The Law: A Personal Redeemer
Read Exodus 2:1-10
Every act of redemption by God in the Old Testament is preparatory for the kind of redemption he will bring in the New Testament. More than that, God’s redemption must come through a personal redeemer. By the time Moses died, it was clear he was not the perfect Redeemer. However, the characteristics God sovereignly wove into his life were intended to whet the appetites of God’s people for Jesus Christ who is our “savior and defender and rescuer” (Is. 19:20).
Moses is one of the primary Old Testament examples of God’s childlike enthusiasm to expose a surprise. The good news of Jesus’ coming to liberate us from sin and all its effects was too good to keep a secret. God could not keep it a secret. On every page of the Old Testament, God was making a sketch of Jesus' work in life, death, and resurrection. Sometimes the lines are faint but you can always make out this much—we have a need for redemption, God supplies it in Christ, and here is our reasonable response of gratitude. In Moses, the outline of Jesus is very clear!
God demonstrates through Moses’ endurance with the people of Israel the kind of Savior we have. Through his person and work, God drew a sketch of Jesus in the life of Moses. By studying God’s faithfulness in Moses, we will come to love Jesus more, and Jesus’ person and work will transform our persons and work. God developed Moses as a person to teach his people who Jesus Christ would be. We call that kind of God-designed preview a “type” or an example of “typology.” While Moses is not the Christ, he is a type of Christ. There are two big ideas about Moses that provide insight into the person of Christ.
Fully Human
First, Moses was a real person like the people he was sent to rescue. It was important to God that Israel’s redeemer be like them. As their Creator, he wanted someone who could feel their pain and identify with their needs. As their Father, his desire was for them to have someone they could go to in time of need and understand their suffering because he was sharing it with them. As their Lord, their rescuer had to be a man empowered by his Spirit, thus encouraging them that God makes ordinary people great by his grace.
God miraculously caused Jesus to be born to redeem a people for God from every tribe, tongue, people and nation. And he miraculously brought you into the world in order to redeem you!
Moses was a real person like the Savior he anticipated: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (He. 2:14). Legally, Jesus had to be fully human to make substitution for us. But he is so for our emotional benefit as well, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin” (He. 4:15).
Miraculously Preserved
Second, Moses was miraculously preserved because God loved us. While there is nothing mythological about Moses’ birth, his birth and the miraculous events surrounding it demonstrate God’s dogged determinism to redeem us. God miraculously allowed Moses to be born to preserve the people through whom the Messiah would come. God miraculously caused Jesus to be born to redeem a people for God from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. And he miraculously brought you into the world in order to redeem you!
Jesus’ birth was extraordinary, conceived as he was by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary. He too was born to unexceptional people, socially speaking. However, they were as courageous as Moses’ parents. Immediately, Jesus was also under the shadow of death (Mt. 2:16). His parents took him to Egypt for refuge just as Moses found refuge in Egypt. And both men were in the crosshairs of Satan for the same reason. The Evil One was trying to prevent our redemption.
Both babies were helpless and had to be rescued. Both were prepared for their callings with the best formal education their subcultures could offer, but also by deprivation in the wilderness. Both were called to their work and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Even though Jesus was inherently extraordinary, he made himself as ordinary as Moses and us in order not only to identify with our weakness but also encourage us that, with the gospel, God makes the weak strong enough to be liberators.