EXODUS 14
In this chapter we see Jehovah opening up a way for His people out of Egypt, and also dealing with the power that would oppress them and hold them in bondage. It is not a question here of what was needed to meet the glory of God as to the sinful state of the people; that was settled by the blood of the lamb. What is before us here is that God makes the power of His salvation known to them in full deliverance from Egypt — the world in type — and then He effects the complete destruction of the enemy’s power.
Satan and the world will not give up the people of God without a desperate attempt to hold them. We see here the exercises of the people as feeling their own weakness in the presence of the enemy’s power, but we see the salvation of Jehovah for them. He opened up a way by which they might leave Egypt altogether, and then in His dealings with the enemy He made manifest that He was for His people, and against all that would oppress them and hinder Him from having His pleasure in them.
We see here a people sheltered from judgment by the blood of the Lamb, and nourished upon the One who in love bore the judgment, and now exercised to put all leaven out of their houses, and to move out of Egypt as wholly claimed by the One who had redeemed them. But they are not yet clear; the enemy can still regard them as “entangled in the land”, and make a last effort to retain them in the house of bondage. They have now to learn, typically, the death of Christ in another aspect; that is, as opening up a way for them out of the world. That is the Red Sea aspect of the death of Christ.
[p. 63] It is often after trusting the blood, and making some attempt to purge out leaven, that we have to learn our own weakness in the presence of the enemy’s power. We have to find out how helpless we are. In such a strait the people spoke the language of despair. “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt, thou hast taken us away to die in the wilderness etc”. (verses 11, 12). But it was not likely that Jehovah, who had wrought so wonderfully for them already, would fail them now. The gospel Moses preached to them brought the light of Jehovah’s salvation to their hearts. They learned in a blessed way that God was for them. “Fear not: stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah, which he will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever. Jehovah will fight for you, and ye shall be still” (verses 13, 14).
God’s salvation is a great one; it involves the defeat of the enemy, and the breaking of his power, and complete deliverance from the world, and from all the influences which rule there. The world is antagonistic to God, and to every thought that He has in view for His people. It is a great system where everything is carried on according to the will of man. Satan’s power and influence is behind it, for he is the god and prince of this world, but the principle on which his kingdom is ordered is that all shall be according to the will of man. That, in a word, is SIN, for it is the insubordinate will of a creature who has rebelled against God. We find it everywhere; in the sphere of pleasure, in the sphere of politics, in the sphere of religion. It is the root principle of the world. It is in that kingdom and [p. 64] under that rule — what the New Testament calls “the authority of darkness” (Colossians 1: 13) — that Satan would retain the people of God.
It would be well for us to realize what the bondage of Egypt is. It is a power ever exercised to keep us from being for God, and from doing His will. The divine and only way of deliverance from it is to pass through the sea. God is for His people, and by the death of Christ He has made a way out for them. It is quite clear that if we actually died we should pass out of that sphere where the will of man operates. But we do not need to wait for that. Christ has died, and we are entitled to go out in a very real and spiritual sense by way of His death. The sea is divided now; there is a way divinely opened up by which we may leave the world morally; we have to see that we avail ourselves of that way. “By faith they passed through the Red Sea as through dry land”. We are entitled to pass out of this world as the sphere of sin. This aspect of the death of Christ was clearly set forth in our baptism. “As many as have been baptized unto Christ Jesus, have been baptized unto his death. We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6: 3, 4).
“Stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah”, is like the end of Romans 4 and the beginning of Romans 5. But “Speak to the people that they go forward” is like Romans 6. We have to take new ground — the ground of having died to sin. In the first place “Jesus our Lord ... has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification”. A [p. 65] risen Christ is our righteousness. If I see that a risen and glorified Man is my righteousness, the enemy’s power to harass me is completely broken; he cannot raise a voice or a weapon. No charge or reproach can be brought against that glorious Risen Man. He is with God in spotless suitability to God, and to that new world which He has entered in resurrection, and through Him we have “access by faith into this favour in which we stand” (Romans 5: 2).
It is one thing to be under the blood, and another to be under the cloud. “All our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10: 1, 2). Many know that they are under the blood who have not really come under the cloud or passed through the sea, and therefore the enemy is still able to harass them. But the same grace that provided the Lamb, and gave me to see that I could take my place under the blood for shelter from judgment, entitles me through the Lord Jesus Christ to come under the cloud. God would have me to know with divine assurance that Christ is my righteousness, and that through Him I am in God’s favour, and that God is for me. Such is the blessedness which is the divinely given portion of each one who believes on God as the One who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. This is really the beginning of our assurance, and we are to hold it firm to the end (Hebrews 3: 14). The Corinthians were in danger of departure, and therefore Paul refers to the fathers in the way of warning. After being under the cloud and passing through the sea they became lusters after evil things, etc., and “God was not pleased with the most of them, for they were strewed in the desert”. But we [p. 66] cannot hold fast the beginning of our assurance if we have never had it.
