Life-study of Exodus

Throughout the New Testament, the apostles draw on the book of Exodus as a book of types concerning the believers' corporate experience of God's salvation. Paul speaks of "our Passover, Christ" (1 Cor. 5:7). He says that Israel was "baptized...in the sea", that Israel ate the "same spiritual food", and that Israel "drank of a spiritual rock which followed them", which rock "was Christ" (1 Cor. 5:7; 10:2-4). The Lord Jesus similarly says that He is "the living bread which came down out of heaven", the fulfillment of the manna in the wilderness (John 6:51). Furthermore, John says that "the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us" (1:14), and Paul says in Ephesians that the believers "are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit" (Eph. 2:22), indicating that the tabernacle in Exodus is a type of the union of God and man, first in Christ and then in the church.

The Life-study of Exodus presents a rich portrait of Christ and the church as the reality of all the types and figures in the book of Exodus. It presents Christ as the redemption, salvation, and supply of God's people and the means for them to worship and serve God so that in him they may be built up with God together for them and God to meet, communicate, and dwell mutually. The book of Exodus is not merely a historical account of God's people in Egypt and the wilderness; it is a book about the experience of Christ for the church life today.