The exodus of Israel from Egypt is to remind us of the anti-typical exodus that Jesus has already accomplished through His death and resurrection. What all mankind needs more than anything is to experience the true exodus from Satan, sin, and death.
The exodus is the great redemptive act of the Old Testament. There is no other act of God that so clearly captures the essence of the redeption that He provides for His people in the Old Testament. Yet, the exodus of Israel out of Egypt was typical of the greater exodus that the people of God have through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
Jesus spoke of His death as “ἔξοδον αὐτοῦ” (His exodus) “ἣν ἤμελλεν πληροῦν ἐν Ἰερουσαλήμ” (which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). As God delivered Israel out of the bondage of Pharoah and the Egyptians, so Jesus redeems His people from Satan, sin, and death. As Israel passed through the Red Sea on the dry land that appeared out of the waters (a picture of new creation), so Jesus brings about a new creation through His atoning sacrifice on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead (2 Cor. 5:17).
The exodus of Israel out of Egypt was typical of the ultimate spiritual exodus believers experience through the redeeming work of Christ; nevertheless, the relationship of the Old and the New Testaments are united in the redemptive purposes of God–from Genesis 3:15 to the fulfillment of all things in Christ. One can err in only seeing Israel’s exodus out of Egypt as a physical deliverance. Geerhardus Vos explained the spiritual nature of Israel’s typical exodus, when he wrote,
“Redemption is here portrayed as before everything else a deliverance from an objective realm of sin and evil. The favorite individualizing and internalizing of sin finds no support here. No people of God can spring into existence without being cut loose from a world opposed to God and to themselves in their very origin. The Egyptian power is in this respect as truly typical as the divine power that wrought the deliverance. Its attitude and activity were shaped with this in view. What held under the Hebrews was not mere political dependence, but harsh bondage. Their condition is represented as a condition of slavery. The Egyptians exploited them for selfish ends regardless of Israel’s own welfare. Ever since, redemption has attached to itself this imagery of enslavement to an alien power. John 8:33-36, as well as Rom. 8:20-21, reach back into these far origins.”
