Exile: Life During Death - Episode 072

Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and today I want to get a little bit more into the topic of exile. We talked about exile in episode number 68, but I didn't really get into what exile is and how you see it as a theme in scripture.

So we're going to do that today, and we're going to take it a particular direction that I think is going to connect really well with Genesis 3. First of all, what's really interesting is that we don't see the term exile until we get to the book of 2 Samuel. A couple of things here... We might think, why does it take that long to [00:01:00] get to the term exile if it's such an important thing in scripture? And wouldn't it be the case that we're reading exile back into these earlier texts if it's not even using the term?

These are good and important questions. Now, first of all, from the last episode about exile, in episode 68, If you've listened to that, you will know that Exile is kind of a basic theme of scripture because the Bible as we have it now, or the Old Testament as we have it now, was compiled and probably edited during the exile.

Now, you'll say it's compiled, which means that the previous documents that all of this came from may not have had the theme of exile in mind when the original authors were writing it, right? So, we've got that question in our minds. And, you know, that's fair enough to ponder, and [00:02:00] today's episode is not one where we're going to be getting into the dating of anything, and any kind of source documents, and anything like that.

So, that's a question we're going to put aside for today. But I would argue that the theme of exile is right from Genesis 3 and onward. The explanation for that is either that the original source documents and the original writers were concerned with exile. Which is entirely possible because we can talk about Moses and the Exodus and what exile means in that context and ultimately, we're looking at the Bible as a whole document, right? We're looking at it in its canonical shape as a whole thing. So even if we don't have the term exile, we still have concepts that are here that are going to lead to what we are going to call exile.

So let me talk a little bit about concepts and how those can be potentially more helpful [00:03:00] than simply word studies. I've discussed this before, and I'll go into it a little bit again today and maybe go beyond what I've said before. Because humans use language, right? We use language to communicate, we use language to formulate ideas in our minds. Most of us have an internal dialogue that we speak to ourselves in our own language, right? So we're using language all the time.

And sometimes we think that the way that we think in words, that that translates to the concepts in reality, right? Like when we talk about a cat, there's a cat in reality. And sometimes there is a really concrete one to one correspondence there, but you can also use the word cat in other ways. You can say somebody is being catty. Like if you're calling somebody catty, then you're using the term cat in a broader context, right? You're taking an idea from one [00:04:00] zone of existence and applying it to a new zone of existence. And this is what we do all the time. So, really, instead of thinking in words, we are more likely to be thinking in concepts and broader structures of ideas that aren't just defined by the words we use.

So if we restrict ourselves to words in Bible study, then we're limiting ourselves to being able to see a concept as a whole. So, I'm going to use the term exile as our umbrella term here, because it's the easiest and broadest and best way we can kind of bring all these ideas under one roof. That doesn't mean that we have to see the word exile whenever we see things that are associated with this entire concept.

So it's like you have this broad picture of the concept in your mind, and then underneath or within [00:05:00] that concept, is a whole bunch of different ideas, and they're related to each other in different ways. So this is why we can talk about exile earlier in the Bible, even if we're not seeing the term exile, because the idea of exile, the concept of exile is going to hold a whole bunch of ideas within it.

And this relates to our Bible study, because we have within the idea of exile, the general concepts of what exile is, how exile is defined, how exile actually happens in life, and the various ways that we can look at exile. And that's kind of what I was talking about last time in my episode about exile. Exile is not just about being away from your homeland, but there are other things that are associated with this concept, especially when we see it in the Bible.

Now, as students of the Bible, [00:06:00] we are looking at our scriptures and we're thinking in terms of the historical context, we're thinking in terms of the literary context, and then we're thinking in terms also of our own personal context, like how do we apply these things to our lives? And we need to have all of those things going on when we're looking at a concept, or a theme, or a passage. We want to understand the historical context. We want to understand what the biblical authors were saying, and how they were using it in the literary structure of the Bible itself as a text. And we want to be able to understand how that relates to us today.

But just a note about authorship and the provenance of these texts, if you believe Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, or at least a core author of the Pentateuch, which would be my position, is that he at least wrote a large portion of this and [00:07:00] that it really does have that context of the time in here. Well, what is that context? The context is the exodus. Well, why are they having an exodus? They're having an exodus because they are in exile. Like, there's the idea of exile. It's not the same as the exile later with Assyria and also Babylon, but it remains nonetheless a type of exile. It is a scattering of the people outside of their homeland, and they want to get back into their homeland.

So, well, just jumping ahead a little bit beyond Genesis 3, you get to Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel, right, and all of the scattering of the people from there. And it's pretty easy, even if you're not a scholar, to see this connection of the Tower of Babel with Babylon, right, Babel, Babylon, it's easy to see that connection.

