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Post by Admin on Aug 29, 2023 14:04:38 GMT -5
The Exodus in the New Testament R.E. Nixon, M.A.
I. The Exodus in the New Testament
The escape of a number of Hebrew Slaves from Egypt, probably at some date in the early thirteenth century BC, was not an event which appeared to have far-reaching repercussions at the time, despite the loss of the Egyptian chariots which had been pursuing them. Nor would many secular historians of today or any other day be likely to record it as one of the most important happenings in the history of the world. But when history and religion are seen to be closely related, when men believe that there is a God who orders and disposes the affairs of the human race according to His own good pleasure, the Exodus stands out as the most significant of His mighty acts until His own entry into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ.
In the Old Testament the Exodus has pride of place even over the Creation. ‘This may be explained by the fact that the belief in God the Creator is as much a matter of philosophy of life as of the personal religious relation with God, for the latter is in Israel wholly dominated by the message of salvation by God in history (the Exodus). Israel’s God is a God of salvation, a Saviour.’
1 This is the great moment at which Yahweh is revealed as who He truly is. ‘Israelite tradition is unanimous in affirming that Yahweh is the God of Israel, that he is only truly Yahweh from the time when that religious community called Israel was constituted, that is, since the Exodus from Egypt (Hos. 12:10).’
2 It is through this mighty deed of salvation that Israel came to know Him in His essential nature.
3 It was of course upon this event that the nation depended for her very existence. ‘Israel’s life story did not really begin with the time of Abraham or even the Creation, although the Old Testament in its present form starts there. Rather, Israel’s history had its true beginning in a crucial historical experience that made her a self-conscious historical community—an event so decisive that earlier happenings and subsequent experiences were seen in its light.’
4 In the earlier part of the Old Testament there are three outstanding moments to which the later writers look back. They are the call of Abraham, the Exodus and the reign of David.
5 To Abraham there was made the promise of numerous descendants and a land for them to live in as their own.
6 That promise was not fulfilled in his lifetime.
7 The Exodus was the event which constituted the descendants of Abraham a nation and the purpose of the Exodus was to bring the people eventually to the promised land of Canaan.
8 But the mere crossing of the Jordan into Canaan did not accomplish the purposes of God, for the land had to be conquered. It was not until the time of David that it could truly be said that Israel was given security from all her surrounding enemies.
9 Moreover they had to find a place in which Yahweh their God would choose to make His name dwell,
10 and therefore the capture of Jerusalem by David was in a sense the climax to which the whole Exodus-event was leading.
11 ‘Now at last Yahweh had accomplished that for which He had redeemed Israel out of Egypt four centuries earlier, and brought them into the Promised Land. There had not failed one word of all His good promise.’
12 Moses, then, was the essential link between Abraham and David. The Exodus gave substance to the hopes of Abraham and it provided a nation and a land over which David could rule. This was ‘the decisive event in Israel’s history’.
13 While the recent spate of Old Testament theologies has been emphasizing this, the historians of Israel have been at pains to point out that the Exodus must have been a real historical event. As John Bright points out: ‘Of the exodus itself we have no extra-Biblical evidence. But the Bible’s own witness is itself so impressive as to leave little doubt that some such remarkable deliverance took place.... A belief so ancient and so entrenched will admit of no explanation save that Israel actually escaped from Egypt to the accompaniment of events so stupendous that they were impressed for ever on her memory.’
14 Associated with the Exodus was the giving of the Law and the ordering of the cultus. Hebrew worship and Hebrew morality were traced back to their beginnings just after that great event of deliverance which constituted a nation needing instruction and regulation. ‘The Decalogue starts with proclaiming God as the Redeeming God: “I am the Lord, thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Thus the whole of Israelite ethics is regarded from the point of view of the revelation of redemption (cf. Lv. 19.34, 36f.; 18.3; 20.24ff.; 26.13, 45; further the whole of the introduction to the book of Deuteronomy; and the words of the man who offers his first-fruits in the temple, Dt. 26.5ff.).’
15 Many have examined the spiritual significance of the Law and the cultus with great profit, but that lies outside the scope of our present study. Our concern is with the actions of God and the response of men as displayed in a particular period of history from just before the departure of the Israelites from Egypt until just after their entry into Canaan. And leaving aside the actual teaching given by God to the people, we can still see in the events a revelation of the character of God.
16 For this period shows God notin abstraction but in relationship with His own people of Israel.17 This is something which, as Alexander Maclaren remarked in a slightly different context, ‘is no cold theism, but vivid
religion’.
18 It is not therefore surprising to see that an act of such profound politico-religious significance should not only be the ground of the nation’s existence but also, as it was remembered from generation to generation, the mainstay of its survival.
19 First and most strikingly the Exodus was remembered through the Festival of the Passover. While scholars may debate the exact origin of this feast, there is little doubt about the meaning that it has had for Israel since the time of the Exodus. ‘And when your children say to you, “What do you mean by this service?” you shall say, “It is the sacrifice of the LORD’S passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he slew the Egyptians but spared our houses”’ (Ex. 12:26f.; cf also Dt. 16:1ff., etc.). The Feast of the
Passover and that of Unleavened Bread which was closely associated with it, and the ceremony of the redemption of the firstborn, would of course recall not simply the passing over of the houses of the Israelites but also the whole complex of events which went to make up the Exodus.
20 To each generation of Israelites the drama had to be repeated. ‘At the Passover feast, the departure from Egypt was enacted through the ritual, so clearly that it may be said that at least once a year the Exodus ceased to be a fact of the past and became a living reality.’
21 Other evidence of the liturgical remembrance of the saving acts of God is found in certain credal portions which have survived. The most notable one is probably Deuteronomy 26:5-9:
‘A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried to the LORD the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ The emphasis is on the deliverance from Egypt and the gift of the promised land. Something similar is found in Deuteronomy 6:20-24. In the covenant ceremony which Joshua conducted at Shechem, there is again a passage which seems to be of the same type but it begins its recital of the acts of God with Abraham.
22 There is also fairly frequent reference to the Exodus in the Psalter. Apart from isolated allusions, we find most of the material in ten psalms. Psalm 66 celebrates God’s deliverance of His people starting with the Exodus. Psalm 77 is a personal psalm in which the writer is led from personal trouble to the greatness of the Redeemer God. Psalm 78 is a recital of the Exodus event with lessons drawn from it. To these last two psalms in particular we owe the emphasis on Israel as a flock led by God. Psalm 80 is a plea for God to act again as He has acted before and Israel is described as a vine as well as a flock. Psalm 81 calls for theobedience of the people to the God who had delivered them. Psalms 105 and 106 go together—the emphasis in the former being on the greatness of Yahweh and in the latter on the rebelliousness of the people. Psalm 114 is a celebration in vivid poetic language of God’s victory at the Exodus. Psalms 135 and 136 are psalms of praise to Yahweh in which His work of creation is associated with His work of redemption. As G. von Rad says, ‘Some of the psalms make it perfectly clear that, originally, this span of time (i.e. the period from the patriarchs to the entry into the promised land), and this alone, was regarded as the time of the saving history proper.’
23 If the Psalmists wish to sing of God as Redeemer, they naturally take the Exodus as their theme.
24 When we turn to the prophets we find that in their writings likewise the Exodus has a
dominant role.
