomous organizing powers, God created
Israel based upon His incomprehensible plan only pieces of which are revealed
to man. God made it clear that whatever future followed the exodus event, the
event itself followed logically and directly from His covenant with Abraham
(Exod. 2:24; 3:15-17; 4:5; 6:2-5; 13:5; 32:13; 33:1; Lev. 26:42,45; Num. 10:29;
14:23; 32:11). It was planned, alright, but not by man!
Rather than enslavement for security sake, God
provided real liberty with a security that depended exclusively upon a
relationship with Him. By shattering the pagan plan for society, God relieved
mankind of unappreciated danger: For a man with all the limitations of man to
claim to be as God is to indulge in a dangerous fantasy; for a state, with all
the limitations of man compounded, but the power of the sword added to it, to
claim to be as God is desperately dangerous and suicidal as well.[9]
The other part of God’s modus operandi is the
justification shown in Abraham’s day. Pagan society morally is grounded upon a
demand to assuage the deep guilt of the sinful heart. The politics of the anti-Christian
will thus inescapably be the politics of guilt. In the politics of guilt, man
is perpetually drained in his social energy and cultural activity by his
overriding sense of guilt and his masochistic activity. He will progressively
demand of the state a redemptive role. What he cannot do personally, i.e., to
save himself, he demands that the state do for him, so that the state, as man
enlarged, becomes the human savior of man.[10]
Paganism, in other words, designs a social order that
functions as a corporate version of the fig leaves used by Adam and his wife to
cover their nakedness (Gen. 3:7). It has numerous good works and human welfare
movements. Most importantly, it takes unto itself the job of defining right and
wrong so that man’s autonomous ideas are the moral norm. Divine institutions,
for example, become mere arbitrary conventions to be modified as society
dictates. Everything is subservient to the perceived needs of man.
For the holy God to have fellowship with His own
special nation, that nation must somehow be “justified”. It must be compatible
with His holiness and righteousness. It must be a society where His Presence is
welcomed and not seen as a threat to flee from. During the exodus event
Israel’s acceptance with God is dramatically shown in the new revelation of
God’s most.51 intimate name--Yahweh (which is translated in English
texts as “Jehovah” or “LORD”). When God spoke with Moses, He said that by His
name Yahweh He was not known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exod. 6:3). The old
liberal critics (and ill-informed present ones who are often found teaching
high school and college religions courses) understood that, in spite of the
Genesis text, the name was never used in pre-Mosaic times. Recently, however,
OT critical scholarship has tended to agree with the historic, orthodox
interpretation that the exact meaning of “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” was not
appreciated until the Exodus. Dr. Payne comments:
“As to the meaning of Yahweh, etymological speculation
is rather fruitless. It is the Biblical definition found in Exodus 3:14 and in
the surrounding context that must be determinative. These verses indicate that
the root of “Yahweh” is the verb “to be”, used in its simple, rather than its
causative stem: “God spoke in the first person and said to Moses, ‘I AM THAT I
AM’ (Exod. 3:14; cf. Hos. 1:9). Then, when someone would speak about God in the
third person, the form became,
‘He is,’ or, in the Hebrew, in the archaic spelling,
‘Yahweh.’“[11]
This revelation of “I AM” occurred as Moses watched
the bush that burned but was not consumed (Exod. 3:). Apparently the bush
represented Israel under the fires of persecution in Egypt. God spoke from the
midst of the bush, thereby identifying Himself in the midst of Israel in her
affliction. He is present in all of His holiness in a nation of sinners. He is
there, not because of their human accomplishments, but because of His election
of them in Abraham (3:6,15-16). For Him to be in their midst, however, they
must share a national “justification”, credited with His righteousness. Moses
must take off his shoes; it is holy ground.