And so, this [00:08:00] could be a foreshadowing, or a prophecy, or a type, or, you know, however you want to put that, it's part of the idea of the exile where the Jews went into Babylon, right? Well, I saw a question this week about, what about the exile of the northern tribes that was done by Assyria, not Babylon? Well, my contention would be that they're all kind of the same picture.

So, you have Babylon, you have Assyria, you have Egypt. All of these are portrayed in similar terms, and we'll get to the concept of Egypt as exile here in a little bit. So what's interesting to me is that in the context of the Pentateuch, with the Exodus and Moses, you have the coming out of exile, whereas later, the context of the prophets, the people are in exile. And of course, right now, I'm primarily [00:09:00] focused on the Old Testament. Once you get into the New Testament, you have similar themes with exile, and here in the place of Babylon and Assyria and Egypt, the power is Rome.

Okay, so you have the historical realities of exile. You have the actual things that have happened to the people of God in relation to powers around them, big empires who were challenging the people and who were challenging God because they were setting themselves up in the same place as God. So there's some nice kingdom imagery for you right there.

You know, this is why I love biblical theology. And I love looking at themes and tracing themes, because even though you can trace a single theme from beginning to end in Scripture, it is not the case that these themes just exist [00:10:00] by themselves, that they're just kind of hanging out there, and you have this theme over here and that theme over here, and they're somehow unrelated.

In actuality, these themes create this amazing composite picture. So, you can't have exile without the idea of community and being God's people and kingship. Right? Like, there's a proper kingship of putting yourself under Yahweh's provision, or there's a corrupted kingship that this is the way we see kingdoms happen on Earth.

And it's really helpful to understand how kingdoms occur and how they work on earth, because that's reflective of what's happening with God. But with God, it's something so much greater, right? So we have the idea of kingship and kingdom and exile, and Jesus comes along, and what does he say?[00:11:00] He says the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

This is absolutely connected to the theme of exile and a return from exile, isn't it? Rather than being under the false kingdoms of the world, we are now under a true kingdom. It's amazing. I was reflecting yesterday about this idea that you hear in particularly American Christian churches, particularly American Protestant Christian churches, that If you don't take the idea of the depravity of man and the sinfulness of humanity seriously, quote unquote seriously, then you're not taking Jesus seriously, right?

You're not taking salvation seriously. Now, look, I'm not saying that sin isn't serious. I'm not saying that humanity doesn't have this idea of depravity, though we can talk about what exactly [00:12:00] that means. But look at what Jesus came in to his ministry saying. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus didn't start his ministry with a big sign on the corner saying, you're all going to hell.

No, he started his ministry with an emphasis on the kingdom of God, right? Like, the kingdom of heaven in the book of Matthew, because heaven is a replacement for the word God, he's trying to be thoughtful to the word God and not overuse it. So he's using heaven as a referent for God. Means the same thing.

Kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God. Different authors, same concept. Remember, we're thinking concepts instead of just words. Although, of course, the words are important, but it's the concept we need to be looking at. All right, I don't want to get too bogged down and off topic here, but I just wanted to show that when you [00:13:00] have a concept, it's not just by itself. It's married with other concepts, and these formulate an actual complete picture.

Alright, so we go from the historical reality of what happened to the literary reality of what we actually read. And I point out this distinction because, remember, we're talking about concepts. We're not just talking about historical realities, although there is that, I'm not discounting the historical reality, I'm just saying that the historical reality is placed within the actual structure of this concept as a whole, which means that it can be used in literary ways. It means it can be used in metaphorical ways, which doesn't take away from the historicity of anything.

It just means we're building a conceptual structure here for this idea, and once we have that in [00:14:00] place, then it becomes easier for us to apply the text. It becomes easier for us to understand how this applies to us today, how it matters, because there was an original audience that was in the Old Testament. There was an original audience that was the New Testament, and that was separate from the Old Testament. Now, we have an audience today, and we are reading scripture and asking, what does this have to do with me? And while that idea of application to me definitely gets abused and misunderstood and misapplied, it's definitely still something we need to do.

So we can only do that once we understand what's going on in the text. And while there is a historical reality behind the text, it is the text that we need to understand, because it's the text that's bringing us these themes. It's the text that is connecting certain [00:15:00] things together within this theme.

All right, so even without the word exile, we can still see the theme in the text. Now, as I have said before, exile can happen in a variety of ways. For instance, the Israelites weren't in Egypt because of a hostile enemy. But because of a famine, and their time in Egypt wasn't all terrible, apparently. It just got that way eventually.

