REDEMPTION AND SALVATION
[p. 18] REDEMPTION AND SALVATION
It has been often remarked that the people never spoke of preparing a habitation for God until they were redeemed and saved. They were in the good of redemption and in the joy of God’s salvation when they said, “I will prepare him a habitation”. It is a redeemed and saved people who have to do with God’s house. I want to speak tonight of redemption and salvation as that which prepares us for the House of God, and I trust the Lord will help me to set this before you.
God has been pleased to take up the children of Israel and to work out in the things that happened to them a series of wonderful pictures for our instruction. The children of Israel were in Egypt as a people set apart for God; that is, they were circumcised, which I take to be a figure of people who are set apart by the work of God in them. This helps us to understand the way in which Egypt is presented in this book. From one point of view Egypt may be regarded as a place of resource — we read of treasures in Egypt, and of the wisdom of the Egyptians. In another aspect we may look at it as a place where the pleasures of sin are enjoyed for a season. But it was not a place of resource or pleasure to the children of Israel; it was the house of bondage. The natural man finds all his resource and pleasure in the world, but those who are born again find it to be a house of bondage. The one born again cannot find satisfaction in the world, for all the things which are found there, and the principles which rule there, tend to keep him in ignorance of God and in darkness as to the grace of God, and thus in bondage of [p. 19] soul. The great object of the enemy is to keep souls in bondage — to keep them as to their own consciousness in the flesh and under the law so that they may never have joy or peace or liberty. In fact the great object of Satan is to hinder souls from coming into the good of the House of God. No greater contrast could be conceived than that which exists between the house of bondage and the House of God. God would have His people to be happy and full of joy; Satan would keep them in misery and gloom. God would have believers to be in divine peace; Satan seeks to keep them in unrest and distress. God would have His saints in the perfect liberty of His holy love; Satan seeks to keep them in the bondage of self-occupation.
The things of the world may seem attractive for the moment, but you will find that they bring you into bondage of soul. If you go in for the things of the world you will find that you cannot enjoy the things of God; you are thus held in bondage by what is paltry and sinful and kept out of the enjoyment of the blessing of the House of God. Do you think a worldly believer enjoys the blessings of God’s house? Certainly not. He is held in bondage by what is really vanity.
Now let us travel rapidly over the way in which God made Himself known for the deliverance and salvation of His people. Read Exodus 3: 1 - 8. God made Himself known as dwelling in a bush, and this in good will to men. You remember the scripture which speaks of “the good will of him that dwelt in the bush” (Deuteronomy 33: 16). This is surely a striking figure of the incarnation. God has been pleased to come down in good will to man to deliver men from bondage and to bring them all the blessings of His grace. The Son of God has become man in order to bring about this deliverance and blessing. The incarnation is really the foundation and pillar of all our blessings, for it is that which gives infinite value to the sacrifice of Christ.
[p. 20] Now turn to chapter 4. Read verses 1 - 9, 30, 31. I think we see here in picture what has come to pass by the death of Christ. In the first place Moses’ rod was thrown down and became a serpent — indicative of the fact that through man’s sin the power that is seen in this world is that of evil. But when Moses took the serpent by the tail it became a rod again in his hand. Christ has come in grace and undergone all the judgment to which man had become liable in consequence of the power of evil, and in this way He has broken that power for ever. Everything that once was the evidence of the power of evil is now the witness of the power of God. It was so in measure when the Lord Jesus Christ was in this world. If men were sick, lame, blind, palsied, leprous, possessed with demons, and even in death itself, all this was the evidence of the power of evil. But in the presence of the Lord Jesus all these things became witnesses to the mighty power of God acting in good will toward men. And all in some way foreshadowed the wondrous triumph of the cross. It was at Calvary the Lord Jesus met the whole power of evil and triumphed gloriously. Now in resurrection He can say, “I am he that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1: 18). All power is in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ on the ground of redemption, and it is exercised in grace and good will toward men. It is a great thing to know this. God is acting in infinite grace, but at the same time He is acting in a power that can sweep aside everything that stands in the way of the blessing of His people.
Then the leprous hand represents the defiled state of man as a sinner. To meet this, perfect cleansing has been brought in according to all the value and efficacy of the death of Christ. There is no reason why any defiled sinner under heaven should not be cleansed.
