READING ON EXODUS 15
READING ON EXODUS 15
FER If I recollect aright we had this chapter four years ago. Still there are not many here who were present then. It gives a very comprehensive view of things, in a typical way. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning”. Hence while all these dealings of God with the children of Israel were literal, the record of them is for us. “That we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope”. Now one thing I would like to touch on is, that God begins with testimony, and the purpose of that testimony is to set people in movement. Then it is movement all along, that is the truth of things. You have no quiet time.
WM You mean movement in the sense of exercise of soul.
FER Quite so. There is no moment when you are not in movement morally.
WM That is the effect of the testimony.
FER Yes. Do you know what the testimony was, in the case of the children of Israel, that set them in movement?
LPT The ark of the covenant.
FER No, that came in afterwards. I think it was the blood and the passover lamb that set them in movement. The blood was the witness that God had come out in mercy, and intended to overthrow the world system that held His people in bondage. You can see it more distinctly in the antitype, that is, in Christ. He is the witness of God’s mercy, and that God intends to overthrow the world’s system. You can understand that if the world had been what it ought to have been according to God, there would not have been need for God to come out in testimony. He comes out in testimony because [p. 12] the world is not according to God, but then the testimony involves that God is going to overthrow the world system; but the blood is the witness on the part of God to redemption.
JP And in the type it very soon occurred.
FER That is the truth we have to look at in Christ. When I speak of ‘the world’, of course I mean the world in its principle and organisation, “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”. The things in which men live, Christ is the wisdom and the power of God to bring to nought the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
WM Do you mean that the blood is the witness of the total unsuitability of the world to God? It hardly appears on the surface that the blood is the witness of the setting aside of the world system.
FER But if Christ comes as light into the world, it puts the world to the test, and will the world bear the test? The Lord Jesus said, “I am come a light into the world”. John 3: 16 - 21, makes it clear enough that the coming of Christ into the world of necessity involved the overthrow of the world. When God intervenes, and the Son of God comes in, you must have the overthrow of what is not of God.
JSA You mean that in the type the blood of the passover is God coming out in mercy in connection with the announced judgement on all Egypt.
FER It involved the judgement of the Egyptians, that is my point in regard to it.
WM The entire rejection of Christ involved the setting aside of the world system, but that is not what you mean.
FER No. It is the fact of God coming out in that kind of testimony. If Egypt and the world system had been according to God, God [p. 13] would not have come in by the blood. His coming in by the blood shows that the world is not according to God and the blood does not set the world right.
WM He would not have come in by death.
FER No.
GWH I suppose the world is viewed as a moral system there, and the divine thought was that in setting this aside a moral system according to God might be introduced.
FER Exactly. Hence the intervention of God in Christ involves a new beginning.
WM I suppose on the other hand if the world had been according to God Christ would have come in as the crown of man.
FER But then He would not, I suppose, have come into it at all.
WM No, quite so; He came by water and blood.
FER Yes, and in that very passage all is in connection with overcoming the world.
JSA You get a fresh start very clearly in chapter 12, “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months”.
FER Yes.
WM Would you say that the blood was not only the testimony to the love of God but to the end of man?
FER I think so, and to the end of the world. Christ appeared once, in the end of the world to put away sin by His own sacrifice. The testimony of God was to set the people in movement, and that is the case in regard of us. If we are not in movement we are not christians, because the effect of God’s testimony is to set us in movement. You get that idea in the Pilgrim’s Progress. We do not like being set in movement. The greater part of people would be content to remain where they are. The blood set the children of Israel in movement.
JP That is very evident.
WM They began to move that very night.
FER Why? Because Egypt was not according to God. It was a world of lust and pride. Israel had to leave it because it was obnoxious to God.
WM It became a city of destruction.
[p. 14] FER Because the world was obnoxious to God. The point was to leave Egypt.