The situation in Egypt was not always one of slavery. But once it got to that point, they needed deliverance. But let's look at how it is portrayed in the book of Genesis in chapter 3. All right. I will be reading from the ESV starting in verse 22. It says, then the Lord God said, behold the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. [00:16:00] Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore, the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

So we don't have the word exile here, but we do have the word drove out. Well before that we have the word sent him out from the Garden of Eden. Interestingly, that word seems to have a connection to the reaching out of Adam's hand to take also of the Tree of Life, but let's focus on this word drove out.

We find this word again in Genesis 4, 14, in relation to Cain, where it [00:17:00] says, Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. And whoever finds me will kill me.

We find the word again in Genesis 21 10. This is in the context of Hagar. Sarah said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.

We see the term next in Exodus 2 17 in the context of Moses and the shepherds. And when we go to Exodus 6 1. This is fascinating. It says, But the Lord said to Moses, Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his [00:18:00] land.

So in Genesis 3, God is driving out the man from the Garden of Eden. Cain is being driven from the ground. Hagar is being driven away from Abraham and Sarah. And the Israelites are being driven from the Egyptians. So even in the context of the Exodus, which we think is the opposite of exile, it's using the same terms as we see for what we think of as exile in Genesis 3.

In Genesis 3, the man is being driven out of paradise. In Exodus, the people are being driven out of Egypt to go to paradise, the promised land. So you can see how we can use word studies in order to develop our conceptual ideas. [00:19:00] And sometimes those word studies are going to kind of upend our ideas. Like, we want to fit exile into one category, and exodus into another category, and this term is kind of mushing them together.

Now, again, we don't have to get all pedantic about this, right? Just because a term is used here in Genesis and here in Exodus, and there's conceptual overlap, that doesn't mean that it's entirely conceptually overlapped. Part of the meaning of being driven out is that it is a forceful action, and it's a forceful action in one direction.

You can also note the difference in who is doing the action here. God is driving the man from the garden, and it's Pharaoh who's driving the people from [00:20:00] Egypt. So it's like God is using Pharaoh for his own purposes. And remember, Pharaoh is supposed to be like God, right? He is God to the Egyptians. So God is like, okay, you're gonna be "God," then, alright, I'm gonna let you play the role of me in this kind of upside down way. It's so fascinating. We can see kind of a parallel with God using Cyrus to send the people back to the land after the exile. Or at least the beginning of the end of the exile.

So I'm not gonna go through all of the instances of this term in the Old Testament. But the term is definitely used also in context of the Conquest. It's also used in Numbers 22, in the incident with Balaam. Balak wants Balaam [00:21:00] to curse the people so that he can be able to defeat them and drive them from the land. So this term is not just one of exile, being sent out, but also one of military conquest.

Now, here's the difficult part when you're combining conceptual studies with word studies, and that is that you're going to have similar meanings to terms and ideas, right? But you can't just import all of the ideas that are associated with something from over here to another instance of it being used over there.

For instance, if we look at the uses of the term drive out, some of them are definitely related to the idea of punishment and judgment. But does that then mean that we can import the idea of punishment and judgment every time we see this word? I mean, in the case [00:22:00] of the Exodus, Pharaoh is driving out the people, but the people are not being judged. It is Pharaoh and his gods who are being judged. So, the very act of being driven out does not necessarily imply judgment on the ones who are being driven out. That can be a possible thing that's going on in the wider context of what we see, but we need to look at them in their particular literary context.

I mean, let's go back to Genesis 3 again. The man is being sent out from the garden. Why? Lest he reach out his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever. I've argued here that this is actually a mercy, that the driving out of the man is not a punishment, but a mercy. And here we could talk [00:23:00] about this intersection of mercy, punishment, and justice. Because when we, western society today, thinks about the term justice, we are thinking about punishment. We're thinking about punishing the wicked people who do things that are bad. That's justice. You are getting justice when the wicked person is punished for what they did.

However, the biblical concept of justice combines the idea of that that's going on with punishment as well as mercy. Both mercy and punishment can be seen as a type of justice. And why is that? Well, the root of the word justice is just. That means you're putting something right. You're putting something in order. And of course, the first chapters of Genesis are all about putting things in order, right? [00:24:00] The creation is God ordering things.

And so you get to the concept here and you're like, is this a punishment or is this mercy? Well, it's justice. It is possible that this is part of the punishment for what happened in the garden. Now, of course, what we had earlier than what we just read were the consequences to the serpent, the woman, and Adam in Genesis 3, 14 through 19. We have the serpent cursed, we have the effects on the woman, we have the effects on the man, we have the ground that's cursed, and all of those things.

