Egypt, both in its geographical position and physical condition, is a striking picture of the world as Scripture reveals it. It is bounded by deserts whose arid winds only burn, instead of bringing rain. Thus death lurks all about, and life would be extinct but for its great natural feature the Nile, with its phenomenal yearly overflow. This holds back death, and fosters productiveness and life. And so too is this world a place over which the ban of death hangs, held back from its full destroying power alone by the Creator's goodness and mercy.
On its religious side, Egypt is a worshiper of the creature, rather than of the Creator, fulfilling Rom. i:23, as history fully attests. And is not this the moral state of every unconverted man in the world? In Egypt Israel was downtrodden and oppressed. Pharaoh, its prince, feared them, and sought to enfeeble them. So Satan, the prince of this world, the adversary of Christ and of His people, ever oppresses those "heirs of salvation" whose consciences are awakened, and in whose hearts is wrought the apprehension of being under his dominion. It is to such God manifests Himself as Deliverer. The men of the world, like the Egyptians, have no sense of this, though they are as really Pharaoh's slaves as Israel.
With the appearing of Moses we have a very instructive type of the Lord Jesus as the Deliverer. But our present desire is to consider what directly applies to the experiences of the individual Christian:so we will pass on with only a brief remark as to the signs and plagues, in which the moral condition of the world and God's judgment of it is made manifest.
The sign of the rod shows whose power rules in the world-Satan's.
The river turned to blood tells how God's mercy is turned to judgment because of their independence of Him.
The frogs show how man, refusing God, is given up to all manner of uncleanness, for which he uses the very mercies given by the Creator.
In the dust becoming lice we have a lesson of the loathsomeness of death, the condition of man before God as creeping dust, and God's ban upon men – which none can dismiss, but all must own as the finger of God.
In the swarms of flies is shown man's condition of confusion, and ensuing conflict, as a result of being away from God.
The pestilence upon the cattle tells that the judgment of God, because of man's condition, reaches
also to all that He has ordained to minister to his very necessities. What an appeal to his conscience!
In the ashes and boils we see how God does and will make man's own devices of ministering to himself, as suggested in the furnace, bring out the corruption of sin. It is the outward expression of the inward condition.
The thunder, hail and fire testify that a world in revolt against God is subject to His judgment.
In the locusts, called "His army," it is nature and its laws, created to serve man, now (because of man's rebellion) contrary to him, though still in obedience to God. This begets a groaning creation.
Finally, the thick darkness shows where man is in his alienation from God.
All this told out, God now announces the judgment which is to fall upon it:-the first and best of all, typified in the first-born, is to be smitten. And if the best is under judgment, what of the rest ? It is from this that those who are heirs of salvation are to be delivered. To this end the passover is instituted, the beautiful and impressive type of Christ our Passover sacrificed for us. Thus alone is peace with God in righteousness established, and deliverance from judgment effected.
As a result the saved people are separated from Egypt, and God leads them toward the Red Sea. The Divine Presence is with them to lead and govern them-a manifest evidence that God by His Spirit immediately takes up His abode with the saved soul, henceforth to take control.
Then Israel encamps before the Sea. Here the surroundings and the approach of the enemy tell of the soul's exercises as to the serious question, " Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?-How shall we that have died to sin live any longer therein"? Shall we, who are delivered from God's judgment, continue to practice sin, even as Pharaoh and his hosts would, if they could, have taken back Israel to their former ways ? No; God is with them now, and they must walk with Him, in His ways. In His opening the sea to let them out of the land of bondage, we learn His way with us in delivering us from bondage to the sin that is within us and all about us. This is told in Rom. 6. We are told there to "reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin " because God sees us as having passed through death in our blessed Substitute. In His death our old man has been crucified ; the body of sin has been annulled; as Israel saw the dead bodies of their enemies cast on the shore, so we can gaze at the cross of Christ and say, "There, this sinful man in me, which I hate, has been crucified and brought to an end before God forever!" We can joyfully exclaim, "I am crucified with Christ :nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2 :20). This leaves us free to serve God (Rom. 6:12-23), and so we have in type the individual experiences connected with this in Israel's journey to Sinai.
What the world is now to the redeemed soul is being learned. It is a wilderness, and the supply of God's grace is alone sufficient for the need occasioned by it. This ministry of grace is now to characterize the whole of our life as delivered from the world, from the power of Satan, and from the thraldom of sin. And "being made free from sin, and become servants to God," we have our "fruit unto holiness " (Rom. 6 :22).