Isaiah 4: 5 somewhat corresponds with this scripture in speaking of the cloud being over God’s people in the time of their future deliverance. “In that day there shall be a sprout of Jehovah for beauty and glory, and the fruit of the earth for excellency and for ornament for those that are escaped of Israel ... . And Jehovah will create over every dwelling place of mount Zion, and over its convocations, a cloud by day and a smoke, and the brightness of a flame of fire by night; for over all the glory shall be a covering”. God will bring in the beauty of Christ and make it the excellency and ornament of His delivered people, and He will spread over them the cloud of His protecting love. But in having a risen Christ as our righteousness, and coming under the favour and love of God through Him, we enjoy divine deliverance before they get it. And in the light of this we can take the way which God has opened up for us out of the world.
The people were baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea, never again to be commanded and driven by the Egyptians, but evermore to be controlled by one whose authority was exercised for their deliverance and blessing, one who could order them in accord with the pleasure of Jehovah their Saviour and Redeemer. I think what answers to being baptized in the cloud comes out in Romans 5; all the blessed grace of a Saviour God is there; all divine favour from justification and peace to eternal life; “the abundance of grace and of the free gift of righteousness”; all administered through our Lord Jesus Christ. Then what we have in Romans 6 answers [p. 67] to being baptized in the sea. As having come under grace we are prepared to take new ground. If Christ is our righteousness, and the grace of God and the free gift in grace by the one man Jesus Christ has abounded to us, it is in view of our being identified with Him, and taking up the same relation to things that He has taken up.
He has died to sin and He lives to God, and we are now entitled to take account of ourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. We were committed to it in our baptism, but there comes a moment when we have to “go forward” in that way for ourselves, and to take new ground. We have been baptized unto Christ Jesus and unto His death in view of an entirely new manner of life here. We are privileged to know what it means to pass out of the world of sin by way of the death of Christ, and because He has died to it, and to yield ourselves to God as alive from among the dead.
Have we really seen the true character of the world as the sphere of sin? It is where the will of a fallen creature dominates everything. But One blessed Man has been found here in a path of divine perfection, doing only the will of God. He never had any moral contact with the world of sin; there was nothing in common between Him and the activity of man’s will. But He has now gone altogether out by way of death from the scene which is dominated by the will of man. His death in Romans 6: 10 is not atonement; it is not dying for sin, but to sin — to the whole character of things which is found in the world.
If He has become precious to us as the One by whom all the grace and blessing of God has come to us, and we have affection for Him, we shall be prepared to [p. 68] go that way too in mind and spirit. The death of Christ thus becomes the “King’s highway” out of the world for those who believe on Him. I am entitled to go out because He went out. If I am minded to go out of the world of man’s will because Christ has died to it all, nothing can hinder me from doing so. And in taking that way I shall find myself under divine protection from every hostile power.
The Christian takes the ground of being dead to the whole principle of sin which dominates the world in every aspect. He goes out of the sphere of man’s will so as to be only for God. “Yield yourselves to God as alive from among the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God” (Romans 6: 13). It is a simple question, Am I here for myself and my own will, or am I here for God and for His will? Each one must answer for himself. That we can go out from the world of man’s will by the death of Christ so as to be for the will and pleasure of God is the true character and power of God’s salvation. It delivers His people from the sphere where man’s will dominates everything, and brings them into a sphere where God’s will has its blessed sway and where they are free to serve His pleasure. It is for us to see that we do not make light of it, or neglect so great salvation.
“And he led them safely, so that they were without fear; and the sea covered their enemies” (Psalm 78: 53). We have only to move forward in the divine path to be perfectly secure, and to prove the power of God’s salvation. “The waters were a wall: to them on their right hand and on their left”. No enemy could touch them, and in the morning they saw all the power of Egypt overthrown.
[p. 69] As to dealing with the enemy, it may be noted that “the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them”. God is for His people against all the power of the enemy, whatever its form. “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who against us?” (Romans 8: 31). God shields His people “all the night”.
The enemy might seem very near sometimes, but the cloud was always between him and the people. “In the morning watch” Jehovah began to deal definitely with the adversaries, and “toward the morning” they were all overturned. It suggests the complete and final overthrow of all that is adverse to God and to His people. “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly”. Christ will eventually annul “all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that is annulled is death” (1 Corinthians 15: 24 - 26).
A morning without clouds is coming when there will be neither adversary nor evil occurrent; not an Egyptian to be seen! But that morning has been anticipated in the resurrection of Christ, and faith is in the present light of His complete victory. He took part in blood and flesh “that through death he might annul him who has the might of death, that is, the devil; and might set free all those who through fear of death through the whole of their life were subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2: 14, 15). And to faith’s vision God “having spoiled principalities and authorities” has “made a show of them publicly, leading them in triumph”.
The enemy’s power is so completely broken that God’s people can go out from his kingdom, and none [p. 70] can hinder them. Christ has overcome the world, and the prince of this world is judged. Under the Lordship and Leadership of Christ a redeemed people can pass over under divine protection, and in the consciousness of divine favour, into complete deliverance from that sphere in which the will of man is active. “Now, having got your freedom from sin, ye have become bondmen to righteousness ... But now, having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life” (Romans 6: 18, 22). God has been revealed in grace and power, and He is with and for His people. His cloud overshadows them; His glory is their beauty and their defence; and they have gone out from the world by profession in their baptism, and in reality by taking account of themselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.