JSA I suppose you get an illustration in the case of Lot and his family of how reluctant people are to leave the city. Lot was a just man.
FER He was reluctant to leave the world. Sodom was a city of destruction, and Lot was reluctant to leave it, and so are people now. They want to fit christianity in with this world and have succeeded in doing it very much; but as I said before, the testimony of God in the case of Israel set the people in movement. They were not to remain in Egypt, but to remove out of it.
WM Is that set forth in the expression in Galatians, He “gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world”?
FER Exactly, that is, to set us in movement.
GWH The testimony Moses was to give to Pharaoh was, “Let my people go, that they may serve me”.
FER God would not be served by the people while they were in bondage.
JA His would not be the acknowledged superior power if they were in bondage.
FER No. Now another point is this, that people may raise the question, if we are going to lose this world what are we going to get? I think I can understand that question. God answered the question in dividing the Red Sea. He said you are going to get a way through death, not to judgement, but to life. Then in connection with that the power of the enemy is destroyed, for the moment I see a way through death to life, the power of death is broken, “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”.
WM It is very remarkable that the two types though so close together are kept separate, the blood and the Red Sea.
FER [p. 15] Yes.
WM You look upon the blood as the testimony that set them in movement, and the Red Sea as deliverance from the enemy.
FER Quite so. The truth is that God has come out in the rights of mercy. The world is obnoxious to God and God has come out to bring redemption to man, but that man may leave the world which is obnoxious to God.
JSA When you are speaking of leaving this world to enter upon another you are not speaking of dying literally, but the present experience of the soul in this life.
FER Quite so, that is what is set forth in this chapter. You get no type of going to heaven. The chapter refers to what takes place here, only it is a great thing for us to apprehend that the death of Christ has broken the power of death, that a way has been made through death; not to judgement, but to life. That is what has come to pass by the power of God in the resurrection of Christ. Christ entered into death to destroy him that had the power of death. The Red Sea has been smitten and the waters divided, and we apprehend a way through the sea, not to judgement but to life.
WM When you say life, are you looking at the whole purpose of God right through to Canaan, for that was embraced in their song?
FER Yes.
LCB In the case of Abraham would it not be his calling that began his movement? What difference do you make between the blood here and his calling?
FER Abraham’s case was a more real thing morally than that of Israel in Egypt; the people felt the pressure of Egypt and in a sense were glad to leave it; but the call of Abraham involved a good deal, that is, the break with country, kindred and father’s house. It comes to that with us all really.
JA It is like a second movement. The first movement sets you in motion.
FER It is deeper in a way. The appeal to Abraham went deeper than in the case [p. 16] of Israel.
GWH Scripture hardly contemplates a christian going on with the world and God at the same time.
FER If he does, it means that the testimony of God has produced no moral effect upon him. The testimony of God would undoubtedly set a man in movement where it is accepted in faith, but then it was not like a leap in the dark, because when the Red Sea was divided there was an end of all their distress. So in regard to us, when we apprehend the import of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, there is an end to distress, we see a way through. Man is not blocked by death now, because by the death of Christ there is a way through.
WM Because He is through.
FER Christ is risen. But we do not pass through in a literal way like Christ; we go through figuratively in baptism, and the meaning and force of it is that a person leaves the world, but he leaves it to find himself with God, with a good conscience. “The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ”, I think that is right.
JP I think so, indeed. I was mindful of that passage in Peter. Death which was in a certain sense so naturally terrible to man has really become salvation to us; that is, baptism if accepted in the meaning of it is a very real thing, but it is to find yourself with God and a good conscience by the resurrection of Christ.
WM I suppose the significance of that was very plain to a Jew in the early days, when he left everything by it.
FER I think so. He found himself with God with a good conscience.
WM He had left the world.
FER Yes, but to find God, that is by death, as we had this morning. When a person gets forgiveness it is that he may accept death and that is by baptism.
