I. Redemption
Every believer learns and gladly owns that the pure and only source of blessing is God's love. He also confesses that the greatest expression of that love shines in the gift and death of His Only-begotten Son. But for love to make worthless sinners its object there must be a basis consistent with holiness and truth; and this is blessedly furnished by the death of Christ. No wonder therefore, in view of the gifts and death of Christ, that God in infinite wisdom appointed many a type to shadow the one mighty sacrifice, whereby He could not only take up the guilty but rescue them and have them in His presence, in peace and happiness according to His holy nature and character.
This first aspect of the death of Christ, connected with His earthly people, is divinely given in Ex. 12-14 Redemption or deliverance is a truth all-important for every soul in its start with God. As all are responsible to Him, so He not only knows the deep need, but has provided the means whereby it is met. This is a fact we do well to remember, as well as the way in which the type is bound up with the antitype.
In chap. 7 the ever to be remembered Passover is minutely recorded, when the only valid ground of difference was made known between the Egyptians on whom judgment fell and the Israelites who escaped it. An unblemished lamb must be not only provided beforehand, but slain on the fourteenth day between the evenings. Of necessity death settles the question between a righteous God and sinful man. Its blood, sprinkled on the lintel and side posts of the houses where the Israelites lived, would according to the pledge of Jehovah guarantee their safety. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” If the blood outside was for Jehovah to see and rest on, those inside were enjoined to eat the roasted lamb with bitter herbs, and to eat it in haste; having their loins girded, and ready to leave Egypt their place of slavery forever. Reality and solemnity marked the moment. Surely such a type has a voice in this day when boastful profession has given up, and will more fully give up, the truth that Christ's shed blood is God's appointed means for Him to act as a just God and a Savior to all that believe. It is therefore as incumbent on believers to maintain this cardinal truth with holy jealousy, as to learn and enjoy their present redemption and deliverance by it.
That Christ has come even Christendom admits. Scripture declares that He has entered heaven, having obtained eternal redemption as surely as “without shedding of blood is no remission.” In this both Old and New Testament agree in one. Scripture has bound up the Paschal lamb exclusively with Christ, Who alone could and did answer to it. Luke 22 furnishes a striking instance when the last Passover of the Jews was celebrated by the Lord with His disciples. Then, when hatred, opposition, and the power of darkness surrounded Him, He touchingly said, “With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” This is followed by the stated object and value of His death; for He institutes the new memorial of what had not yet taken place, “His body given and His blood shed;” as the Gospel of Matthew emphatically says, “Shed for many for the remission of sins.” Then and then only, when the Lamb was smitten of God, was the fire of holy and righteous judgment expended, and by it not only were all claims met, but everlasting redemption accomplished and God in His every attribute relating to sin was glorified (John 13). Moreover He Who did no sin was made sin by God for us and is gone into the glory of God, the abiding proof of God's righteousness. The apostle Peter declares it when making known the believer's certainty of present redemption. The precious blood of Christ, the true Paschal lamb, gives peaceful assurance to all the redeemed that He has borne their judgment. The Lamb, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, has come and died, was raised and is in glory; the everlasting Savior, infinitely beyond the safety of an earthly people, redeemed by the blood of a typical lamb.
The question of redemption by blood being settled, deliverance by power follows, Moses their deliverer, who enjoined the blood needed for their shelter, bids the troubled people “Stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah.” The sea in front and the foe behind were overwhelming difficulties to those who had not learned that God was for them. He Who gave them the symbol of His presence as a redeemed people in chap. 8 places Himself behind them during the anxious night of awaiting their pledged deliverance. Jehovah commands Moses to lift up his rod and stretch out his hand to divide the water so that the sea may become dry to Israel. “Go forward” was the word for them to prove its reality; and ere long they stood on the other shore and saw their dreaded foes drowned in the sea which had returned to its strength. Thus Jehovah “saved” Israel from Pharaoh and the bondage of Egypt, setting them free to sing with Moses this triumph and joyfully confess Him to be their strength, song, and salvation. Such was the typical value Jehovah then put upon the death of the slain lamb, and most unmistakably does the antitype furnish the full results. Not only does the Epistle to the Romans clearly state that there is no difference, all being guilty before God, but that the blood of Christ is the only means whereby He could pass over any in the past. In virtue of that blood He declares His righteousness in justifying the guilty (Rom. 3). Faith in the blood of His Son is a guarantee not merely of escaping judgment, but of God's being just and the justifier of him that has faith in Jesus. Now the sins are more than passed over; they are blotted out.
Besides this, He Whose blood was shed has been raised from the dead. It is an accomplished fact, that He Who was given up for our trespasses has been raised again for our justification (Rom. 4). Faith in God as to this is there enjoined, as faith in Christ and His blood in the preceding chapter. The antitype to the Red Sea is in Christ dead and risen. The illustrious power of God raised Him up from the dead. His resurrection is the soul's warrant for abiding peace with God. It is only for faith to go forward, not to stop at the cross, precious as is the basis God has provided there. Learn by Christ's death and resurrection that the sea is dry for the believer. By taking his place with a risen Christ he sees every foe gone, a complete deliverance from sin, Satan, and this present evil age. Yea more, he is called to rejoice in hope of the glory of God and know the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, through Whom all is made known and made good, even so as to joy in God Himself.
May type and antitype ever lead to rest in the death of Christ, and we always rejoice in the declared triumphs of His resurrection.