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Scripture Reading: Exo. 12:1-10; 1 Cor. 5:7b; Matt. 15:32; Exo. 12:11; 14:22; 15:13, 22; Heb. 12:1b; 2 Tim. 4:7b; 1 Cor. 5:7a, 8; Exo. 13:6-7; 16:13b-15; Num. 11:7-9; 1 Cor. 10:3; John 6:35, 50, 57b; Exo. 17:5-6; 1 Cor. 10:4; John 7:37-39; 1 Cor. 2:12
The three promises of the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15; Isa. 7:14), the seed of Abraham (Gen. 17:8; Gal. 3:16; Matt. 1:1-2a), and the seed of David (2 Sam. 7:12-14a; Matt. 1:1, 6; 22:42-45; Rom. 1:3; Rev. 22:16) were covered in earlier chapters concerning the promises of God’s anticipated redemption and salvation. In this chapter we come to the types of God’s anticipated redemption and salvation. In the types the dispensing of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God is revealed very clearly.
God’s salvation is based on His redemption. Without redemption God’s salvation has no foundation. However, God’s salvation is not that simple; it includes many more items than redemption. How we thank the Lord that in the passover we have a complete picture of God’s full salvation. Adam and Eve, the first generation of mankind, enjoyed God’s salvation to a small degree before the passover. They were the first generation to enjoy God’s salvation. Then Abel enjoyed more of God’s salvation than his father and mother did. Many generations passed, including Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but no one experienced God’s complete salvation until the passover. It was not until the time of the exodus that God ordained the passover.
God’s full salvation typified by the experience of the children of Israel includes ten aspects: the blood of the lamb, the flesh of the lamb, the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs, the arm of Jehovah, the Angel of God, the cloud, the manna, the water, and the healing of the Physician.
The passover clearly typifies the redemptive aspect of God’s salvation. In the passover the first striking thing is the blood shed by the passover lamb (Exo. 12:7). The blood is stressed very much by many Christians. However, the passover included not only the blood of the lamb; it also included the flesh of the lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs (v. 8). The blood of the lamb was applied outwardly, being sprinkled on the doorposts of the houses. But the flesh of the lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs were taken inwardly because they were eaten by the children of Israel.
The blood on the doorposts and lintel was a sign to the smiting angel (v. 23). On the night of the passover, God judged the firstborn throughout the land of Egypt. The firstborn signifies the first man, Adam (1 Cor. 15:45a). According to God’s judgment, all the firstborn were to die. God’s judgment included not only the Egyptians but also the Israelites, who were just as sinful as the Egyptians. They were all condemned by God in His righteousness. But on the night of the passover, all the Israelites had the blood as a sign upon their houses. By the blood upon their houses, the firstborn of the children of Israel were redeemed. God’s redemption took care of their problem directly with God, the problem of God’s condemnation because of their sins. The blood of the lamb dealt with this problem, but it was the flesh of the lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs that saved the children of Israel from Pharaoh, Egypt, and the tyranny of Egyptian slavery.
God’s full salvation experienced by the children of Israel also included the miraculous acts of God. These miraculous acts, such as the opening of the Red Sea, were related to the arm of Jehovah (Exo. 15:16) in the Old Testament. The arm of Jehovah, referring to the power, the miraculous strength, of Jehovah, acted to save the children of Israel. In addition to this, Christ as the Angel of God led the army of Israel as their invisible Commander. When the children of Israel fled Egypt, before they crossed the Red Sea, the Egyptian army pursued them. The Angel of God then turned from the front of the camp to the rear in order to protect them (14:19-20).
The children of Israel also enjoyed the pillar of cloud in the daytime and the pillar of fire in the nighttime. These became a covering, a canopy, to the children of Israel (Isa. 4:5). In God’s full salvation the children of Israel enjoyed such a canopy all the time.
God’s salvation included not only the escape of the children of Israel from Egypt but also their supply while they journeyed through the wilderness. After the children of Israel left Egypt and entered into the wilderness, they did not have a sea in which to gain fish or land on which to farm in order to gain a harvest of grain and cereals. In the wilderness there was nothing to eat. So part of God’s salvation was to give them manna from the heavens (Exo. 16:14-22). They could not get food from any other source. God gave them manna, not from the water or from the land but from the heavens above.
