“By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” (Heb. 11:24–25)
When most people think of the story of Moses and the exodus, they’re plagued by apocryphal details from one of several movie adaptations.
Older generations may recall Cecil DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (either the 1923 or 1956 versions) in which Moses has an Egyptian girlfriend. Younger audiences may think of Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), in which Yahweh appears as a little boy instead of as a burning bush.
As a kid who grew up in the late ’90s, I think of DreamWorks Animation’s The Prince of Egypt. This cartoon epic supplies in artistic brilliance what it lacks in biblical accuracy (Moses is adopted by Pharaoh’s wife instead of his daughter). But I’ll always appreciate The Prince of Egypt for emphasizing one key theme of the biblical exodus story: how much Moses gave up by renouncing his status as Egyptian nobility to join his people in exile—and how he did it by choice.
We all know the basics of Moses’s story, even if they’re a little muddled by Hollywood’s artistic license: Raised in Pharaoh’s household, this foundling grows up beside the throne of the ancient world’s main superpower. He hobnobs with the royal family, enjoys boundless wealth, and at least plausibly knows Egypt’s crown prince (perhaps they really were like brothers!). Young Moses has the world at his command and a future blessed by the gods. This is all he could ever want. Yet an inconvenient fact makes it impossible for Moses to maintain this charmed life: he’s not Egyptian but Hebrew.
In the Bible, he knows this from an early age, having been nursed by his real mother, Jochebed (Ex. 2:7–10; cf. 6:20). To add drama, The Prince of Egypt has him discover this as an adult. Cartoon Moses is horrified to learn his mother saved him from Pharaoh’s genocidal rage by releasing him to the Nile and that his ancestors didn’t worship Ra or Horus but the invisible God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
In both Scripture and fiction, this knowledge eventually prompts Moses to identify with his enslaved people and intervene physically in their oppression—an act that drives him, for the first time in his life, into exile. Still today, those who identify with God’s people must make a similar decision to separate from the world and its desires for the sake of holiness. They must choose exile.
Those who identify with God’s people must separate from the world and its desires for the sake of holiness. They must choose exile.
Choosing Exile
The original story of Moses is told in the Old Testament. But speaking through the author of Hebrews, the Holy Spirit gives a fascinating summary. In the famous “Hall of Faith,” we read this of Moses:
When he was grown up, [he] refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. (Heb. 11:24–28)
We typically think of “exile” as a thing imposed, not chosen. And we associate it with punishment or chastisement for sin, usually for worshiping false gods. Yet for Moses, exile was self-imposed. Far from a punishment for idolatry, it was his road to becoming one of God’s most faithful and treasured servants. This willingness to trade the luxuries of Egypt to become the spiritual leader of a nation of slaves resulted in painful personal exile. But it also led to a national exodus. We should dwell on the similarity between the two words.
In many ways, the entire story of the Bible is a series of exiles that end in exoduses. We might even call this the master narrative of Scripture. As I. M. Duguid writes in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, “The theological concept of exile is present virtually from the beginning of biblical revelation.” In every story that follows humanity’s expulsion from Eden, “the state of God’s people is one of profound exile, of living in a world to which they do not belong and looking for a world that is yet to come.” And in exile, God’s people always cry out for a deliverer, who arrives again and again to free them from bondage and lead them to the promised land.
The entire story of the Bible is a series of exiles that end in exoduses.
Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph all undergo cycles of exile and exodus, often complete with salvation through water, plagues, a sacrifice establishing a covenant, and the spoiling of God’s enemies. By the time Yahweh delivers Israel in Exodus, they’re “walking in the footsteps of the Patriarchs,” treading a well-worn path and paving it for future generations. This story of slaves delivered from bondage is the clearest exile-and-exodus cycle yet, containing both reminders of Genesis and rumors of redemptive history’s far-off fulfillment. If we read carefully, we can hear themes in Moses’s biography that echo in a greater Deliverer.
In Exodus, God’s people are enslaved by a serpent figure who seeks to exterminate the seed of the woman, who nonetheless outwits him (Ex. 2:3). Her seed grows into a God-empowered deliverer who’s given miraculous mastery over the spiritual powers of Egypt, culminating in a judgment of Egypt’s sons (12:12), which the sons of Israel escape through the blood of a sacrificial lamb (vv. 13–28). The people plunder the kingdom of darkness (v. 36), undergo a baptism (14:22; 1 Cor. 10:2), and ultimately escape the forces of the serpent-king, which are put to open shame and defeated (Ex. 15:1–18; Col. 2:15). The deliverer then mediates a fresh covenant with God (Ex. 19:8), receives his law on a mountain (20:1–21), and prepares a dwelling in which God can at last descend to live among his people (40:34) and lead them into Canaan, a symbolic new Eden (Deut. 26:9).