But what's odd, and what many of us have noticed, is how does this relate to what we see in relationship to what God commands about the tree? In Genesis 2, 17, it says, But the tree of the knowledge of good and [00:25:00] evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

The serpent, of course, disputes that. In Genesis 3, 4, the serpent says you will not surely die. And then what do we see happen? Well, Adam and Eve aren't just killed on the spot, are they? So, it feels like they're not getting the consequence that God told them they were going to get.

I know you've probably heard these ideas before, but there's different ideas as to what that actually means and how it actually fell out. There's the idea that the death is just a spiritual death. There's the idea that the death was in the sense of, well, if a day to God is a thousand years, and Adam died within a thousand years, then that means that in that day, he surely died.

So there's those ideas, [00:26:00] but I want to offer up another idea to you here. And that is in the concept of what exile is and what it can mean. What if the death mentioned in Genesis 2. 17 is actually the death of exile. What if exile is that death? Now, in saying that, I don't want to discount or downplay the role of physical death here.

I'm not suggesting that physical death isn't in view at all. But remember, we can layer concepts upon one another. And we don't see death happen in the cursing of the Serpent. Okay, actually, we do maybe see death happen in that, because the serpent is going to be eating dust, and that's a picture of mortality. And Genesis 3. 19 talks [00:27:00] about returning to the ground and dust. So, there's definitely the concept of mortality. And so, perhaps we could say all three things are going on. We have the threat of physical death, because they no longer have access to the tree of life. We have the spiritual separation, because they are cast out of sacred space. And that is also a picture of exile.

Again, we don't just have to choose one of these options. Moving forward into the New Testament, when we look at what Jesus did, it was definitely a defeat of death, right? There's definitely a sense that we no longer have to fear what death is. Even though we still die, we are delivered from that death.

There's a lot of important elements that I want to wrap up in this whole idea. And I think it would be really [00:28:00] helpful if we started to think in terms of Exile, exodus, deliverance, and things of this nature. I think that the church would benefit massively from an understanding of kingship in the sense of where our real loyalty is and how Jesus as King and coming as King to inaugurate the kingdom to end the exile... The idea that we can live into that even while we are in this in between, already but not yet state of some form of exile, like I was talking about the last episode about exile, I discussed how exile is more than just being away from your home. It is about identity formation. It is about transformation.

And, you know, it's not like modern [00:29:00] American, in particular, type Christianity is missing this element entirely. It's not that we don't talk about it or acknowledge it and see it, because we do. But I feel like we are often missing this context, right? We want to see everything from a particular lens that we're used to hearing in Christian circles.

We want to hear the Christianese of Jesus paying for our sins and the propitiation language and all of these things that are very associated with sacrifice. And we want to view everything that Jesus is doing from the lens of that idea of sacrifice that we have. And certainly there is that context of sacrifice, but we actually don't need to see everything in the light and framework and lens of sacrifice. [00:30:00] We just don't.

I really do think that the concept and idea and historical narrative of both the Exodus as well as the Exile is very deeply embedded into the Book of Genesis. And I don't think you can take away the idea of sacrifice and what that is. However, the idea of sacrifice is particular and it's something that we really struggle to understand today.

And there's a lot of detail in Scripture that we're not grasping because, it's not spelled out. They're not describing it in a way that somebody later, outside of that context, is really going to have any idea of why they're doing what they do. So today isn't the time to get into more of that. I already have, to some extent, and for sure will be tackling a little bit more of that [00:31:00] later in the future.

But right now, I want to be focusing on the idea of exile, and exile is connected to the sacrificial system, but just like how we have the word drive out, and it doesn't have to have the context of punishment, we can also have the concept of exile that is, but also isn't always, connected to sacrifice.

I mean, let's take the context of the exodus and the context of the exile as two separate things. Right? So, the exodus is leading the people out of Egypt into the promised land, whereas exile is taking them out of the land somewhere else where there is hope that they will then have a new exodus to get back into the land again.

[00:32:00] And just like we saw with this term that we were talking about, the exodus happens in a kind of forceful way. God's instrument, in the form of Pharaoh, oddly enough, is going to drive the people out of where they are into the Promised Land. Another distinction is that the reason that the people are in Egypt is not due to their sin, but due to something beyond their control. They ended up there because of famine. Now they were stuck there because of the sin of the Egyptians.

We could probably also say it's because of the sins of the people in Canaan, right? Because in a sense, God is giving the people in the land enough rope to hang themselves with. Right? He's waiting for their iniquity to be complete. And then he's going to bring the Israelites back in in order to conquer the land and take it for their own [00:33:00] possession.

Okay, so in both the Exodus, as well as the Exile, there is sin involved. Right? There's the Canaanites are going to be kicked out of the land because of their sin. And the Israelites were kicked out of the land because of their sin.

