NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 2
NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 2
We must bear in mind that in this chapter we get the traits of faith, from Abel until we reach Canaan, which is figuratively heaven. It is one faith, whatever the circumstances. Christ Himself is the Leader and Finisher of faith. There is nothing original in us; all comes from Him, all is accomplished by Him.
“Through faith he (Moses) kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them”. You have shelter from the Judge by the blood, and as a rule, in christendom the most devoted do not go further; there is faith in the blood of Christ, but, like Israel, they are not clear of Satan and the flesh (of Pharaoh and the Egyptians), and as has been said, there is always a large company spiritually at Pihahiroth; that is, not delivered from the power of the enemy.
Now comes the next step: “By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land”. By grace they have found a way out of death through death - figuratively the death of Christ. Now they are out of Egypt, and if you are true to this, there is nothing for you on your own side but death; you got out of Egypt through death, and you can keep out of it only by death. When you accept that you are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, you are spiritually over Jordan. The old divines looked on Jordan as simply dissolution. They could speak of standing shivering on the brink and fearing to launch away, The fact is that there is no water at all in [p. 41] Jordan. In the Red Sea the water was a wall on the right hand and on the left - you are made conscious of the judgment due to you. Some commentators say that the passage was so narrow that Israel had to go in single file. Be that as it may, it is individual experience; and anyone who has passed out of the judgment of death, through Christ’s death, appropriating His death as due to himself, knows that all has been removed from the eye of God - that death has been abolished. Any of us may have seen that the nearer a christian comes to the point of death, the less fear he has, for there is no water there, no indication of judgment. It is true that many christians are troubled when they come to die, and pass through much exercise of soul; but I believe it is with them the passage of the Red Sea - it is the death of Christ for them that they are occupied with, to clear them from death, and not simply the Jordan experience of their death with Christ. Stephen knew that there was nothing between him and Christ in glory. Hence, Jordan should be a known experience now; you cannot know the next step, you cannot be in possession in Canaan until you have crossed the Jordan. If you appropriate the death of Christ, you pass out of death into life; and as you feed on His death, and always bear about in your body the dying of Jesus, you are truly in the wilderness; and you are across Jordan when you, by the Spirit, accept that you are dead with Him. Then the next step is possession in Canaan. We do not fight for it, it is ours. We have to fight to keep possession, to maintain spiritual ground.