Here we enter upon the broader field of a people the special object of God's dealings. Individuals there are still, of course, prominent instruments for good or ill, as God or the enemy governed. But the distinctive display is of God's pity and power in behalf of His unworthy Israel, whom He redeems triumphantly in the face of their oppressors. But His people, as proud alas! as they were poor, abandon the twofold revelation which God had made of Himself, whether as the Almighty God of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or as the One who was now first known in peculiar relationship as Jehovah. Yes! unwittingly, but most truly, they look away from the promises, and cease to lean on His outstretched arm who had gotten them the victory, and at Sinai this fatal word was passed, “All that the LORD hath spoken we will do;” and the law came in with its awful distance, and darkness, and death too, too near. Up to this God had acted in pure grace towards Israel. But they appreciated His ways no more than they judged themselves aright. With the ignorance and self-confidence of the flesh, they supposed that, just as they were, they only needed to know the will of God in order to render an acceptable obedience: the rock on which splits every unconverted man who, in a measure, owns his responsibility to God, but assumes his freedom and his power to serve. But their pride had a speedy fall; and the golden calf witnessed the crash of the tables of stone, followed by a new interference of God, who, along with the law, introduced the mediatorial principle and unfolded, in the tabernacle and its vessels, &c., the beautiful shadows of the grace and truth which should come by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Such we conceive to be the general outline of this most instructive book. At the details we must now glance, and with scanty help from the “Typology,” which even here (vol. ii. pp. 4-6) resumes the assault upon the proper hope of Israel, or, as it is there styled, “the Church.”
Ex. 1 is the preface or introduction, presenting, in a few graphic strokes, the children of Egypt in the iron furnace, when “there arose up a new king which knew not Joseph.” Their increase and their might excite his crooked and malicious policy. In vain! “The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.” Not content with a rigor which embittered the captive with hard bondage, the king devises a murderous scheme, which, however, depended for its success on lowly women, who “feared God, and did not as the king commanded them.” The persecution of man not only drew out the favor of God in behalf of those menaced, but, in His singular and wise providence (Ex. 2), the daughter of the cruel king became the shield of Israel's future deliverer, in the person of the infant Moses. We might have imputed the secreting of the babe to mere amiable or strong parental feeling; but Heb. 11:2323By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. (Hebrews 11:23) shows that this is to overlook a deeper thing. “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents.” “But, although providence responds to faith, and acts in order to accomplish God's purposes, and control the walk of His children, it is not the guide of faith, though it is made so sometimes by believers who are wanting in clearness of light. Moses' faith is seen in his giving up, when grown to age, all the advantages of the position in which God had set him by His providence. Providence may, and often does, give that which forms, in many respects, the servants of God for their work, but could not be their power in the work. These two things must not be confounded. It gives that, the giving up of which is a testimony of the reality of faith and of the power of God which operates in the soul. It is given that it may be given up: this is part of the preparation. This faith acted through affections which attached him to God, and consequently to the people of God in their distress, and manifested itself, not in the helps or relieves which his position could well have enabled him to give them, but in inducing him to identify himself with that people, because it was God's people. Faith attaches itself to God, and appreciates, and would have part in, the bond that exists between, God and His people; and thus it thinks not of patronizing them from above, as if the world had authority over the people of God, or was able to be a blessing to them. It feels (because it is faith) that God loves His people; that His people are precious to Him, His own on the earth; and faith sets itself thus, through very affection, in the position where His people find themselves. This is what Christ did. Faith does but follow Him in His career of love, however great the distance at which it walks. How many reasons might have induced Moses to remain in the position where he was! and this even under the pretext of being able to do more for the people; but this would have been leaning on the power of Pharaoh, instead of recognizing the bond between the people and God. It might have resulted in a relief which the world would have granted, but not in a deliverance by God, accomplished in His love and in His power. Moses would have been spared, but dishonored; Pharaoh would have been flattered, and his authority over the people of God recognized; and Israel would have remained in captivity, leaning on Pharaoh instead of recognizing God in the precious and even glorious relationship of His people with Him. God would not have been glorified. Yet all human reasoning, and all reasoning connected with providential ways, would have induced Moses to remain in his position: faith made him give it up.” (“Synopsis,” pp. 55-57.)