In the wilderness the children of Israel also had a problem concerning water. God gave them water out of the cleft rock (17:1-6). According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:4, the rock followed them through the wilderness. The rock was struck by the lawgiver, Moses, and out of the cleft rock living water flowed to quench their thirst.
In addition to the foregoing items, God’s full salvation included the matter of healing. At Marah God as their Physician healed them by changing the bitter water into sweet water (Exo. 15:23-25).
Of the above ten aspects of God’s full salvation, the first aspect that indicates something of God’s dispensing Himself into His redeemed is the flesh of the passover lamb. On the night of the passover, the lamb had to be slain. According to history, the Israelites placed the lamb on two pieces of wood put together in the form of a cross, with one vertical stake and one horizontal crossbar. They tied the forefeet of the lamb on the horizontal crossbar and the hind legs to the vertical stake. They then slew the lamb, shedding its blood, and took the blood and applied it on the lintel and the two doorposts of their houses for their redemption. By applying the blood in this way, they were saved. They knew that the angel would smite the firstborn in all the land of Egypt, but because they were under the covering of the blood, their firstborn would not be killed. Then, in their homes they roasted the lamb that they might eat it.
God’s full salvation involved something on God’s side and something on the children of Israel’s side. God’s side involved the abovementioned ten items. On their side, the children of Israel ate the lamb with their staff in their hand, with their sandals on their feet, and with their loins girded (12:11). This was their preparation to leave Egypt. After the people ate the flesh of the lamb, the lamb was dispensed into them, and by this dispensing they were strengthened.
In addition to the flesh of the lamb, in God’s full salvation typified by the experience of the children of Israel, the unleavened bread, the manna, and the water also indicate something of God’s dispensing of Himself into His redeemed people. It is the same with us today. In God’s full salvation today, we enjoy God’s dispensing by Christ being our Lamb, our unleavened bread, our manna, and our spiritual water.
The divine economy and the divine dispensing are shown in the types of God’s anticipated redemption and salvation in the enjoyment of the items of the passover (vv. 1-10).
First, the flesh of the lamb was to be eaten by God’s redeemed people (v. 8a). This signifies that the redeeming Christ is to be dispensed into His believers as the life supply (1 Cor. 5:7b). The Lamb, who is the redeeming Christ, is dispensed into His believers in order to give them the strength and energy to go the way ordained by God.
The flesh of the lamb was eaten by God’s redeemed people to satisfy them (Exo. 12:4; Matt. 15:32) and to strengthen them to run God’s way (Exo. 12:11; 14:22; 15:13, 22; Heb. 12:1b; 2 Tim. 4:7b). First, the meat of the lamb was for their satisfaction. Then, once they were satisfied, the meat of the lamb strengthened them and gave them the energy to run God’s way. The children of Israel would not have been able to take the way that God had ordained for them if they had not eaten the flesh of the lamb on the night of the passover. The dispensing of the flesh of the lamb as their life supply gave them the strength and energy to walk the long way ordained by God in order to reach God’s goal. By this strength they journeyed from Egypt to Mount Sinai, and there they were trained and built up by God.
The unleavened bread was to be eaten by God’s redeemed (Exo. 12:8b), signifying that the sinless Christ is to be dispensed into His believers as the unleavened element (1 Cor. 5:8). The lamb signifies the redeeming Christ; the unleavened bread signifies the sinless Christ. Bread was used as a meal offering (Lev. 2). The meal offering signifies Christ in His humanity. All men have the element of sin in their flesh, but Christ as a man had no sin in His flesh (2 Cor. 5:21). Romans 8:3 tells us that Christ came in “the likeness of the flesh of sin.” He was in the likeness of the flesh of sin, but He had no reality of the sin of the flesh. He had no substance of sin within Him. Christ had no sin and committed no sins (1 Pet. 2:22a); He had nothing to do with sin. Apparently, He was in the sinful flesh. Actually, there was no reality of any sin in the flesh of Christ, because He was not born of Adam. He was born of a virgin through the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20, 23). As a result, He took on flesh, but His flesh had no sinful element. Christ is sinless. This sinless Christ is to be dispensed into His believers as the unleavened (sinless) element.
The element in our nature is altogether sinful, but Christ has come into us to be another element within us, a sinless element. This other element causes God’s redeemed people to live an unleavened life (Exo. 13:7; 1 Cor. 5:7a). First Corinthians 5:7 says, “Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump.” A new lump is a lump without leaven. This means that we become a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) without sin.
