The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 348

Vers. 1-4.-Ancient types. These incidents of patriarchal history were typical of what belongs to the Christian age (ver. 11). A "type" is one of two things-it is either a figw·e and prophecy of something to come, the antitype, in which the idea of the type finds its full and complete unfolding; or it is the example and representative of a class, combining and setting forth most distinctly the characteristics of that class. Both these meanings may to some extent be involved here, but we take the latter to be the more prominent and the more important. 'l'o say that these incidents mystically foreshadowed the " sacraments of the Christian Church," or that they are" a standing testimony to the importance of the Christian sacraments as necessary to the member- ship of Christ" (Alford); or to attempt to gather from them definite teaching as to the- mode and order of those sacraments,-all this is to subordinate the inner truth and meaning of the subject to the mere accidental form. We take these incidents as typical of principles rather than ordinances, of living truths rather than of the ritual forms in which those truths may be embodied. There are three representative facts here. I. THE CLOUD A:t;D THE SEA. (For the narrative of the crossing of the Red Sea and the movement of the cloud, see Exod. xiv.) From this it would appear that the Israelites, in a very literal sense, passed " under the cloud and through the sea," i.e. through the bed and channel of it, through its very depths. The cloud was to them emphatically "a guide, a glory, a defence," and the divided sea the instrument of their deliverance-the grave of their enemies, but to them the gate into a region of freer, nobler life. See here a beautiful memorial of the grand truth of God's perpetua~ guidance and guardianship of his people. The Divine providence of human life, specially of all consecrated life, was thus made visibly, palpably manifest to the men of that age. The providence that assumes a variety of forms but is always animated by one and the same spirit ; the providence that arranges circumstances and determines issues, that both marks out and clears the way, that shields from harm and a,euges it, that interposes difficulties and also removes them, that leads into danger and then makes a way of escape; the ever-watchful, kindly, faithful providence of an all-wise F;1ther, a gracious and almighty Redeemer ;-it is this that we here see typically repre- sented. The miraculous apparition or incident, which in its very nature was local and temporary, did but bear witness to the universal and abiding foct. It is in accordance with our advanced position in the history of the kingdom of God that we should be thrown more entirely on the exercise of our faith for the apprehension of this, as of every other Divine truth. .But.the wing of the same beneficent providenco is over us, though we have no such significant symbol of it. The overshadowing cloud leads us, often in. "a way that we know not,"-it may be into the entanglement of mountain difficulties, through deep waters of sorrow, over waste wildernesses of unrest; but always in the· right way, the way that is best fitted to" prove" us and to develop in us the needful moral qualities. And it is a way signalized often by unexpected deliverances. '!'ho mountains are not found 'to be so terrible as they seemed. '!'he waters divide when we step down into them. The very wilderness abounds with fruits of tender, succouring love that we could scarcely have known if we had never entered it, 'l'he angel of the· Lord still goes before his people as in the days of old- " Lender of faithful souls nnd guide Of nil who tro.vel to the sky," II. 'l'HE BAPTISM tn!TO Mosr.s. We regard this as rtferring to nothing in Christian baptism beyond the essential idea and principle of it. As a form,il rite, there was. nothing in the experience of the Israelites in coming out of Egypt that bears the remotest resemblance to it, and it is a waste of ingenuity to attempt to find out such a resemblance. But what is the essential moral meaning of this rite? It is consecration. dedication. It is a sign and a plerlge, the avowal of a faith, the oath of an allegiance. In passing "under the cloud and through the sea," the fathers became the avowed followers of Moses. It was the pledge, the sign, the seal, of their alleµ:i1rnce to him ns God's anointed "leader and commander of the people." And his lca,lcrship of that emancipated host did but dimly shadow forth Christ's headship of his ransmmd Church (Heh. iii. 5, 6). As the uprising of that host, with all its tribes and families, at the call of Moses, was the formal pledge of submission to him, so our assumption of the sacred name of "Christian" commits us to the responsibility of  THE FIRST EPISTLE TO 'fHE CORINTHIANS. [ea. x. 1-33.