SUMMARY

THE TRADITION OF THE EXODUS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AND IN THE RITUAL LIFE OF CHURCH

The tradition of Exodus, inside God?s intervention, miraculous acts, revelaation of His name, lawgiving, the Covenant of Sinai, becomes the basis of the understanding of the basic fundamental aspects of the Theology of the Old Testament. Israel?s election by God as His beloved people and the Covenant of Sinai were the linchpin of the tradition of exodus. The Covernant of Sinai is being renewed during the pilgrimage of the people of Israel and receives important theological meaning to the subtotal of biblical literature. Parallel, it reveals one substantial aspect of the divine plan, which is God?s wish to create a society of humans that it will be devoted to his service, a worship community faithful to the law, which will find its entirety in the church of the New Testament.

In Sinai Yahweh is being revealed as the God who saved Israel from Egypt and is being presented Himself as the God who already from the beginning of history calls the Patriarchs and He promises to them the settlement in the land of Canaan. (Ex. 19,16-20,21). During this era basic principles of theology are founded. Now the monotheism is being taught, having as sovereign aspect the fidelity of God who saves and protects. Now the presence, the participation, the cooperation of God in the historical tradition of the people of Israel is strongly testified. It is a dyna mic participation of Him in the crucial times of biblical history.

Our Ghurch used many «readings» of the Old Testament and Tried to relate close the liturgical life with the biblical revelation. The aim of these readings is to show very clear that the mystery of Ghrist is parallel, evaluation and overlap of the great facts of the historical way of Israel. The book of Exodus specially, is being read because the personality of Moses, the exodus of Israelites from Egypt and the Hebrew Passover are types of Christ, of His redemptive work and of Christian Passover. To be more specific, we must say that in Hymnography of our Church, the Cross of Christ, the great power of God over the elements of the nature, and mainly over the water are implied through the tradition of exodus. The central person is God who assuages «the roaring of the sea and the waves» and replaces it by the land, acts that bless and exalt the name of God to the centuries.

The exodus of the people of God from Egypt was type and image of the exodus of Church from the gentile world and of its way to the heavenly Jerusalem. Exodus in Christ offered salvation and rest, the eternal blessedness, the last exodus, the finish of «the centuries». Old exodus and Moses belong in the past. Jesus, « Christ our passover », is the future, the eschatological era. Faithfulness in the case of Moses, is limited under his house, and only under Israel. It is limited of space and time. The faithfulness of Christ is not limited in national limits. It is universal in character and diachronic. The work and aim of Moses was the extraction of the people of Israel from Egypt and his final rest in the promised land. But while the final rest of the people in the promised land never occurred, neither Moses came into it, because of his unfaithfulness to God, Christians are been admonished to remain «until the end» faithful to Christ, for to come into His rest, in which He has already came into.