The unleavened bread eaten by God’s redeemed makes the course of life of God’s redeemed people a feasting one (Exo. 13:6; 1 Cor. 5:8). Because we are God’s redeemed, our life should always be a happy, feasting life. Throughout the course of our life, we should always be pleasant. We should be pleasant all our days, weeks, months, and years. However, we often are not like this, because we eat leavened bread. Leaven signifies the sinful element. Whenever we eat leavened bread, we become unhappy people. We become unpleasant whenever sin has come in. When we are unleavened, we are happy, and everything is pleasant with us. This is the function of the unleavened bread within us.
We have one Christ with two aspects, the redeeming aspect and the unleavened aspect. In the redeeming aspect He becomes our food to satisfy us and to strengthen us to run the course God has set before us. In the unleavened aspect He is the unleavened bread to supply us with the unleavened element so that we can live an unleavened life. In this way we can live a life without sin in following the Lord through the entire course of our life. Living such a life, we become happy. Every day, every week, every month, and every year is a feast, and we are feasting all the time.
As the children of Israel journeyed in the wilderness, they needed more than just the passover with the lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs. So God opened the heavens to give them manna. The Hebrew word for manna means, “What is it?” Even today no one knows what manna was. Yet we do know that manna came from the Lord. Every day for forty years the children of Israel saw one of the greatest miracles in the universe. Each morning, wherever they journeyed, manna was outside their tents. Yet the children of Israel were stubborn and still could not believe. Actually, we are the same as they. The Lord still does such a miracle every day. Whenever we wake up, we should say, “O Lord!” To say “O Lord” in the morning and to have morning revival is to gather manna.
Manna was to be eaten by God’s elect, signifying that Christ as the heavenly food is to be dispensed into us for our nourishment to constitute us a heavenly people (Exo. 16:13b-15; Num. 11:7-9; 1 Cor. 10:3; John 6:35, 50, 57b). Every human being is a constitution of the food he has eaten. Before their exodus the children of Israel were in Egypt. They had an Egyptian constitution. The book of Numbers tells us that while the children of Israel journeyed in the wilderness, they remembered the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic that they had eaten freely in Egypt (11:5). This diet made the children of Israel Egyptian in their constitution.
God gave the children of Israel manna to eat to change their diet from the earthly to the heavenly (vv. 5-6; John 6:57b). For forty years in the wilderness God’s diet replaced the Egyptian diet. Through the change of diet, every one of the children of Israel became a constitution of the heavenly diet. Thus they became no longer an Egyptian people but a heavenly people. According to John 6, manna typifies Christ (vv. 35, 50, 57b). He is our heavenly food, our food of life, and our living food. If we eat Him, we become Him; then we live Him. Today we are still being constituted with Christ as our diet so that we may become a heavenly people. Christians are not “Egyptians.” Christians are a heavenly people with a new diet. This is very meaningful.
The reason for the change of diet was to replace God’s redeemed people’s earthly constitution with the heavenly one. Christ not only redeemed us from the outward, sinful things, but He also entered into us. However, His entering into us was not once for all. From the day He first entered into us, every day we should take Him as our daily food, our daily meat. As we take Him day by day and time after time, He is constituting us to change our inward constitution.
The water out of the cleft rock drunk by God’s elect signifies the Spirit of Christ as the spiritual drink dispensed into us for our watering to make us spiritual persons (Exo. 17:5-6; 1 Cor. 10:4; John 7:37-39). The water out of the cleft rock is to saturate God’s redeemed people with the Spirit of Christ instead of with the spirit of the world (1 Cor. 2:12) and to constitute God’s redeemed people to be spiritual rather than worldly. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, they bore a particular spiritual flavor. That flavor was the Egyptian flavor. This flavor was also a spirit, an Egyptian spirit. It is the same with us today. If we are Chinese, we may bear a Chinese flavor, a Chinese spirit. If we are Japanese, we may bear a Japanese flavor, a Japanese spirit.
Today as Christians, we no longer drink Egyptian water. We drink the water that comes out of the cleft rock, that is, the wounded Christ. As the cleft rock, Christ streams out His Spirit to be the living water for us to drink. As we drink the Spirit as the living water, we receive an element in the water. Then after a long period of drinking such a Spirit, we bear a divine, heavenly spirit as a particular flavor. Others will realize that we have a certain taste. This taste is the Spirit of Christ.
