Slavery: Old and New

Moses came down from the mountain with stone tablets upon which God had inscribed the laws of the new covenant. He wanted these former slaves to hear what freedom meant in the Promised Land.   

Jesus sat on the side of a mountain, and began to teach. He wanted these "slaves" to hear what freedom meant in the Kingdom of God. 

But first, some background.  

God wanted His newly freed people from Egypt to understand what being a chosen people looked like. They had just been liberated from slavery and had walked away from their captors after God mightily demonstrated His superiority over the gods of Egypt, including Pharoah himself. All of the plagues were an utter repudiation of the gods that men had used to oppress the Hebrews and support a system of absolute rule. 

Oppression is never God's way and His rule, while absolute, is never dictatorial. 

God had cleared the way for the newly freed slaves. He also had to do some spiritual housecleaning for them, so as they left the enormous influence of Egyptian society, they were open to a new way to thinking about the universe.  

If the gods were at the center of everything the Egyptians did, the Hebrews needed to see these gods judged, stripped and cast into the sea, along with Pharaoh's army.  The sun god of the Egyptians, Amun Re, was rendered powerless when the ninth plague fell and darkness permeated the land. Even Pharoah himself, seen as a god, watched his first born son die, and Nekhbet, "goddess who protected sovereignty and person of Pharaoh from birth" and Osiris, the god of "resurrection and life; ruler of the underworld; giver of eternal life" [1] failed to overturn God's sentence on them.  

Then there's the idea of Pharoah himself, who controlled the order of the universe and because he was  "viewed as god incarnate, was responsible to maintain ma'at ["harmony"] through his divine powers and by performing the necessary religious rituals." [2]  God displayed how Pharaoh was the not the keeper of order: his kingdom was thrown into disorder with the plagues (especially the death of his son), and his army was drowned by waters that had opened up and then closed. The most powerful man in the ancient world was bested by a motley group of slaves, whose God was the only true One, mighty to save and compassionate. 

The desert for the Hebrews would be the schoolroom:

• Who are we? You are God's chosen ones, to whom the covenant was given and now is being fulfilled by giving you your freedom and re-establishing your identity.   
• Who is God? The only true One, Yahweh, Maker of heaven and earth.  
• How do we now live?  Moses will bring the very words of God to you and you will now have a new way to live: obedience will bring you blessing and disobedience will bring you chastisement from God, who loves you beyond measure.   

Now, let's fast forward to the new Moses--Jesus--and see Him on the mountain, bringing the people a new way to live. No, they are not legally slaves, but they are in bondage: to the obeying the minutiae of the Law, to keeping out of the Romans' way and to themselves, with the taskmaster of sin snapping his whip over their heads. They build lives with bricks made with no straw: shoddy and unable to withstand life's uncertainties. 

Jesus sits down and surveys these former slaves who are now in a different Egypt. But the questions  and the answers are the same: 

• Who are we? You are God's chosen ones, to whom the covenant was given and now is being fulfilled by Jesus Christ giving you your freedom and re-establishing your identity.   
• Who is God? The only true One, Yahweh, Maker of heaven and earth.  
• How do we now live?  Jesus will bring the very words of God to you and you will now have a new way to live: obedience will bring you blessing and disobedience will bring you chastisement from God, who loves you beyond measure. 

What is this new identity? It's not just your heritage given to you at birth by your Jewish parents; it's a new kingdom, where how you operate is very different from what you are used to and what you think God expects. It's not a repudiation of the Law. Jesus is the fulfillment of it: “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose." (Matt. 5:17, NLT). 

Picture Jesus sitting down on the hillside, and He is surrounded by His disciples. Then the people all settle in. A hush descends over the crowd. Earlier, one of the new disciples, Nathaniel, declared upon Jesus telling him that he saw him sitting under a fig tree: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel” (John 1:49) and Andrew told his brother Simon, “We have found the Messiah.” (John 1:41). These men barely knew Jesus and yet they exuberantly embraced faith in Him; they sensed, through the gentle encouragement of the Holy Spirit, that this Man was different.  Many in the crowd that day felt a flutter in their hearts: this Rabbi was different from what they had experienced with the religious teachers of their day. 

Excited expectation was in the air. 

They all waited.  Jesus spoke and His words touched exactly where these precious "slaves" were living: "Blessed are poor in spirit..." (Matt. 5:3)

This new kingdom of God had just arrived, with tender words for those who needed them the most: the scorned, the ignored, the poor in spirit. 

The world changed that day.   

The people that day didn't know it, but three years from now, another hill will loom into view.  

The lambs' blood, splashed on door frames of the slaves' houses in Egypt, saved them from death.  Their salvation prepared them for a new life in a land filled with milk and honey. 

This Lamb's blood, splashed on the wood of a cross, will save these slaves from death.  Their salvation will prepare them for a new life in a land filled with milk and honey--the Kingdom of God.   

Footnotes 

[1] Ray Vander Laan, Stephan & Amanda Sorenson, God Heard Their Cry: Finding Freedom in the Midst of Life's Trials, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 126-127. 

[2] Ibid., 38.