Series on Exodus: God, our redemption

I love bumper stickers.  In fact, before I was married my little pick-up had more than one plastered on the tailgate.  Bumper stickers, even though they cannot contain many words, speak volumes about a person.  For instance, one of my favorite bumper stickers says, “My god is too big to fit into one religion.”  The person who puts this bumper sticker on their car clearly reveals their religious persuasions.  However, even though bumper stickers speak volumes about a person, they seldom say anything meaningful.  The bumper sticker “My god is too big to fit into one religion” actually says little to nothing at all.  That is why it is one of my favorite bumper stickers for it words ironically counter its intended meaning.   First off, there is the possessive personal pronoun “my” before the word “god.”  Thus, the god who fits into many religions is a god who belongs to one individual person and a god who is owned by one person really is not a god at all.  Second, the words “big” and “fit” are often connote something that has physical size and inhabits material space, something like a rock or a baseball.  I cannot think of any religion that claims their god has a lot of material.  Furthermore, no religion that I can think of believes that their god fits into anything.  Most religions believe that god is a spirit who cannot be contained or fit into anything.  Third, this bumper sticker claims that god cannot fit or be defined by one religion, yet this bumper claims to define god, so while god may not fit into one religion, he fits in one bumper sticker.  What this sticker means is that we cannot make exclusive claims about God, but what this bumper sticker actually says is the physically massive god who belongs to the owner of the car is too bulky to be crammed into one religion.  However, in spite of its numerous linguistic failures, this bumper sticker actually asks a good question, “Can god be enclosed in a religion?” “Can we define god?”

Christianity has never believed that it encloses or limits God or that it can define God.[1] As Isaiah, the prophet said, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55: 9) Moreover, as King Solomon said, “The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you.” (I Kings 8:27) Christianity cannot contain God just as a bottle cannot contain the ocean.  Does this mean, then, that God is a misty, shape-shifting being who flirts in and out of many religions?[2] No, it does not.  It does mean, however, that the only reason we can know God is that God has graciously chosen to reveal himself in ways we can understand and the best source of God’s self-disclosure is Scripture.  So the question we should ask is not how can we define god, but rather how does God define himself in the Scriptures. Since we are in a series on the book of Exodus, we should ask how God defines himself in the book of Exodus.

Someone has said, “The Exodus illustrates how God is the redeemer…He is, above all, the great [redeemer].[3] God has chosen to reveal himself as the great redeemer and his self-disclosure as a redeemer has three important implications for Israel throughout the book of Exodus.  First, it implies that Israel needs redemption.  If God reveals himself as a redeemer then his people need redemption.  In Israel’s case, they were enslaved in Egypt and were powerless to purchase their freedom.  Second, it implies that only God is able to redeem Israel.  The ten plagues reveal this.  Moses and Aaron were God’s mediators for the first nine plagues, they acted on God’s behalf, but these plagues did not free Israel.  However, in the tenth plague God acted alone thus demonstrating that redemption is his prerogative, something he alone can do.  Third, God’s redemption was to be the center for life and worship in the new Israelite nation.  The Passover, which occurred during the tenth plague, instituted a new Israelite calendar and most of the holy festivals were determined by the Passover.  In addition, the Passover always occurred in the spring signifying Israel’s new life.  Therefore, God’s redemption during the Passover was the central point in the Israelite calendar and signified their new life as a result of God’s redemption.  To summarize, in the book of Exodus, God chose to reveal himself, to define himself, as the God who redeems and this meant that Israel needed redemption, that only God could redeem and that God’s redemption was to focal point of Israel’s new life.

In I Corinthians 10, Paul says twice that the events in Exodus occurred as examples for us. (I Corinthians 10: 6, 11)  This means that God’s redemption in Exodus is not just a historical fact; it is a shadow or type of God’s future redemption, a redemption that pertains to us.[4] The future redemption symbolized in Exodus was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the divine Passover lamb, slain so that we might be free.  This means that we are in need of redemption as Paul said, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and as David said, “no one living is righteous before you.” (Psalm 143:2)  We are in need of redemption, because we, just like the Israelites, are enslaved.  The pharaoh enslaving us is sin and it has many names: idolatry, lust, pride, selfish, greed and self-righteousness to name but a few.  This means that just as Israel was redeemed only through God’s action on the Passover, so we are redeemed only through Christ’s action on the cross, which also happened on a Passover.  Redemption is found nowhere else but in Jesus Christ.  If we try to fit our redemption into any other form, be it through our own works, our own righteousness or another god, the story of our life will be more poorly written than a bumper sticker.  Finally, this means that Jesus’ redemption upon the cross is the event that centers and orders our lives.  Our new lives are cruciform lives conformed around the cross. This is why we celebrate the Eucharist, the remembrance of Jesus’ Passover sacrifice, every Sunday for in this feast our weekly lives are ordered and shaped by Jesus’ great redemption.

To conclude, God has revealed himself as the God who redeems, but this does not mean that he is not constrained or forced to redeem anyone.  God graciously redeems us not because he has to, not because we deserve it, and not because he is forced to, but because he graciously loves us as Paul said in Ephesians 2:3-4, “we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.” God’s redemption reveals the great heights and depths of God’s love, which he lavishes upon us who do not deserve it.  The Scriptures reveal that there is one and only one God who is a God of redemption.  God is not constrained to redeem, but because of his gracious love for us, he gave us examples of his redemption in Exodus, examples that pointed toward the moment in time when he would send his son, Jesus, to be the Passover lamb, our redemption.  This is an exclusive truth claim, a claim not made by men; God himself makes it.  True humility is not found in pious words, but in submitting ourselves to God’s revealed word.  It is a claim that does not encourage pride or arrogance for it clearly implies that all who believe it are in desperate need of redemption, redemption they cannot earn or accomplish on their own.  Even though bumper stickers are poor vehicles for theology, there is one bumper sticker that adequately summarizes God’s revelation of himself, it is a bumper sticker that should not just be put on our cars, but plastered upon our lives, it says “Jesus means God redeems.”  So let us come this Table, or as the Anglicans of old called it “God’s Board,” to strengthen our faith through the remembrance of Christ’s great act of redemption.

[1] A few Arians in the early church believed that they could define god and know him just as he knows himself, but the Council of Nicea put a stop to that.

[2] I am skipping an obvious step here.  The next question would be does God chose to reveal himself in many religions or one and if one which one.  One of the best answers to this question is found in the first chapter of Tim Keller’s book The Reason for God. I will be assuming his arguments and reasons for Christianity being the religion God has chosen to reveal himself.

[3] Nahum Sarna, Exploring Exodus, Shocken Books: New York, 1996, pg 3.

[4] Nahum Sarna, Exploring Exodus, Shocken Books: New York, 1996, pg 3.  Furthermore, the Scripture say that the clearest revelation of God is found in Jesus Christ.  In addition, the Scriptures teach that the clearest revelation of God through his son Jesus, is the cross.  God’s redemption in Exodus was a shadow and foretaste of Jesus’ redemption on the cross.