Redemption
Exodus 3
"And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites."
"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.
The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation: He is my God, and I will prepare Him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt Him.
The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His name."...
"Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation."
Exodus 40:18-19, 33-3518And Moses reared up the tabernacle, and fastened his sockets, and set up the boards thereof, and put in the bars thereof, and reared up his pillars. 19And he spread abroad the tent over the tabernacle, and put the covering of the tent above upon it; as the Lord commanded Moses. (Exodus 40:18‑19)
33And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work. 34Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:33‑35)
"And Moses reared up the tabernacle, and fastened his sockets, and set up the boards thereof, and put in the bars thereof, and reared up his pillars.
Exodus 3 17
And he spread abroad the tent over the tabernacle, and put the covering of the tent above upon it; as the Lord commanded Moses." .. .
"And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work.
Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle."
For the children of God the book of Exodus has a certain charm because of the character of the book and its contents. Redemption is the great outstanding feature of the book of Exodus. The subject of the next book, Leviticus, is approach to God by a redeemed people. Numbers presents redeemed people being conducted through the wilderness to the rest that remains. In the third chapter of Exodus we learn about the source of redemption. Further on in the twelfth and fifteenth chapters we learn the way of it.
In redemption God is known in a way in which He delights. There is a certain class of creatures which have and always will have a joy peculiar to themselves, and that is the joy of redemption. We learn God in redemption in a way He is not known in creation.
In the verses we read from chapter three, we get a most marvelous thing as to the character and nature of God. We find that He is a Spectator, and an interested Spectator, in all that is going on here below. Certain characteristics brought God into exercise—into play. Thus, for instance, we find Him moved in His nature, moved by what He sees here below: a burdened, suffering, sorrowing, oppressed people. He had seen, He had heard; and His seeing and hearing have moved Him to action. He is come down (another blessed feature of the book of Exodus) to deliver.
God delights in the confidence of the poor sinner; such is His nature, His character. Hear Him saying, I have heard; I have seen; I know their sorrow. Has not God wrought marvelously, and is He not working marvelously in this poor world today? Oh yes, He is doing a work in which His whole nature is engaged, a work He has been doing for long, long centuries that shall be to His eternal praise and glory. He saw a certain class of His creatures in certain conditions and He was moved by those conditions. It is most touching to know God as the One who not only looks down in compassion upon this sin-burdened scene, but as the One who has also come into it in compassion. "I am come down to deliver."
His work in the earth today is that of a mighty, blessed Deliverer—One whose love, pity, compassion and mercy have moved Him to action and still move Him. The compassions of His love sustain God in the work He is doing today which meets with such opposition here below. To nothing are we greater strangers than to the very nature of God Himself. Indeed it is in redemption, what He is doing on behalf of a sin-burdened people, that we learn what that nature is.
You and I and every redeemed one have a joy in God that we will have eternally and that no other creature of His will ever know! There is no joy in heaven so great as the joy of redemption. There is nothing God Himself has greater joy in than in the work of redemption.
So He says, "I am come down to deliver them...and to bring them out," and not only to bring them out, but to bring them in; and blessed be His Name, He is working according to the fulness of His own nature and character and love. He has seen our sorrow and heard our cry, as it were, from the lash of the taskmaster here below and Satan is a hard taskmaster. What is the ultimate reward of those who are undelivered from his authority? "The wages of sin is death." "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
We feel, and feel increasingly, in communion with God, the groan, the burden of creation, the burden under which all here below labor. We witness the many efforts in different ways by which poor man seeks to hush the groan, but still there is the groan. There is but One who can meet the need—the blessed God Himself, and He would have us know our need. The gospel tells the wonderful message of God come down to deliver; and the God who came down to deliver is the God who has seen and heard above and says very sweetly, "I know their sorrows."
"What brought the Son of God from heaven?" we sing sometimes;
"Not sinful man's endeavor,
Nor any mortal's care,
Could draw Thy sovereign favor
To sinners in despair;"
(We like to change a word there and say, "Did draw Thy sovereign favor")
"Uncalled, Thou cam'st with gladness
Us from the fall to raise,
And change our grief and sadness
To songs of joy and praise."
Did our crying bring the Son of God down here? No, it was our burden and our condition. There was no cry going up to heaven for deliverance; there was an effort to make the best of our circumstances and that is still the case today. Where is the eye and the heart that looks to heaven for deliverance? Where is the confidence in God and in His love? How few there are who lift up their voices in thanksgiving and praise to God for coming down here in the Person of His Son to deliver. To see, or hear Him saying, "I know their sorrows" is most touching. There is One far away up in heaven who knows our sorrows and feels for us in them and proclaims to us a Deliverer—Himself come down in the Person of Christ to deliver. Most blessed it is to see God Himself moved to action by the compassions of His own nature for His fallen creatures.
The source of that redemption that the gospel speaks of is mercy. "Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people" (Exodus 15:1313Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. (Exodus 15:13)). The means of it is the blood of Christ. Let us ask ourselves, what is the measure of our acquaintance with God as the One who came down to deliver? How many of us can sing with joy and reality,
"We joy in our God, and we sing of that love,
So sov'reign and free which did His heart move!
When lost our condition, all ruined, undone,
He saw with compassion, and spared not His Son!"
Do you join in that song? How God delights to hear it! What a welcome that song finds in His ear. God's joy is in redemption and His people's joy is in the God of their salvation—the God of their redemption.