25 If the ‘Former Prophets’—the historians—use it as the starting-point of their era and a constant basis for moral and religious exhortation,
26 so do the ‘Latter Prophets’ from the beginning. ‘Amos, Micah, Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah all take the deliverance from Egypt as the point where God acted in history to make Israel his people, and as the event which laid upon them obligations of loyalty and obedience which could not be neglected or ignored without disaster.’
27 Appeal is made not only to the actions of God but also to the faithfulness of their forefathers in the wilderness.
28 The teaching is mainly a drawing out of moral lessons and the application of them to the prophets’ own time. ‘It is manifest that the thought of God as saving did not rest at the point where it began in the Exodus. There he saved Israel from her bondage and from the lash of the taskmaster. But in the prophetic teaching he was seeking to save her from herself.’
29 But there is also a process of ‘spiritualization’ beginning, as in Hosea’s references to ‘Egypt’ in 7:16; 8:13; 9:3, 6; 11:5, 11.30
30 This is developed further in the idea of the second ‘Exodus’ in Jeremiah 16:14f.; 23:7f.
31 The process has its full flower in the prophecies connected with the Exile, to be found in Ezekiel and Isaiah 40-55. In Ezekiel 20 the repetition of the wilderness experience is seen to be a divine judgment on Israel who has rebelled against Yahweh.
32 In Isaiah 40-55 the emphasis is on salvation. As God had led His people from Egypt through the desert by the hand of His servant Moses, so now He would lead them again through the desertthrough a new Servant, ‘an eschatological and Messianic figure’.
33 The God who performs this is the Redeemer, 'ani hu' - 'I am he’, the God of the Exodus.
34 This then is the faith of Israel, of prophet and historian, of priest and psalmist. They believe that Yahweh is their God for He has acted to redeem them, and He is still the same God today.
As G. A. F. Knight puts it: ‘Moses’ faith is in a different category from that of all those who came after him. All who came after him could build upon him, upon the interpretation of God’s mighty acts which Moses had now made once and for all (cf. Ps. 78.2-8; 105.5; 106.7- 8). As one of the great eighth-century prophets himself declares, it was Moses who interpreted the whole “crisis” from Egypt even to Gilgal, that is, right until the moment of entry into the Promised Land (Micah 6.4-5).
35 And on that faith of Moses they do build and build impressively. From the covenant of Sinai they look forward to a new covenant. ‘Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took
them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD...’ (Je. 31:31ff.). God must act again in a greater way, but in a way consistent with His actions at the Exodus.
36 And that is why it can be said that ‘The events of the Exodus, the wilderness wandering and the conquest are as important for the New Testament as for the Old.’
1 Th. C. Vriezen, An Outline of Old Testament Theology, pp. 184f
2 E. Jacob, Theology of the Old Testament, p. 53.
3 G. A. F. Knight goes further when he says, ‘Before that mighty event, then, naturally Israel did not really know
his God.... The Exodus event was thus the great creative act of God, for it was that moment when God revealed
his inner essence as that of compassion and saving power and purpose’ (A Christian Theology of the Old
Testament, pp. 45f.).
4 B. W. Anderson, The Living World of the Old Testament, p. 5.
5 Cf. F. Foulkes, The Acts of God, pp. 9f.
6 Gn. 15: 5, 18, etc.
7 Cf. Heb. 11:13.
8 Ex. 3:7f., etc.
9 Dt. 12:10.
10 Dt. 12:11.
11 2 Sa. 5:6ff.
12 A. G. Hebert, The Throne of David, p. 42.
13 N. W. Porteous, The Theology of the Old Testament in Peake’s Commentary on the Bible (New Edition), p.
152. Cf. Foulkes, op. cit., p. 11.
14 History of Israel, pp. 111f. ). But about the exact nature of the event and what portion of the Hebrew nation
was involved, there is some uncertainty among scholars. (See e.g. Bright, op. cit., pp. 120ff., H. H. Rowley,
From Joseph to Joshua, pp. 4ff.)
15 Vriezen, op. cit., p. 270.
16 Cf. H. Wheeler Robinson, Redemption and Revelation, pp. 88f. ‘...the revelation consists in a redemption, not
the redemption in a revelation—which is what the ascription of a whole and complete legislation to Sinai is apt
wrongly to suggest. The God of Sinai was known by His redemption of Israel from Egypt—that fact counted for
more than any particular “words”, few or many, which may have been linked with it17 Cf. G. E. Wright, The Faith of Israel in The Interpreter’s Bible Vol. I, pp. 38f.
18 Book of Psalms, Vol. III, pp. 383f.
19 Cf. Vriezen, op. cit., pp. 217f.
20 Ex. 13: 11ff.
21 Jacob, op. cit., p. 191.
22 Jos. 24:2-13. For further treatment of this subject see G. E. Wright, God Who Acts, pp. 70ff.; Jacob, op. cit.,
pp. 28f.
obe
23 Old Testament Theology, p. 123.
24 Cf. also Knight: ‘Those Psalms [Pss. 135 and 136] virtually identify God’s action in giving birth to Israel with
his action in creating the earth’ (op. cit., p. 162).
25 Cf. Vriezen: ‘The prophetic message is entirely focused on the miraculous deliverance from Egypt and the
desert’ (op. cit., p. 70).
26 1 Sa. 2:27; 8:8; 10:18; 12:6, 8; 15:2, 6; 2 Sa. 7:6, 23; 1 Ki. 6:1; 8:9, 16, 21, 51, 53; 9:9; 12:28; 2 Ki. 17:7, 36;
21:15. See John Marsh, The Fulness of Time, pp. 42f., 52.
27 See Am. 2:10; 3:1; 9:7; Mi. 6:4; 7:15; Ho. 2:15; 11:1; 12:9, 13; 13:4; Is. 11:16; Je. 2:6; 7:22, 25; 11:4, 7;
16:14; 23:7; 32:21; 34:13. See Marsh, op. cit., p. 44.
28 See e.g. Je. 2:1ff. But for their rebelliousness see Pss. 78, 106, etc.
29 H. H. Rowley, The Faith of Israel, p. 64.
30 Cf. Foulkes, op. cit., p. 27.
31 Cf. A. G. Hebert, The Authority of the Old Testament, p. 146.
32 See von Rad, op. cit., p. 283; Jacob, op. cit., pp. 192f.
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Post by Admin on Aug 29, 2023 14:43:40 GMT -5
II. The Exodus in the New Testament Writings
The Old Testament can only leave men expectant, it cannot make them satisfied. This is as true when we think of its Exodus theology as when we consider any other branch of its religion. The Old Testament predicts a pattern, the New Testament proclaims a fulfilment.
38 It will be our task first to examine the New Testament documents to see in what way they give
us Exodus material and then to see in what sense New Testament theology can be said to be ‘Exodus Theology’.
First a word should be said about typological exegesis. This is generally recognized by scholars today as a legitimate method, whereas allegorical interpretation is in some disfavour in most quarters.
39 Typology requires a real correspondence between the actions of God in redemption and judgment on different occasions, while allegorizing means finding some purely artificial link between one thing and another and in so doing missing the real meaning of the thing allegorized. The beginnings of typology are found in the Old Testament (see above pp. 5ff.) but it could only come to maturity after God had acted again in Christ. It is
sometimes called ‘homology’ for it is based not on a superficial resemblance but on a sameness of divine action within the framework of revelation.
