19. The Cross in Exodus
The Cross in Exodus
Let us turn to the book of Exodus. What is the message of Exodus? We say it is redemption, that it is God delivering His oppressed people by the blood of the Lamb and leading them out of bondage. The keynote of Exodus we usually take asExodus 12:13, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you,” but I think that the book of Exodus carries us much farther than that. It has a much deeper message than that. It calls, as in the case of Moses, for a full surrender of life to God to carry out the will of God, and it shows what God will do for and through the man who holds nothing back from Him. I scarcely need to remind you that that is one of the clearest and most continuous messages of the cross. The verse that to my mind seems to be the larger message of Exodus, you will find inExodus 25:8, “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell in the midst of it.” The blood which redeems us from sin points us on to the desire of God to dwell in the midst of us, and so you will find that a large part of this book is taken up with the tabernacle, every part of which speaks to you of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord and of the practical outcome in the Christian life of that sacrifice. The teaching of the New Testament is this: the cross not only saves us from sin, but it claims for God what it does save from sin. We belong to God as His temple. The believer is God’s sanctuary, to be built according to the pattern showed unto us in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in that sanctuary God is always seeking fellowship. Have you made a sanctuary for God in your being? Are you careful, in these days, to build the sanctuary of your life according to the pattern shown to you in Christ Jesus? God is desirous of having fellowship with you and with me. For this reason you will never know a real exodus from the bondage of sin except as that fellowship with God becomes real and full. And further, only as the heart becomes the temple of God through the Holy Spirit can the life of anyone of us be furnished with the gifts as the tabernacle of old was furnished, so that the fellowship becomes a source of power and of blessing.
O beloved friends, the great purpose of the Holy Spirit is to keep the temple clean for God, to work into those characters of ours the pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to make redemption not a mere escape from the bondage of sin, but a means of creating such closeness of fellowship between God and man that more and more God will be able to possess man, and man more and more will become like God. That God is hungry for the fellowship of His people is the proof of the tabernacle in the book of Exodus, “Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8).
You will notice that the meeting place for the fellowship which God is longing for he describes in Exodus 25:21-22, “And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet [by appointment, it means] with thee.” Have you made an appointment to meet with God today? “There will I meet [by appointment] with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat.” That was the meeting place in the old dispensation. What is the point of fellowship in this dispensation? It is the cross of Christ. It is there God and man meet. There God’s heart is open towards man. There man’s heart is yielded to God. “My need and Thy great fullness meet, and I have all in Thee.” That is the message of Exodus.