However, Moses at length consents to go; but ere he is fully equipped for his work, he must pass through another deep exercise,--yea, he must have the sentence of death inscribed by the hand of God upon his very nature. He had learnt deep lessons at "the backside of the desert;" he is called to learn something deeper still, "by the way in the inn." It is no light matter to be the Lord's servant. No ordinary education will qualify a man for such a position. Nature must be put in the place of death, and kept there. "We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead." (2 Cor. i. 9.) Every successful servant will need to know something of this. Moses was called to enter into it, in his own experience, ere he was morally qualified. He was about to sound in the ears of Pharaoh the following deeply solemn message: "Thus saith the Lord, 'Israel is My son, even My first-born: and 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 first-born.'" Such was to be his message to Pharaoh,--a message of death, a message of judgment; and, at the same time, his message to Israel was a message of life and salvation. But, be it remembered, that the man who will speak, on God's behalf, of death and judgment, life and salvation, must, ere he does so, enter into the practical power of these things in his own soul. Thus it was with Moses. We have seen him, at the very outset, in the place of death, typically; but this was a different thing from entering into the experience of death in his own person. Hence we read, "And it came to pass, by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, 'Surely, a bloody husband art thou to me.' So He let him go: then she said, 'A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.'" This passage lets us into a deep secret in the personal and domestic history of Moses. It is very evident that Zipporah's heart had, up to this point, shrunk from the application of _the knife_ to that around which the affections of nature were entwined. She had avoided that mark which had to be set in the flesh of every member of the Israel of God. She was not aware that her relationship with Moses was one involving death to nature. She recoiled from the cross. This was natural. But Moses had yielded to her in the matter; and this explains to us the mysterious scene "in the inn." If Zipporah refuses to circumcise her _son_, Jehovah will lay His hand upon her _husband_; and if Moses spares the feelings of his wife, Jehovah will "seek to kill him." The sentence of death must be written on nature; and if we seek to avoid it in one way, we shall have to encounter it in another.
It has been already remarked that Zipporah furnishes an instructive and interesting type of the Church. She was united to Moses during the period of his rejection; and from the passage just quoted, we learn that the Church is called to know Christ as the One related to her "by blood." It is her privilege to drink of His cup, and be baptized with His baptism. Being crucified with Him, she is to be conformed to His death--to mortify her members which are on the earth--to take up the cross daily, and follow Him. Her relationship with Christ is founded upon blood, and the manifestation of the power of that relationship will necessarily involve death to nature. "And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power; in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead." (Col. ii. 10-12.)
Such is the doctrine as to the Church's place with Christ,--a doctrine replete with the richest privileges for the Church, and each member thereof. Everything, in short, is involved:--the perfect remission of sin, divine righteousness, complete acceptance, everlasting security, full fellowship with Christ in all His glory. "Ye are _complete_ in Him." This, surely, comprehends everything. What could be added to one who is "complete"? Could "philosophy," "the tradition of men," "the rudiments of the world," "meats, drinks, holy days, new moons, or Sabbaths"? "Touch not" this, "taste not" that, "handle not" the other, "the commandments and doctrines of men," "days, and months, and times, and years,"--could any of these things, or all of them put together, add a single jot or tittle to one whom God has pronounced "complete"? We might just as well inquire if man could have gone forth upon the fair creation of God, at the close of the six days' work, to give the finishing touch to that which God had pronounced "very good."