Exodus
When we move to Exodus we see the sufferings and the glory
of Moses, as Genesis does of Joseph, and in both we see a type of the
sufferings and glory of Christ. Joseph's sufferings began with his rejection,
his own brethren asking, "…are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you
indeed to rule over us?" We then see the parallel of Moses's sufferings
began with his rejection and the question of "two men of the Hebrews"
when Moses has to flee to Midian…
“One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his
own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian
beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing
no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went
out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you
hitting your fellow Hebrew?” The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over
us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was
afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” When Pharaoh heard of
this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in
Midian” ~ Exodus 2:11-15
In all this in both Joseph and Moses we see the rejection of
Christ by a similar question, the very core of what the people felt towards
Jesus (which was hate) was put to words in Jesus’ parable of the Ten Minas of
Luke 19:14 when the antagonists say, “We will not have this man to reign over
us!" This is the same Moses whom they inevitably refused was the one send
to be ruler and judge by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the
bush.
“This is the same Moses whom they had rejected with the
words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and
deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He
led them out of Egypt and
did wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt ,
at the Red Sea and for forty years in the
desert. Acts 7:35-36
This is the same as God sending Jesus, who was also
rejected. So in the history of Genesis and its accounts we see the great
foreshadowing of the sufferings and the glory of Christ more than just
foreshadowed. Exodus tells us also of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb or
sacrifice of Passover.
1 Corinthians 5:7-8 ~”Get rid of the old yeast, so that you
may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb,
has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread
leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth.”
Jesus Christ is the true Priest of Exodus 30:10 as stated in
Hebrews 5:4-5
“Once a year Aaron shall make atonement on its horns. This
annual atonement must be made with the blood of the atoning sin offering for
the generations to come. It is most holy to the LORD." ~Exodus 30:10
The Lamb of the Passover as outlined in Exodus 12:1-14. At midnight on a certain night, the Lord would go through the land of Egypt and every firstborn son would die immediately. But God would spare his people – if they followed His instructions. When blood of a lamb was sprinkled on the doorpost of each home, God would see the blood and would “pass over” that house. But if God didn’t see the blood, he would take the life of the firstborn in judgment. It was the blood of the lamb that saved the people of God that night. It is in the blood that the life of the animal or person resides. So this is an foreshadowing of substitutionary atonement in that the lamb slaughtered for the blood/life to be put on the doorpost was giving its life to save those in the home that would be passed over because of the blood/life. What is even more interesting is the demands / requirement made of this sacrifice. In these requirement we truly see Jesus...(if you need me to spell out some of these you need your head examined).
The
Lamb Needed To Be Chosen
“Tell
the whole community of Israel
The
Lamb Needed To Be Male
“...the
animals you choose must be year-old males.” Exodus 12:5
The
Lamb Needed To Be Unblemished
“The
animals you choose must be year-old males without defect.” Exodus 12:5
Hebrews
4:14-16 states: "Therefore,
since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son
of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high
priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has
been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet
he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence,
so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
When
Pontius Pilate finished examining Jesus, he declared “I find no fault in him.”
John 19:6
The Lamb Needed to be Slaughtered at Twilight (Dead by Twilight)
“Take
care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the
community of Israel
The New
Testament tells us that Jesus was nailed to the Cross at the “third hour,”
meaning 9:00 a.m as the day began at sunrise around 6:00am. Matthew 27:45 tells
us that there was darkness from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, or from 12
noon to 3:00 p.m. Shortly after, Jesus uttered his final words and died. His
body was then taken down from the cross by sundown. therefore he was dead by
twilight. Jesus actually died “between the evenings” (3-5 p.m.) at the exact
hour the Passover lambs were being sacrificed throughout Israel
The Lamb's Bones Must Not Be Broken
“Do not
break any of the bones.” Exodus 12:46.
Romans
executioners/soldiers often use to break the legs of those being crucified in
order to hasten their death. John 19:32-36 specifically tells us that the Roman
soldiers did not break Jesus’ legs because he had already died. This is told in
Scripture by John to show that the Scriptures (Old Testament) had been fulfilled
the Scripture.
