WE have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of his grace."
It is one thing for Israel to know that they had been safe from judgment on the night of the Passover, and quite another to have been saved out of Egypt. They had been slaves there, making bricks without straw. They are God's freed men, as they sing the song of Moses on the wilderness-side of the Red Sea. Here is where so many err. They are trusting in Christ as their only hope; they may know too that their sins are pardoned, but they go on all their lives through perhaps, crying out “sinners" or "miserable sinners." Plainly they do not know redemption, or this they could not do. Suppose that an Israelite, instead of singing Moses' song of redemption, was crying out, because he found himself the same person still, "I am a poor slave in Egypt," what would you have thought of his folly? Yet there are plenty of the people of God in no better states. How thoroughly dishonoring to the work of Christ!
Redemption is ignored in its true force; I do not say in words, for alas! this is one of the most successful plans of the enemy, to use orthodox words without their true import, and thus blind the souls of the people of God as to their real meaning, keeping them in darkness and uncertainty all their lives.
An Israelite who was redeemed was dealt with from that moment on an entirely new footing, never as a slave in Egypt again; but according to the new place and relationship in which he now stood with God: and so it is with the Christian.