Nevertheless, like the blessed one whom he foreshadowed, his own received him not. He is rejected by that Israel whom he loved. “There is a difference (says the author of the “Synopsis,” p. 58) between this type and that of Joseph. Joseph takes the position, as put to death [in figure], of Jesus raised to the right hand of the supreme throne amongst the Gentiles, in the end receiving his brethren from whom he had been separated. His children are to him a testimony of his blessing at that time. He calls them Manasseh (because 'God,' says he, 'has made me forget all my labors and all the house of my father'), and Ephraim, (‘because God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction’). Moses presents to us Christ separated from his brethren; and although Zipporah (as well as Joseph's wife) might be considered as a type of the Church, as the bride of the rejected deliverer, during his separation from Israel, yet, as to what regards his heart, his feelings, which are expressed in the names he gives to his children, are governed by the thought of being separated from the people of Israel. His fraternal affections are there; his thoughts are there; his rest and his country are there: he is a stranger everywhere else. Moses is the type of Jesus as the deliverer of Israel. He calls his son Gershom, that is to say, a stranger there, ‘for,’ says he, ‘I have sojourned in a strange land.' Jethro presents to us the Gentiles, among whom Christ and His glory were driven when He was rejected by the Jews,”
Dr. Fairbairn's observations on the “bondage” call for scarcely any comment, chiefly because there is so little in them. It is a mistake to look for typical instruction here. Thus, in the first of these sections, he draws the lessons: 1st, that the bondage was a punishment from which Israel needed redemption; and 2nd, that it formed an essential part of the preparation requisite for their occupying the inheritance. (Vol. ii. pp. 12-22). This is followed by another dreary essay on the “deliverer and his commission” (pp. 23-33), occupied upon some of the more obvious facts in the early part of Exodus, the position of Moses, his first haste, his subsequent shyness, the burning bush, and the name of God, and closing with some deductions: 1st, as to the dueness of the time; 2nd, as to the deliverer's arising “within the Church itself;” 3rd, “not altogether independent of the world;” and 4th, as to his being “peculiarly of God.” As little can we say of the long discussion that succeeds. (Sec. 3, “The Deliverance,” pp. 34-57).
Much is said of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. It is really a simple matter. It has its parallel in the ways of God with man on a large scale; as when He gave up the Gentiles to a reprobate mind, and poured judicial blindness on the Jews. So He will yet do with professing Christendom, sending them strong delusion, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. In Pharaoh's case, as in all the others, the will was utterly wrong, and opposed to God from the first; when this was distinctly pronounced, God did harden and covered them with darkness to their merited destruction. God never made Pharaoh, nor any one else, to be wicked; but they, being wicked, had adequate and urgent testimonies which, by God's judgment, served but to blind the king, who from the first scornfully asked, “who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah neither will I let Israel go.” in p. 40, Dr. F. seems to speak of the miraculous vouchers which Moses was instructed to work at the commencement of his operations, as being precisely the field on which Pharaoh might be tempted to think he could successfully compete with Moses. But it was forgotten, perhaps, that though one of them—the change of the rod into a serpent, and vice versa—was repeated before the king and the magicians, these signs were primarily intended for Israel rather than for the Egyptians (Ex. 4:1-81And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. 2And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. 3And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. 4And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: 5That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee. 6And the Lord said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. 7And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. 8And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign. (Exodus 4:1‑8), and 29-31). There is no attempt to explain their significance. The first appears to set forth the rod of power, assuming a satanic character, but afterward restored to its true place; and the second, the deeper ruin of man, as fallen into loathsome uncleanness, cleansed by God's immediate power and goodness. The third, which was more judicial in its nature, does not seem to have been called for by the Israelitish elders, but fell, in a yet more aggravated form, not as a token, but as a plague on the Egyptians—the change of what was originally given for refreshing man and fertilizing the earth into the revolting image of judgment and death.
As to the plagues Dr. F. remarks how excellently they were fitted to expose the futility of Egyptian idolatry, and to show how entirely everything there was at the disposal of the God of Israel, whether for good or evil. The first nine gradually ascend from the lower to the higher provinces of nature and of nature worship, till the tenth sounds the signal of Israel's redemption in the death of Egypt's first-born, announced from the beginning (Ex. 4:22, 2322And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn: 23And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn. (Exodus 4:22‑23)). But our author fails to discriminate the two parts in the deliverance. He notices “the first-born,” as representing all, and the blood of the lamb as the sign of mercy rejoicing against judgment, and the “borrowing” (Ex. 3:22; 12:3522But every woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians. (Exodus 3:22)
35And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: (Exodus 12:35), &c.) as meaning really and simply a demand with which the Egyptians willingly complied, if they did not rather invite the Israelites to ask. But the precious, spiritual import of the Passover and Red sea must not be expected. For this we turn to the “Synopsis,” p. 65. “What happened at the Red sea was, it is true, the manifestation of the illustrious power of God, who destroyed with the breath of His mouth the enemy that stood in rebellion against Him —final and destructive judgment in its character, no doubt, and which effected the deliverance of His people by His power. But the blood signified the moral judgment of God and the full and entire satisfaction of all that was in His being. God (such as He was in His justice, His holiness, and His truth) could not touch those who were sheltered by that blood. Was there sin? His love towards His people had found the means of satisfying the requirements of His justice, and at the sight of that blood, which answered everything that was perfect in His being, He passed over it consistently with His justice and even His truth. Nevertheless God, even in passing over, is seen as judge. Hence, likewise, so long as the soul is on this ground, its peace is uncertain, its ways in Egypt, being all the while truly converted; because God has still the character of Judge to it, and the power of the enemy is still there. At the Red Sea God acts in power according to the power of His love: consequently the enemy, who was closely pursuing His people, is destroyed without resource. This is what will happen to the people at the last day, already in reality, to the eye of God, sheltered through the blood. As to the moral type, the Red sea is evidently the death and resurrection of Jesus and of His people in him; God acting in it in order to bring them out of death, where He had brought them in Christ, and consequently beyond the possibility of being touched by the enemy. We are made partakers of it already through faith. Sheltered from the judgment of God by the blood, we are delivered, by His power which acts for us, from the power of Satan, the prince of this world. The blood keeping us from the judgment of God was the beginning. The power which raised us with Christ has made us free from the whole power of Satan who followed us, and from all his attacks and accusations. The world who will follow that way is swallowed up in it.”
