Beyond a second exodus

(Monday musings)

Parallels between Jesus and Moses abound. Both of them spent time in the desert before they were called to lead God’s people. Both led their people in a great exodus from slavery – slavery in Egypt in Moses case, slavery to sin in Jesus case. Both took their people across a seemingly impassable barrier – the Sea of Reeds in Moses case, death itself in Jesus’ case. Both brought their people to the brink of a promised land, literally for Moses, more figuratively for Jesus. Both gave their people the teaching and commandments of God.

The New Testament writers make much of this parallel, although they are at pains to point out that Jesus is far greater than Moses. Jesus is not only the one who leads his people in exodus, but he himself is the lamb who was slain, whose blood marks out those who belong to him and spares them from the angel of death. In describing the meeting between Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration, Luke uses the Greek word for ‘exodus’ to describe Jesus’ death-defeating mission, although it is often translated as ‘departure’ in English. (Luke 9:31)

But in seeing the parallels between the salvation from sin and death won by Jesus and the exodus from slavery into the promised land led by Moses, we must not miss the vital differences. The exodus was the beginning of the fulfilment of the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15) which was brought closer to completion at Sinai (Mt Horeb) in a new covenant between God and the people of Israel. But between the exodus and the books of the gospel lies another promised covenant.

We already see it foreshadowed at the end of Deuteronomy. In chapter 28 God speaks (through Moses) of the blessings associated with keeping faith with him and obeying his law, and the curses that will come about as a result of forsaking God and his commandments.

But at the beginning of chapter 30 God says “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you…” (Deut 30:1, my italics). In other words, while the people are being offered a clear choice, God already forsees that they will not be able to keep faith. It’s not that the commandments themselves are hard to find, or obscure or difficult to understand (Deut 30.11-14). It’s the heart of the people that is the problem.

In Deuteronomy 30.6 comes a promise: “the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” This promise is for a time after God brings the people back from exile (verse 5).

The same promise is picked up again by Jeremiah when writing to the exiles. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jer. 31:33). It’s repeated by Ezekiel, also writing at the time of the exile. “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ez 11:19, see also Ez 36:26).

This promise of a new heart is fulfilled through the death and resurrection of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit. If we miss its importance, we will think that we now stand in the same relationship to God as the people of Israel did as they prepared to cross the Jordan. We will think that we have been rescued from death and forgiven through the blood of the lamb, and now we are called to do our best to love God and to keep his commandments.

We have been rescued, and we are called to keep the commandments Jesus gave us. But as Paul describes in Romans 7, delighting in God’s law is one thing, doing it is another. Our spirits are willing, but our flesh, our human nature, is weak. If we are left to ourselves, we will fail, just as surely as the people of Israel did. Who will deliver us from this body of death? (Rom 7:24)

The answer is, God will, in Christ Jesus. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Rom 8:3-4, my italics.)

It’s not just that what stood against us has been cancelled, and we are counted as righteous through Jesus death, (wonderful as that is). God has also provided a way in which “the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us.” He is making it possible for us to be righteous. How? Through “Christ in you”, through the Holy Spirit.

Conversion involves more than just changing our minds about the Lordship of Christ and accepting the forgiveness offered to us. It also means a change of heart. Our old lives are buried with Christ and in return we receive his life. To the extent that we allow him to live through us, we will find that the commandments are no longer a burden or a restriction on what we do. We will no longer even be focussed on what we should not do, but will find ourselves drawn into a more positive, proactive and loving way of life, the life of Christ.

Jesus is not simply the final fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham, but he fulfils all of the promises made in the Old Testament, including those of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  The people who crossed the Jordan were the same people who left Egypt (albeit a generation older and wiser). But the disciples after Pentecost were not the same people who ate the last supper. The New Testament describes something radically new.