Payne continues: God’s immediately preceding promise
to Moses had been, ‘Certainly I will be with thee’ (v. 12). The best
translation for Exodus 3:14 seems, therefore, to be this: ‘I am present is what
I am.’ This description is, in fact, the fundamental inheritance promise of the
testament, ‘I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’ ‘Yahweh’
(‘faithful presence’) is God’s testamental nature or name (Exod. 6:2.4; Deut
7:9; Isa. 26:4).[12]
[It is noteworthy that Jesus used this “I AM” name as
a sort of code-word to reveal His deity (cf. John 8:58; 18:5-6). Observe how He
announces His presence in the Church in the same language and imagery used here
in Exodus (Matt. 28:20; John 14:23; Rev. 1:12-2:1).]
The new social order of Israel, therefore, is designed
not.52 around some Continuity of Being scheme to promote
human good and order but around the Presence of the Holy God. It is a society
not looking to be redeemed (future tense) but one which has been redeemed (past
tense). Man, in this first visible form of the
Kingdom of God since the fall, is not the planner, the
doer, or the definer of right and wrong. Instead, he is the receiver of God’s
plan, the receiver of God’s gracious redemption to bring him into relationship
with Him, and the responder to God’s holy presence.
The meaning of the Exodus comes from the disruptive
separation of God’s elect people out from the old pagan status quo--the highest
level fallen society could ever achieve. Noahic civilization had achieved a
grandeur in Egypt that anticipated the best of the arts, technology, and
science of modern civilization. All such effort, while noble and good and
revelatory of man’s dominion nature under God, is spiritually perverted and
limited. Civilization cannot undo the fall. It cannot restore man to God. It
cannot ultimately satisfy man in the depths of his heart. It cannot serve as a
substitute for the Creator God.
God’s people must be separated from the world. We
march to a different drummer--a new modus operandi of election and
justification that compels us to walk by faith, not by sight. We can’t
understand the whole of our Creator’s plan for us, nor can we work up the
necessary righteousness to enter into His presence. Since we were created as
social beings, we must have our own society patterned after God’s will. God’s
presence cannot be limited to a subjective condition of the individual heart.
Ultimately we must enjoy His presence publicly and corporately on earth, our
created homeland, in a holy Kingdom, a new civilization that replaces
completely fallen civilization.
Paganism, of course, tries to have its
“exodus’s”—attempts at starting new and better societies. However because
paganism casts aside the truths of creation and fall, it has no hope of
separating good from evil. Therefore pagan counterparts to the exodus
event--revolutions, ethnic cleansings, etc.—always wind up as disasters. On its own faith, existence of
human and natural evil is “normal” and irremovable. One evil simply replaces
another.
Separation of good from evil can come only from the
Creator Who established spiritual and moral cause-effect in the first place: “in
the day that you eat from [the tree of good and evil] you shall surely die”
(Gen. 2:17). The first great example of how He intervenes in human history we
saw when we looked at the global flood of Noah’s day.[13] I noted then that
such divine interventions require two inseparable acts—judgment and salvation.
These themes are repeated in the Exodus.
Whereas the great flood revealed judgment and
salvation, the Exodus showed more details of these works of God. In the
progress of revelation, the Exodus sets forth principles of blood atonement
that are crucial to interpret properly the work of Jesus Christ upon the cross.
In the following paragraphs I review the five parts of judgment/salvation using
the Exodus material.
1. Grace Before Judgment. Before the final judgment upon Egypt, God gave
Pharaoh many opportunities to repent. Although at first Pharaoh’s magicians
could counterfeit God’s miracles, eventually they failed and told him that the
miracles of Moses “were the finger of God” (Exod. 8:19). Later God mercifully
allowed Egyptians who “feared the word of the LORD” to shelter themselves
against losses in the plagues (9:20-21).
Just as Noah preached to his generation for over a century before the final hour, Moses again and again warned Egypt of coming doom. Grace, however, is only the temporary extension of God’s love, not an eternal extension. Grace is as “abnormal” as evil is. God’s permission of evil is limited. Eventually, the limit is reached. When that day comes, the day of grace is over.