In Exodus we have Him come down for a certain purpose: to deliver and to bring into blessing. He blesses us according to His nature, and He blesses with no meager hand. All is typical, and so He blesses His people of old to bring them out of the Land of Egypt into a good and large land. How good and how large is the blessing into which the redeeming love of God brings us! "A good land and a large." Shall we endeavor to know something of what that good land and large is for us now? We shall enter fully into it when Christ comes, and we go into eternity. "Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people."
It is a reality that there is a redeemed people on the earth. "Forasmuch as ye know...ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold ... but with the precious blood of Christ." There is a certain people here that are God's redeemed people and they know it: "Forasmuch as ye know."
I wonder if there is a reader who does not know himself as one of the redeemed of the Lord—who has never known what it is to sing to the Lord the song of redemption for the first time. That song begins here on earth. It is continued in heaven in all its fulness, blessedness and joy, but it is begun here on earth. "Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed." What a note that is, and its source is "Thou in Thy mercy." "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us." Ephesians 2:44But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, (Ephesians 2:4). What has brought the mercy of God into play?. I do not say into existence; it was always there. But what brought it into play? into action? Your need and mine as sinners brought Him down to deliver—to make Himself known in a new and most glorious character as Redeemer-God. It is this that God proclaims in the gospel. Blessed be His Name!
There are thousands in lands far and near, in tongues so different, in circumstances so varied, who have this day joined in the song of redemption. Have you? How do you know God? What is your relationship to Him? Is it the relationship of a sinner separated from Him by your sins—far from Him—or is it the relationship of one who knows Him as the One come down to deliver, to save and to bless? That word in John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16), "For God so loved the world" is the compassionate love of God.
"Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation." How different are the circumstances of those people in Exodus 15 from those we read about in Exodus 3. "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. The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation." No song like this had ever gone to heaven before. He had broken the power and delivered them from the bondage of the taskmaster, from Egypt.
God has deep, deep joy when a soul in the knowledge of Himself in redemption makes Himself his song. "The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation." How very simple, full and blessed that is! "My father's God, and I will exalt Him." That is what redemption does. It makes God Himself the portion of the soul, and the soul finds its strength and its joy in exalting Him.
One has to fear for the very fundamentals of the gospel. The fundamentals of our soul's relationship to God are being fast given up. The joy and power of them, where not given up, are lost, but it is the song of redemption that God has put into our lips. The God that came down to deliver, the God that has delivered, is a God that is comparatively little known even in these Christian lands because of the adulteration of the Word of God, of the truth of God.
But thank God! While one sees and feels that the blessed and essential truth of redemption is being forgotten and the song of redemption is being raised to God less and less, by His grace there are those who do cleave to it. May the truth of it become more and more precious to us: redemption by the blood of Christ.
"Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people." God's people are no longer in the land of bondage. I refer now to the state of their souls; they are redeemed; His power and love redeemed them and led them forth. On the journey none of us is at a standstill point; all are on the move, and the end draws near. What a bright and glorious end for the redeemed people of God, but what an awful end for the unredeemed one. If one passes away unredeemed, who is at fault? Is there not a voice that says today, "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom"? Who says that? Who is it that escapes that pit? What is the ransom? "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ." How many have passed this day, and pass each day from time into eternity? In passing from time into eternity they are either redeemed or unredeemed. There are just two classes. Were you and I to pass away tonight, would it be to pass away redeemed or unredeemed? We're getting very personal, but it would be either one or the other, and we know how suddenly, constantly these changes take place. One and another are swept away in death—gone never to return. It all depends on whether one knows God as the One who in mercy came down to deliver—God known as the Deliverer.
Redemption makes God Himself the boast of the soul. "He is become My salvation . . . my father's God, and I will exalt Him."
Redemption ends in glory. That is why we read a little from chapter 40. In the third chapter we saw God come down, moved by His mercy for a certain purpose—to deliver them out and to bring them in. I have put together the opening and the closing of Exodus to the joy of my own soul. God has surrounded Himself with His redeemed people! He told them to build Him a tabernacle that He might dwell among them. In the end of the book we find that that dwelling place has been completed. Think of the joy of that, the blessed God surrounding Himself with His redeemed people!
Faith anticipates that. When Christians meet together in a Scriptural way, they find themselves "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name." He is in their midst—they surround Him. That is just where God at the present has led us. He is guiding us in His strength to His holy habitation; He will "bring them in and plant them in the mountain of their inheritance," (Ex. 15:1717Thou 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, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. (Exodus 15:17)) but already He has a dwelling place in the midst of His people, and it is joy to find Himself surrounded by His people.
So we find in the third passage we read that Moses rears up this tabernacle as the Lord commanded, and now it is not God come to deliver but the blessed fruit of His having come down to deliver. He has come down to dwell in the midst of His people. Such are the blessed effects of redemption. All is in anticipation of that great day which draws near, when God once and forever will surround Himself with His redeemed people, from every land, from every tongue and condition. What delight God will have as His eyes survey that vast innumerable company of redeemed ones, each individual of that vast company knowing himself to be a redeemed one. Each one individually will have his own personal joy in God as the God of his salvation.
The dwelling place is set up, and there He is in the midst. He is not come down now as moved by sorrows, but come down as it were in relationship with a redeemed people surrounding the blessed God Himself. It is in this way that the book of Exodus has its own special charm! God is known in redemption and it is in redemption that God rejoices rather than in creation because redemption tells out what He is in His own nature—in His moral nature, in light, in love, in holiness, in goodness, in truth. Creation tells what He is in power. Redemption tells what He is as rich in mercy, great in His love.