The Hebrew title for Genesis is B’reshith,
“In (the) beginning”. It speaks of
Creation. The Hebrew title of Exodus is Ve
alleh Shemoth, “Now these are the names”.
It speaks of Redemption. Genesis
speaks of the Nations, Exodus of the Nation.
The theme of Genesis is traced through Adam and the fall of Joseph and
the restoration. Joseph’s last words
were that God would surely visit Israel and lead them back to their own
land. That visitation is chronicled in
the book of Exodus.
The book is divided into two sections by
the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, and may be visualized thus:--
Exodus.
Bondage. \ Passover.
Redemption. /
The Giving of the Law.
Freedom. \ Tabernacle.
Worship. /
Worship can only be offered by a free
people, yet let us note well a free people received the law! The apostle Paul who fought so for freedom in
the epistle to the Galatians gladly commences Romans by calling himself the
“bond slave” of Christ. The one great
purpose of God is displayed under varying forms again and again:--
First we have a perfect creation (Gen. i. 1). \
Then a fall, darkness and chaos (Gen. i. 2). } Cosmic.
Then a renewal (Genesis i., ii.). /
If we leave the cosmic platform and limit
ourselves to the human plane, the purpose is again displayed in Genesis iii.:--
First a perfect creation. Man. \
Then a fall, death and expulsion. } Racial.
But a restoration promised and typified. /
Leaving the wider circle of the human race
we notice the story of the nations:--
First the nations divided by God (Genesis x.). \
Then their rebellions (Genesis xi.). } National.
Then their only hope of restoration (Genesis xii.). /
This is as far as Genesis takes us. Exodus now expands the theme, but confines
itself to the fortunes of the one nation Israel. The same order is observed.
First the fruitful and mighty people (Exod. i. 1-7).
Then the bondage.
Followed by the deliverance and exodus.
How did it come about that Israel became
such abject slaves? There is a threefold
answer to the question, viz., (1) The Purpose
of God:--
“Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land
that is not theirs, and shall serve them: and they shall afflict them” (Gen.xv.13).
(2)
The Fulness of Iniquity. Their
entrance into the land of Canaan was delayed in mercy to the wicked
inhabitants:--
“In the fourth generation they shall come
hither again: for the iniquity of the
Amorites is not yet full” (Gen. xv. 16), and
(3)
The Punishment of Sin. The
bondage of Israel was connected with their own failure. They became
idolatrous and like the Egyptians
themselves (Lev. xvii. 7; Josh.
xxiv. 14; Ezek. xx. 5-9).
Possibly some readers will not be fully
alive to the fact that God visited Israel with judgment in Egypt before He
delivered them, and therefore we will quote the passage from Ezekiel xx.
referred to above:--
“In the day that I lifted up Mine hand
unto them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt . . . . . Then said I unto
them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not
yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am
the Lord your God. But they rebelled
against Me . . . . . in the midst of the land of Egypt.”
Israel sets forth in miniature the
dealings of God with mankind. First
there is the great purpose of the ages, that necessarily accounts for much that
is mysterious and strange in God’s providential dealings. It would have seemed more reasonable, seeing
that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were already settled in the land of promise, that
the promises upon which their faith rested should be put into immediate
operation. As it was, these men were
pilgrims and strangers in the very land of promise, and the only portion that
actually belonged to Abraham was a piece he paid for in which to bury
Sarah.
Secondly, the relation which Scripture
shows existed between the exile of Israel and the iniquity of the Amorites
reveals another phase of God’s dispensational dealings. The same truth is uttered in the epistle to
the Romans:--
“Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until
the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel be saved . . . .
.” (Rom. xi. 25, 26).
Adam’s fall, Job’s sufferings, the
Church’s period of suffering and persecution, all speak of the same long
waiting for the heading up of Sin, as set forth finally at Babylon (Revelation
xiii., xvii., xviii., etc.).
Thirdly, Israel became idolators in
Egypt. Their bondage followed upon their
departure from God. So with the larger
issue. Man’s present condition of
bondage is a part of the Divine Plan. It
must continue his condition until iniquity has filled its measure. It continues also because man is personally
sinful and amenable to wrath. The heirs
of promise therefore possessed no merit whereby they could lay claim to the
land. The movement which ended in their
deliverance was entirely the work of God:--
“Speak not thou in thy heart . . . . .
saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land .
. . . . Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart dost
thou go to possess their land . . . . . but that He may perform the Word which
the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Deut. ix. 4-6).
There is yet one further reason for the
long sojourn in Egypt before the occupation of the land, which bears upon the
purpose of every individual life, and that is experience. They were destined to be a Kingdom. The law was to come forth from their holy
city unto all the earth. They were to be
the custodians of the written revelation of God, and the guardians of His holy
Law. Moses himself was most thoroughly
trained under Pharaoh for his future great work, being learned in all the arts
of the Egyptians. Israel, too, during
their stay would become possessed of a wide knowledge and ability, which,
humanly speaking, could never have come to them had they remained in Canaan in
the same station and manner of life as that of the twelve sons of Jacob.
Every child of God is gathering
experience. He may never perform in the
life to come the occupation wherewith he earns his bread in this life, but he
that is faithful in that which is least is faithful in that which is much. A faithful and honest fulfillment of life’s
little duties here may be fitting one for higher service there. In Building there are the great fundamental
principles of righteousness expressed in the line and the plummet, the square
and the foundation. In Agriculture there
is the ploughing and the sowing before the reaping. All spheres of life contribute their quota,
and like Israel in Egypt we are being prepared for higher things.
The Author of the Natural History of
Enthusiasm may be quoted here with advantage. After having spoken of the misconception of
heaven as a place of inertness and quiescent bliss, he says:--
"But if there be a real and
necessary, not merely a shadowy, agency in heaven as well as on earth; and if human nature is destined to act its
part in such an economy, then its constitution, and the severe training it undergoes,
are at once explained; and then also the
removal of individuals in the very prime of their fitness for useful labour
ceases to be impenetrably mysterious.
This excellent mechanism of matter and mind, which, beyond any other of
His works, declares the wisdom of the Creator, and which under His guidance is
now passing the season of its first preparation, shall stand up anew from the
dust of dissolution, and then, with freshened powers, and with a store of
hard-earned and practical wisdom for its guidance, shall essay new labours in
the service of God, Who by such instruments chooses to accomplish His designs
of beneficence. That so prodigious a
waste of the highest qualities should take place, as is implied in the notions
which many Christians entertain of the future state, is indeed hard to
imagine. The mind of man, formed as it
is to be more tenacious of its active habits than even of its moral
dispositions, is, in the present state, trained, often at an immense cost of
suffering, to the exercise of skill, of fore-thought, of courage, of patience; and ought it not to be inferred, unless
positive evidence contradicts the supposition, that this system of education
bears some relation of fitness to the state for which it is an initiation? Shall not the very same qualities which here
are so sedulously fashioned and finished, be actually needed and used in that
future world of perfection? Surely the
idea is inadmissible, that an instrument wrought up at so much expense to a
polished fitness for service, is destined to be suspended for ever on the
palace-walls of heaven, as a glittering bauble, no more to make proof of its
temper?" (Quoted by Fairbairn on Typology).
Let us not repine therefore at the trials
of the way, but believe that when the harvest comes we shall reap in this
connection, exactly as we have sown.
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