Now, the way that we see this actually described in places like Leviticus, actually, let's go there right now; let's go to Leviticus chapter 18 verse 24. It says, Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things. For by all these, the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean. And the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules, and do no more of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns [00:34:00] among you. For the people of the land who were before you did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean. Lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them. I am the Lord your God.

Okay, so that was the end of chapter 18 in Leviticus. So, we have a picture of the land itself vomiting the people out, because the people have made the land unclean. Now, this is what I was talking about in relation to how exile and the sacrificial system actually connect together. We [00:35:00] see this same kind of concept in Deuteronomy. We see the same kind of language all through the prophets.

So the exile is definitely about the Israelites' sin, because their sin was polluting the land in some way. If you want a little bit more about that, I suggest you listen to my conversations with Spencer Owen. Those are in episodes 50 and 64. Spencer does an absolutely awesome job in helping us understand what the sin offering or the purification offering is and if we can understand that then we can understand what and how sins could pollute the land so that the land itself vomits them out.

Now there is a big distinction between what's going on with the land and what's going on with the purification offering because the purification [00:36:00] offering is connected in particular to sacred space. But, we can't really understand the land thing without understanding the temple thing, or the tabernacle thing I guess I should say.

Alright, so the exile is connected to the sin of Israel. But what about the exodus? Again, the people were not in Egypt due to the Israelites sin. That wasn't the reason they were enslaved. So the problem that God is solving in the Exodus is not the problem of the people's sin. And I'm pointing that out in particular because it matters.

When we look at this context of exile, sometimes it absolutely has to do with sin. Sometimes it doesn't. And again, we can make a distinction here [00:37:00] between Exodus and exile, right? They're not exactly the same. One of them is going into the land, one of them is coming out of the land, but we can see the crossover in the imagery.

And again, it is important because when we go into the New Testament and we see what Jesus is doing, and we see the ways that Jesus is described as being the new Exodus, and we can kind of see how what's going on in Genesis 3 is connected to what's going on in the Exodus, is connected to what's going on in the exile, is connected to what's going on with Jesus, then it is this framework of exile and Exodus that connects all of those things, right?

It's not the sin of the people that is connecting all of those things. The sin of the people has impact there, it's part of the story, but the [00:38:00] deliverance and the purification language and the calling out of being God's people, those are the things I want to highlight for you right there. And why do I do that?

Well, first of all, let's look at this again. We have sin, deliverance, purification, and calling out the people. Like, being designated as God's people. The people showing themselves to be loyal to God. So it's not about whether or not you have the right father and mother. It's not about the exact proper performance of a ritual, although that is part of what they're doing, at least in the Exodus, they have to put the Lamb's blood on the doorway and all of that. But notice when you look at the sacrificial system and what happens in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and all of these other [00:39:00] places where we see the warnings of exile, and then we see the exile actually happen, they're not able to stop the exile from happening on account of just performing the right rituals, right?

Now, most of us are used to hearing this idea that the sacrificial system of the Old Testament was ineffective because it was animals and not a human or God who is being sacrificed. But listen to that again. Does God require human blood in order to forgive us? I mean, that is effectively what we're saying when we're saying that God requires our death, requires our blood in order to forgive us, but that won't actually cover our sins, so [00:40:00] therefore we need a greater sacrifice than we could possibly give, and so he needs to sacrifice his son instead. I mean, look, what that's saying is that God wants human sacrifice. And that just leaves me speechless, to be honest with you.

So, the sacrifices weren't capable of keeping the people in the land once they polluted the land. The land would eventually vomit them out. So, the sacrifices at least weren't good enough for that, right? But what about the Passover? What about the original Passover? What about the instance with the time of Exodus where they are taking the Lamb's blood and putting it on the doorway?

That was effective, right? They were able to escape Egypt because of that. At least, you know, you could say that in [00:41:00] some form. The common description here is that this was a sacrificial death of the animal to substitute for the firstborn of the Israelites, right? So the Israelite firstborn weren't killed because they did this.

All right, so this is not the place to go into what that means and how we can actually see it. But I want to point out that it was effective, like they were able to have deliverance, right? In this kind of upside down exile, they were able to go because this happened. And keep in mind, this is the context of the Passover.

And what week did Jesus die? Well, it was during the Passover. So what we have connected to Jesus' death in the Gospels is a very, very strong connection to what is going on in the Exodus, which is [00:42:00] an upside down kind of exile that is headed out of exile. And I will say right here that I am very convinced that what happened during the original Passover was not a sacrifice.

If you are interested in digging into that, and some more of these ideas that I'm talking about today about sacrifice, and the land spitting people out, and so many other things, I would suggest the book Lamb of the Free by Andrew Remington Rillera. It just came out recently, and I believe that Spencer Owen mentioned this book in his last conversation with me.