The fourth section of this chapter introduces us to the march through the wilderness, with the manna, the water, and the pillar of cloud and fire. The opportunity of the song of Moses was too good to lose for a thrust at those who by and by expect “a corporeally present Savior, inflicting corporeal and overwhelming judgments on adversaries in the flesh.” Dr. F. would gladly reduce the grand future dealings of God to providential actings, or victories to be won by spiritual weapons. The Lord coming to judge the quick—the habitable earth—is an unpalatable truth. Because He did not come in the type, it is inferred, most illogically, that He may not be personally looked for in the antitypical conflicts of the last days. But if Dr. F. can thus unseasonably foist in his postmillennial prejudices, he is apparently unable to see how the entrance of the desert is inaugurated with a song of triumph, which bespeaks faith's estimate of their complete deliverance by God's power, the security of His counsels in their behalf, and their confidence in His guidance all the way through.
Nevertheless, it is into the wilderness, not into Canaan, that God's deliverance brings His people: there trials of every sort appear and thicken. For three days after the song, they go through the wilderness and find no water. (Ex. 15:2222So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. (Exodus 15:22).) Nor is this all; when they find some at Marah, the water is bitter. Spite of their murmuring, the Lord hears Moses, and shows him a tree, which, when cast in, made the waters sweet. “If death has delivered them from the power of the enemy, it must become known in its application to themselves (bitter to the soul, it is true, but, through grace, refreshment of life, for in all these things is the life of the Spirit). It is death and resurrection in practice after the deliverance. Thereupon we have the twelve wells and seventy palm trees —types, it seems to us, of these living springs and of that shelter which have been provided through instruments chosen of God for the consolation of His people” (Synopsis, p. 68).
Ex. 16 shows us Israel murmuring again, but the Lord answers in nothing but grace; though, as Moses and Aaron protested, the murmuring was against Him, and not them. They had murmured at Marah, yet the bitter waters were immediately sweetened. They murmured, now hungry, but the word is, “ye shall see the glory of Jehovah.” “I have heard,” says He, “the murmurings of the children of Israel.” What, then, was Moses to report? judgment? Wrath did come upon them another day, when, despising the manna, they insisted on meat, and persevered in their lust, when they ought to have been ashamed and sorrowing at their self-will and unbelief, rebuked by the miracle which laid it at their feet. But Taberah beheld the graves of lust (Num. 11) This, however, was after the law came in, and God righteously judged the sinners who presumed to make the blessing depend on their own power of obeying it. But up to Sinai it was not law, but grace. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Accordingly the Lord told Moses to say, “at even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God.” Their absolute need was now plain. In the wilderness, who but God could supply bread for such a multitude? But he did supply it bountifully, and at their doors. “He that gathered much had nothing over, he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating.” Notwithstanding it was so given that day by day they must depend on Himself; no store could be—save to mark the sabbath, the day of rest. It is Christ, the true manna from heaven, who gives eternal life and brings us into rest. And this is the more striking, inasmuch as chap. 17 discloses (in the rock giving out water, followed by the fighting with Amalek) the clear type of Christ imparting the Holy Ghost, who animates and strengthens us in our conflicts. Here, too, the people had murmured for thirst, as before for hunger: but as grace rained bread and gave them rest, so did it supply living waters from the smitten rock, their refreshment in the battle that quickly ensued. The connection of the manna with the Sabbath is as useless in Dr. F.'s hands, as is the war with Amalek after the waters had flowed from the rock. So with the type of Joshua, (who always represents Christ in spirit fighting for and with His own,) going forth, while Moses, sustained by Aaron and Hur, is interceding on high. “Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” There is no fighting in Egypt. At the Passover, at the Red sea, God alone smote the foe; but now that the people are redeemed—now that they have found in Christ food and rest for their souls, and have received through Him the Spirit. as a well of water springing up into everlasting life, they are brought into conflict, victory in which is sure, for it is Jehovah that wars, through Israel, with Amalek. It is He who orders it to be written and rehearsed that He will utterly put out the remembrance of the enemy from under heaven. But then He wars through His people, and they are as dependent on Him in the fight as previously they were for their food. From this, their earliest struggle, but a struggle never to be relaxed till God alone take all in hand, the people are taught that to win the day is not by courage nor by strength, not by numbers nor by skill—nay, not by a just cause, were it the Lord's own cause and His people the assailed, not the assailants, Israel must learn the lesson, trying to flesh and blood, that all their success depends on the hands held up for them above. Blessed be the name of God! the hands of our mediator are never heavy. He needs no Aaron nor Hur to stay His hands; He is all that we want. Our need is to war only in dependence on Him; to be confident of victory, but no less confident that without Him we can do nothing; when victorious, to build our altar to Him who is our banner; but even in victory and in worship to be watchful, because Jehovah's oath is— “war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
