Monday, May 10
“Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and iI will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” Exodus 6:6-7
Look at the above verses: What principle do we see in them, as before, regarding the role of God toward humanity in the covenant relationship (focus on how often the word I appears in those verses)?
The deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery and the deliverance of Noah and his family from the Flood are the two prominent salvific events in the writings of Moses. Both provide insights into the science of salvation. But it is the Exodus event in particular that provides the basic pattern.
When God says to Israel (through Moses) “I will redeem you” (Exodus 6:6, emphasis supplied), He literally says “I will act the redeemer-kinsman” or go’el.
“The word redeem in verse 6 [of Exodus 6] refers to a member of a family buying back or ransoming another member of the family, especially when that member was in slavery for debt or about to go into slavery. Israel apparently had no earthly relative to redeem her, but God was now Israel’s relative, her kinsman redeemer.” — Bernard L. Ramm, His Way Out (Glendale, CA: Regal Books Division, G/L Publications, 1974), p. 50.
How do you understand the idea of God’s “ransoming,” or buying back, His people from slavery? What was the price that had to be paid? What does that tell us about our worth? (See Mark 10:45, 1 Timothy 2:6, Revelation 5:9.)
In Exodus 3:8 God says that He has “come down” to rescue Israel. This is a common Hebrew verb for God’s interaction with humanity. God is in heaven, and we are on earth, and only as God “comes down” to earth can He redeem us. In the truest sense of the idea, only when Jesus came down, lived, suffered, died, and was resurrected for us can we be redeemed. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) is another way of saying that God came down in order to save us.