40 And true Christian typology has always been based on the Exodus event in particular as a foreshadowing of the redemptive work of Christ, and by the Exodus we mean the whole event in all its aspects from the beginning of the book of Exodus until the conquest of Canaan under Joshua.
It is therefore with typology that we are chiefly concerned in this study, but we wish also to observe as far as possible the allusions to, and comparisons and contrasts with, the Exodus event which intentionally or otherwise occur in the New Testament documents.
(a) The Synoptic Gospels
‘In the Synoptic Gospels typology is rare.’
41 ‘The typology of the Exodus was fundamental for the Evangelists....’
42 Here perhaps lies one of the main jousting-grounds of New Testament scholarship today. Dr. John Marsh reminds us that ‘one of the chief tasks of NT theology is to remain constantly alert to the OT “overtones” of the NT text, to consider how much positive meaning is indicated by each OT allusion, and to what extent the OT reference must be understood as pointing to something that transcends it’.
43 When it comes to dealing with the Gospels in particular it is clear that some have better hearing than others! We have before us the Person, life and work of One who claimed that the Old Testament pointed to Him.
44 There was clearly a divine pattern about His mission, yet it is surely unwise to see in every conceivable parallel to the Old Testament a special fulfilment of a type. Every crossing of the Sea of Galilee can hardly be a repetition of the Exodus even if Christ can command wind and wave. And even definite allusions to the Old Testament may not be ‘homologies’ in the technical sense, but merely illustrations.
45 We shall seek in our enquiry for those places where it seems that our Lord or the evangelists intended some theological reference to the Exodus, or where the Exodus has clearly, even if unconsciously in the particular case, moulded their thought-forms. A certain subjectivity of judgment is almost inevitable. The birth of John the Baptist was celebrated by his father Zechariah in the words of the Benedictus,
46 which has many overtones from the Exodus. God has visited and redeemed His people, He has saved them from their enemies, He has shown mercy and remembered His covenant.
47 Our Lord Himself is given at His birth, for a theological reason, the name of Jesus, the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua, ‘for he will save his people from their sins’.
48 When He is brought to be presented in the Temple, Simeon’s assertion that his eyes had seen God’s salvation
49 recalls the ‘Second Exodus’ passage of Isaiah 52, as does the evangelist’s
reference to those ‘who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem’.
50 There are clear parallels between the attempts of Pharaoh and Herod to kill the Hebrew children
51 and the picture of Jesus as a second Moses is strengthened when the specific attempt on His life is
compared with the specific attempt on Moses’ life.
52 But Christ is shown not only as a second Moses but also as the New Israel,
53 the true first-born Son of God who is called out of Egypt.
54 For St. Mark the gospel begins with the ministry of John the Baptist. The quotation of Isaiah 40:3 in Mark 1:3 (‘ “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” ’) may be a pointer to the idea of the new Exodus, especially if that from Malachi 3: r associated with it in Mark 1:2 (‘ “Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way;” ’) depends on Exodus 23:20 (‘ “Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared.”’).
55 There are certainly Exodus associations in the baptism of Jesus by John. ‘The baptism of John was a sacramental representation of the historical Exodus of Israel and, at the same time, an introduction to the New Exodus of salvation.’
56 How fitting then that the New Israel should be baptized ‘to fulfil all righteousness’.
57 After the baptism Matthew and Mark record that our Lord ‘came up’ out of the water. It is unwise to press the use of a common descriptive word into a theological nuance, but it is possibly significant that the word ¢naba…nein, rendering Heb. ‘ala’ in LXX, is used both of the Exodus (e.g. Ex. 13:18) and of the entry into the
promised land (e.g. Dt. 1: 21).
58 After the baptism come the temptations.
59 There can be little doubt that the forty days in the wilderness are a miniature of the forty years which Israel spent in the wilderness, as in a sense was Moses’ forty days in the mount.
60 The temptations put to Christ are basically those to which Israel had yielded. Where they had been dissatisfied with Yahweh’s provision of manna,
61 He is tempted to turn stones into bread.
62 Where they put God to the test at Massah demanding proof of His presence and power,
63 He is tempted to jump from the Temple pinnacle to force God to honour His promises.
64 Where they forgot the Lord who had brought them out of Egypt and substituted a molten calf for Him,
65 He is tempted to fall down and worship Satan.
66 Christ is shown to meet the temptations not arbitrarily but deliberately from Moses’ summary in Deuteronomy of the history of Israel in the wilderness.
67 ‘If Jesus really was the true representative of God’s people, he too must be shown to have had his wilderness journey and endured the test which proved his person, only without sin.’
68 Mark and Matthew both record that our Lord did not begin His public ministry at this point, but only after He heard of the arrest of John.
69 If there was a theological reason for this it is possible that it should be explained not only by the succession of Elisha to Elijah,
70 but also by that of Joshua to Moses.
71 John is of course represented in the Synoptics as a second Elijah,
72 but in a sense Jesus Himself is Elijah.
73 Elijah, according to a rabbinic view, is the prophet like Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18:15.
74 Our Lord is able to fulfil the types of Moses and Elijah at once without any inconsistency. It may be therefore that He is also able to play the parts of Joshua and of Elisha and that in some sense John acts not only as Elijah but also as Moses, of whom Elijah was the first antitype. The Old Testament background is too
rich to make a simple equation of our Lord with one figure, and the special place of John as the last of the line of prophets of the Old Covenant could mean that he too had at least a dual role. In any event John baptizes the New Israel as Moses had the Old.
75 ‘Just as Moses led the children of Israel to the borders of the Promised Land, but could not himself enter, so John led his followers up to the verge of the new order initiated by Jesus, but could not himself enter.’
76 It may well be then that our Lord enters His ministry as a second Joshua to conquer the people of Palestine, but in this case they are not the heathen but God’s own faithless nation. ‘Step by step He recapitulated in His own person the history of Israel.
Herein lies the significance of His baptism in Jordan ... [and] the forty days of preparation....
Then followed the active ministry, the purely “natural” assault (as we may call it) upon the forces which stood between the chosen of God and His inheritance.’
77 By any reckoning it is a significant moment, for, as He said, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’
78 Entry into the Kingdom with Him is now a real possibility.
79 The evangelists show us that no sooner had Jesus begun His ministry than He started to perform miracles.
80 For the Synoptists as well as for John it appears that miracles were in a sense ‘signs’ of the power of God at work and seals upon the authority of the divine message.
81 The Beelzebul controversy
82 suggests strongly that there is a link between the miracles of our Lord and those performed by Moses before the Exodus. Jesus says ‘if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you’.
83 The phrase ‘the finger of God’ is found in Exodus 8:19.
84 In the first Gospel we then come to the Sermon on the Mount. Whatever may have been the exact method of compilation of this material, there is little doubt that Matthew sets it out as he does in order to emphasize the role of Jesus as the second Moses. ‘You have heard that it was said to the men of old ..But I say to you….’
85 It is not our task here to compare this teaching with that of the Pentateuch, but simply to note the ‘Moses typology’ present in the whole scene. ‘Jesus nowhere speaks of the disciples whom He is gathering as the nucleus for a new Israel. But His actions speak more clearly than any words.’