No further opportunity to repent and believe is left
(II Pet. 3:9; cf. Matt. 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27; Rev. 22:11). In that day God’s
justice will be acknowledged (Rev. 16:5), and the “problem” of evil will go away
because evil will go away. The exodus event finally was finished. The Egyptian
economy lay in ruins. Pharaoh and his leaders were dead. The army lay drowned
in the Red Sea. Grace to them had ended.
2. Perfect Discrimination. When God judges and saves, He perfectly discriminates
between the two groups of people. There are no accidents or victims of the
statistics of chance. Judgment/salvation proceeds from the God Who has the
archetypical (Q)ualities of what we call among men, conscience and knowledge, i.e.,
perfect holiness and omniscience. His righteous standards correlate with His
complete knowledge regarding every creature judged or saved. During the exodus
event, God’s perfect discriminatory power was demonstrated by the way the
plagues were limited to Egyptians and did not affect the Israelites. Note the
careful design of the plague of insects (Exod. 8:21-22), of the pestilence
(9:4,6), of the hail (9:26), of darkness (10:22-23), and of the death of the
firstborn (11:5-7). The principle of divine discrimination is stated boldly in
Exodus 11:7: “the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.
3. Appropriation by Faith. As I explained in the case of the global flood
judgment, “if and only if there is the Creator-creature distinction so that He
is ‘outside’. . . ; if and only if the creature originated evil in a fall that
has spread everywhere. . . ; if and only if God’s intervention involved His
divine attributes at every point. . .then faith is the only means a creature
has of appropriating His saving work.”[14]
Faith was exercised throughout the exodus event in
response to God’s electing and justifying work toward Israel and Moses her
leader. Moses had to believe God would deliver the nation safely in spite of
Pharaoh’s resistance and the Israelite reluctance. The people had to believe
that blood on their doors would deliver their firstborn from death (Exod.
12:21-23). At the Red Sea each person had to rest in faith: in the face of
Pharaoh’s advancing chariot force, with no weapons in his hand, his wife and
children by his side, and the Red Sea at his back, he had to “stand still and
see the salvation of the LORD” (Exod. 14:13; cf. vss. 14-31).
The deliverance had to be wholly the work of God in
order for God to be glorified in history. The exodus event was not to be a
human, armed rebellion or a brilliantly negotiated maneuver; it was to be
clearly supernatural. Salvation always must be by faith.
4. Man and Nature Involved. Biblical salvation involves the physical environment
around man as well as the psychological environment within him. So it was in
the great flood; so it was in the exodus event. The Exodus narrative reports on
the judgments affecting all surface water of Egyptian lakes, the Nile, and the
Red Sea (7:19-25; 14:21-29); animal life (8:2- 10:20); meteorological and
extraterrestrial elements (9:18-34; 10:13,19,21-23; 14:21); and, of course,
death itself (12:29-30).
You must keep this aspect of salvation in mind to be reminded that God’s work is objectively true and independent of man’s opinions. Evil permeates nature as well as man so to eradicate it, God’s saving work must deal with both nature and man together.
5. Only One Way of Salvation. The offensive element of biblical salvation is that
it is unique. There is only one way to be saved whether or not this feature
seems “fair” to the pagan mind. Paganism insists that there be a variety of
ways of salvation rather than only one way. Such thinking never notices that it
is as dogmatic about the proposition of multiplicity as the Bible is about the
proposition of unicity. Both the Bible and paganism each make their own
presuppositional assertions..55
The Exodus expands the revelation about the one way of
salvation beyond that seen in the global flood. The only way of avoiding the death
of one’s firstborn was to sacrifice a lamb and apply its blood to the top and
both sides of one’s door (Exod. 12:21-23). The introduction of blood so
prominently into the judgment/salvation theme demands the further study given
below under the general heading, atonement.