“That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with
bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast… This is how you are to eat it: with
your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in
your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover.” Exodus 12:8-11
Folks, we do this every time we share in communion or the Lord's Supper.
Jesus specifically states:
“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink
his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real
food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me, and I in them.” John 6:53-56
The truth is it is not the blood of the lambs at Passover in Exodus that has the Destroyer pass over the households. It is the obedience and trust in God and God's promises.
The truth is it is not the blood of the lambs at Passover in Exodus that has the Destroyer pass over the households. It is the obedience and trust in God and God's promises.
Also from Exodus we see types and shadows of Christ elsewhere....
In Jesus we also see He was the true Tabernacle which the
God pitched and not men as so eloquently described in Hebrews 9.
When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are
already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is
not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by
means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once
for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of
goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are
ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much
more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to
death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason Christ is the
mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised
eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the
sins committed under the first covenant. In the case of a will, it is necessary
to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when
somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living.
This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. When
Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took
the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop,
and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the
covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” In the same way, he sprinkled
with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. In
fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and
without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. It was necessary, then,
for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but
the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ
did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he
entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter
heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the
Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would
have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has
appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the
sacrifice of Himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to
face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many
people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring
salvation to those who are waiting for him. ~Hebrews 9:11-28
Please understand I have barely begun to dig down from the
surface here for Genesis or Exodus. I have not even begun to mentioned that the
Exodus experience itself is a parallel of the New Testament Christian leaving
behind and old life to find a new one sanctified and approved by God. By
passing through the waters of the Red Sea there is a foreshadowing of a life
going down to death (dying to self) only to come out the other side. It is the
idea that it is the life of the believer in an encapsulated form. The Life of a
believer saved and redeemed by the work of Christ on the Cross. It is obviously
the Lord miraculously intervening in the lives of His people. It is also a
foreshadowing of the non-believer before he is saved, during his conversion and
is eventual glorification that is achieved by faith through grace in Jesus
Christ.
The release of the Hebrews from captivity is another foreshadowing of a believer's release from the captivity of sin through conversion. Pharaoh, being the evil world system pursues them vehemently and attempts to stop them. The system of this world, it's powers and principalities don't want to release their slaves either. Misery loves company. Inevitably, like Pharaoh sin will be crushed, God will crush the world's system because it is reprobate.
Even in light of their amazing release from captivity and
momentous crossing of the Red Sea, the fledgling nation of Israel chose to bow
down to a God that they made with their own hands. Since they couldn't return
to Egypt they brought Egypt to
themselves. More specifically they allowed Egypt (sin, culture & the
world) to dwell in them. They complained incessantly and actually wanted to
return to Egypt
(their sin) because they were eating manna everyday (and were sick of it) and
wanted to melons, onions, leeks and cucumbers which are analogous to the
trappings of this world. God had every right to annihilate them at this point
but did not due to His mercy, grace and long-suffering. They continue to sin
and God continued to be patient. Because of continued rebellion against the God
that delivered them they were condemned to wander the desert for 40 years until
all but two of the original people from the Egyptian exodus died. Only then
were Joshua, Caleb and the next generation allowed entrance into the Promised Land.
The Promised Land is analogous to Heaven. A land flowing with milk and honey. A
place of rest after a long and sometimes painful wandering. A purposeful
wandering inflicted on the future Israelites for the purpose of punishment but
also a lesson of building faith and dependence on God. The due punishment for
sin is death. Every Christian knows this or should know it. The analogy is to a
modern day Christian's act of sanctification on a winding road of trial and
error towards eventual death and glorification all dependant on the work that
Jesus Christ did on the Cross on our behalf.
There are also the obvious implications of Jesus fulfilling
the Law as Jesus was the Law incarnate since the Law was part of the Word and
the Word was God (John 1:1)
A heck of a way to begin to show the Messiah in the Old
Testament...don't you think?
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