The book of Exodus is the Israelites retelling of their liberation from slavery in Egypt. In my most recent reading I learned that the story can be used as a source of hope for the oppressed. It also provides for followers of Jesus a framework for a holistic view of salvation.
In Exodus 1:8-14 it says that the Israelites were growing in number. As they did so the Egyptians began to fear them. That fear led to enslavement to contain, control, and use the Israelites for the comfort and economic superiority of the Egyptian way of life. I was captivated by the parallels to the African American experience. Judy Fentress-Williams paints this picture in her essay on Exodus: “African captives in America found that the story of Israel’s bondage and liberation spoke profoundly to their experiences of oppression and struggle for liberation”.[1] This has profound implications for today as well. The church in America needs to always be asking itself, “In what way(s) am I a Pharaoh?”. Who am I fearing because they threaten my comfort and economic security? In this way the book of Exodus transcends the shallow reading as a series of events and enters the moment as a mirror for the reader.
In my church context for most of my life salvation was about my soul going to heaven when I die. Salvation was for an other-worldly existence. There was talk of doing “good deeds” now, but only insofar as it “saved souls”. In The Mission of God’s People Christopher J.H. Wright helped me see that the exodus gives a much more holistic view of the work completed and inaugurated in Jesus:
“In the exodus God responded to all the dimensions of Israel’s need. God’s momentous act of redemption did not merely rescue Israel from political, economic and social oppression and then leave them to their own devices to worship whom they pleased. Nor did God merely offer them spiritual comfort of hope for some brighter future in a home beyond the sky while leaving their historical condition unchanged. No, the exodus effected real change in the people’s real historical situation and at the same time called them into a real new relationship with the living God. This was God’s total response to Israel’s total need…”[2]
God is at work redeeming the entire cosmos, in the same fashion as he did in the exodus. Every time a slave is freed, blind eyes see, abuse ceases, poverty dies, and cancer is treated, the salvific work of God in Christ has been made known. It is also in this salvation that we see human agents participating in that saving work. God and humanity partner in the work of salvation in the here and now.[3] Surely there is an eschatological hope for the renewal of all things, but it is very much grounded in the work we do now.
The book of Exodus gives us signposts for the hope of liberation. It is the anchor for our understanding of the salvation completed and inaugurated in the kingdom of God. As the backdrop to the law that would point to Christ, it shows us that God has a preferential heart for the marginalized and oppressed and needs us to be about the work of advancing his kingdom in the same way.
[1] Crystal Downing and Rodney S. Sadler Jr, The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 2009), 83.
[2] Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission, 1st edition (Zondervan Academic, 2010), 102.
[3] J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology, Illustrated edition (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2014), 84.
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