86 And moreover ‘the number “twelve” in His choice of the inner circle is deliberate’.
87 This is an attempt to go back to the time of the twelve tribes
88 and we may think in particular to the time of the Exodus. The sending out of the Seventy recorded in Luke 10:1ff. seems also to be based on an ‘Exodus’ theme, for Moses gathered seventy of the elders of Israel and Yahweh put upon them some of the spirit which was upon Moses.
89 The disciples are also called the ‘little flock’,
90 and the imagery of God leading His people like a flock through the wilderness after the Exodus is one
which is prominent in the Psalms.
91 But if the disciples are a ‘little flock’, the people as a whole are ‘like sheep without a shepherd’.
92 Because Moses had seen Israel in such a plight, an army without a general, Joshua had been appointed to share his authority.93 Here then is a clear Exodus allusion in the context of a miracle which is seen in the Fourth Gospel to be parallel to the feeding of Israel on the manna.
94 There are a number of features about the story—the emphasis on their being men, the companies of fifty and a hundred,
95 and the need to compel them to go away—which support John’s contention that as it was Passover time (when the Messiah was expected to appear) Jesus perceived ‘that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king’.
96 It may not only have been our Lord and the evangelists who saw the Exodus associations.
97 Whatever may be the exact nature of the transfiguration experience, there can be no doubt at all that the evangelists thought it to be pregnant with Exodus symbolism. Moses went up into the mountain with three companions; So does Jesus.
98 Moses’ face shone with the glory of God; the garments and face of Jesus became dazzling with celestial brightness.
99 Moses and Elijah appear and the voice from the cloud
100 which says ‘This is my beloved Son; listen to him’ is surely echoing the words of Deuteronomy 18:15, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed’. But most interesting of all is St. Luke’s remark that they were discussing His œxodoj.’
101 For the instructed Christian reader of the Gospel that could mean nothing less than the repetition of God’s mighty acts of redemption in His death and resurrection at Jerusalem.
102 From the mount our Lord descends, as did Moses, to find confusion on the plain.
103 ‘O faithless generation’, He says, ‘how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?’ The inclusion in Matthew and Luke of the word ‘perverse’ (diestrammšnh) shows that the evangelists at least saw a parallel between the generation of our Lord’s day and the generation of the first Exodus.
104 That generation came under judgment for its faithlessness and was not permitted to enter the promised land.
105 This generation wanted sign;
106 they were adulterous and sinful;
107 they were like sulky children;
108 they were bound to reject the Son of man;
109 they would be condemned in the judgment;
110 blood would be required at their hand;
111 this generation would not pass until what was predicted in judgment was fulfilled.
112 It seems then that the ‘generation’ had in itself an eschatological significance comparable to that of the generation of the first Exodus. In it was to be worked out the judgment on the Jewish race. The parable of the Wicked Husbandmen
113 shows us clearly that the vineyard of Israel, given to the people at the Exodus,
114 is to be taken away from the present tenants, who are to be killed, and given to others. It is difficult to interpret this, as it stands, in any other way than as a reference to the Jewish War of AD 66-70 and the handing over of the ‘inheritance’ to those who are fellow-heirs with Christ, the ‘Heir’ of the New Israel.
There is then to be a new conquest of Canaan. Its cities will be destroyed in a day of judgment.
115 The disciples will not be able to go through all the towns of Israel before the Son of man comes.
116 Jerusalem itself will be taken and burnt.
117 Its inhabitants will suffer the punishment of Babylon
118 because they did not recognize the time of God’s saving visitation.
119 The casting out (™kb£llein) from the Temple of the traders
120 who are Israelites
121 shows that the wheel has turned full circle from the time when Yahweh cast out the nations before His
people.
122 The Gentiles would now possess the kingdom and the Jews be excluded.
123 This strain of teaching is summed up in the apocalyptic discourse of Mark 13 (and parallels) where the horrors of the Jewish War are shown to be a preview of the final judgment of the world.
124 The eagles of Rome would pounce like vultures on the rotting corpse of Judaism
125 but in the end God would gather together His outcasts from the uttermost part of heaven.
126 The Exodus allusions seem to be particularly prominent in the independent Lucan version.
127 If some of the details are fortuitous or inevitable, at least the main drift of this theme is clear.
Against this background of the unbelief of the people of Israel which would lead to the reversal of the Exodus,
128 our Lord sets His face to go to Jerusalem, because the time of His ‘assumption’ is near.
129 C. F. Evans is of the opinion that this word may echo the title of the work The Assumption of Moses and that Luke 9:51 - 18:14 is arranged in away that is very similar to Deuteronomy.
130 Within this section comes an important saying of our Lord: ‘I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!’
131 There is a similar saying in Mark: ‘Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?’
132 The baptism being accomplished was surely not just the fulfilment at the cross of His baptism by John. As Marsh says: ‘It is difficult not to think that Jesus meant here to indicate that the whole of Israel’s history, from her baptism in the Red Sea to his own forthcoming death, was in his mind.’
133One of the objects of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem was to celebrate the great Exodus festival of the Passover.
134 Whether the Last Supper of the Synoptic Gospels was in fact the Jewish Passover or not,
135 there can be no doubt of the strong Paschal associations which were intended by our Lord and the evangelists.
136 The crucial point is the meaning of the words ‘my blood of the covenant’ , Mk. 14:24). At least it can be said that they echo Moses’ words in Exodus 24:8 where Yahweh seals His covenant with the people whom He has just brought out of Egypt. The nature of the meal also suggests strongly that the blood of the original Passover lambs is in mind, ‘Their blood had a redemptive effect, and made God’s covenant with Abraham operative.... In the same way will the people of God of the last days be redeemed by the merits of the Passover blood. Jesus therefore describes His death as this eschatological Passover sacrifice. His vicarious death brings the final deliverance into operation.’
St. Matthew is often thought to be the evangelist who stresses the Exodus typology most with the infancy narratives, the Sermon on the Mount and the five blocks of teaching.
138 But it is also true that Luke ‘retains the Exodus formulation of the pattern of the ministry’
139 and that Mark ‘brings the story of the Exodus to provide categories of interpretation to the life and
death of Christ’.
140 Alan Richardson sums up the situation fairly when he says: ‘The fact is that the whole Gospel tradition ... is cast into a Pentateuchal shape, because the Exodus deliverance of Israel from Egypt was the only pattern of redemption which the NT writers knew.’141
33 Jacob, op. cit., p. 339. Cf. Foulkes, op. cit., p. 22. For a fuller treatment see B. W. Anderson, Exodus Typology
in Second Isaiah, in B. W. Anderson and W. Harrelson, Israel’s Prophetic Heritage, pp. 177-195. This work was
not available in this country when the lecture was delivered.
34 Cf. also a great Exodus passage in Is. 63:7ff.
35 Op. cit., pp. 316f.
36 Cf. Marsh, op. cit., pp. 64f.
37 Wright, God Who Acts, p. 63.
38 Cf. Marsh, op. cit., pp. 75f.
39 See G. W. H. Lampe, Essays on Typology, p. 30.
40 See e.g. Hebert, The Authority of the Old Testament, pp. 218ff
41 B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic, p. 274n.
42 H. Sahlin. The Root of the Vine, ed. A. Fridrichsen, p. 83.
43 The Theology of the New Testament in Peake, p. 757
44 Lk. 24: 44.
45 Cf. Hebert, The Authority of the Old Testament, p. 233, for the distinction between the way in which Moses
and Jonah point to Christ.
