The Death of Christ

A Two-fold Deliverance

A remarkable type of the believers’ deliverance from the world is found in the book of Exodus when the children of Israel were being held in bondage in Egypt. God’s purpose for the Israelites was to bring them into “the good land” of Canaan promised to their forefathers so that they could build His habitation and dwell with Him there. This purpose could not be fulfilled in Egypt. Therefore, God had to call his people out of Egypt to begin their journey into the good land.

Saved by the Blood of the Lamb
In the Bible, Egypt represents the corrupted world and Pharaoh represents Satan, the ruler of the world. In the story of the exodus from Egypt, Pharaoh proudly resisted God’s injunction to release the Israelites. Because of Pharaoh’s obstinacy, God sent ten plagues to judge Egypt while sparing His chosen people. In the final plague, God sent a death angel to kill the firstborn child in every household. In this plague, though, God did not unconditionally spare the Israelites. In order to escape this ultimate judgment, they were given particular and meaningful instructions: to slay a lamb and to put its blood upon their door posts. The destroyer would pass over a household only if the blood of the lamb had been applied. It made no difference to the death angel whether the person inside the blood-marked house was evil or godly, good or bad. All that mattered was the presence of the lamb’s blood on the door posts.

Saved by the Terminating Water
Although the children of Israel had escaped God’s judgment upon the world, they were still in Egypt, which was the wrong place to fulfill God’s purpose. They needed to leave Egypt in order to build God’s habitation. With this goal in view, God led them out of Egypt to the shore of the Red Sea while Pharaoh with his army pursued them on their chariots. God then opened the sea to allow the children of Israel to pass through the sea on dry land. But when Pharaoh and his army rode into the parted sea, God closed the sea over them. Thus the children of Israel escaped from Egypt. Yes, they had previously been saved from God’s judgment upon Egypt, but they still needed to escape the bondage of worldly Egypt. This marvelous deliverance prefigures Christ’s death in two aspects.

The First aspect of Christ’s Death--Redemption through Believing
The first aspect of Christ’s death is its redeeming aspect portrayed by the lamb being slain and the blood being applied to the door posts. The lamb typifies Christ shedding His sinless blood as the Lamb of God to save His people from God’s judgment. Today, whoever would believe in Christ receives the redemptive aspect of His death on the cross and thereby escapes God’s condemnation.

The Second aspect of Christ’s Death--Termination through Baptism
The second aspect of Christ’s death seen in this portrait is that of its termination of the world with its bondage. After a person believes in Christ, he is saved from God’s judgment, but he also needs to be freed from the world with its bondage. Such an escape is needed for the purpose of building up God’s habitation, the reality of which is the church, the Body of Christ. For the sake of His purpose, God needs His people not only redeemed, but also freed from Egypt. God therefore liberates His people from the usurpation of the world by terminating the world with its power. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul said that the children of Israel were baptized unto Moses at the Red Sea. The Israelites’ experience of passing through the Red Sea is thus a type, or a picture, of the believers’ baptism. When a believer in Christ is baptized, he is baptized into the reality of the death of Christ, a death which terminated the world with its usurping power (Rom. 6:3), a death which frees him for God’s purpose.

What a marvelous portrait God has given us in the book of Exodus. All the believers need to escape the world and its ruler, and the avenue of escape God has provided them is the death of Christ, typified by the Red Sea. How wonderful it is that Christ on the cross terminated the world with both its power and its ruler in order that the believers could be emancipated to follow God for His interest on this earth!

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