5. a. Atonement per Se. Atonement is related to the general curse, “the
wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23; cf. Gen. 2:17). Since death is the
destruction of life, only that which first lives can die. Biblically, “life” refers
to possession of “soul” (Hebrew = nephesh), not just organic reproduction. In
the biblical worldview animals and man are said to have life; plants do not. A
creationist biologist after studying this issue suggested that nephesh is a
property only of vertebrates: “‘The life (nephesh=‘soul’) of all flesh is the
blood of it’ (Lev. 17:11,14; Deut. 12:23; Gen. 9:4). In the biblical and
everyday sense, invertebrates do not have blood (Hebrew=dam).”[15]
Only vertebrates have a developed central nervous system and so seem capable of having an indwelling spirit like man (Gen. 7:22; Matt. 8:28-34). Death, therefore, comes upon both animals and man, not plants, due to sin. The idea of atonement involves halting this death-curse after sin has occurred. Atonement, in order to be effective, must involve substituting another life--not under the death curse--for that of the sinner and transferring the sinner’s guilt to the credit (imputation) of the sinless substitute. Thus completely useless is the pagan notion of atoning for one’s own sin by one’s own good works or punishment. The sinner has no life to offer in his own behalf!
Why does blood play such a prominent role in
salvation? Here is yet another instance where if you do not start and end with
biblical thought, you wind up in a lot of religious mumbo-jumbo. Blood
atonement is directly related to a literal creation and fall (soul = spirit +
body). Blood, according to the Bible, is a necessary agent of life (Gen. 9:4;
Lev. 17:11). Although blood remains in the body after life departs and so is
not a sufficient agent of life, in present mortal flesh it is a necessary
agent. The future immortal resurrection body, though possessing material flesh
and bones, will have no blood (Luke 24:39; I Cor. 15:50). In the present period
of history before man’s body obtains immortality, however, blood is a key
feature of both the human and animal body. In contexts where atonement is
prominent “blood” can substitute for “life” pars pro toto. Terms like “shed
blood” refer to physical death, and usually a particular sort of physical
death--a violent death.
One the night of the Exodus Passover the blood of the
sacrificed lambs was applied to the doors, testifying to the principle that
substitutionary life had already been taken for those homes. Of course the
lambs used were from the fallen creation and strictly could not substitute for
sinful man (Heb. 9:12). In the economy of God’s workings, however, He
authorized this procedure to teach mankind His ways in preparation for His Son to
come. Three major salvation terms arise from atonement and to these we now
turn.
5. b. Redemption. In speaking of salvation whenever sin’s destructive work is foremost,
substitutionary atonement is described by the term redemption. The basic idea
of redemption can be seen in the OT law. In it if one had lost his inheritance
through debt or had sold himself into slavery, he and his property could be
redeemed whenever one of near kin, called a redeemer kinsman, came forward with
the funds to redeem him (Lev. 25:25-27,47-54; cf. Ruth 4:1-12). This is an
economic picture; the sinner has become of negative value and suffers
restriction of freedom.
The common everyday experience of suffering due to
indebtedness, therefore, is by divine design a picture of the larger issue of
being cursed due to indebtedness to God. The notion of freedom, biblically, is
intimately tied into this term redemption. The Exodus redemption (Exod. 6:6;
15:13) with the historic freedom for the death judgment and, ultimately, from
Pharaoh’s rule is a partial picture of the work of Christ. The shed blood of
Christ is the price of man’s redemption (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:12-15; I
Pet. 1:18-20). The term shed blood refers to Christ’s whole life given in
substitution for man’s life (Mark 10:45; cf. Rom. 5:8-11).[16]
5. c. Propitiation. Whenever the issue of God’s nature, particularly His (Q)uality of
holiness--righteousness and justice--is foremost, substitutionary atonement is
described by the term propitiation. The basic idea of propitiation can be seen
in the Passover portion of the Exodus: God’s wrath and judgment were turned
away; God was satisfied. This is an ethical picture; the sinner has violated
God’s standards and suffers rejection.