46 Lk. 1:67ff.
47 Cf. Ex. 3:16f.; 6:4ff.; Pss. 105:8ff.; 106:10, 45.
48 Mt. 1: 21.
49 Lk. 2:30, cf. Is. 52:10
50 Lk. 2:38, cf. Is. 52:9.
51 Ex. 1:16; Mt. 2:16.
52 Ex. 2:15; 4:19.
53 D. Daube suggests that the story of Jacob and Laban provides background material and so supports this image
(The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism, pp. 189ff.).
54 Mt. 2:14f.; cf. Ex. 4:22; Ho. 11:1. Cf. R. V. G. Tasker, The Old Testament in the New Testament,
2
p. 43; W. J.
Phythian-Adams, The Fulness of Israel, p. 194.
55 Cf. A. M. Farrer, A Study in St. Mark, pp. 55f.
56 Sahlin, op. cit., p.89.
57 Mt. 3:15. Cf. Marsh, Fulness, p. 84, ‘The “righteousness” is ... the consistency and certainty of purpose which
characterizes the God who once called and con stituted his people in an Exodus, and will ... call and constitute
them again in a new Exodus, wrought in his Son.’
58 Cf. also Daube, ‘It is, for example, conceivable that among the reasons why the Baptist chose to baptize in the
Jordan was that he saw in the “coming up” a new entry into the Promised Land’ (op. cit., p. 112).
59 It may again be possible to see Exodus associations in the words ‘led up’ (Mt. 4:1, cf ¢n£gein in Ex. 33:12,
15, etc.) or ‘led’ (Lk. 4:1, cf. ¥gein in the Exodus passage Is. 63:11), but it would be precarious to base too much
upon this.
60 Ex. 24:18.
61 Nu. 11:1ff.
62 Mt. 4:3; Lk. 4:3
63 Ex. 17:1f.
64 Mt. 4:5f.; Lk. 4:9ff.
65 Ex. 32:1ff.
66 Mt. 4:8f.; Lk. 4:5ff.
67 Dt. 8:3; 6:13, 16.
68 J. A. T. Robinson, Twelve New Testament Studies, p. 60. For a further discussion of the temptations and their
background in Deuteronomy, see also G. H. P. Thompson, J.T.S. (N.S.) XI, 1960, pp. 1ff.
69 Mt. 4:12; Mk. 1:14.
70 2 Ki. 2:1ff.
71 Jos. 1:2.
72 Mt. 11:14, etc.
73 See Robinson, op. cit., p. 47 and the whole article, ‘Elijah, John and Jesus’.
74 Daube, op. cit., p. 296.
75 Cf. 1 Cor. 10: 2.
76 T. W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus, p. 70. See Mt. 11:11ff.; Lk. 7:28ff.; 16:16.
77 Phythian-Adams, op. cit., p. 19578 Mk. 1:15; cf. Mt. 4:17.
79 Mt. 11:12f.; Lk. 16:16.
80 Mk. 1:21ff. and parallels.
81 See A. Richardson, The Miracle Stories of the Gospels, pp. 57f.
82 Mt. 12:22ff.; Lk. 11:14ff.
83 œfqasen, Lk. 11:20.
84 See Tasker, op. cit., p. 28. There may also be significance in the reference to the ‘strong man’ which is perhaps
drawn from Is. 49:24 in a context of the New Exodus. For the ‘spoiling’ cf. also Ex. 15:9.
85 Mt. 5: 21f., 27f., 31f., 33f., 38f., 43f.
86 R. Newton Flew, Jesus and His Church, p. 50.
87 Flew, op. cit., p. 52.
88 Cf. Mt. 19:28; Lk. 22:30.
89 Nu. 11:16ff. Cf. Marsh, Fulness, p.86.
90 Lk. 12:32.
91 See e.g. Pss. 77:20; 78:52; 80:1. It may be too that there is some analogy between the repeated call to follow
Christ and the example of Caleb who ‘wholly followed the Lord’ (Dt. 1:36, etc.; cf. Mk. 1:17f., etc.).
92 Mk. 6: 34; cf. Mt. 9:36.
93 Nu. 27:17; cf. also 1 Ki. 22:1795 Cf. Ex. 18:21; Dt. 1:15.
96 Jn. 6:15.
97 See T. W. Manson, The Servant Messiah, p. 70; H. W. Montefiore, N.T.S. 8.2. Jan. ‘62, pp. 135ff.
98 Ex. 24:1; Mk. 9:2 and parallels.
99 Ex. 34:29; Mk. 9:3 and parallels. Matthew in particular notes details relating it to Sinai. See Tasker, op. cit.,
pp. 46f., S. H. Hooke, Alpha and Omega, pp. 147ff.
100 Cf. Ex. 24:16, etc.
101 Lk. 9:31.
102 Cf A. Richardson, Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament, pp. 181ff.
103 Ex. 32:7ff.; Mk. 9:14ff. and parallels.
104 See Dt. 32:5. There may also be in the expression ‘bear with you’ a reference back to Moses in Nu. 11:14ff.;
Dt. 1:9ff.
105 Nu. 32:13; Dt. 1:35; 2:14.
106 Mk. 8:12; Mt. 16:4; Mt. 12:39; Lk. 11:29f.
107 Mk. 8:38.
108 Mt. 11:16f.; Lk. 7:31f.
109 Lk. 17:25.
110 Mt. 12:41f., 45; Lk. 11:31f.
111 Mt. 23: 34ff.; Lk. 11:50f.
112 Mk. 1:30 and parallels
113 Mk. 12:1ff. and parallels.
114 Is. 5:1ff.; Ps. 80:8ff.
115 Mt 10:15; 11:20ff.; Lk. 10:12ff; cf. Dt. 9:1ff.
116 Mt. 10:23. We may be right in supposing that the Son of man did come in judgment through Titus in AD 70.
Cf. references to Cyrus in Is. 44:28; 45:1ff.
117 Mt. 22:7; cf. Jos. 6:24, etc.
118 Lk. 19:41ff.; cf. Ps. 137:9.
119 Cf. Ex. 3:16; 4:31; 13:19.
120 Or Canaanites? See Zc. 14:21.
121 Mk. 11:15 and parallels.
122 Pss. 78:55; 80:8.
123 Lk. 13:28f., ™kb£llomšnouj. Cf. Mt. 8:11f.
124 Cf. also Hooke, on the judgment theme in the final discourse: ‘Moses had become identified with the sin of
Israel, “the Lord was wroth with me for your sakes” (Dt. 3:26), and had to die, sharing their judgment; but
Joshua (Jesus, cf. Heb. 4:8) led the new Israel through the symbolic waters of Jordan and on to the triumphant
possession of the promised inheritance’ (op. cit., p. 150).
125 Mt. 24:28; Lk. 17:37. Cf. Dt. 28:26.
126 Mk. 13:27; Mt. 24:31; cf. Dt. 30:4.
127 Days of vengeance’ Lk. 21:22; cf. Dt. 32:35; ‘led captive among all nations’ Lk. 21:24; cf. Dt. 28:63f.;
‘trodden down by the Gentiles’ Lk. 21:24; cf. Is. 63:18; ‘redemption’ Lk. 21:28. For a suggestion that the woes
of Mt. 23 are based on Dt. 32, see P. P. Levertoff, St. Matthew, p. 71.