Horeb now comes in, and the law, only to prove that all confidence in the flesh must go; that flesh has no place before God; that no fruit can be got from it for God. We are ever prone to return to that principle in some form or other, for it suits our pride; but the least confidence in it only ends in failure and sin. Wilderness wanderings follow; the old generation gradually passes away, giving place to the new; and the soul learns thus practically how good and righteous was the judgment of God on the old man; for it is only the new who gets the inheritance and is fruitful to God. Law gives harrowing lessons wherever it comes in, but, deliverance from it being realized, the Spirit-governed life issues in consequent progress and victory. The old generation and its history illustrates man in the flesh, with the fruits, as brought out under the principle of law. Whether in relationship or in service, all is naught.
Caleb and Joshua evidently set before us the "new man," though hindered by the old; they therefore, and the new generation, enter into the land-type of our heavenly blessings. Not anything of the old can enter there. It is striking that in the very closing scenes of this history it is the new generation who cry out, "Behold, we die, we perish; every one that cometh at all near to the tabernacle of Jehovah dieth:shall we be consumed altogether?" (Num. 17:12, 13). We must learn practically that nothing whatever of the old creation can stand before God.
In Israel's case the cry comes from the new generation; so with the Christian, the cry comes from the "new man." Beautifully therefore does God now introduce that which meets the people's need and maintains relationship with Himself in spite of their failure and defilement. It is the priesthood of Christ and the ministry of the Spirit (Num. 16:46-20 :13). (1) The people are healed through the offering of incense:Christ's advocacy is precious to God and effective (chap. 16 :46-50). (2) Aaron's budding rod-type that with Christ risen there is the fruitfulness and power of new life (chap. 17).
(3) Chap. 18 tells how Christ can carry His people through to the end; also, what He gets from the new life of which He is the Head and Dispenser.
(4) The red heifer-the manner of purification from sin (Num. 19). (5) Water from the rock-the ministration of the Holy Spirit. "They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them; and that rock was Christ." Thus the apostle links together the first smiting and the present speaking-the Spirit who came at the beginning abides to the end of the people's journey (chap. 20:1-13).
The issue of all this is that we cannot use Edom, the flesh, the mere sense-life, as the road to blessing and fruitfulness. We find, as Israel with Edom, that it will have its own way. The only remedy is to turn away from it, for it is incorrigible. What must come in now is the lesson of mount Hor and the brazen serpent, which give us in type the truth of Rom. 7:1-4 and 8:1-4. At mount Hor Aaron dies and Eleazar takes his place, type of Christ in resurrection and of us in association with Him. Aaron means "progenitor"; Hor, "to be exalted"; and Eleazar, "help of God." Christ is our "progenitor," the One from whom we have derived new life. It is through death that He is "exalted" to the place of glory in resurrection, and so becomes our Eleazar, the "help of God," in whom, as before God, we stand, and with whom in resurrection-life we are linked. What is this but the teaching of Rom. 7:1-4? "Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." Our Progenitor passed through death, and we with Him. Thus we became dead to every old tie and all claims attached thereto, so that we "should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead "-our Eleazar-Christ in resurrection, who thus is the One by whom alone we can "bring forth fruit unto God." He thus is in this connection the true, divine, and only "help of God" for us. The realization of this puts the soul where it can say, as to deliverance from the body of this death, "Thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7:25).
After realizing we are thus provided for by God in His grace, we may be the objects of an attack by the enemy along the lines of antinomianism. This means the satisfying of our natural desires. This attack is pictured in Arad the Canaanite. His name means "wild ass"-the evil will in us, which is the power of sin. This is not now in Egyptian character (Pharaoh and his hosts), seeking to deprive us of our liberty, to bring us into bondage to the world and sin, but in Canaanite character opposing our possession of heavenly blessing. It is the same power in different guise, used to obtain a different end, by our great enemy. But the truly renewed man rejects with summary judgment this new attack, even though in measure he may at first fail as Israel here, of whom Arad was able to take "some of them prisoners." But Hormah, "destruction," is the end of the matter.
Israel now realizing the hopelessness of compact with Edom, prepares to compass his territory; and in the serpent-judgment we come to the end of all this experience, to the full realization of what this ungovernable flesh is, which I can no longer own as being my true self, yet in which, more or less ignorantly and unconsciously, I still trusted, on the ground of kinship, as it were. The attempt only brought out its true character. So Israel is done with Edom, which for us is seen in Rom. 7:17-20.