And, finally, the water of the river was turned into blood. The river Nile was the life of Egypt, and in its water being [p. 21] turned into blood I think we see in figure that the whole life of the world, and of man as in the flesh, has come under judgment before God. All this is set forth in the way of perfect grace toward man, and it is in this way alone that the good will of God could reach man in blessing. But it is very solemn because it all shows that if men refuse Christ there is no hope for them.
When Aaron “spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people ... the people believed, and ... bowed their heads and worshipped” (Exodus 4: 30, 31). They heard God’s glad tidings and believed. In this we see an illustration of the hearing of faith by which souls come into the light of God’s wondrous grace.
Now let us pass on to chapter 12. Read verses 1 - 14. There are four thoughts connected with the passover which are of the deepest importance. First, shelter; second, food; third, instruction; and, fourth, that all is in view of a new place.
The passover was the beginning of months to Israel, and it is the true beginning of every soul in the knowledge of Christ. What it sets forth goes beyond believing the proclamation of forgiveness in the name of the Lord Jesus. It is more the personal appropriation of Christ. It is where the soul really begins in its knowledge of Christ. There is no proper start — no true spring in the soul — until we know what it is to appropriate Christ not only as shelter but as the food of our souls. It is one thing to believe the glad tidings and another to appropriate Christ as the satisfaction and strength of our souls. God would have us to begin with Christ. Not to struggle through a thousand exercises and come to Christ, as it were, at the end; but to begin with Christ and go through every exercise in the light of Christ and as those who have fed upon Him. How often it is otherwise with us,
but this is God’s way. We need motive power and spiritual strength if we are to move on in the things of God, and the reason we have so little of this is that we are not sufficiently nourished with divine food.
I will not enlarge at this time on the shelter provided in the blood of the lamb. As natural men we were exposed to the judgment of God. But the blood of Christ is a perfect shelter from judgment, and it is available for every man. Blessed be God for that!
Then there is food. And it seems to me that two thoughts are suggested to us here — contemplation and appropriation. They had to take a lamb on the tenth day and keep it up till the fourteenth day. The lamb without blemish was first the object of their contemplation, and then as roast with fire it became their food. It is a wonderful thing to contemplate the Lord Jesus as the Holy One of God, the Lamb without blemish and without spot, the One foreordained before the foundation of the world. Then we appropriate Him as having come under judgment on our behalf. “Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire”. We feed upon Christ as the One who came in deep divine love under holy judgment for us. He alone could sustain that judgment, and because He has done so the very judgment to which we are exposed has become the evidence to us of the love of Christ, for He has endured and exhausted it. We can never disconnect the thought of the judgment from the divine Person who bore it in the greatness of His love. The judgment of God upon sin is infinite, but Christ has borne it in love that He might become the food of our hearts. God would have us to be nourished upon the love of Christ. Whenever God means to put people in motion He always feeds them first (see 1 Kings 19: 5 - 8; Hebrews 13:8 - 13). We need to be nourished — to have our spiritual affections sustained and invigorated by the knowledge of Christ in the blessed love in which He came under [p. 23] judgment for us. As our hearts are nourished with the personal perfections and love of Christ, holiness becomes a necessity to our souls. Everyone who is affected by the love of Christ feels that he must be apart from that for which Christ died. He eats unleavened bread. It becomes a satisfaction to him to cleanse himself from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and to perfect holiness in the fear of God.
Then as to ourselves there is true repentance — eating the bitter herbs. We judge ourselves not in misery of soul but in the presence of divine love and in communion with God. This is the deepest kind of self-judgment.
I come now to the thought of divine instruction. “The blood shall be to you for a token”. Not only does the blood shelter me but it speaks to me. The blood of Jesus speaks volumes. The words, “When I see the blood I will pass over you”, are often commented upon, but there is another side — “The blood shall be to you for a token”. The blood is a token of certain things to us. God would have the death of Jesus to speak to us volumes of divine instruction. I cannot dwell upon it — it is a great subject in itself — but I may say that there are three things of which the blood is a token to me. First, that I am under death; second, that the grace of God has reached me there; and, third, that divine righteousness is in my favour. Our souls need to be instructed in the blessed reality of these things.