WM Would you think that was involved in what Ananias said to Paul, “arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins”? He had thus a good conscience before God.
FER He was to get it by baptism. Now we get the first great thought in the divine purpose in verse 13, “Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation”.
WM How could that be said when they were only in the wilderness?
FER It is interesting that the people were redeemed in Egypt, the blood was there, and it was the blood of redemption. But there is another step looked at in reference to them, that is, “Thou ... hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed”, the testimony of redemption had put the people in movement. The people had so far responded to it, and God had led forth the people, and further had brought them by His strength unto the abode of His holiness. It says, “holy habitation”, but it is really the abode of His holiness. That is where they had come to through the Red Sea.
WM They were brought to God.
FER Exactly, but where the holiness of God abides.
Rem That was not the wilderness, properly speaking.
FER Not the wilderness exactly, and yet it was the wilderness; it was the abode of His holiness. It is made good with us by the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. I understand the abode of God’s holiness to be His love. God has brought us there.
WM Because there is no holiness apart from love.
FER No, evidently the holiness of God abides in His nature, and the love of God is shed abroad in out hearts by the Holy Spirit. Hence it is we are brought to the abode of His holiness.
JP It shows the importance of taking up these expressions in their moral bearings. We are apt to be hindered [p. 18] by material thoughts.
FER We have been set in movement by the testimony of mercy and the end is to be brought to the love of God.
JP That is, the first thing is that the rights of God are established in redemption; then the testimony of it reaches us, and it sets us in motion, and that answers to ‘Thou hast led them forth’.
FER You cannot remain in the world of nature, that is, Egypt, because the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are wholly and entirely opposed to all that God is revealed to be. There is nothing of grace or of mercy or of truth or of love in them. You are affected by the testimony of God in order to leave the world which is obnoxious to God, and which God intends in result to bring to nought. Then God shows me that He has appointed a way through death into life. I am brought face to face to God with a good conscience, and God brings me to the abode of His holiness.
WM And in principle that is an eternal abiding place.
FER Yes.
JSA I suppose that passage in Peter is on the same line, “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”.
FER I think that is the first great step in our experience; God has led forth the people whom He has redeemed and brought them by His strength to the abode of His holiness. I do not think that in a sense we have to stop there. What took place when Israel was brought into the wilderness was that God set up His dwelling place among them, but after that they were still to be in movement, but guided by the ark of the covenant. We are brought to the abode of His holiness. But then we enter upon another character of exercise: it is all movement, depend upon it, and there is no rest.
JSA I think there is something interesting in that, very like God’s announcement of His purpose in chapter 6, “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I [p. 19] will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgements: and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God”. There is a point reached; but then it goes on to say, “And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage”. That is a further step.
FER We get that brought out here in verse 17, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance”.
WM Would you say the one state of experience brings them from Egypt across the Red Sea, and the other through the wilderness to Canaan?
FER Yes. The first great thing is to bring them to God, that is the most important part of it. It is immensely important to us because we are brought to God that we may learn God. That is the object of our being left here. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us”. We are left here to pass through a good many things, circumstances, trials, etc., but that we may learn God and have confidence in Him. He brings us to the abode of His holiness to that end.
LDT What do you mean by the abode of His holiness?
FER I was saying it is His nature.
JP I think the other day, with regard to the expression in Hebrews 12, “that we might be partakers of his holiness”, you spoke of God’s holiness there as connected with His nature.
FER Evidently the abode of His holiness is His nature. You cannot separate the holiness of God from His nature. It says the “love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”. Hence it is holy love. We are brought to the abode of His holiness, in being brought to the knowledge of His love.
JP That we may come under divine teaching.
FER [p. 20] The object is that He may be so known to us that we have confidence in Him. It is not such an easy matter to confide in God when everything is going crooked.
WM I suppose confidence will spring not from faith exactly, but from the knowledge of God.
FER Yes, confidence is begotten by love. We have often had that before us. Nothing but love will beget confidence.