I do highly, highly recommend it, and it's a fascinating study about sacrifice and the Old Testament context of that, and intersecting with the New Testament context of Jesus. We don't have to [00:43:00] agree with everything he says about it. But the way that he presents the arguments is just so good, with so many things that I think most of us could never really see without this kind of a deep dive into things like this.

In fact, it's such an impactful book that if you are one of my paid subscribers, or you donate in some way to my podcast, and you want to embark on some sort of a book study with me in this, let me know, because I would love to do that with people.

But in short, getting back to the context of the Passover, instead of a sacrifice, I would call that like a designation, perhaps. It is what designated who was loyal to Yahweh and who was willing to be part of this deliverance movement that Yahweh was performing amongst the Egyptian people. Because [00:44:00] remember that it wasn't just Israelites that left the land of Egypt. It was a mixed multitude. So, this was not just Israelite people who were leaving the land, who were being saved by Yahweh.

So, I know this has been a bit of a rambunctious, rambling kind of a conversation about the topic of exile. But I want to show how integral it is to things and how this really does point to what Jesus is doing. I think this was part of my conversation last time about exile. If exile is a return to chaos and a type of decreation, then return to the land is a type of new creation. But the return and the new creation does not happen in isolation. A transformation occurs in the time of the exile that is part of the new creation.[00:45:00]

Okay, and I bring that up because of all of the new creation language that we see in the New Testament, right, that's associated with Jesus. We even have language about clothing and putting new clothes on and being cleaned with new clothes. Hmm. I wonder if Genesis mentions something about clothing.

When we get to Deuteronomy, exile is framed in the context of covenant, and what do we have with Jesus? A new covenant. If you have listened to episode number 59, where I talk about Jesus and the cosmic powers and our deliverance from sin and death there, you'll kind of already have a framework for what I'm talking about here.

Earlier in the episode, I mentioned the idea of exile as death, or death as exile. [00:46:00] We could say it either way. Conceivably, we can already see that happening in Genesis 3, right? We have the threat of death when they take from the tree, and then we have all of these consequences that fall out from that situation.

We have the mention of dust. Some people will say that there's the first sacrifice and death of an animal in the clothing there. That's another topic for another time. I don't think that is calling on the imagery of death specifically, but again, that's a very long conversation. But if exile is not just a removal from the land in hopes to come back from the land, but that is also a transformative process and a part of identity formation, then, this is a picture of going from death to life, or resurrection.

I don't think I mentioned [00:47:00] this book in my last episode, but on my blog, at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com, you can find a blog post called Exile, An Annotated Bibliography. And in this blog post, I am compiling a, well, a bibliography of exile. And one of those books is called The Death of Deaths in the Death of Israel, Deuteronomy's Theology of Exile.

I kind of love this title, The Death of Deaths in the Death of Israel. But what it does is it talks about exile in light of Deuteronomy, of course. It's a bit technical, it's a bit academic. But here is a quote from this book, quote, In losing her land, Israel apparently also loses her identity, history, and [00:48:00] covenent relationship with Yahweh. Restoration from exile, then, is a resurrection from death to life. end quote.

Resurrection language is also very embedded into the whole story of the Exodus. In fact, there was a picture of cosmic geography here. Right? Cosmic geography is using real geography for kind of theological purposes, where we are seeing either a relationship of the earth to the heavens, in a sense, or we're seeing relationships on earth between other things and corresponding to theological ideas, right?

So the idea is, Egypt is down. Like, if you're going to Egypt, you're always going down to Egypt, and that is because Egypt was the land of the dead, and it symbolized exile. We can see this happening in Jesus's early life. So [00:49:00] the man was exiled from the garden, and that was away from the tree of life. It was death.

Like, we tend to think of this as a proposition, right? Like, this thing happens, this thing happens, they're correlated in some causality. But really, it's a story. It's a narrative. It's got themes and patterns that are going on here. And because of the truthfulness of the Bible, what we have here is narrative that reflects an ultimate reality of what we're actually going through. And that is either historically, what the people went through historically, or what Jesus did and is doing for us now, today.

Now, remember I said that exile was first mentioned in the book of 2 Samuel, and here's a really interesting passage in 2 Samuel 14, verse 14. It says, [00:50:00] We must all die. We are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast.

We can also look at Genesis 46, 4, which says, I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again. There is so much imagery here of exile and death and new life, which is resurrection, is it not? Like, we have a literal, physical resurrection from death. But we also have a resurrection that is occurring in our life right now.