The common everyday experience of suffering due to
rejection by someone or of “not measuring up”, therefore, is by divine design a
picture of the larger issue of being considered unacceptable by God. The notion
of acceptance, biblically, is intimately tied into this term propitiation.
Liberal theology tries desperately to attain acceptability with God by relaxing
His holy standards revealed in Scripture. Forgiveness to them is a forsaking of
absolute just standards as hopelessly “archaic”, a sort of divine indifference
to wrongdoing. Said another way,.57 they try to
force God to accept sinners on man’s terms rather than on His terms.
The Bible insists that the issue of man’s acceptance
is subordinate to the issue of God’s holiness. First, God’s holiness is upheld;
then man is accepted. This is authentic acceptance because it recognizes God’s
character for what it is. Christ’s atoning work propitiates God’s offended
holiness (Rom. 3:25-26; Heb. 2:17).
5. d. Reconciliation. Whenever the conflict between God and man is in view, the work of
atonement is described by the term reconciliation. The basic idea of
reconciliation is cessation of antagonism and hostilities. It can be seen in
how Paul describes Christ’s atonement as a “peace initiative” from God (Rom.
5:10) while we were still in a state of war against Him.
Because of sin man is a total enemy of God; his
autonomous attitude totally rebels against God’s authority. Man’s sins are
treasonous acts against his Creator. Reconciliation emphasizes the active,
willful rebellion of man against God rather than his passive state as merely
rejected. It answers to the everyday experience of personal conflict whether
individual or national.
It also reveals that God, not man, initiates the
reconciliation. The Exodus advanced man’s knowledge of God. It was the first
historic revelation that the Kingdom of God would come through a catastrophic
disruption of the Kingdom of Man on earth. Like the global flood previously, it
showed that evil would one day be separated from good and put away. The Exodus
thus begins the story of God’s “pioneer” kingdom on earth.
As the Scriptures proclaim:
“Who is like unto thee, O Jehovah, among the gods?
“Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in
praises
doing wonders?” (Exod. 15:11)
“Know therefore this day, and lay it to thy heart,
that Jehovah, he is God in heaven above, and
upon earth beneath; there is none else.” (Deut. 4:39)
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END NOTES FOR CHAPTER 3
1. The fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 is obviously Jesus
(Matt.
2:15), but his life tended to parallel the experience
of Israel.
2. Henri Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion
(Torchback ed., New York: Harper & Row, 1961 [1948]), p. 64..58
3. One must keep in mind that these designs were
probably pictograms corresponding to our political cartoons in imagery. See
analysis of Figure 3 in Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1948), Book I, pp. 3-212.
4. The ancient Phoenician writer, Sunchuniathon,
explained that the serpent was esteemed “to be the most spiritual of the
reptiles. . . , moving by its spirit, without either hands or feet. . .” cited
in Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons (2nd American edition;
Neptune, NJ: Leozeaux Brothers, 1959), p. 227.
5. To see this idea persisting today one need only
read about the famous four visions of Jeane Dixon. In the first she gaxed into
the eyes of a snake and saw in them “the all-knowing wisdom of the ages.” In
her fourth vision she saw the future man of peace as a descendant of a pharaoh
(Akhnaton). Ruth Montgomery, A Gift of Prophecy (Bantom ed., New York: Bantom
Books, 1966 [1965]), pp. 173-183.
6. ANE, p. 31.
7. See for example, Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of
Priests (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), p. 26, n12.
8. Rousas J. Rushdoony, The Politics of Guilt and Pity
(Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1970), pp. 28, 29f.
9. Ibid., p. 63.
10. Ibid., p. 9.
11. J. Barton Payne, Theology of the Older Testament (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1962), p. 147f.
12. Ibid., p. 148.
13. See discussion in Part II of this series.
14. See discussion in Part II of this series, chapter
on Flood.
15. Arthur J. Jones, “How Many Animals in the Ark?”,
Creation Research Society Quarterly, X, (Sept. 1973), 103.
16. See Part V of this series
on the Death of Christ..59