Blue Print Exodus 21:1-6
I know we’ve touched on some of the topics I going to talk about before, but I recently had
another conversation with someone who told me that the Old Testament has nothing to do with Christians.
We spend most of our time in the Gospels because that’s the life of Jesus; it’s where we learn directly from our savior. But I want everyone to understand that the Old Testament is important, it has lessons and messages for us too.
I look at the Old Testament like it’s a blue print. A blue print shows the builder how things are planned and how everything fits together. The Old Testament is our blue print for salvation, it shows us how things are planned and how events fit together to accomplish God’s plan.
First thing is to know God had a plan right from the beginning. He tells the serpent in Genesis 3 that a son born of a woman will crush sin, that Satan may cause us problems; strike at our heel, but he cannot separate us from God.
Through Noah he shows us that it is God himself that will orchestrate our salvation, and by the protection he gives us with his Ark we will not only survive we will walk into a glorious new creation. With Abraham and Sarah God shows he calls us to him and if we trust in him all that he promises will come to us in his time.
Genesis is great at telling us God has a plan but it’s a little shy of details. The second book of the Bible; Exodus is the details. Moses gives us a picture of Christ. He is raised in Pharaoh’s home then exiled from the palace to be a shepherd out in the wilderness. Through his encounter with God in the burning bush he is brought out of his exile to the people of Israel.
Jesus; forever existing in the glory of heaven sent by God the Father to earth. He goes from the throne of heaven to become one of the lowest of his creations, a helpless and dependent baby.
Moses went into exile to escape Pharaoh who was trying to kill him. As a child Jesus parents took him into exile in Egypt so he could escape King Herod who was trying to kill him.
God called Moses out of the wilderness, in time God brought Jesus back from Egypt; Matthew 2:15, “And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophets, ‘Out of Egypt I will call my son.’”
Moses was sent to release the nation of Israel from the bondage of slavery and he used great miracles to show he was sent by God. Jesus was sent to free all nations from the bondage of sin and he performed great miracles to show he was sent by God in heaven.
The final miracle that freed the people from slavery was the Passover; a sacrificial lamb was killed and its blood spread on the door frames. If you look at the description of the blood smear on the frames you see it was in the shape of a cross. We are saved by the sacrificial death and blood at the cross by the Lamb of God; Jesus.
And I want you to see something else. During the Exodus when Israel was under the grace of God as they crossed the desert, God gives specific instructions on how the Israelites were to set up their camp each night. You can see the camp is in the shape of a cross. During the Exodus God shows us all that his grace comes from the cross.
Moses life is a shadow of Jesus life. He shows us God will send someone to mankind. But does God give details on who will come? He does in the Ark of the Covenant. Genesis 25:10 & 11, “Have them make an Ark of Acacia wood…Overlay it with pure gold both inside and out…”
In the Old Testament gold represented divinity and wood represented man. Gold and wood; God and man both in one. And why Acacia wood? According to Ted’s Woodworking.com Acacia is the hardest of the hardwoods, it lasts practically forever. Another shadow telling us Jesus will live forever.
The Ark’s contents are the stone tablets representing the law and our sin, a jar of Manna which represents our grumbling at God and man’s refusal to see God’s blessings, and Aaron’s staff representing man’s rejection of God’s representatives. And its cover where God says in Exodus 25:22, “I will meet with you…” is called the mercy seat. Here is a shadow of our Lord Jesus, God and man as one, embracing us even knowing our transgression and showing us that when we are in Jesus, God’s mercy is above our sin.
So now we have some idea of what God is going to do. He has a plan; it involves one he sends through a woman, one who is God and man together. He will love mankind and draw us to him and out of the bondage of sin so through him we will walk into the next life. And it will involve a blood sacrifice. So the next question is, does God give details on the how? This is what our verses this morning tell us, they are a shadow of the how.
“But if the servant declares”. The one God sends comes as a servant not as a dominator. God says in Matthew 12:10, “Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight.” And Jesus tells us in Matthew 20:28, “…the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve…”
“But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children…” Jesus declares his love for God the Father in everything he does. He honors God and praises God. John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
And what about his wife and family? In Matthew 25 Jesus tells the parable about ten women waiting for the bridegroom. In Luke 5 Jesus again talks of a bridegroom. He is the bridegroom and we are the wife and children. Romans 8:15, “…the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to son ship.” So here in our passage Jesus is the groom and we are represented by the wife and children. We can be confident in his love for us or else he would not have come from heaven in the first place and we know he loves all of us because the Bible says “everyone” who calls on his name will be saved, not some of us, everyone.
And I also realized that a wife and children are one’s family and we are told in scripture that we are God’s family through our faith. But as I continued to study I came to see that we are not just in Jesus family in the spiritual sense, but in the real bloodline sense.
Matthew 1:1 “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ…” And Matthew 1:6,“Salmon the father of Boaz whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed whose mother was Ruth.”
In Joshua Rahab is a non-Jewish woman living in Jericho. Ruth is a Moabite, also non-Jewish. God placed these women in Jesus line to bring Gentile blood literally into his family tree. All mankind is spiritually and literally Jesus family by blood.
“But if the servant declares ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free…” Matthew 26:39, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Jesus is God, he had the ability to walk away from the cross but he loved God the Father, he loved us so much that he did not want to go free.
Verse 6 “then the master shall take him to the judges. He shall take him to the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl.” Here is the shadow of the passion of Christ.
John 19:11, “Jesus answered, ‘You would have no power over me if it were not given you from above.’” Jesus was not taken by men alone, it was God who let everything happen. It was the master; God, who led Jesus before the judges; before Pilate who would judge his innocence or guilt. God led Jesus to the doorpost; the cross.
“He shall take him to the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl.” Here is an Old Testament shadow of the crucifixion. In our scripture the servant is pierced by an awl. At the cross Jesus hands and feet are pierced by nails and his side was pierced by a spear.
I say that ancient Israel missed what was in their scriptures, and this is not meant to insult our Jewish cousins. The Exodus is one of the greatest events in Israel’s history, their escape from slavery in Egypt. The Book of Exodus is a detailed history of the event and wrapped in the description of the exodus is detailed information about God and his plan.
We see that God will send someone to lead us from sin. He will be born of a woman and yet also be God. He will embrace us even as we rebel against God. We’re told he loves us; his family, so much that he allows the Father to lead him to be condemned and then pierced on a wooden cross.
Our faith is not misguided. God told us what was going to happen thousands of years before it actually did. Our lives have been blessed millennia before we were born.
And the end of verse 6, “Then he will be a servant for life.” What God did at the cross can never be undone; peace, rest, redemption and salvation is yours by faith and trust in Jesus. And once it is given by the Father, it will never be taken away.
God bless.