The Exodus gives a good illustration of the bondage of death. Israel dwelt in bondage under Pharaoh, a tyrant and type of Satan. The message can be viewed as a preview of the endtime and antitype in the New Testament, (1 Corinthians 10:11; Hebrews 3-4).
It should be clear that deliverance from Egyptian bondage (death) occurred over an extended period of four decades, not in an instant. Further, none were raptured from the earth and carted off to heaven except through the natural means of death.
Of course, Hades, yet existing at the time, precluded such. However, even though now destroyed, does no one should be waiting for an alleged rapture in the near or distant future.
The deliverance from Egypt occurred over a 40 year period with God’s people entering a new land “on earth” not “from the earth” howebeit, one flowing with milk and honey.
This definitely was a transition from the “old world” of Egyptian bondage and death. Entering Canaan was a type of resurrection into a new life.
The transition/resurrection in the New Testament is equally from a “house of bondage” particularly called spiritual Egypt into a new life or paradise of God.
“But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants; the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar– for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children –(Galatians 4:23-25)
Thus, Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, by their rejection of Christ and his apostles, had become “spiritual Egypt.” This designation is repeated in Revelation 11:8, where Jerusalem is referred to as the “great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”
(Jesus never went to Rome, the Catholic church, America or any other modern country, and he certainly died in no other city than Jerusalem, outside its gates.-Heb. 13:13, 14)
Jesus, under Herod’s death threat, emphatically stated that “it could not be that a prophet perish outside of Jerusalem,” (Luke 13:33)
Additionally, at the close of Jesus’ ministry, Jerusalem is charged with the death of all the righteous blood from Abel to Zechariah and would shortly murder Christ, his apostles, scribes and wise men, i.e. the N.T. prophets.
In dying, Jesus was making his “exodus” from the Old Covenant world of Judaism. At the transfiguration, Moses and Elijah spoke of his decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. (Lk 9:31).
The word for “decease” is translated from “exodus.” Thus, Jesus was making an exodus from the world of bondage, in which the Jews were enlaved in sin, (John 8:44). He had no sin.
All the parallels of the feasts are there, as in his death on the Passover, his resurrection (first of the first fruits) and in the 7 weeks that followed with the second portion of firstfruits being harvested on Pentecost (Lev. 23:15-20; Acts 2; James 1:18).
Thus Jesus left the Old world of bondage and sin behind to create a new world within Himself, i.e. the body of Christ, –the New Jerusalem and heavenly country.
This is the “Jerusalem” which is from above, (Galatians 4:26). It answers to the church of the firstborn of the New Covenant in Hebrews 12:22-24.
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood that speaks better things than that of Abel.”
Thus, the resurrection from the bondage of sin, very prominently discussed in the New Testament, is the the “exodus” from Old Covenant Jerusalem/Judaism into the New Covenant world of the Jerusalem which is from above, i.e. the church or body of Christ.
As in the exodus from Egyptian bondage, it required no transport from the earth of those living. Likewise, no such transport is required to enter the New Jerusalem.
“Then I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men…” (Revelation 21:2-3.)
Both exoduses covered a period of about 40 years. Old Covenant Israel was forever destroyed in the siege upon the city by the Romans at the hand of God, (Luke 19:41-44, 21:20-22, 32).
