Crystallization Study of Exodus 1.4

Exodus is not only a book telling how the Israelites got out of Egypt; it is a book of redemption, supply, revelation, and building. The exodus from Egypt was simply the beginning. This was followed by the supply, the revelation, and the building....The central thought of Exodus is that Christ is 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.

If we read the book of Exodus according to the natural concept, we shall emphasize the giving of the law. To us, the book of Exodus will primarily be a record of how God gave commandments, ordinances, and statutes through Moses. However, if we have a divine, spiritual viewpoint in reading this book, we shall realize that Exodus is not primarily a story of the giving of the law, but is an account of how God saved His chosen people and gave them a heavenly vision so that they could build His dwelling place on earth.

The purpose of Exodus is to show God’s full salvation for the building up of His dwelling place. In the first chapter we see God’s chosen people in a fallen condition in Egypt, but in the last chapter we see the tabernacle as God’s dwelling place. What a contrast! God’s chosen people are saved all the way from their fallen condition into God’s dwelling place.

In Exodus Christ is many other items: the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, the seventy palm trees and twelve springs at Elim, and the tabernacle with all its furniture. Through the tabernacle and its furniture, God’s redeemed people could serve Him and worship Him. This indicates that Christ is the means by which we serve God and worship Him. God’s chosen people are to be built up together into one entity, the tabernacle, where God and man may mutually meet, communicate, and dwell. In Christ we and God, God and we, are built together, meet together, and dwell together. This is the central thought of the book of Exodus. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 570, 11)

Crystallization Study of Exodus 1.3

Although we have been redeemed, delivered, cleansed, and purified, all this is negative; we do not yet have anything positive. Hence, we are not yet qualified to be God’s dwelling place. In order to be God’s habitation, something heavenly must be wrought into our being. Therefore, we need to eat the heavenly manna and drink the living water so that something heavenly and living might be constituted into us. Now we are daily and even hourly eating of the manna and drinking of the water. (CWWL, 1977, vol. 1, p. 202)

The book of Exodus reveals that God desires to rescue His people from everything other than Himself, that He wants to deliver them from everything that is not God. After the exodus from Egypt, God’s people saw a heavenly vision by which they came to know God Himself and, in addition, to know the kind of living that is in accordance with God. Then they could be built up as God’s dwelling place on earth. This is the basic concept of the book of Exodus.

It is on the mountain that God’s people can also see the revelation of the desire of God’s heart. Here we see that God wants us to live according to what He is because the desire of His heart is to have a dwelling place on earth. The tabernacle was erected as the temporary fulfillment of this desire. Before the tabernacle was built, a detailed revelation regarding every aspect of it was given to Moses in chapters 25 to 31. The remaining chapters cover the experience of the children of Israel at the mountain and tell of the building of the tabernacle. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 483, 516, 582-583, 193, 137)

Crystallization Study of Exodus 1.2

Exodus stresses two matters concerning the Trinity: the Angel of God, or the Angel of Jehovah, and the Spirit of God. An angel is one who is sent by God. The Spirit of God is the One who comes from God to reach man and, in a deeper sense, to enter into man. One who is sent to us may come to us but not enter into us, but the Spirit comes from God to reach us not only objectively but also subjectively by entering into us. In Exodus God is the Angel of God, who is sent to be with man, and the Spirit of God, who comes to reach man in a subjective way. In the New Testament the One sent by God to us was Jesus Christ, the second of the Trinity. In John the Lord often said that He was sent by the Father (e.g., 5:36; 6:57; 8:16; 12:49; 14:24). Then this sent One said that He would ask the Father to send another Comforter, the Spirit (14:16, 26; 15:26). These two, Christ and the Spirit, in the New Testament are the fulfillment of the Angel and the Spirit in Exodus. (The Divine Trinity as Revealed in the Holy Word, p. 19)

In Exodus 40 we see the entire, completed tabernacle for the first time. Immediately after the tabernacle was raised up, the cloud descended to cover it, and the glory entered to fill it. For the tabernacle to become an entire, completed, living, and genuine tabernacle, it needed not only to be constructed and raised up but also to be covered by the cloud and filled by the glory. When the tabernacle was raised up, covered by the cloud, and filled with the glory, it became a full type of the Triune God. (The Divine Trinity as Revealed in the Holy Word, pp. 29, 32-33, 45-46)