What is the salvation of the Lord?

The type or principle of this we have here for the first time when Moses says "this day" and speaks about the salvation of Jehovah; and again, later on in the chapter, "Jehovah saved Israel." How beautiful the accuracy of scripture! We might have put in that Jehovah saved Israel on the night of the paschal lamb; but nowhere then is such an expression heard. No; they were sheltered, but in the true sense not yet "saved." Salvation means the known destruction of their foes, God having risen up in the majesty of His power, and manifested it completely in their favour. Here they were clearly on the simple ground of grace; and immediately afterwards we have the triumphant song of Moses and the children of Israel — "I will sing to Jehovah, for he has triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea. Jah is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation." This last phrase then is not merely a casual expression; it is the purposed and suited language of the Holy Ghost. We are meant to take notice that now we can speak of "salvation," not before. (Ex. 15)

No soul will ever grasp, and enjoy the truth of the fifteenth chapter of Exodus, unless he learn what the three previous chapters bring out. In the twelfth we have the shelter afforded by the blood of the Lamb, and the thought is this, I am screened from the judgment of God, and that is a great thing for the soul to know. When you come to the thirteenth you read, "Sanctify to me all the first-born, whatsoever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast: it is mine," says God. The blood that shelters me from the judgment of God, is the blood which separates me to God. What do you find in the next chapter? That the Israelites pass through the Red Sea, and all the hosts of Pharaoh are overthrown — the complete power of the enemy is broken. There we read, for the first time in Scripture, of salvation, in its full sense. They are saved by God. In the thirteenth verse of chapter 14 Moses says, "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever." "The salvation of the Lord" is a grandly comprehensive expression. And what is this salvation? You say — I have come to Jesus, and my sins are pardoned. True, and thank God for it, but there is more than that in the type of the Red Sea. You say, I believe in the Lord, and therefore I hope I shall be saved. That is hope, not salvation. The salvation of the Lord involves that the hostile hosts of Pharaoh — type of Satan, god of this world — are crushed, and there is not an enemy left to touch me. He has brought me to Himself, as Ex. 19:4 so beautifully expresses it.

"Thus the Lord saved Israel that day." We do not read of Israel being "saved" as long as they were in Egypt, though they had been sheltered from judgment. Egypt typified the world and Pharaoh typified Satan, the god and prince of the world. When clean delivered from these, Israel was said to be saved, and similarly in the New Testament salvation means not only that we have been forgiven and justified, but also delivered from the authority of Satan and from the world-system that he dominates.

It may be remarked by the way, that it is a great injury to souls to speak of an immature and partial knowledge of God as salvation — knowledge, I mean, even of the love of Christ. Thus one often hears such talk as, "It is true, the man is not happy yet; he has no liberty of soul; but, at any rate, he is saved." Scripture never sanctions such language. What it designates as salvation is not that a soul is converted or quickened merely — is not that a soul has received of Christ that which makes it judge itself, and cry out to God, yet with a certain measure of hope. Scripture reserves "salvation" precisely though not exclusively, for the being brought into conscious liberty, for the realization of the present deliverance through the gospel from every enemy by the power of God in Christ. And hence it is that we only hear of salvation when Israel comes to the Red Sea, and when there is, therefore, the full and final quittance of the land of Egypt, and the total destruction of their proud foes. "Today," says Moses, "ye shall see the salvation of the Lord." It was not the night of the Paschal feast; it was the day when they could look back on the Red Sea crossed for ever. For this reason, it is of the greatest importance that we should speak according to Scripture as to this, not owning as salvation anything short of it. Otherwise we do not help God's children, as we might, to a settled assurance of the mighty victory of Christ, the lack of which never fails to leave them in a sort of dead-and-alive state — an anxious and struggling condition instead of peace. It is very blessed, indeed, for a soul to be wrought in profoundly by the Spirit, and to find out what it is before God; but till it is broken down to rest with simplicity and confidence on the finished work of Christ, there is nothing that God calls "salvation" in the complete sense.

To return to the figure in Exodus 14, what is the first word Israel gets, as the enemy is seen approaching? "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you this day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace" (vers. 13, 14). What is God's salvation? That Christ has gone down beneath the waves and billows of divine judgment, for His people, bearing their sins, enduring the judgment due to them, and He has risen again in the power of an accomplished work — an atonement by which God has been glorified — and what is the result? The power of the enemy is destroyed, and we are called to gaze on a risen Saviour, and an empty tomb.

In truth a work was to be wrought that day in which the people could have no part. For there were two things from which they needed to be delivered — Satan's power as represented by Pharaoh and his host, and death and judgment which were shown in figure by the Red Sea. And these two are connected. For through man's sin Satan has acquired rights, and wields death as the just judgment of God. It is quite true that the children of Israel were already sheltered by the blood of the paschal lamb, and that they might therefore have rested in perfect peace. But they knew not the value of that blood. That it had saved them from the stroke of judgment, that their houses escaped when God smote the firstborn of Egypt they knew; but they had not yet learned, that this same blood had secured everything for them, deliverance from their foes, guidance through the wilderness, and even the possession of the promised inheritance. Hence the moment Pharaoh appears on the scene they "were sore afraid," and "cried out unto the Lord." The Lord met them in their weakness and doubt, and reminds them by this message which Moses delivered that the work was His, both to save them from the land of Egypt's king, and from the waves of the Red Sea. They were to cease from their fears, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord; for their enemies should disappear for ever from their eyes, the Lord would fight for them, and they should hold their peace. Blessed truth, that salvation is of the Lord! It is one, however, that we are slow to learn. How many become entangled in the thought that they must do something. But no; He who has provided the Paschal Lamb, whose blood cleanses us from our sin, will do all the rest. Salvation is His own perfect, finished work. To add to it in any way by our own doings or strivings is only to mar its beauty and completeness. Nay, what is there that man can do when Satan and death are in question? Man is helpless in the presence of such foes. He cannot escape, he cannot overcome them, and hence perforce — if he would but learn the lesson — he must stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord. How quieting to the heart of the timid and the anxious! Let them then enter upon the full enjoyment of this precious message, if terrified by Satan's power in the prospect of death: "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace."