The thoughts of our author on the cloudy pillar demand no particular notice; but it may be remarked that the striking scene in Ex. 18 is passed by in the “Typology.” And no wonder; for it is the sweet foreshadowing of an era whose true features are effaced for the eyes of the writer. From the Paschal lamb and the Red Sea we have had the types of grace reigning through righteousness. These are closed and crowned by the appropriate figure in chap. 18 of the millennial kingdom, and glory. Zipporah, the Gentile bride of Moses (who had been hidden in the father's house while the process of Egypt's judgment and Israel's deliverance was going on) is now manifested with the bridegroom. The name of the second son, Eliezer, first appears; for, as Moses said, “the God of my father was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh,” the application of which, to the circumstances which immediately precede the joy of the millennium, must be obvious. Moreover the Gentiles are there, set forth by Jethro at the “mount of God.” Gladly the Gentile blesses Jehovah, who had delivered His people from their oppressors, and confesses that He is greater than all gods. That is, we have the prefiguring of the day when the sons of the stranger shall be brought to the Lord's holy mountain; when their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted on His altar; when (the Lord having avenged the blood of His servants, and proved His mercy to His land and people) the nations, not in principle merely, but in result, shall rejoice with them; when a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. “He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills by righteousness.” “In his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.”
The second chapter (pp. 86-194) is devoted to the subject of the law, and consists of six sections: I. What properly, and in the strictest sense, is termed the law, viz., the decalogue, its perfection and completeness, both as to the order and substance of its precepts; II. Apparent exceptions to its perfection and completeness as the permanent and universal standard of religious and moral obligation—its reference to the special circumstances of the Israelites, and the representation of God as jealous; III. Further exceptions—the weekly Sabbath; IV. What the law could not do—the covenant-standing and privileges of Israel before it was given; V. The purposes for which the law was given, and the connection between it and the symbolical institutions; and VI. The relation of believers, under the New Testament, to the law—in what sense they are free from it—and why it is no longer proper to keep the symbolical institutions connected with it.
That which has given us most pleasure is the frank acknowledgment in the last section, that Christian liberty involves deliverance from the law, not as to justification only, but as to walk and conduct. He rightly argues that it is this last respect which the apostle has in view in Rom. 6, 7. He meets the objection that this is to take away the safeguard against sin, by illustrations taken from a child no longer under parental restriction, and from a good man's relation to the laws of his country (pp. 178-182). The chief defect is—that this liberty is not set upon its right basis; viz., the possession of a risen life in Christ, as the consequence of accomplished redemption, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, as the power of communion and obedience, so fully brought out in Rom. 8. Hence, for the want of understanding this, Dr. F. falls into a line of thought which is foreign to scripture. Thus, he says, p. 181, “if only we are sufficiently possessed of this Spirit, and yield ourselves to His direction and control, we no longer need the restraint and discipline of the law.” That is, he seems to consider our being under grace, and not law, as a point of attainment, instead of seeing that it is the common and only recognized ground on which the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus places all Christians. The death and resurrection of Christ are the key to this. It is not that the law is dead, but that in Christ we are dead to it, and alive to God under grace. Christ risen is our husband now, and not the law, “that we may bring forth fruit unto God.” Rom. 8:3434Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Romans 8:34) shows distinctly the triumphant result. The law never got its righteous requirement from a sinner. But what it could not do, God has done through redemption and grace. He has in His Son executed sentence on sin, not on acts merely, but on the whole thing, root and branch, thus perfectly freeing us who believe, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”