128And of the attempt of the disciples to quench the spirit (Lk. 9:49; cf. Nu. 11:28).
129 Lk. 9:51130 Studies in the Gospels, ed. D. E. Nineham, pp. 37-53.
131 Lk. 12:50.
132 Mk. 10:38.
133 Fulness, p. 89. Cf. Richardson, I.T.N.T., p. 180.
134 Mk. 14:1ff. and parallels.
135 See e.g. T. Preiss, Life in Christ, pp. 81ff., J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, pp. 1ff.
136 ‘It seems to me imperative to maintain with the Synoptists that the whole assembly of significant images
spells the passage of Passover into eucharist. Without Passover here the pattern is broken’ (Hooke, op. cit., p.
20).
137 Jeremias, op. cit., pp. 146ff. Cf. also in Lk. 12:35, ‘loins girded’, as in Ex. 12:11. On the death of Jesus cf.
also Hooke: ‘When the moment of Israel’s redemption had arrived, before the final act itself took place, there
was “thick darkness” over all the land of Egypt, the place, symbolically, where the Lord was crucified’ (op. cit.,
p. 206).
138 See e.g. H. Sahlin, op. cit., p. 82. But for a theory of three blocks of teaching corresponding to three blocks of
the Pentateuch, see Hooke, op. cit., pp. 142ff.
139 Marsh, Peake, p. 763. For a fuller treatment of this theme in the Third Gospel see J. Mánek, The New Exodus
in the Books of Luke, Novum Testamentum, II, 1958, pp. 8ff.
140 Marsh, Peake, p. 762. See also Ulrich W. Mauser, Christ in the Wilderness, published since this lecture was
delivered.
141 I.T.N.T., p. 167
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Post by Admin on Aug 29, 2023 15:41:09 GMT -5
(b) The Fourth Gospel
St. John’s Gospel has always been a happy hunting-ground for those who are interested in typology. The evangelist has clearly invited his reader to see deeper meanings and allusions, often from the Old Testament, which lie below the surface. The careful selection and arrangement of signs betoken a deeply theological understanding of the ministry of Christ.
Yet for all this there are relatively few definite references to the Exodus in this Gospel.
142 In the prologue Jesus is shown to be superior to Moses in the salvation that He brings and in His direct vision of God.
143 In the first chapter, also, John the Baptist refers to Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God’.
144 If there is some doubt whether the saying refers to the Passover,
145 it is probable that at least part of the allusion is to that. And it is hard to agree that there is no
reference to the Passover in 19:36 ‘Not a bone of him shall be broken’.
146 The readers of the Gospel must surely have received the impression that Christ was killed as the true Passover victim.
147 The uplifted serpent in the wilderness is clearly stated to be a picture of Christ crucified for the salvation of mankind.
148 There are two titles of Christ which are taken from Old Testament references to the Exodus. He is the Bridegroom as Yahweh was of Israel in the wilderness
149 and the true Vine, just as Israel was the vine brought out of Egypt.
150 He is also the Shepherd of the New Israel, as was Yahweh of the Old.
151 Even the ‘I AMs’
152 may be derived from the Passover Haggadah and therefore have Exodus significance, indicating that
God Himself has intervened in His own Person to redeem His people.
153 The most striking passage of Exodus typology in the Gospel is to be found in chapter 6. Reference has already been made (see p. 16) to the feeding of the five thousand. In John we find more explicitly ideas ‘linking the Passover, the manna of the Exodus, and the manna of the end of the age, to be brought by the second Saviour,the death of the Son of Man and the bread of the Last Supper’.
154 Professor Guilding has suggested
155 that many of the emphases are drawn out from the lectionary readings behind the chapter— Exodus 15 and 16 and Numbers 11. This fills out the details of the comparison of Christ with Moses and the manna, and the unbelieving reaction of the people. (It is rather harder to see the walking on the water as a repetition of the crossing of the Red Sea.
156) She also draws attention to the lectionary readings behind chapter 4
157 and chapter 5.
158 There may also be in chapter 14 the thought of Jesus being the new Joshua, entering the promised land at His ascension.
159 Miss Guilding’s researches have opened up many new vistas in the study of the Fourth Gospel and her emphasis on the importance of the feasts is especially relevant to our subject. For as G. E. Wright says, ‘The controversies with the Jews which John records are largely concerned with the question as to whether Jesus does not reveal the true significance of the festivals which celebrate the Israelite deliverance and wandering in the wilderness.’
160 (c) The Acts of the Apostles There seems to be a theological reason behind the times at which the great acts of God in Christ occurred. It was no accident that the crucifixion took place at Passover, nor that the
Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost. It is tempting therefore to suppose that the forty days
between the resurrection and the ascension contain some sort of symbolism. In the Old Testament ‘forty years’ or ‘forty days’ often suggests a time lapse between a significant act of God in redemption or judgment and the full experience of the results of it.
161 The figure may not be precise in all cases but it does seem to indicate a particular understanding of the
importance of the period. Here it may then be that our Lord, having completed His Exodus at Calvary and in the resurrection,
162 spends forty days preparing His disciples before His own entry into His inheritance in heaven.
163 The promise of the baptism with the Spirit
164 would seem to refer more naturally to Pentecost than to Christian baptism generally, which was after all ‘with water’.
165 Pentecost could then be seen as the Church’s Exodus
166 achieved through her Lord’s Exodus before at Calvary. There is a probable allusion to the Exodus period in 2:40 where the people are described as a‘crooked generation’.
167 The God whom Peter proclaims is ‘the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers’.
168 In 3:22 and 7:37 there are the only specific quotations of the ‘Prophet’ passage from Deuteronomy 18:15ff.
169 It is evident, from the amount of space which the author gives to it, that he regarded Stephen’s speech (chapter 7) as a major theological advance. Before Stephen the disciples were a Jewish sect; after him they soon became a truly catholic Church. Stephen begins with a review of Old Testament history. In this the Exodus receives the major part of his attention. There is a clear parallel between Moses the redeemer rejected by his people who worshipped idols, and Jesus the Redeemer rejected by His people who used the Jewish cultus in an idolatrous way.
170 It is on the people that the greatest emphasis is laid. It is ‘our fathers’
171 who were involved and he can therefore round on them and say ‘As your fathers did, so do you’. He can go on to say that it was 'you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it’.
172 They are ‘stiffnecked’
173; they are ‘uncircumcised’
174; they resist the Holy Spirit.
175 Stephen is issuing a call to come out of Judaism, to regain their mobility, to march onwards to the promised land. There is another review of the history of Israel in Paul’s speech at Pisidian Antioch
176 with some emphasis on the Exodus and on ‘our fathers’. But the most striking piece of Exodus typology in the whole hook is the way in which the word was taken over from the Jewish ‘congregation in the wilderness’.
177 This was the flock which He purchased with His own blood.
178 They were the redeemed of the Lord, they were Israel.
179 (d) St. Paul There are in the letters of St. Paul three outstanding passages of Exodus typology. I
Corinthians 5:7f.: ‘Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.’ Christians are a new Israel redeemed through a new PassoverLamb and therefore able continually to rejoice in His blessings.
180 This passage must be linked with his treatment of the Lord’s Supper in I Corinthians 11:23ff., where the words ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ occur, emphasizing strongly the Exodus associations of the Holy Communion.
