(1) Theology of Exodus: Salvation, Freedom
from Bondage
“I am
the Lord, and I will bring you out
from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to
them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of
judgment” (Exod 6:6). So-called liberation theology often misunderstands
Exodus.[1]
The book is not about liberation in general or about political and religious
freedom in particular, but about deliverance from bad servitude to good servitude.
The Israelites served (ʾābad) Pharaoh
but were called by God to serve (again, ʾābad)
him instead.[2]
It
was not a question of needing freedom from being under the control of a
national leader; it was a question of a good, divine national (and universal)
leader rescuing his chosen people from a bad, human national leader. The threat
of bondage to a hostile great power is one of the curses of the Old Testament.
Once the Israelites arrived at Sinai, they were reminded of the horrors of
servitude to those who would oppress them if they failed to keep Yahweh’s
covenant.[3] The
generation that followed the exodus likewise faced the prospect that
disobedience to the rules graciously and protectively revealed in the divine
covenant would lead to oppression under enemies who would conquer and enslave
the chosen nation.[4]
In the New Covenant, bondage to the
greatest power, sin, and its consequence, death, constitutes the “last enemy.”[5]
But
this is not merely a New Covenant concept. Sin is whatever offends God, and sin
is an enslaver. But this slavery can be escaped—not by skill or cunning but by
changing masters from sin to God.[6]
This
comes about not by human initiative but by God’s gift, to which humans can only
respond.[7]
In
Exodus, likewise, freedom from bondage is accomplished only by God. The
Israelites are portrayed as having no chance whatever to save themselves. God
must make the demands (“Let my people go!”); the people on their own, with or
without Moses, would never have dared even asked. Moreover, God makes those demands
through his chosen representative Moses so that the people cannot take credit
for having thought up the idea themselves. Not only so, but when the people
were reconfronted with the possibility of being opposed by the Egyptians, they
became afraid. Indeed, later in the wilderness, when the going became hard,
some of them actually rationalized their way to thinking that they were better
off in Egypt than free from it.[8]
People
need both a Savior and a Lord. They cannot do without either. Exodus reveals
God as for Israel and for all who will join Israel, as many did upon seeing his
mighty acts unleashed against the Egyptian oppressors. [9]
[1] Liberation
theology often misunderstands many other things as well, including the basics
of objective biblical interpretation, but it especially fails exegetically when
it tries to suggest that the book of Exodus—exemplaristically—provides a
template of sorts for justifying violence in the name of political deliverance.
[2] See
comments on 4:23ff. Since ʾābad can
mean both “serve” and “worship,” it is always challenging for the translator to
render the nuance(s) appropriately in any given context. I would love to have
been able to write “serve/worship” instead of one or the other at many, many
points in my Exodus translation draft for the hcsb.
[3] E.g.,
Lev 26:16–17, 32, 34, 36–38, 41.
[4] E.g.,
Deut 28:25, 31, 38, 48, 68.
[5] 1 Cor
15:26
[6] So
Paul’s comprehensive teaching in Rom 6:11, 13, 17, 20–22; 7:25.
[7] E.g.,
Rom 5:6; 8:3.
[8] Num 11.
[9] Exod
12:38. For Moses, Elijah, and Jesus to describe Jesus’ work on the cross as his exodus (τὴν ἔξοδον αὐτοῦ,
Luke 9:31, unfortunately translated as “departure” in the niv) is yet one more way in the nt that Jesus is identified as God.
Yahweh accomplished the exodus in the ot;
Jesus, the exodus in the nt.[9]
[10]
Stuart, D. K. (2006). Exodus (Vol. 2,
p. 36). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
Comments