So you see, this is why it's so important to understand this as a literary topic, not just a historical one, although it is that, because if we are only [00:51:00] thinking in the historical context, then there was maybe one, maybe two exiles, and we're missing out on a lot of things. ,

Like take a look at Jeremiah 16, 14 through 15. These verses say, Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, As the Lord lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country, and out of all the countries where he had driven them. For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

So, again, remember I said that we have Babylon that's connected to exile, we have Assyria, and we also have Egypt. And once you realize that going down to Egypt and this whole idea of death, down in the south, and then coming back up as a form of life, Jesus is truly the new Exodus. [00:52:00] And it's not because he was a sacrifice. It was because he literally was exiled into the underworld. He literally took exile upon himself, went down into death, and came up triumphant.

Now, of course, we do tend to think of that historic Babylonian exile when we think of exile. So, when we look at that, what is the impact of exile on the people?

Well, for one thing, their temple was destroyed. What did they find out after that happened? They found out that Yahweh was not bound by or to the city or the sanctuary. And in the New Testament, we find out that that's even more the case, and that the people of God who are following Jesus are now the new temple. We are the stones being [00:53:00] built up.

Exile, of course, it was a type of punishment. It was connected to that. But not only was it a punishment, but it was something that was there for repentance and transformation. And what do we have when we come into the Kingdom of God with Jesus? We are to repent when we do that.

We see, through the context of the exile, that God can shape events and empires. And he can create his own empire in an upside down kind of a kingdom. Upside down, not according to God, but according to how we think of kingdom. And how we think of what power structures are like. And what we think it is like to live lives of abundance. Not sitting around being rich, but rather being equipped to do what we're supposed to be [00:54:00] doing here in creation.

Another impact we have from exile is that our lives should be based on obedience to Yahweh. And we do this not to earn salvation, but we do it on the basis of His mercy and His gift.

I mentioned before the book called Why the Bible Began. And I want to read a snippet from, I think it was the introduction or preface to it. It says Ancient Israel and Judah developed the resources to construct a resilient nationhood. Not in spite of, but paradoxically because of the experience of military defeat, economic devastation, and diaspora. Drawing upon its cultural resources, not simply to survive, but to generate a vibrantly creative intellectual and spiritual tradition. [00:55:00] End quote.

It is precisely this upside down reality that we see, not only in the Bible, but living out our daily lives. You know, it's rather unexpected that a life of humility can give somebody so much. And yet, that's what we see time and time again when we look at the deaths of the martyrs, when we look at the growth of the church, when we look at a parent and a child's relationship.

The giving of the parent's life to the child is something that promotes the most amazing growth in that child. This is a natural relationship that we see all the time around us of this upside down reality. It's the humility of somebody giving of themselves to promote something that could never be developed via the application of power.

Exile is a genuine catastrophe, [00:56:00] but there's also genuine restoration here. That restoration includes the restoration of relationship between humanity and God and humanity and each other. And it includes our ability to now live lives like we could never live before.

Now when you look at the book of Hebrews, there is this idea that it's probably the only place that I know of where we have the idea of escapism, right? The idea of escaping this life to go to another life. The idea of a better heavenly country. But note that Hebrews is talking about superlatives in general all over the place. There are better versions of all kinds of things. And so, it's no surprise that we should find that there should be a better version of our homeland.

Hebrews 11, verses 13 through 16 says, These all died in faith, not having [00:57:00] received the things promised, but having seen them, and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus, make it clear they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But they desire a better country. That is a heavenly one.

Now, I don't think this is actually speaking about some form of escapism, where we're gonna leave this earth behind and we're gonna go to the heavens and we're gonna float on the clouds with our little harps that kind of idea. The better heavenly country is going to reflect the reality of the country we have now. So this isn't any different than what we see of the renewed heavens and earth in Revelation, for instance. And rather than talking about going to heaven when we die, all of this [00:58:00] language is about exile. We remain in exile until we don't anymore, until the final consummation of time, when we are fully and completely delivered.

It's hard to know what's meant by our future hope and what that looks like. But, for sure, the language is about creation, renewal, fulfillment, end of exile. And I don't know about you, but it absolutely gives me chills to think about this whole concept actually beginning in Genesis. Because we see the fall of Genesis and it seems so depressing, right? It seems like we have come down and We need somebody to rescue us. And indeed, that's the place where we are all at. We are all in a place where we need to be gathered in to the people of God. You don't get out of [00:59:00] exile because you stop sinning, or even because you repent enough. There remains the need for a deliverer to bring you back.

I think that I like the theme of exile in particular, because it has so many of these ideas that we see in the Old Testament and in Jesus. Like, for me, the priority isn't figuring out the mechanisms of the Atonement and how is that going to work? Why does God need this? But rather, it's about looking at this story and seeing how the Old Testament authors and the New Testament authors were both thinking.

