1932 Young Mens Corner - page 194

THE BOOK OF EXODUS.

192

REMARKS.

We have reached another stage in our collective studies of the Holy Scriptures, this year in the book of Exodus. Whilst a com-parison of the relative importance of the books of Scripture is odious, generally speaking, we cannot overestimate the importance of Exodus in regard to the national life of the people of Israel, nor its importance to us in its moral and typical teaching.  It introduces us to Israel enslaved to the Egyptians (the great Joseph, Egypt’s benefactor, unknown to Egypt’s king), making bricks and building store cities, and it closes with Israel who, having built the house of Jehovah--the Tabernacle--are seen encamped around God’s dwelling place.

What a record lies between !  One of sorrow and joy, of the groans of the slave, and the song of the freeman.  God’s request for the liberation of His people was met by proud Pharaoh’s scornful reply :

" Who is Jehovah that I should obey Him ? "  His puny arm was lifted against God, and then God smote the flower of Egypt, and buried Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea.

The paschal lamb is the basis of the Exodus ; Israel went in under the blood and were saved in Egypt, and went out from under the blood and were saved from Egypt by passing through the waters of the Red Sea. Christ came, as 1 John 5 tells us, by water and blood; this is God’s order in the coming of Christ to men, not by water only but by water and blood ; but in our case, as in the case of Israel, it is " blood and water " ; first the Cross, the great passover, then baptism.

The blood saves us from the wrath of God, but the water saves us from the world, of which Egypt is typical.

Just as blood was the basis of salvation, so it is the basis of service, as witness the blood of the covenant. We must not confuse the teaching of the paschal blood with the blood of the Covenant, the blood of sprinkling.  In the latter they were set apart to be the people of God, and to be engaged in the service of the sanctuary, and that as an obedient and subject people to all that the LORD commanded.

In this we base Israel’s constitution as a nation, God’s holy nation, the Covenant was their Magna Charta, and back to that they must refer, not only to see their privileges, but also their responsibilities.

Here we leave them with the Tabernacle erected and anointed, the priests sanctified and consecrated, Israel in their camps in the great encampment; a divine thing truly, a shadow of a heavenly reality, in a scene of darkness and rebelion against God.  ’ Twas the establishing of a thing amongst men which in due time would affect all mankind the wide world o’er.--J.M.

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