To be safely sheltered from the judgment of God by the blood of the Lamb was the precious lesson taught by the Passover. But many a soul has great distress, even after having taken refuge in the blood of Jesus. To be really trusting in the atoning work of Christ is one thing; to know deliverance from self and the world and Satan is another. It is this latter subject which this chapter, in type, brings before us, and it is most remarkable that this should occur in Pihahiroth, for it means “the entrance into liberty.”
Under the shelter of the blood, and brought out of Egypt by the power of God, Israel now saw the Red Sea before them and Pharaoh and his army immediately behind them. They wished they had never left Egypt, and their expressions of distress and misery remind us of another utterance of later date: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” (Rom. 7:2424O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24)). Their case seemed to them so hopeless that they said that they actually preferred the cruel bondage of serving the Egyptians.
Liberty
This is a vivid illustration of what many a soul passes through now. What at first usually brings souls to realize their need of the Saviour is the sense of guilt on account of sins committed. Their joy is often very great at finding in the cross of Christ that God is both “a just God and a Saviour,” but sooner or later another question must exercise their consciences before God — the question of “the flesh,” the nature from which all transgressions spring. That which is born of the flesh is totally unfit for God’s presence or His service, and to learn that “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing” is very humiliating, but it is the way of learning deliverance, and the only way of entrance into the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.
When the soul that has known remission of sins through the blood of Jesus still finds within, every now and then, an innumerable host of lusts and evil thoughts, it is ready to say, “Surely I am worse now than when I was in bondage to sin and Satan and the world.” Neither resolutions nor ordinances eradicate these things; they boldly intrude into my prayers and holiest exercises. Now and then they lie dormant, but they spring up again on the smallest occasions. Distressed, I cry out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” It is “the flesh, with its affections and lusts” — the nature that did the sins — and when our souls realize these evil workings within, it becomes to us as formidable a host as Pharaoh and army were to the children of Israel. As nothing could pacify them but deliverance from this mighty power which was against them, so nothing less than the setting aside in judgment of these hosts of evil within can meet the requirements of our consciences.
The Enemy Judged
“Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace” (vss. 13-14). As God Himself would deliver Israel from this mighty host, so God has delivered us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Not only did Jesus once suffer for sins, but also “sin in the flesh,” the nature that did the sins, has been so judicially “condemned” by God that the Holy Spirit declares that our “old man is crucified with Him.” And so completely is this recognized in Scripture that believers are now said to be “not in the flesh,” but “in Christ Jesus.” In Jesus our substitute, God has not only judged sins on Jesus on the cross, but He has also judicially set aside as only fit for judgment our “old man,” as truly as He swept away in judgment Pharaoh and all his hosts, so that the children of Israel might see them dead and no longer living.
Redemption by Power
In our chapter, we shall see that all is accomplished by the power of God. In the Red Sea, it is redemption by power; in Egypt it was redemption by blood. In Christ crucified, risen, and ascended, we have both. Looking back upon the cross, we see it has all been accomplished through death and judgment, so that death and judgment are now behind us. Risen life in Christ is possessed by us. All this may be traced in this scene of the Red Sea, where the waters were divided so as to form a dry path, with a liquid wall on either side. The children of Israel were commanded to “go forward.” All now that was needed was faith, in order to avail themselves of the value of this work of God. But what of their enemies which they so feared? The very work of God that was to His people their deliverance and salvation was that which forever put away, through death and judgment, their enemies from their sight, so that they never saw them living afterward. In the same way, the accomplished work of Jesus has “through death” annulled “him that had the power of death,” which is the devil, and our “old man” has been crucified with Him. We see death and judgment behind us, as surely as Israel saw the waves of the Red Sea rolling behind them instead of before them.
The Double Work of Christ
How very blessed is this double aspect of the work of Christ, in executing judgment upon all our enemies and bringing us out by His mighty power in raising Christ from among the dead, giving us life and liberty forever in Him. This is the first time that the word “salvation” occurs in Scripture, for Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. In the same way, we see that “our old man is crucified with Christ,” and we are enjoined to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
As long as a believer is thinking of his old self and its lusts, watching against and providing against it, he is reckoning the old man to be living, and not dead; fear and distress of various kinds come out in consequence. We read that “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts” (Gal. 5:2424And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. (Galatians 5:24)), for they have accepted God’s judgment of it in the cross. Faith sees that God has done it and believes God. It is a new nature that lives in the believer, for he is a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Sing Unto the Lord
We see, then, the contrast in Israel’s experience when they looked at the Egyptians as living and when they looked at them as dead. If we look into the workings of the flesh in us, we will be very wretched. The most miserable people on earth, perhaps, are Christians who have given themselves up to self-occupation. Blessed are those who, knowing they have life in a risen Christ, do reckon themselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We, therefore, find that when Israel had gotten to the other side of the Red Sea, how happy they were! “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.” What a burst of triumph this is! God had delivered them, and now they are taken up with Him, praising Him, and ascribing all the glory of their deliverance to Him.
There was no singing in Egypt, though perfect safety, for they were sheltered by the blood of the lamb, but it is at the Red Sea we have to do with Christ risen out of death, who is our life. And this makes all the difference. Blessed as it is to know the shelter of the blood, it is more blessed to know that we have resurrection life — a life that lives the other side of death and judgment. We may joyfully sing:
Unto Thy death baptized,
We own with Thee we died;
With Thee, our life we’re risen,
And shall be glorified.
Adapted from Christian Position, Conflict, and Hope