And the Christian is called out of Egypt
“1 Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2 and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 and all ate the same spiritual food; 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.”
1Cor 10:1-4
In such symbolism then Pharaoh represents the god of this world, this age, 2Cor 4:4. He has indeed held in us bondage. Christ came and took part of flesh and blood,
“14 … that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Heb 2:14-15
The fear of death has kept us in line with “those who by nature are not gods.” Gal 4:8. Egypt represents the world system which is so corrupt.
“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
1Jn 5:19
“… If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him.”
1Jn 2:15
Baptism is our separation from this world.
“3 Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.”
Rom 6:3-4
“7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him;”
Rom 6:7-8
We do our own wandering in a wilderness in the Christian life.
Just as ancient Israel did, we often lose our bearing when things do not go as expected. As they often fell apart and blamed God, and reject their faithful leaders in the Lord, so do we very often when things seem to go wrong, when it seems things are beyond even God’s control. Of course things never are beyond God’s control.
It would be a blessing to enter the promised land early.
It would have been a blessing if Israel had been willing to enter Canaan when they were first instructed. But ancient Israel was intimidated by their worldly adversaries, as we also often are, and then fell into sin, as we frequently do.
Sometimes, like ancient Israel, we may just wander around
in our desolate places until we perish.
We were delivered from Egypt, but loved our bondage to sin so much we perished in it, after being delivered to where we could live. Israel’s sins are warnings to us.
It doesn’t have to be that way!
“Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.”
1Cor 10:11
Scriptures are from the World English Bible WEB, a copyright free revision
of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901.