And this is where a historical reality also plays into the whole thing, right? I'm not just saying it's a story, like God literally delivers people. He has in the past. He is doing it now. He's going to keep doing it. [01:00:00] It seems to me that this is also why we love stories of heroes so much. We love stories about superheroes. We love stories about people who save other people. We like the upside down stories sometimes where the underdog comes and saves the day. These appeal to us in such a deep place of our being. And it's because we see that actually happening in life sometimes. And we see that in our relationship with Jesus.

So whether or not we personally can identify with the story of exile, like if we've never been away from home, for instance, we think, well, I've never been in exile. We are all in unique, different situations. Some of us are feeling like outsiders. Some of us can't understand how we are in the situation we are in and how we're going to get out of it. And we just [01:01:00] cry out to God for that deliverance. And we see it in so many zones of our lives, don't we?

And certainly it is good, and we should, expect and call out for deliverance. But if we can also see that what we're going through is a type of transformative process, and that our lives on the other side are going to be so much better because of what we're going through? I mean, that can be a hard reality to face for somebody who is in very, very deep suffering, who can't see that end, who can't see the light at the end of that kind of a tunnel.

And so, you know, it's like when you're trying to think of the reality of evil and suffering in the world and why we have it, it seems a bit crass to say, well, it's there for your growth. We don't really like that answer. It doesn't feel very satisfying in the moment sometimes. Which is [01:02:00] why, honestly, I love these conversations I've been having lately with Mike Chu. Because, the topic of lament, and actually going through that process, is so important to each of us. And it's something that we should really integrate into our lives because that's also part of this idea of exile. If you are not in the situation you should be in, then it's fair to lament. It's fair to have that time of pain and crying out.

The more I study the Bible, the more I just love to see the integration of each of these things. It's like, you think that they're separate topics, like the Book of Job has nothing to do with exile, right? Well, I mean, when you're looking at the topic of exile being bound and really rooted in the idea of lament for what you need, and [01:03:00] lament being a process of repentance as well, then, yeah, it absolutely connects to what we're talking about here.

I don't know if you have been one of those people or know somebody who has been in the situation where they feel so guilted into trying to believe in God. Like, the reason I need to believe in God so that I see my sins and feel really, really guilty about them. Like, to them, that is what the gospel is about. Like, for a lot of people, it seems like that's what it is, like, you need your ticket out of hell, because otherwise you're going to be suffering for eternity, because you've been such a bad person.

Well, look, there's a reality of your sin there, right? There's a reality of consequences that happen because of your sin, and there is a pain that we can have because of that. But the picture that we see, [01:04:00] overwhelmingly time and time again in scripture, and this is why I love patterns, because every time the pattern shows up, you see something a little bit different, it is God reaching out to deliver His people. That is the story of the Bible. That is why Jesus came. That is why we are here as the church. Because we are Christ's body. Being Christ's body is a formulation of participation with Him. And it's participation, participation, participation, participation. It's such a big theme.

It's not about saving ourselves. It's about participating with God because that is what he is offering to us. That is why he created us. That is what we're here for.

All right. So I guess I've kind of gone on a bit of a rambling rant here. But again, this is why I love biblical [01:05:00] theology, because you can see the story, and you can see the beauty of it in its place in history, and in its place in our lives.

I genuinely hope you enjoyed this episode, and I will go ahead and wrap things up right now. I want to thank you for listening, and I want to thank you guys for all that you do to support me, whether you're helping financially support me, whether you're praying for me, I especially appreciate the prayers, or whether you're participating in all of the various ways that you can participate here, I really, really appreciate it.

Thanks to all of you who come and communicate with me in the various ways that you do. Because even if you're asking me a question, then that gives me an opportunity to also work through thoughts. And sometimes I actually have to go and research some things. And I just, I really enjoy that. I love participating with people in that. [01:06:00] I love sharing in your questions and sharing in conversations. And I love it when you guys do that back with me.

If you are interested in helping financially support, you can donate via PayPal, you can donate via Patreon, you can donate other ways if you just want to contact me about that. And if you are a supporter, I do want to have some meetups to meet you all and to have amazing discussions together in person, at least virtually in person.

You can also sign up for my newsletter online at my website. at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com. You can email me at GenesisMarksTheSpot at gmail. com, and you can see my artwork on my website as well, if you're interested in any of that. If you guys do have any Q& A questions, go ahead and submit those. I will try to have a Q& A episode up in the next little [01:07:00] while.

And if you just have topics in general that you'd like to see me address, feel free to shoot those over to me. I am working on several that have been suggested, so thank you guys for that. At any rate, I will go ahead and wrap things up now. Thank you again for listening, and I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.