FOUR ASPECTS OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST Part 1

In connection with the journey of the children of Israel from Egypt to Canaan, we have four types of the death of Christ: the passover, the Red Sea, the brazen serpent, and the Jordan. The scriptures which would correspond to these in the New Testament are Romans 3: 21-26; 6: 1-14; 8: 3; Colossians 2: 11-13, 20; 3: 1-3.

The blood of the paschal lamb established the righteousness of God, and secured everything for the people; on this line nothing more was needed. The other three types added nothing to the value of the blood, nothing more was needed on God’s side; they set forth what is needed on our side that we may come into the enjoyment of what has been secured for us. In appropriating the death of Christ in these three aspects we enjoy the present salvation of God, come into the liberty of the Spirit, and enter upon that which is typified by the land of Canaan, namely, the full blessing of God as established in the glorified Christ, according to eternal purpose, Ephesians 1. Canaan is a type of the heavenlies where all our blessing lies, the inheritance of saints in light.

The foundation of everything is redemption in the blood of Christ; it has secured everything for God. Before God could move in mercy toward the people, He must establish His own righteousness; He must justify Himself before He could justify the sinner. “Whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood, for the shewing forth of his righteousness”, Rom 3: 25. Israel as sinners, like the Egyptians, were amenable to the righteous judgment of God, all men are, as it is written, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”, v 23. “All the world be under judgment to God” (v 19) (or become subject to the judgment of God). How then could God make a difference, executing judgment on the one, and sparing the other? He must justify Himself in so doing; He must be just in all that He does. He cannot forego the judgment He has passed on sin, it must take effect. Then apart from expiation, all must die. In expiation the judgment takes effect in the victim, and the sinner is free. With the Israelites the lamb was the victim; the blood sprinkled on the door-posts of their houses was the witness that sin had been expiated in the death of the victim. We might say the sinner had died in the victim. God had said, “when I see the blood, I will pass over you”, Exod 12: 13. In so doing God did not sacrifice His righteousness. Justice being satisfied, mercy could be exercised. “Mercy rejoiceth against judgment”, Jas 2: 13. The gospel “is the power of God unto salvation ... for therein is the righteousness of God revealed”, Rom 1: 16, 17. Every claim of God has been satisfied in the blood of Jesus, so that He is just, and the Justifier of him that believes on Jesus. The blood which satisfied God’s righteousness justifies the believer, Rom 5: 9. If we would understand the value of the blood, we must consider the greatness of the victim, He who by the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God; it is the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. If men deny the deity of Christ, they have lost the efficacy of the blood. “Without shedding of blood is no remission”, Heb 9: 22.

There can be no solid peace until you see that you are justified in the righteousness of God. We are more ready to apprehend that we are justified by the grace of God than to understand that we are justified in the righteousness of God. That is the solid rock on which the believer stands. Man has no righteousness of his own in which he can stand before God. But God in the gospel proclaims His righteousness as the only ground on which a sinner can stand before Him, and this is unto all, for all, and upon all that believe. The sinner who submits to God’s righteousness is justified; he is accounted righteous by God. That righteousness for man must be the result of death was shewn when God clothed Adam with skins, “If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked”, 2 Cor 5: 3.

Now that God’s righteousness has been established, He is free to move in mercy toward His people; He can carry out all that is in His heart to do, nothing can stand in the way.

His hand, His heart, His house are free.

The enemy is silenced, and God is free to carry out all His blessed will.

But so far the people were still in Egypt, and under the power of Pharaoh in the house of bondage. Egypt represents the world as the sphere in which Satan exercises his power; he is the ruler and god of this world. It is, too, the sphere in which sin and death reign, where every man naturally is in bondage to these elements; he is a bond slave to Satan, sin, and death. Sooner or later he finds that sin is a hard taskmaster, and the wages of sin are death. When a soul wakes up to realise his bondage, he cries out for deliverance, “What must I do to be saved?”, Acts 16: 30. “Who shall deliver me out of this body of death?”, Rom 7: 24. When the people started to go out of Egypt, they found themselves completely shut in; before them was the Red Sea, and behind them the mighty hosts of Pharaoh: death before them, and the enemy’s power behind them. How helpless man finds himself in the presence of death. Death is the evidence of Satan’s power over man. The people cried out unto the Lord; it was all they could do. Moses said, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord”, Exod 14: 13. It is when the soul finds itself in this position, and cries unto the Lord, the Spirit of God reveals to him the salvation of God in a living Saviour, a present and complete deliverance from a world under judgment, from the power of Satan, from the domination of sin, from the fear of death, and ultimately from all that is connected with our present flesh and blood condition. All this is assured to every one who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”, Acts 16: 31. For Israel it was a salvation yet to be accomplished. What was in itself death, became the way of salvation. The Red Sea was a type of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ in entering into death has destroyed the power of the enemy, and made it the way of salvation. His triumphant resurrection is the evidence of the complete overthrow of the enemy’s power, the annulling of all that held man in bondage, so that God is able to present to men a complete salvation in the risen, living Saviour. We have not to wait to see what God will do, it is already accomplished. Israel looked behind them and saw the whole power of Pharaoh dead on the seashore. God had triumphed and they were saved, see Exodus 15. So the believer can sing.