WM Is this knowledge of God essential in order to go through the wilderness?
FER Well, I think it is essential to enter into what is beyond. How are you going to be qualified for heaven?
WM By entering into heavenly things now.
FER Our qualification for heaven is the knowledge of God. You will never enter into what is beyond except by the knowledge of God.
WM So you look on the wilderness as being incidental.
FER Yes, incidental; very important, but incidental; it is the training ground. God’s love is begotten in our hearts so that we may be prepared to go beyond. The notion is in people’s minds that they go to heaven at the end of their path here as a matter of course, but the question I would ask is this, what qualification have you for heaven? What are you going to do when you get there? I think that is a matter which people would do well to take into account, What suitability have you for heaven?
WM I suppose that was in Mr. Darby’s mind when he wrote ‘There no stranger God shall meet thee’. You must know God here.
JSA And there is another thing which our materialistic minds are forgetting and that is that God is a Spirit and that our knowledge of Him can only be in a moral way.
JA People think of meeting their friends and relatives in heaven. There is no knowledge of God in that.
[p. 21] PA So there is room for trying our confidence in God, in the wilderness.
FER Yes. Abraham was tried over and over again, so God allows room for the trial of our faith. “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ”. God allows us trial, but the point is that it should result in confidence in God, and the knowledge of God’s love is that which begets confidence. It is so in a house; it is the love of the parents that begets confidence in the children. They reciprocate what they get in the parents. If the parents are suspicious of the children, the children will be suspicious.
PA It is all in view of the glory.
FER It is all a part of our education and the first principle of education is that we should know the love of God, so as to have confidence in God; and when confidence is begotten we are prepared to go a step further; we leave our own side and begin to enter into God’s side, that is, the side of His glory. We begin with His grace and that leads us on to the knowledge of His love and that gives confidence in Himself, and then we are prepared to go on and contemplate His glory. Christ is the centre of His glory, and His glory is bound up with Christ and you are prepared to contemplate that, when your heart is established in confidence. Until then God cannot make known to you all His things, so it is in a man’s house. If I did not feel that my children had confidence in me I would not be prepared to make known to them all my mind, but if I feel I have their confidence I make known to them in due time my purposes, and that is what God does. That is what is meant here, “Thou shalt bring them in”, into the land of His purpose; that is what God is bent on. “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in”. Where is God to [p. 22] dwell?
WM Does He not dwell in the love of His people?
FER No, in the universe, what was prefigured by the tabernacle. The tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them. The universe will be the house of God, but the universe under Christ. That is the idea of God’s dwelling place. The whole universe is to become a sanctuary. If God has the confidence of our hearts He will bring us into the sense of our relation to that order of things, into the land of promise; that is, into all the things in which God is going to be glorified, and we are kept in movement to that end.
JP So that at the end of verse 13 really He gains our confidence, and then in verse 17 we go over to His side, His glory. I was struck as we read it. It says, “which thou hast made (not for us to dwell in, but) for thee to dwell in”.
FER It shows the great divine thought of which we often speak, the universe of bliss. The universe of bliss is the dwelling place of God; it is the place God has made to dwell in.
JP So the Scriptures do not close until they bring it before us?
FER No, and we apprehend now the place which the church has in connection with that system. “The fulness of him that filleth all in all”. Christ has ascended up far above all heavens to fill all things. He has a name above every name; connected with the purpose of God to head up all things in Christ, and the church is His body. The church does not belong to this world, but to the world of which Christ is the head.
PAES Would you say Moses was a sample of a man in movement, when after seeing the ways of God he wanted to advance to the glory in Exodus 33?
FER I think he was. He says, “shew me thy glory”.
GWH I suppose the function of priest is to set the people free from all wilderness experiences so that they may enter on to the ground of divine counsel.
FER I think [p. 23] so.
