That All May Know

Years ago, while searching for a book, I came across a book I wasn’t looking for. The title made me pause and ponder: The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus, by W. Ross Blackburn. The subtitle seemed like a bit of a stretch. Exodus is the not the first book I associate with missions. It's not even the tenth. Though I have yet to read Blackburn's book, its provocative title beckoned me to look closer at the content of Exodus. Had I been missing something? Yes.

I was familiar with the worship theme in Exodus and the play on words between "servant" and "slave." (The words are the same in Hebrew.) Serving Yahweh contrasts directly with being the slaves of Egypt, taking on the nuance of "worship." Whether the LORD is speaking to Moses or Pharaoh, the purpose of his redemptive work is focused on proper worship: "you shall serve God on this mountain," "Let my son go that he may serve me" and so forth (3:12; 4:23). Purpose statements like these abound in Exodus. The LORD redeemed slaves out of Egypt to be his slaves who would "serve" him in a new land with new laws and new worship. As a result of God's saving acts, "serve" is liberated from the connotation of slavery and catapulted to the exalted significance of worshiping God the Redeemer.

But what I had overlooked, and Blackburn's title had made me probe, was just how much another theme was interwoven in Exodus alongside serving Yahweh, often in the same contexts as those purpose statements: "so that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God," "that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth, "the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD" (8:10, 22; 14:4). I certainly had some of these phrases underlined in my Bible but I had not pondered them from the perspective of missions — especially from the vantage point of God's missionary heart.

We see this concretely in chapter nine during the seventh plague. Moses was told to tell Pharaoh "Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, 'Let my people go, that they may serve me. For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth'" (9:13b-16).

God's heart is that all the earth would know him. Pharaoh's hardened heart stood opposed to knowing God, however. Consider Exodus 5:1-2.

Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.'" But Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go."

Yet the LORD wants people to know him so he saves a people for himself that they would know him as their God!

Say therefore to the people of Israel, 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.'" — Ex 6:6-8

Regarding the first plague, Moses told Pharaoh, "The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, 'Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.' But so far, you have not obeyed. Thus says the LORD, 'By this you shall know that I am the LORD: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood'" (Ex 7:16-17).

Pharaoh's magicians counterfeited the water-into-blood plague as well as the next: the plague of frogs. They made frogs by their dark arts but they could not make them go away. According to Pharaoh's plea to stop the plague, Moses said, "Be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God" (8:10). The mighty acts of the LORD not only prove his superiority but are an implicit claim for everyone to turn away from worshiping idols to the only God.

In Goshen, Israel was exempt from the plague of flies while they swarmed Egypt so "that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth" (8:22). Moses would stretch out his hand and still the thunderous hail storms "so that you may know that the earth is the LORD's" (9:29). God "dealt harshly with the Egyptians" and the signs he did among them were so "that you may know that I am the LORD" (10:2). The most severe and final plague, the death of the firstborn, would affect every house that did not apply the blood of the Passover Lamb but completely pass over those that did "that you may know that LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel" (11:7). At the crossing of the Red Sea, God proclaimed, "I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD" (14:4, see 17-18).

God's redemptive acts in rescuing Israel as well as his devastating judgments were not purely to put the raw power of Yahweh on display as an end in itself. Neither was the goal of salvation restricted to Israel alone. God's gracious redemption as well as the fury of his judgment against Pharaoh and Egypt was for the purpose of making himself known to all, "so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth" (9:16). Egypt as well as Israel, yes, even all the earth, was to "know" the LORD. God's grace and God's justice were meant to drive people away from serving idols to serve the true and living God who is full of mercy and grace, who rescues sinners, and forgives sin but in no way allows the guilty to go unpunished (see Ex 34:6-7). The Exodus story is a gospel story which reveals the character of God and his heart for sinners. With this in mind, Exodus does have a missionary heart: that all may know the LORD.

The plagues, Passover, and the exodus through the sea were the stage for Yahweh to reveal himself to the world so that the whole earth may know him. That raw power was revealed as a sign welcoming sinners to turn to the only true God, the Savior, the Redeemer. We know of one woman from the nations, for example, who in fact heard this testimony as God intended and turned to the LORD in faith. Rahab told the Israelite spies, "I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt" (Josh 2:9-10). Her faith led her to hide the spies.

Throughout the ages, by way of his mighty deeds, God has been making himself known in all the earth. The supreme example of this, of course, is in the mission and passion of Christ, the full revelation of God, the Redeemer from sin, the Savior of the World. As the back of Blackburn's book says:

The Lord's commitment to make himself known throughout the nations is the overarching missionary theme of the Bible and the central theological concern of Exodus . . . In the end, Exodus not only sheds important light on the church's mission, but also reveals what kind of God the Lord is, one who pursues his glory and our good, ultimately realizing both as he makes himself known in Christ Jesus.

Beloved, may we proclaim the LORD's redemptive work in Christ throughout all the earth, that all may know Him.