181 The second passage is 1 Corinthians 10:1ff. There the experiences of Israel redeemed at the Red Sea, sustained but disobedient in the wilderness, are said to be types (tÚpoi) for us. Their baptism corresponded to ours.
182 They too fed on heavenly food. Christ, figuratively speaking, came with them also out of Egypt and through the desert.
183 ‘Being a Jew, St. Paul must have felt that in this sense he himself belonged to the Exodus generation. But as a Christian he must have had this feeling still more strongly. He knew that he belonged to the new
eschatological Exodus under Jesus, the Messiah; and, in his opinion, this new Exodus of Salvation was a complete typological counterpart of the ancient, historical Exodus, only on a larger scale and in a more profound sense.’
184 Then in 2 Corinthians 3 there is the comparison between the old and new covenants. The new covenant is superior to the old for it is inward, personally applied by the Spirit and brings justification and life. The thought is most obviously drawn from Jeremiah 31:31ff., but while the Exodus and the blood are not mentioned they could not have been far from his mind.
Some have also seen Exodus significance in the description of baptism in Romans 6:1ff. The Jewish proselyte, through his circumcision and proselyte’s bath, identified himself with the Exodus and the entry into the promised land. Here is the ‘Christian revision of the kerygma of Judaism, in which the death and resurrection of Jesus replace the Exodus from Egypt’.
185 There are of course numerous other possible allusions, many of which may be fortuitous.
186 In the Pastoral Epistles we have the statement that ‘The Lord knows those who are his’,
187 a reference to Jannes and Jambres opposing Moses188 and the assertion that the Saviour ‘gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds’.
189 It is notable then that St. Paul’s Exodus typology is relatively restricted, and occurs almost entirely in Romans and the Corinthian letters. But Exodus ideas also underlie many of his theological terms such as ‘redemption’ and ‘inheritance’. It would not be unfair to conclude with Davies: ‘We now see what kind of Paul was: he was the not of a new mystery but of a new Exodus and all that that implied.’
190 (e) The Epistle to the Hebrews ‘The whole argument of the Epistle rests on the assumption that there is only one religion, that of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was but a prelude, a foreshadowing of the final
revelation through the Son. The Christian Ecclesia alone is the true Israel of God.’ So writes Flew,
191 and it is true that in a sense all the references to the Person, the priesthood and the sacrifice of Christ are leading up to this—the better covenant, the better religion, that He brings. It is not our task here to examine the sacrificial basis for this covenant, but to try to see how far the persons and events of the Exodus period are reflected in this Epistle.
I believe that the Epistle comes to life in a new way if it is seen as written to a Jewish Christian group at a time of growing nationalism in the late 60s of the first century AD, when pressure was exerted on them to rally round and cling to the tangible realities of the Jewish system.
192 The author, following Stephen’s general approach,
193 calls on them to march on to the promised land of spiritual inheritance and not to go back into a material Judaism which is just about to be destroyed. This teaching seems to be paralleled in the Synoptic Gospels.
194 The treatment of the Exodus theme given here will depend upon that hypothesis, but even if it is incorrect it is clear that the Exodus has much relevance for the writer. In 2:1ff. the two revelations are contrasted. Jesus is greater than the angels who gave the Law. We face a worse punishment than the Israelites of that day if we rebel. In 3:1ff. Christ is shown to be greater than Moses, and therefore we must hold fast to Him. The comparison of the two generations
195 is now made explicit in 3:7 - 4:13. God brought all the people out of Egypt but none (except Joshua and Caleb) into the promised land. They were faithless and they were destroyed. The promised rest still remains for us to enter, as the conquest of Canaan under Joshua could not be said to fulfil it. Let us not fail through disobedience. This theme is brought out through the use of Psalm 95 and great emphasis is given to the ‘forty years’ and the need of action ‘today’. The Qumran community believed that Israel’s history should endas it had begun with a period of forty years.
196 If this type of belief were associated in the Church with our Lord’s teaching about judgment coming upon ‘this generation’
197 the urgency of the situation would be readily apparent to the readers, assuming the Epistle to be written in the years just before AD 70. They had to choose between being cast off with Judaism or entering into the inheritance which was to be given fully to the Church.
198 In 6:1ff. there is a warning against apostasy. It seems to make more sense if applied to a group than to individuals. It is the ‘land’ which is used to illustrate their position and this type of metaphor is used elsewhere in the Bible of Israel as a whole.
199 If the land produces thorn and thistles, as Hosea had prophesied long ago of the altars of Israel,
200 it would be cursed and burnt.
201 This is ‘near’. And the theme of the nearness of judgment is also found in 8:13 where the old covenant is becoming obsolete and growing old and is ‘ready to’vanish away. While any New Testament writer could have written these things of the parousia, they have added relevance if God’s judgment is about to fall upon Judaism, so abolishing the old covenant and fully instituting the new.
There is another important judgment passage in 10:25ff., where again it is emphasized that ‘the Day’ is drawing near . Wilful sin
202 will be punished with fire.
203 Punishment will be worse than under Moses’ law,
204 where death was the penalty for reviling the Lord
205 and idolatry.
206 Vengeance is God’s and He will judge His people.
207 Here is a specific quotation from Deuteronomy 32:35f. where the context speaks of judgment on the nation.
Against this terrible prospect of destruction for those who apostatize,there is set the ‘better possession’;
208 ‘the promise’,
209 and, in a little while,
210 their vindication after the wrath is past.
211 They are therefore to come out in faith as had the great ones of Israel (ch. 11). They are to look to Jesus who endured the opposition of sinners.
212 No-one is to ‘fail to obtain the grace of God’ for an individual ‘root of bitterness’ can defile the whole community.
213 Then in 12:18ff. the old and new mounts are contrasted, and the covenant of Zion is shown to be far
better than that of Sinai. There will therefore be no escape for thedisobedient. There will be a new shaking of the tangible ‘idols’ of Temple and kingdom
214 and a new entry into the unshakable realities. ‘Our God is a consuming fire’
215 and those who are about to enter the promised land must not forsake His covenant and worship idols.
216 The promise made to Joshua as he was about to enter Canaan is theirs: ‘I will never fail you nor
forsake you.’
217 They are to remember their leaders.
218 They are to go out of the camp of Judaism and seek a new city
219 as the goal of their Exodus pilgrimage. This will be achieved only through Christ the great Shepherd of the sheep
220 who was brought up out of death as Moses was out of the Red Sea.
221 If our interpretation is right, the author sees the situation of his readers as being parallel to that
of the people of the first Exodus. The cross and resurrection are the second Exodus; the forty years are running out as AD 70 approaches; the people of Israel are to bring upon themselves the curses threatened in an Exodus context in the book of Deuteronomy and they will be dispossessed of their inheritance as the heathen were; the new people of God will then be led by the new Joshua, Jesus, into their true spiritual inheritance. If a material kingdom and a material temple had in a sense been the goal of the first Exodus,
222 these things must now be forsaken despite their obvious pull, and God’s people must step out with new faith. ‘Today’ is the time for advance, not for retreat. But the Epistle still retains its message for each
generation in the Church, for the events of the Jewish War simply foreshadow the events of the end. We too must come out of the formalism of our religion and go forth with Christ. ‘The Day’, in a still more terrible sense, is drawing near. (f) The Epistle of James The allusion to the faith of Rahab
223 is the only direct reference to any part of the Exodus event.