WM What you were saying is illustrated in Hebrews 8. In that chapter you get the new covenant, the idea of God’s disposition, and then you are encouraged to come in the tenth chapter to what is set forth in the holiest.
FER Yes, in chapter 8 you get the new covenant, in chapter 9 purgation, in chapter 10 the holiest. What do you come to the holiest for? The holiest is not the land of promise. You come to the holiest to contemplate the ark of the covenant. Then it is you can apprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height. You cannot traverse the land until you have arrived at the ark of the covenant. The ark of the covenant was to guide the people into the land. The ark of the covenant went before the people to lead them into it. Getting to the ark of the covenant is having Christ dwelling in the heart by faith; then it is you have the key to everything; that is, you can apprehend with all saints the breadth and length and depth and height.
WM Everything grows out of that.
FER Yes. We enter the holiest to learn what Christ is on the part of God. We have acquaintance in the wilderness of what Christ is on our part, but in the holiest you learn what Christ is on God’s part, and when you have that you can understand the breadth and length and depth and height, but you could not otherwise, any more than the children of Israel could take possession of the land without the ark of the covenant. They would have been swallowed up by the Canaanites if it had not been for the ark.
WM Everything is involved in the ark of the covenant.
FER Yes. I think it is most remarkable that you should have in type and figure in the things that occurred to the children of Israel, such a remarkable and distinct setting forth of God’s ways now. Anybody not interested in them I pity. People will read ridiculous stories, and find interest in them, and yet in such a wonderful unfolding of divine ways as in the case of the children of [p. 24] Israel they do not seem to have a bit of interest. It is a great thing to have the heart established in grace with confidence in God, and then you know that God is your friend, like He was to Abraham. He was a friend of God, but then he knew that God was his friend. When you know that, then you want to know what is in His mind. What is that? Christ and the whole system and order of things of which Christ is the gathering centre, and that is what the Spirit of God would keep us occupied with.
PA It is by His having come out to us that we are able to enter into His side.
FER That is it, so that we might have desire to enter into His things; that is what God has purposed for His glory. I think christians make a very poor show who do not go on.
JP I see too from what you say there is plenty of room for movement.
FER Because when you are brought in a way to one point, to the holy abode of God, that at once sets you in movement for another.
JP It is no small thing to be brought there.
FER Then when you get to the land it is all fighting.
GWH I suppose that corresponds to Ephesians 6.
FER It is all fighting; you have to stand your ground now.
JP You cannot have lying down and going to sleep when you get to the land.
FER No, it is fighting.
GWH But you have mighty good armour.
FER Yes, you are not badly off, the sword of the Spirit and the whole panoply of God. There is a sort of exhilaration in fighting when you know you are not likely to be defeated.
JA Greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world.
JP I see, too, how completely all this would deliver us from every kind of thing here.
FER I think so; and what a witness God has left in [p. 25] the world of it all. Look at the Jew; he is a standing witness that God has left to the truth of things. You have the Jew scattered beyond Babylon. God swore in the wilderness that He would carry them away beyond Damascus, that is, beyond Babylon really.
WM It remains true that the wrath of God is come upon them to the uttermost.
FER Yes. Well, I think we ought to be in exercise. I do not think that God cares to go on with indifferent people. “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth”.
PA We ought to be stirred up.
FER I think so. People want to be in movement. It is a great thing to go on, not to be content to remain where you are.
GWH We are very diligent about our own things, but we are slow about the Lord’s things.
FER I think so. I am convinced that we have only touched the fringe of things. We have a very poor apprehension of divine things. Who can tell us much about the breadth and length and depth and height? It carries us back a little in thought to Abraham. After he was parted from Lot he was told to lift his eyes and see the length and breadth of the land. We are to apprehend not only the length and breadth but the depth and height, which is the universe.
JP It was after all a surface measure with Abraham.
FER Because it was a literal land. When you come to the universe of bliss it is the breadth and length and depth and height.