Gospel Address No 4
Redemption. March 9th, 1871.
We get in Exodus 15 the
deliverance founded on Exodus 12, and God takes, as to His dealings, an
entirely new character.
In chapter 12. He was a Judge,
acting in that character, and He is met by the blood. He does not meet the
sin; the blood meets the judgment, and He passes over, but the people are left
in Egypt, safe from judgment. That is not all that God does: it is the
foundation of all blessing, but they had not got actual deliverance yet. There
is not only the value of what Christ has done meeting the eye of God, but He is
active in delivering us and bringing us out. Christ went down to the condition
we were in, and "by the grace of God tasted death for everything." He
came into death where Satan's power was. He could not be holden of it, but in
coming down He put away the sin. He came down in the power of divine life - He
was God Himself - and He not only put away sin, though He did that in order to
deliver us, for it could not be done righteously if the sin had not been put
away; but now He is up out of it sitting at God's right hand in glory, and the
worth of His work is such that it sets man, in His Person, but as our
Forerunner, in the glory of God. There is complete deliverance for us.
God was a Judge in
chapter 12. Here in chapter 15. He is a Deliverer, in virtue of that
blood.
The Israelites got to the
Red Sea, and found they could not go any further, and that is very humbling. It
is a much more humbling thing to learn you are without strength than
that you are a sinner. God says, "Trust Me and go forward." God is a
Deliverer, and there was this much sea, that it protected them on the right
hand and on the left. The very thing they dreaded was deliverance to them; they
walked through it. We dread death and judgment, but it is through them we are
delivered: the death of Christ.
Then they have to go through
the wilderness, but they have come to God first. Death is gain, and judgment is
gone for the believer.
"He guided them in His
strength" (when they had none) "to His holy habitation"
"I have borne you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself" Then
there is peace.
We are brought to God by His
power and righteousness, and the life that was manifested in Christ's
resurrection from the dead; and from that there is a reckoning on divine
strength for the way. Divine power has come in to deliver. Then what is Satan's
power? There is perfect present deliverance from Pharaoh and Egypt, and the
people are brought to God Himself by God's own strength. Then that work forms
the ground for reckoning on God for the rest.
We see in verse 17 that God
has an inheritance for His people. We have not got that (the glory) yet; but
what we have got enables us to reckon on Him for it. He brings us to Himself
and now dwells among us, consequent on redemption. (See Exodus 29: 45, 46.)
The moment I get there, I
say, "Holiness becomes thine house." You cannot speak of holiness to
a person before he is redeemed; he has nothing to do with it except to say he
has none. The Lord is "glorious in holiness," and now He has brought
a people to Himself, He must have them holy.
With us it is inward and
spiritual. He has redeemed a people to Himself, and He must have their hearts
set apart - holy.
In the cleansing of the
leper, the blood was to be on the tip of the right ear, on the thumb of the
right hand, and on the great toe of the right foot. No thought is to go into
our mind, we are to do nothing with our hand, and there is to be nothing in our
walk, unfit for the blood of Christ.
JND