The fourth thing about the passover was that it was all in view of a new place. “And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s passover”. The soul has to apprehend that it must now take an entirely new place. The shelter, the food, the instruction are not to qualify the believer to stop in Egypt to the glory of God; they are to prepare him to move into an entirely new place. We are to be a marching people. If one really [p. 24] feeds upon Christ and is instructed in Him, it must give the consciousness that one is not of the world, and not under the law, or in the flesh. In spirit we do not belong to this order of things at all. We belong to another system of things altogether — God’s system. We begin to see that we belong to a new world. Then we gird our loins and take our staff in our hand.
Now read chapter 14:1 - 16, 29 - 31. Pharaoh and his hosts represent all the power of evil intent upon preventing God from having His people for His own pleasure. The people were made to realise the terribleness of the enemy and their own helplessness, and then they learned God’s salvation. What was salvation for them? God made a way by which they could come into an altogether new place — outside Egypt, beyond Pharaoh’s power, and in full view of all His gracious purpose, so that they could say that Jehovah was their strength and song and had become their salvation, and that they would prepare Him a habitation.
The staff of Moses was uplifted and the sea divided. This is a figure of the death of Christ as that which has opened a way into an entirely new place. If you have never viewed the death of Christ in that aspect before, it is for you now. The way has been opened up and it is available for everyone. The sea has been turned into dry ground. Naturally, death is a place where we have no footing — like the sea; but in the death of Christ God has turned it into dry ground. There is solid footing on which faith can travel into a new place where divine light and favour and blessedness are known.
What is the character of that new place, and what do we find there? Well, in the first place, I think it is easy to see that if a person touches resurrection ground he leaves sin, the world, and Satan’s power behind. When I speak of touching resurrection ground I mean coming to the apprehension of it in Christ risen. I am afraid many Christians [p. 25] have very hazy ideas as to what is beyond death; but God would have us to be well acquainted with resurrection scenes. None of us know anything about resurrection except as we have apprehended it in Christ. The Lord often spoke to His own about resurrection, but they never understood it until they apprehended it in Himself as the risen One. Resurrection is not an abstract idea, but a blessed reality substantiated in the Person of Christ. Christ is beyond death — raised for our justification, raised by the glory of the Father, raised to be our righteousness, our life, our joy, our salvation, for evermore.
Christ fills the resurrection scene, and we come into it as being of Him and in Him. We are brought to a Person who has nothing more to do with sin, the world, or Satan. All these have been judged in His death; and He is now our strength, our song; and our salvation. The power that brings us into the apprehension of our new place in Christ is the power of God’s salvation. When Jonah said “Salvation is of the Lord”, the fish vomited him out on the dry land — figure of a resurrection place.
In connection with this I will read one or two scriptures from the New Testament. 2 Timothy 1: 8 - 10. God has “saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began; but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”. Then again in chapter 2: 10 the apostle says, “I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory”. And again in Titus 3: 5, 6, we read that “according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour”.
[p. 26] These scriptures show that salvation is in Christ Jesus and that it is connected with an entirely new order of things. We come into it by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Baptism is in figure burial to the order of things that exists in the world that we may live in another order of things by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. It is through being renewed by the Holy Ghost in mind and affection that we can enter into those blessed things which subsist in Christ Jesus.
All this is most important in connection with the subject of the House of God. Salvation is in view of the House of God, for immediately after they had said, “The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation”, they went on to say, “I will prepare him a habitation”. It is so also in other parts of scripture. For example, in Psalm 27 David says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation”, and then he goes on to say, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in s temple”. Again in Psalm 132 God says, “I will also clothe her priests with salvation”. And in Isaiah 61: 10, where we read, “He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation”, the same verse speaks of being decked as a priest [margin]. This shows how intimately salvation is connection with priesthood; that is with the privileges and service of the House of God. Salvation is the garment that fits one for priestly service, and I think it would be right to say that salvation is enjoyed in the House of God. We come into the House of God in the beauty of God’s salvation and enjoy the blessedness of a circle which is morally far removed from sin, the world, and Satan’s power. Salvation is the moral beauty of saints in which they are suited to the habitation of God’s holiness. It is written that “The Lord taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation” (Psalm 149: 4).
[p. 27] The proper effect of the wonderful grace made known in the gospel is that, as nourished by the perfections and love of Christ, and as divinely instructed by His death, we are prepared to leave Egypt, and to come, in spirit, to apprehend Christ risen and ascended. There we find the House of God with all its blessing and privilege. We cannot come into that house in a natural way — , we can only really enter upon the privilege of God’s house as those who have been beautified with salvation. May we all know more of the reality of this!