Richard Bauckham continues to develop a brilliant picture of the theology embedded in the book of Revelation. In fact the way that he elucidates this Epistle is in such a way that is providing insights, for me, that I never really thought possible when reading Revelation. I am now in chapter 4, and here he is hitting on the theme of The Victory of the Lamb and His followers. The first theme he notes in this regard is the one that John picks up as a Jewish Christian follower of Jesus. The theme that all Jews expected of their son of David, Messiah; that the Messiah would be a conquering king who would bring liberation for the Jewish nation from the oppressing nations who had plundered them. Bauckham notes how John re-interprets this theme, as a Christian Jew, and applies it to Jesus at his second coming. Only for John Jesus is not bringing national independence for the nation of Israel, but he is bringing eschatological salvific freedom for the international cast of his people, the Church! With this I heartedly say, Amen! But this is not the theme I wanted to highlight here, instead it is the second theme hit upon by Bauckham. That theme is what he labels, “eschatological exodus.” This theme, of course, is appealing to Israel’s exodus from Egypt; and this becomes the matrix through which John reinterprets, eschatologically and Christianly, what happens in a ultimate sense as Jesus returns and leads his people into the Heavenly Zion, the New Heavens and Earth. Here is what Bauckham writes (at length):

The second of the three major symbolic themes is that of the eschatological exodus. Since the exodus was the key salvation event in the history of Israel, in which God liberated his people from oppression in Egypt, destroyed their oppressors, made them his own people and led them to theocratic independence in a land of their own, it was naturally the model for prophetic and apocalyptic hopes of another great salvation event in the future. In some Jewish apocalyptic the eschatological intervention of God in which he will finally judge the evil powers and bring definitive salvation to his people was conceived as an eschatological exodus, surpassing the first exodus as eschatology surpasses history. Traces of an interpretation of the saving work of Jesus Christ as bringing about the eschatological exodus can be found in many parts of the New Testament, but it is Revelation that develops the idea most fully.

The central image in this complex is that of Jesus himself as the Passover Lamb (first introduced at 5:6, 9–10). That Revelation’s image of the Lamb refers to the lamb sacrificed at the Passover is clear especially from 5:9-10. There it is said that by his blood the Lamb has ‘ransomed’ a people and made them ‘a kingdom and priests serving our God’. The latter phrase echoes the well-known words of the Sinai covenant (Exod. 19:5-6), by which God made the people he had brought out of Egypt his own people. God’s liberation of his people from Egypt was often referred to as his ransoming them from slavery to be his own people (e.g. Deut. 7:8; 13:5), and the same image could be used of the new exodus of the future (Isa. 35:10; 51:11). When Revelation treats the blood of the Lamb as the price of redemption, this really goes beyond the role which the blood  of the Passover Lamb played in the exodus (cf. Exod. 12:12, 23). Moreover, the Passover Lamb played no role in Jewish expectation of a new exodus. But it is likely that in Revelation 5:6, 9 John alludes not only to the Passover lamb, but also to Isaiah 53:7, where the Suffering Servant is portrayed as a sacrificial lamb. He may well have connected this verse with the new exodus language of Deutero-Isaiah and seen the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 as the Passover lamb of the new exodus. In any case, it is the central role which the death of Jesus played in the Christian understanding of redemption which accounts for the centrality of the Lamb to Revelation’s use of the new exodus motif.

In 15:2-4 the Christian martyrs, victorious in heaven, are seen as the people of the new exodus, standing beside a heavenly Red Sea, through which they have passed, and singing a version of the song of praise to God which Moses and the people of Israel sang after their deliverance from Pharoah at the Red Sea (Exod. 15). Moreover, the plagues which are God’s judgment on their enemies in this context (15:1, 5-16:21) are modelled on the plagues of Egypt at the time of the exodus. We have already noticed, in chapter 2 above, that the final judgment of this series is linked to a reminiscence of the Sinai theophany (16:18). Other allusions to the exodus narratives are in 11:6, where the activity of the two witnesses is in part modelled on Moses and the plagues of Egypt, and 11:8, where one of the prophetic names of the great city where the witnesses are martyred is Egypt. Already in 2:14, the false teachers in Pergamum, who are persuading Christians to compromise with paganism, are compared with Balaam, the false prophet who was responsible for the seduction of the Israelites into idolatry, as a result of which they failed to reach the goal of the exodus entry into the promised land.

As with the messianic war, John’s use of the new exodus imagery shows that for him the decisive eschatological event has already occurred: the new Passover Lamb has been slaughtered and he has ransomed a people for God. The goal of the new exodus is still to be attained, when Christ’s people will reign with him as priests on earth (20:4-6; 22:3-5), attaining their theocratic independence in the promised land. But revelation’s new exodus does not consistently follow the sequence of the Old Testament narrative. The imagery is used flexibly — in literal terms, inconsistently — to characterize all three stages of the work of Christ as Revelation portrays it. (Richard Bauckham, The Theology Of The Book Of Revelation, 71-2)

That was a lengthy quote, but I wanted you to get the full context of what Bauckham is sketching in regards to this idea of an “eschatological exodus.” It is these kinds of theological themes that get flattened out if you try and read Revelation from a dispensational model. If you ask me, Revelation is a rich treasure trove of God’s Word to his people that we ought to come to on its own terms. If we do, we stand to be blessed immensely by the rich imagery and hope that it brings for those of us looking forward to the day that we, God’s people, are finally able to exodus from the nations of the world who seek to fight against God’s call to let his people go! I think the ‘eschatological exodus’ is close, myself; come quickly Jesus!