When the Israelites had arrived at the Red Sea, with Pharaoh's horsemen and chariots behind, and the Red Sea before them, and every human way of deliverance cut off, then only, for the first time, the words were heard, "Fear not; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show unto you." Only when the converted but legal man in Rom. 7, in the "belly of the fish" has entirely come to naught as to his own strength, crying out in despair, "Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death*?" does he perceive that salvation and deliverance must come from the Lord, and exclaim, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord?"

"And Moses said to the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you today; for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." (Ver. 13, 14) Here is the first attitude which faith takes in the presence of a trial. "Stand still." This is impossible to flesh and blood. All who know in any measure, the restlessness of the human heart, under anticipated trial and difficulty, will be able to form some conception of what is involved in standing still. Nature must be doing something. It will rush hither and thither. It would fain have some hand in the matter. And although it may attempt to justify and sanctify its worthless doings, by bestowing upon them the imposing and popular title of "a legitimate use of means," yet are they the plain and positive fruits of unbelief which always shuts out God, and sees nought save the dark cloud of its own creation. Unbelief creates or magnifies difficulties, and then sets us about removing them by our own bustling and fruitless activities, which, in reality, do but raise a dust around us, which prevents our seeing God's salvation.

God's rod of power was stretched out when Israel was passing through, and there was no sea (except as a wall on their right hand, and on their left, shutting out Pharaoh). Where do we find the ground of the confidence of faith? It is altogether of a different sort from that of the mere professor. That seal says the believer, I dare not go through it; I dare not put a foot in it, except at the bidding of God, and then there is no sea. Because people call themselves Christians, the mischief is that they expect to get through as well as the real people of God. Because the way has been opened to faith, so that faith can tread it, and walk through as on dry ground, they think they can go too. The path is opened to faith, and there is not a drop of water there; death is gone, and judgment is gone - all is over: it is dry ground, and God has made it so; but it is the people of faith alone who can tread it. That which is dry ground to Israel is sea to all besides. Let the Egyptians attempt to follow, and things take their natural course: death and judgment are there, and there shall be no man living justified. The believer has no such thought as that of going to stand in the judgment. When God steps in between him and Pharaoh, what does he see? The "salvation of the Lord." The very thing he dreaded becomes his security. Christ is there in the deep. He sees the judgment of God in all its weight and in all its power borne by Christ. "Deep calleth unto deep, at the noise of thy water-spouts: all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me." The waves and the billows of the Red Sea have gone over Christ. There I have seen death and judgment; I have seen the Son of God sweating great drops of blood because of my sins; I have seen the Son of God crying, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" I have seen Him made sin, bearing the judgment due to sinners; yes, I have seen all the weight and terror of those waves; but they have passed over Christ. It is the thing that saves me, is death; it is the thing that saves me, is judgment. Grace has found its way into death, and it is all "dry land." God takes me there, and says, "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord."

It was indeed the salvation of the Lord. This is the first time, if I mistake not, that the word "salvation" occurs in holy Scripture. It was a salvation from death and judgment, from Pharaoh and all the Egyptians. They saw the salvation of the Lord. And we read "Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore." They were now looking at these great enemies of their souls as dead upon the sea shore, set aside for ever by the judicial hand of the living God. And so, believing what God says, that "our old man is crucified with Christ," we are enjoined to reckon ourselves to have died indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in our Lord Jesus Christ. As long as we reckon the old man to be living, and strive against him and his actings, we give him importance but when, in virtue of the substitution-work of Jesus, we see that we have died, we give the flesh no place, no importance, we do not recognize it, have no confidence in it, so that our eyes are taken off self altogether, and fixed upon a risen Christ; or, if we think of the old nature and its actings, we only see it dead, we reckon it to have died in the cross of Christ, as having been under divine judgment. As long as a believer is thinking of old self and its lusts, watching against, and providing against it, he is reckoning the old man to be living, and not dead, and fear, and distress, and weakness, and failure of various kinds come out in consequence. We read that "they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts." And when? Was it not when they accepted God's judgment of it in the cross? We are therefore never told in the epistles to crucify the flesh, or to mortify the flesh, and for this reason, because God in His abundant grace has condemned it already — it has been crucified with Christ. But we are told to mortify, or put to death, the members of our body — the unclean actings of this old nature still in us, which we are to reckon to have died. We are also taught to mortify, or put to death, by the Spirit, not the flesh still in us, but its actings, "the deeds of the body." All this is known only in the way of faith. Faith sees that God has done it, and believes God when He says He has done it. This is simple enough. To the apostle it was such a reality that he said, "I am crucified." And if you ask, "When?" he replies, "with Christ." And lest we should suppose it to be an alteration merely of the old nature, he adds, "Nevertheless I live; yet not I (not the old nature improved), but Christ liveth in me." It is a new nature that lives; it is Christ his life living in him; for he is a new creation in Christ Jesus.