(g) The First Epistle of Peter The Exodus typology of 1 Peter is obvious to all whether they believe it to be a paschal liturgy or not.
224 From the beginning we see the Church as the true Israel of the second Exodus. Christians are elect, sprinkled with blood and obedient.
225 They have an inheritance,
226 and they are being proved on their way to it.
227 They must have their loins girt,
228 and be holy.
229 They are redeemed
230 with the blood of the Lamb.
231 This teaching is set forth systematically in 2:9f., where they are described as a ‘chosen race,
232 a royal priesthood, a holy nation’.
233 The main theme of the Epistle is that of suffering and persecution. They are undergoing a‘fiery ordeal’.
234 The judgment is beginning at the house of God in their persecutions, but it will come in an even more terrible way on their persecutors. The thought is at least parallel to that of Israel passing through the Red Sea which then drowned the Egyptians. Water is linked with suffering in the Old Testament.
235 Fire and water are linked in Psalm 66:12 and Isaiah 43:2 (both Exodus passages). It may be therefore that the ‘baptism’ which is now saving them includes the baptism of suffering foretold by the figure of the Flood, which so closely resembles the Exodus and their own Christian baptism.
236 Whether this is so or not, they are clearly suffering as the people of the New Exodus. (h) The Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude The arising of false prophets among the people (2 Peter 2:1) seems to be a reference back to Deuteronomy 13:1ff., especially in the context of denying the Lord who ‘bought them’.
237 The present false teachers have followed in the footsteps of Balaam and Korah.
238 But most important for our purpose in these Epistles is Jude 5 which reads ‘he (or “God”, or “the Lord”, or if MSS AB are right “Jesus”) who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe’. This is Exodus typology in any event but specially striking if ‘Jesus’ is right, as it can hardly refer to Joshua. Our Lord is in truth the Redeemer of the first Exodus too. (i) The Epistles of John There is no readily discernible Exodus typology here.
239The Book of the Revelation The Apocalypse is full of symbolism and many of its images are derived from the Exodus event.
240 In the opening chapters we find the Church as a kingdom of priests,
241 false teacher as following Balaam,
242 hidden manna
243 and the promise that the conqueror’s name will not be blotted out.
244 But the imagery becomes more specific when the trumpet calls the seer to come up
245 and there is lightning and thunder.
246 In 8:7 - 9:21 the plagues are based on the plagues of Egypt.
247 There are possible allusions to the wilderness wanderings in 8:11
248 and 12:16.
249 But in 15:2ff. we are given a vision of the sea of glass mingled with fire and we hear the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb. The first triumphant Exodus has prefigured the second and we are to look ahead to its fulfilment in God’s victory at the end of time.
III. The Exodus in New Testament Theology
We have seen that most of the New Testament writers draw heavily upon the Exodus period as a source for allusion, conscious or unconscious, and often for more than allusion—for typology. Assuming that there is a basic unity amongst the documents which enables us, despite their different emphases, to talk of a New Testament theology, we must ask in what ways the formulation of this has been affected by the background of the Exodus.
First we can see a definite pattern in the life and ministry of Christ as it is recorded for us in the Gospels. In earliest childhood the divine plan was being worked out and in His maturity He lived under the divine constraint of ‘thus it is written’ and ‘the scriptures must be fulfilled’. We seem to find Him recapitulating the Exodus in His baptism, forty days in the desert and ‘conquest’ of Canaan culminating in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It may be that the pattern is then repeated, for His true ‘Exodus’, to which His baptism had pointed, is at Jerusalem. This is preceded by the miraculous signs of the ministry, and followed by forty
days before His entry into His triumph in heaven. While it would be a mistake to press the evidence into too tidy a system,
250 there can be no doubt that the supreme act of our redemption in the cross and resurrection can only be understood properly if it is the fulfilment of that earlier deliverance. This is a truth which has been firmly embedded in the worship and teaching of the Church throughout the centuries. Then there are the titles of Christ. He is the I AM, the Rock, the Shepherd, the Bridegroom, as was the God of the Exodus. He is the fulfilment of the human side also. He is the new Israeland, in a deeper sense than Israel was, the Son of God, and the Vine. He is the second Moses, the Prophet and the Servant. He is the second Joshua, Jesus the Saviour and Conqueror. His titles overlap each other as in His unique Person He fulfils all that had been spoken by Moses, in the law, and by the prophets.
Thirdly there is the work of Christ. The words ‘redemption’, ‘covenant’, ‘Church’, ‘inheritance’ and ‘rest’ are all words deriving their original significance from the Exodus. The first three at least are absolutely basic to New Testament theology. The work of Christ is mediated through a kerygma based on the Exodus kerygma and sacraments similar to the Exodus sacraments.
Lastly, as we have tried to show, there is the response of the people which seems to be very much a repetition of the attitude of their fathers at the first Exodus. On the one hand are those who enter into the redemption wrought for them and on the other those who are disobedient. The faithful become the Church, the new Israel, in their baptism at Pentecost and enter their inheritance fully when the old Israel is cast out and its land conquered forty years later in AD 70.
251 ‘This generation’ is considered as a whole and those whom Moses brought out of Egypt are its type. The chosen people have become as Egypt and Canaan which were defeated before their fathers, and as Babylon whose role had been like that of Egypt. Temporal judgment is the sign of coming eternal judgment.
And yet such is the intricacy of the pattern which God has woven in the sacred history that in another sense we may be right in seeing the Church at the moment in the process of her Exodus, her baptism of suffering, or in the midst of her trials in the wilderness, before she enters the full enjoyment of her heavenly inheritance. The individual Christian likewise has his pilgrimage from his baptism, through temptation, to his heavenly rest. And yet again, in another application of the imagery, there is to be a final Exodus, a great act of redemption consummating all that has gone before and bringing liberty even to the creation which lies in
bondage. We should note also that in addition to the other scriptures which C. H. Dodd, in his book
According to the Scriptures, adduces as basic to New Testament theology, the book of Deuteronomy, which is a theological reflection upon the Exodus event and its consequences, is quoted frequently and could be said to have something of a normative effect. In particular this is true of chapters 28-32, which recall the redemption from Egypt and the way in which Yahweh led His people through the wilderness. They warn of punishment for breaking the covenant, of a reversal of the Exodus in Israel’s own dispossession from the promised land
and yet of the hope of restoration where there is repentance. While much of this has relevance for the Exile, it seems also to find a considerable place in the thought of the New Testament
251 For the importance of the events of AD 70 see S. G. F. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian
Church. Without accepting many of his speculative points, we may agree when he says ‘after the Resurrection
experiences, the next most crucial event in the life of the Christian Church was the overthrow of the Jewish
nation, which was dramatically epitomized in the destruction of its holy city of Jerusalem in AD 70’
writers as they wrestle with the problem of the disinheritance of the Jews in their own day.
But above all we may believe that for the New Testament writers God had acted in history again in a mightier way. He had come in the Person of His Son. And all that had happened to Him had been, despite the wickedness of men, in the divine purpose. The great I AM was in charge. He was still Saviour and Lord. He had visited and redeemed His people after the ancient pattern and He would do so again in the end whatever might be the opposition of Satan or of men. Just as ‘Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD, saying,
“I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea”,’
252 so may we join ‘the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and wonderful are thy deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and
true are thy ways, O King of the ages!”’25
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