The Exodus Is Still Unfolding

Sometimes the image of God shines brightest in Pharaoh's shadow.

Public domain image, 1860. Accessed at NYPL’s Public Domain Archive

I recently learned of the birth of a baby boy who weighed less than a pound and a half. The child entered the world, clinging to life, at twenty-four weeks, far short of the full-term forty. After many answered prayers, he’s doing well, although he may still need medical care for months to come.

When we hear a story like this, our hearts immediately stir. We instinctively grasp the value of the child’s life.

But why is that?

It might seem like a strange question to ask. But whether or not one human being will value the life of another is unpredictable. Even once-compassionate hearts can flicker and go dark. Witnesses to genocides in places like Rwanda and the Balkans have described how quickly ordinary people can surrender to the intoxication of violence. Even in societies that appear peaceful, dehumanizing cruelty is hidden all around us. The prevalence of abortion in America and many other countries makes this undeniable.

Sadly, none of this is new. In some ancient societies, outright infanticide was considered acceptable. The Romans prized male children, but it was not uncommon for female infants to be left exposed outside to die. In ancient Egypt, a baby birthed out of wedlock or with a disability might meet the same fate.

The Bible rejects these evils and establishes the value of every human life in its very first chapter:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

This “image of God” concept would have been familiar to some ancients even before they heard Genesis. But without Scripture, they would never have connected the concept to universal human dignity. Instead, this distinction was reserved for royalty—and often applied quite literally.

Kings of old in the Middle East were known for setting up images or statues of themselves, especially in far-flung lands they weren’t able to visit. These idols alerted their subjects that the eyes of the godlike king fell everywhere, his sight spanning the realm. Egyptian pharaohs, in particular, were known for this practice.¹

To this, add another layer: Egyptians worshiped the sun god Ra, whom they regarded as the creator of the universe. For centuries, “son of Ra” was a title claimed by the pharaoh. If we put the two ideas together, an eerie distortion of a biblical theme results: lifeless stone images of the son of the creator god stood throughout the kingdom. In sum, Egyptians certainly believed that God had a human image bearer—one and only one.

Many lies contain half-truths. God did make the pharaohs to reflect his likeness. But he did the same for that tiny child lying helpless in the ICU. He did likewise for the aging widow, the grieving orphan, and the baby just beginning to form within the womb.

A person’s weakness or perceived low status never erases God’s imprint on their heart, mind, body, and soul. In the Bible’s second book, Exodus, Pharaoh notoriously refuses to set the enslaved Hebrew people free. The events that follow, including the ten judgments that God delivers upon Egypt, and the Israelites’ escape, are among the Bible’s best-known stories.

Beneath the drama and bloodshed of the exodus lies a pointed question: Did God have one image bearer, the son of Ra? Or do all people possess such extraordinary dignity? Do all have value and agency? Can every person, albeit in limited measure, display God’s attributes such as wisdom, creative energy, and love?

Because if Pharaoh alone bore the divine stamp, what right would the Hebrews have to go free? If that were the case, their highest purpose would be to serve the ruler’s will. But the call of Genesis 1:28 applies to every last one of God’s image-bearers:

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

It’s not lifeless images of tyrants that God wants to fill the earth with. It’s living, breathing, humble, faithful people of all callings and stations in life. Even in mundane tasks, believers display God’s goodness and extend his reign throughout the world.

Of course it’s not quite that simple. Our sin has left us like cracked mirrors. God’s image can still be made out amidst the fragments, but it’s hopelessly distorted. And it remains that way—until the perfect image-bearer arrives. Jesus is the only mirror who reflects the Father’s light perfectly.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. (Hebrews 1:3a)

And by faith, we are able to gaze upon the One who can restore us:

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

When we enter the Lord’s presence in prayer, we can’t help but come away changed. As we sing psalms, Spirit-filled words resonate within our bodies and our physical surroundings, neither of which will ever be exactly the same again. And we certainly can’t gather for worship without transforming ourselves and those around us. These and other acts of faith may seem small. But in ways that we cannot see or fully comprehend, they are drawing, ever so slowly, the whole of creation out of the darkness of despots and into the light of God’s kingdom.

Yet pharaohs remain in our day. Most of them know better than to wear the opulent garb of ancient Egyptian royalty, of course. They’d give themselves away. But our world is still filled with people who eagerly exploit their fellow human beings for profit and power. Even clearer echoes of Exodus linger: some of the powerful specifically seek to co-opt and use God’s people for their personal agendas. And if we ask them for our freedom, if we insist on living for God’s glory alone, they will simply demand that we produce even more bricks for their pyramids.

So instead we cry out to God, knowing that he will answer. The pharaohs of this age will one day be dust beneath the feet of God’s redeemed people. And the kingdom of righteousness emerging in our midst will have no end.

1. Middleton, J.Richard, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (2005), pg. 106