In all this, Moses—who mediated the old covenant—bears a striking resemblance to the mediator of the new covenant. We must pay special attention, because in imitating Moses, we’re ultimately imitating Christ.
Moses the Merciful
We’re used to thinking of Moses as a lawgiver, not a Christ figure. In popular Christian imagination, the law is at odds with the gospel. Even The Pilgrim’s Progress paints Moses as an adversary to Christian in his journey to the Celestial City. Moses beats Christian within an inch of his life for his “secret inclining to Adam the First.” When Christian begs mercy, Bunyan’s Moses replies, “I know not how to show mercy.”
To be sure, the law of Moses is powerless to save because of our sinful natures (Rom. 8:3). Bunyan is right about that. But in trying to make a point about our helplessness before the law without Christ, he portrays a Moses who bears little resemblance to the Moses of Scripture. The biblical Moses is an unmistakable type of Christ, mediating a gracious covenant in which God’s people are spared from judgment by the blood of substitutes. Far from not knowing how to show mercy, Moses often pleads with God to have mercy on his people (Ex. 32:30–32; Num. 12:13).
Indeed, the exile-and-exodus pattern so clearly displayed in Moses’s life is the very pattern the New Testament takes up when it explains the story of Jesus and our redemption in him. Christ’s story is filled with echoes of Exodus (Matt. 2:15; 3:13–17; 4:1–11; 5:1–2; 17:1–8; John 1:17; 1 Cor. 5:7; Heb. 3:5–6; 10:26–30). Christ became an exile to lead his people in a new exodus. In Moses’s account, we see the gospel prefigured. “Christ,” as Alastair Roberts puts it, “is the one in whom we see the true meaning of the Exodus.” This is why understanding Exodus in light of the Savior helps us better understand the role of the saved in a hostile world.
According to Hebrews, Moses embraced exile. He opted to seek Christ, forsaking the treasures of Egypt in favor of a heavenly reward. In seeking the Holy One and standing on holy ground, Moses accepted the loss of earthly riches and relationships. He not only relinquished his status as prince of Egypt but remained a kind of outsider from Israel for life. He was frequently at odds with the stiff-necked and grumbling people (Ex. 14:10–14; Num. 20:1–5; Deut. 1:26–36) and was even criticized and challenged by his own family (Num. 12:1–15).
In this, he personified the word often translated “holy” in the Greek Old Testament and the New Testament (hágios), which implies something “set apart,” “different,” or separate. Moses was willing to stand out and stand alone so frequently—to choose enmity with the world and even with the people he loved—because he preferred friendship with God above all else (Ex. 33:11; James 4:4).
In the new covenant, we’re all in Moses’s sandals, enjoying close communion with a God who has come to dwell in our midst and call us “friends” (John 15:15), just as he called Moses a friend. This friendship with God need not always strain our earthly relationships. Yet when it does, Jesus is clear about where our loyalties must lie. We must be prepared to forsake “houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands” when they conflict with our devotion to him (Matt. 19:29). We must do exactly what Moses did: embrace exile for the sake of holiness.
As the worldview and values of our society become less like Israel at its best and more like Egypt at its worst, this call to be set apart will become more frequent and urgent. Earthly riches, reputation, and relationships will often hang in the balance, tempting us to deny or keep quiet about our primary allegiance to Christ. Whether it’s a promotion that requires hiding our faith, a grade that requires students to treat the Bible as false, or an invitation from a friend to celebrate an unbiblical union, all of us will at some point face the choice between earthly and heavenly rewards—between “the fleeting pleasures of sin” and “the reproach of Christ” (Heb. 11:25, 26).
Costly Call
Not everyone is willing to pay such a high price. In the Gospels, Jesus encounters a rich young ruler not so different from a young Moses. When the man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus recites Moses’s commandments. “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth,” the ruler says. Jesus looks at him with love and pity and replies, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by Jesus’s call to costly exile, the young man goes away full of sorrow (Mark 10:17–31).
Christ became an exile to lead his people in a new exodus.