The serpent and its deadly bite undoubtedly typify sin and its deadly consequences-the corruption of nature; "Satan's venom infused into the race." God makes the fleshly murmurings and rebellion against His ways to bring out the seriousness of the evil by the character of its judgment. Thus He gives the lesson of what this intractable nature really is, the flesh, and what it is linked with; the power back of it-Satan. It is an evil within, not difficulties without. It is what we have in Rom. 8:6-8. The flesh is irretrievably corrupt; it is linked up with death; it has the character of the serpent; it is under his power who is called that "old serpent, the devil, and Satan "; it has in it the venom of his sting. When this is realized, the sense of condemnation reaches the very heart and soul. Well may there be the cry of despair. But, one look at the brazen serpent, and the soul is free. It is the lesson of Rom. 8:1-4.
The brazen serpent pictures Christ, God's Son, sent by Him "in likeness of sinful flesh,"in whose work as being a sacrifice for sin (the One made sin for us as the serpent suggests), God "condemned sin in the flesh." Therefore the blessed truth now is, that for those in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation.
What! no condemnation ? But look at what I am linked with, as my experiences show since I believed and have tried in vain to bring forth fruit unto holiness. Look at this flesh, this evil nature, and the sin which springs up from it. Yes, look at it:but look too at the brazen serpent; God has judged it all at the cross of Christ, and there is now no condemnation attaching to you, spite of all you have found yourself to be. Oh how the soul pillows itself on the bosom of Divine Love when it learns this lesson!
But does it mean that the flesh will never raise its head again ? No. But / know now how to deal with it, for I know its character, and what God has done with it by the Cross. I need not be self-occupied. Self-occupation is still looking for something good in self. The flesh can only "serve the law of sin." What I have now is "the law of the Spirit," which is "life in Christ Jesus." In the apprehension of this is all spiritual power and progress. From this too proceeds all true self-judgment. Whatever does not flow from the "life in Christ Jesus" is only for God's judgment and mine.
Manifestly too law has no more place here; for all that law can address itself to is man in the flesh; and the Cross having made an end of that, I am now in Christ, where all is according to God.
There is now continued progress for Israel, as there is for the delivered saint. First, Oboth is reached, which means "water-skins." The soul has entered into the blessedness of a life governed by the Spirit-a life of holy liberty. It is practically a vessel holding the precious water of life, which flows out in blessing to others. Liberty thus known has opened up the channel for the outflow of the "rivers of living water " (John 7:38).It is the fruit of a walk in the Spirit, as in Rom. 8:5-14.
Next we have Ije-abarim, "regions beyond "-the heavenly portion for faith-"Heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ," with whom we are to be glorified. That which is "beyond" for us is the glory of the revelation of what we are as sons of God, with all that it involves. Ije-abarim is "in the wilderness," however; so yet amid trial and difficulty. We are to "suffer with Him " yet. But "the sufferings of this present time " are not worthy to be compared with the glory about to be revealed to us-in those "regions beyond." Our faces therefore are " toward the sunrising," as Ije-abarim is also said to be. We have been saved in hope; the coming glory fills the vision of the soul. Then, again, this place is "before," or, rather, " against the face of Moab "; that is, we are now able to stand against what is mere profession, which is but an alien world, hostile to the truth. All this finds full expression for us in Rom. 8:15-27.
Israel now pitch in the valley of Zared ("to scatter, or subdue "), suggesting that now we have the power to disperse and triumph over the evil which would oppose our possession of heavenly blessings. The plain language of this is given to us in Rom. 8:28-39.
The path of still further progress is traced for us in the next journey of Israel, where all the names speak of precious experiences of blessing. Og and Sihon are overcome-types of intellectualism and indulgence, or the carnal mind and the flesh.
Israel is next seen as the object of Moab's hatred. The more progress the soul makes, the more it is
brought into conflict with all that is unreal, all that is mere profession, which is only hatred in disguise to what is of God. But we are told that "in all these things we are more than conquerors." We are those who, because God is for us, can "scatter, or subdue." All serves God's ends for our final blessing, to His eternal glory.
Balaam's prophecy comes next. This is followed by Israel's failure at Shittim, illustrating how the sense of the truth may be lost and terrible failure result.
Finally, we have the complete destruction of Midian (Num. 31), which means "men of strife." It is the last deed before crossing Jordan. Does it not suggest to us the complete overcoming of all opposing power and contrary influences which we have been considering ?
The next thing is, Jordan crossed, the land entered, and the true spiritual warfare engaged in- the Ephesian conflict. The crossing of Jordan is the impressive type of our resurrection with Christ, which, being apprehended, brings us into the full blessing of our place and portion in Christ, as presented in the land entered and its possession begun.
I have given at best but a meager outline of the lovely consistency of these Old Testament types with the plain teaching of the New, in the hope that it will cause us to take up afresh what perhaps we well know, and yet the power and blessing of which is little realized with many. J. B. Jr.