You Are Saved and You Are New
This upcoming Sunday, Pastor David Mathis will walk us through the Red Sea (Exodus 14) and the greater theme of God making himself known in (and to) Egypt. This event in the life of Israel is undoubtedly the most remarkable. The rest of the Bible often looks back at the exodus as the defining moment for Israel, and therefore, it becomes a paradigm for all of redemptive history. In fact, the Book of Isaiah borrows exodus concepts to envision our future salvation, beginning with the “Second Exodus” from Babylon (for Israel), and really, the Greater Exodus from sin and spiritual slavery (for all who trust in Jesus).
All that to say, “rescue” becomes a major metaphor for our life with God. It’s Evangelical vernacular to refer to our conversion as when we were “saved.” Well, we get that from the exodus!
Okay, so here’s another metaphor: new creation.
Although the metaphors are different, we’re saying the same thing when we say “I am saved” and “I am born again.” And of course, we see both of these metaphors in the New Testament — for example, Paul says “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8) and “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). To be saved is to be created anew.
And I think both metaphors are actually in the exodus.
The salvation metaphor is the most obvious. Yahweh is rescuing Israel from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (see Exodus 20:2) — and it’s a dramatic rescue. It’s signs and wonders and all the noise that people are not supposed to forget. And this rescue leads Israel to the Red Sea. Everything sort of comes together here. Pharaoh heart has been hardened once again, and 600-plus chariots are in hot pursuit of a walking multitude now stuck at the banks of a practical ocean.
So what will Yahweh do?
He’s going to split the sea. Yahweh will divide the waters, like walls on both sides, and there will be dry land (see Exodus 14:22). Now, can you think of another time when Yahweh divided the waters and brought forth dry land?
Think Genesis 1:6–9.
And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. ...
In creation, it was all water until God divided it vertically, with water above (heavens) and water below (dry land that was called Earth). At the Red Sea, it was all water until God divided it horizontally, with waters on the left and right, and dry land under foot. This is not a coincidence. The Hebrew word for “dry land” in Genesis 1 is the exact same word used for “dry land” in Exodus 14 — and it’s not used in the Pentateuch except in the Creation and Exodus events!
This is not to mention the “strong east wind” doing the dividing work in Exodus 14:21. In Hebrew, “wind” is the same word for “spirit” — as in Genesis 1:2, “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
The Exodus is a new creation. That’s the message. And we already saw a trace of this in the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the consecration of the firstborn. Those rituals make sense in the context of a (new) birth — which is what Yahweh was doing. The Red Sea just sings it more loudly!
The rescue is also a creation! To be saved is to be created anew!
The apostle Paul isn’t just making up these concepts. He reads them in Moses. It all comes from Yahweh himself.
Church, you are free. And you are new.
Hats off to Rabbi David Fohrman for letting me in on these connections to Genesis 1. See The Exodus You Almost Passed Over (Aleph Beta Press, 2016).
