Imperatives, Indicatives and Ironies in Exodus 1-2

Ironies

• The more Pharaoh tried to reduce the number of Israelites (Exo 1:9-11, 13-14), the more they increased in number (Exo 1:12, 7).

• Pharaoh wanted to drown the Hebrew males (Exo 1:22) but he and his army were drowned (Exo 14:28).

• Pharaoh feared the Hebrew men (Exo 1:16, 22) but it was women who thwarted him (Exo 1:15; 2:1,4,9-10).

• Pharaoh wanted to destroy Hebrew men, but he educated and raised 1 Hebrew man Moses in his own palace to deliver the Hebrew slaves.

• Jesus' birth. He was born in a manger, while Caesar ruled the entire Roman world (Lk 2:1,7). Yet Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords (1 Tim 6:15; Rev 17:14; 19:16).

• Jesus' death. "You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish" (Jn 11:50).

• "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Mt 19:24).
  

IMPERATIVES and INDICATIVES [Imperatives (commands) = what you should do. Indicatives = what God has done.] [Christendom and evangelicalism often misunderstands them and so they confuse them and confuse the church.]

• You don't repent and obey (and believe) [imperative] to be saved, but because you are saved (by grace) [indicative] you repent and obey [and believe] (Mk 1:15).

• The imperatives are based on the indicatives and the order is not reversible.

• "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery [indicative]. You shall have no other gods before me [imperative]" (Exo 20:2-3; Dt 5:6-7).

• "For God so loved the world [indicative] that he gave his one and only Son [indicative], that whoever believes in him [imperative] shall not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3:16).

• "The time has come," he said, "The kingdom of God has come near [indicative]. Repent and believe the good news [imperative]!" (Mk 1:15).

• "We love [imperative] because he first loved us [indicative]" (1 Jn 4:19).

• "...work out your salvation with fear and trembling [imperative], for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose [indicative]" (Phil 2:12-13).

• "...he saved us [indicative], not because of righteous things we had done [imperative], but because of his mercy [indicative]..." (Tit 3:5).