Others have followed Moses’s example of voluntary exile for the sake of Christ. William Wilberforce is another figure many will know from a Hollywood adaptation. (Thankfully, his movie is pretty accurate.) This 18th-century British politician and philanthropist wasn’t adopted by royalty, but he was born to a well-to-do merchant family. His parents provided the best education money could buy, and in his youth, he became extremely popular. As one biography puts it, young Wilberforce was “witty, charming, erudite, eloquent and hospitable.” Lacking Moses’s clumsy tongue, he displayed “the charisma of a natural leader who drew friends and followers into his world.”
But Wilberforce’s conscience, like Moses’s, was eventually pricked by the plight of slaves. Following an evangelical reconversion, he famously declared God had set before him “two objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners [i.e., morality].” Under the spiritual influence of John Newton, a former slave-ship captain who penned the hymn “Amazing Grace,” Wilberforce resolved the British trade in African bodies must end: “So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.”
And he never did rest. From 1789 to 1805, Wilberforce introduced 20 resolutions and bills against the slave trade, all of which were defeated through legal maneuvering by pro-slavery forces in Parliament. He endured withering criticism and death threats. He was attacked on the street, accused of being a spy in league with French revolutionaries, and even rumored to have a secret black wife whom he beat. Powerful opponents swore to fight the “damnable doctrine of William Wilberforce and his hypocritical allies.” Eighteenth-century pharaohs, like their ancient forebear, wouldn’t part with their slaves willingly.
Yet Wilberforce persisted, weathering slander and chronic illness to accomplish his “great objects.” In 1807, the prayed-for day finally arrived. After years of half-measures and strategic advances, Wilberforce and other abolitionists in Parliament won overwhelming support for a bill to abolish the British slave trade. It was greeted with cheers and admiring tributes from colleagues.
For the next quarter century, Wilberforce continued his fight to emancipate all remaining slaves, as well as keeping up a tireless effort to reform British society by promoting virtue, supporting charity, and improving conditions for chimney sweeps, single mothers, orphans, juvenile delinquents, and even animals. Convinced Christ had come to liberate spiritual as well as physical captives, he also supported missionary and Bible translation efforts. On his deathbed in 1833, William Wilberforce finally received news that the House of Commons had voted to emancipate all slaves in the British Empire.
Great Reward
Throughout Scripture, exile is usually imposed, not chosen. But rich and influential figures like Moses, Wilberforce, and the young ruler had a choice. All these men could lounge for a lifetime in their palaces and parliaments, rubbing shoulders with princes and prime ministers. They didn’t have to surrender riches or reputation or endure the scorn that comes with pursuing holiness. Only two of them did so. Through the faith of Moses and Wilberforce, God led millions in exodus from bondage. We’ll never know what he might have done through the young ruler who turned his back on Jesus.
Christians today face a similar choice. This foreign land is filled with strange gods and enticing treasures. Many of these treasures are good in an earthly sense, as are some things our neighbors wrongly worship (like sex and money). There’s nothing wrong with Christians having and enjoying such things or with wielding the influence and authority Moses, Wilberforce, and the young ruler had. Yet a time will come when everyone who follows Christ will have to choose between treasures on earth and treasures in heaven. When the two conflict, the result will be a painful, costly separation—either from earth or from heaven.
On seeing the young ruler choose separation from God rather than separation from his money, Jesus observed there are few things more difficult than for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:23). He spoke from experience. The true and better Deliverer was the richest of all voluntary exiles. He was in the form not of a prince of Egypt but of the God of the universe. This greater Moses “emptied himself,” took on “the form of a servant,” and became “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6–8).
Why did he do this? Because he loved us, of course, just as Moses loved his people (John 3:16). But he also did it because, like Moses, he was after a heavenly reward—a great joy that brought him through the agony and shame of the cross and into the triumph of Easter morning (Heb. 12:2). In rising from the dead and ascending to the right hand of God, this true Deliverer led (and is leading) a spiritual exodus greater than any in history (Luke 4:18) into a promised land filled with incorruptible treasure (Matt. 6:19–21).
If Christians with earthly wealth, influence, or reputation follow in the footsteps of Moses, we should expect to pay a high price. But like Israel’s deliverer, who regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as greater than the treasures of Egypt, we should also expect God to richly repay our choice. For all of time, he’s brought about mighty, history-changing events through those who chase holiness till it hurts. And beyond time and history, he promises all who volunteer for exile a reward that would make Pharaoh jealous (Matt. 19:29; Rom. 8:18).
This article is adapted from Faithful Exiles: Finding Hope in a Hostile World, edited by Ivan Mesa and Elliot Clark (TGC, September 2023). Purchase through the TGC Bookstore or Amazon.
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