Death and judgment are behind us,

Grace and glory are before;

All the billows rolled o’er Jesus,

There they spent their utmost power.

“Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”, 1 Cor 15: 57.

But after this first blush of victory the soul has to pass through a period of testing like the man under law, Rom 7. This is a painful but useful experience, in which the soul learns the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and realises that he is a slave to sin, and is utterly powerless under its dominion. This is what Bunyan spoke of as the slough of despond. This was exemplified in the history of Israel under the law in the wilderness. The effect of this testing was to make manifest the incorrigible nature of the flesh, its utter incapacity for producing anything for God, or appreciating anything of God. They not only broke down under law, but they despised the manna, type of Christ, the bread come down from heaven, Isa 53: 2, 3. We have all to learn this lesson, that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, they that are in the flesh cannot please God, so that it is impossible for man in the flesh to be with God.

It was at this point of their history that God sent fiery serpents among the people, and much people died. They had the experience of death in themselves; as the man says, “But the commandment having come, sin revived, and I died”, Rom 7: 9. The deadly poison of the serpent was a type of the killing power of sin, as it says, sin slew me. There was only one remedy for this condition; that was the uplifted serpent of brass. The Lord refers to this as the type of His death, John 3: 14. It represents that aspect of the death of Christ, the cross, in which God has expressed His judgment of what man is, and in which He has condemned all that man is as in the flesh. “God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”, Rom 8: 3. The state of man in the flesh was such that it could not be improved; God does not undertake to do anything of that kind, He could only condemn it. “Our old man has been crucified with him [Christ]”, Rom 6: 6. Paul, taking account of himself as a man in the flesh, says, “I am crucified with Christ”, Gal 2: 20. “They that are of the Christ have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts”, Gal 5: 24. They are not trying to improve it. It is when we have experienced what the flesh is in its sinfulness, utter weakness, and its incapacity for the appreciation of Christ and divine things, it is then we are glad to look at Christ lifted up, not as bearing our sins only, but as made sin for us, bearing all that was due to us, and dying, and in doing so bringing to an end our old Adam condition, closing up our past history for ever. And all this that He might become to us the last Adam, imparting to us His own life. It is the beginning of a new day when we reach this point in the history of our souls. After the brazen serpent Israel came to the springing well. This would prefigure the reception of the Spirit, as the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”, Rom 8: 2.

From this point Israel is viewed as a new generation; they are now ready to enter into the land of promise. “If any one be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new”, or new things have come to pass, 2 Cor 5: 17.

After the brazen serpent, and the springing well, Israel, typically a new generation, make straight for the land of promise, and arriving at the river Jordan, they encamp there three days before passing over. The Jordan was the gateway into the land, and prefigures the death of Christ as the way into the heavenly places where all our blessings lie; our inheritance is on the other side of death, where Christ is. He has gone in by way of death and resurrection, like the ark of the covenant going before the people into the Jordan. We have the antitype of this in the epistle to the Colossians. Believers are said to be identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. “If ye have died with Christ from the elements of the world, why as if alive in the world” &c., Col 2: 20. “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God”, Col 3: 3. If we have died with Christ, we have no status in connection with this world, socially, religiously, or politically; our citizenship belongs to another country. There is no other way by which we can enter upon our proper heavenly relationships and privileges save as realising our identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection.

But naturally we should say, like the two and a half tribes, “Bring us not over Jordan”, Num 32: 5. As having the life of the earthy man we cling to earth and earthly things. It is only in the life of the heavenly Man that we can enjoy heavenly things. Which life do we cultivate? It is as quickened together with Him that we are capable of taking possession of our heavenly inheritance, or enjoying heavenly relationships. It is as coming under the mighty influence of the love of Christ, and as drawn after Him, that we shall be prepared to accept death and resurrection with Him, that is, leaving behind all that belongs to this present world, to have part with Him where He is. We are not forced to pass over; we follow the ark of the covenant by attraction. “Wilt thou go with this man?”, Gen 24: 58. We are maintained in the enjoyment of our association with Him as He dwells by faith in our hearts.

It is encouraging to know that this is the will of God for us, it is our calling. He has not only saved us, but called us with an holy calling. As with Israel, they were not only saved from Egypt, they were called to possess the land of Canaan. So we are called to possess all that wealth of spiritual blessing which God has conferred upon us in Christ, in heavenly places, Eph 1: 3. God has made Him most blessed for ever, and in wonderful grace called us to have part with Christ in all that He has conferred upon Him as man. Moreover, He has given us the Spirit, not only to give us the light of these things, but to enable us to take possession of them as our present and eternal inheritance. Hence we have the exhortation, “Seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God: have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth”, Col 3: 1, 2. Thus we have seen that the death of Christ which has been the way of salvation to us, has also opened for us a door into a system of heavenly and eternal blessing in association with Christ.

In the Lord’s supper we have this aspect of the death of Christ before us; we contemplate Him as the true ark of the covenant, in love to His own, going down into death to make a way for them to follow Him as the One who was about to ascend to His Father and God. As He said to Mary Magdalene, “go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God”, John 20: 17. It is His desire that we should have a taste of heavenly joys before we get there actually and for ever. “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also”, John 14: 3.

From Goodly Words vol 6 (1928)