This gives settled peace to the conscience. If I am no longer in a condition of guilt, but in a condition of justification,--if God only sees me _in_ Christ and as Christ, then, clearly, my portion is perfect peace. "Being justified by faith, we _have_ peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. v. 1.) The blood of the Lamb has canceled all the believer's guilt,--blotted out his heavy debt, and given him a perfectly blank page, in the presence of that holiness which "cannot look upon sin."
But the believer has not merely found peace with God; he is made a child of God, so that he can taste the sweetness of communion with the Father and the Son, through the power of the Holy Ghost. The cross is to be viewed in two ways: first, as satisfying God's claims; secondly, as expressing God's affections. If I look at my sins in connection with the claims of God as a Judge, I find, in the cross, a perfect settlement of those claims. God, as a Judge, has been divinely satisfied--yea, glorified, in the cross. But there is more than this. God had affections as well as claims; and, in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, all those affections are sweetly and touchingly told out into the sinner's ear; while, at the same time, he is made partaker of a new nature which is capable of enjoying those affections and having fellowship with the heart from which they flow. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." (1 Peter iii. 18.) Thus, we are not only brought into _a condition_, but unto _a Person_, even God Himself, and we are endowed with _a nature_ which can delight in Him.--"_We also joy in God_, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation (margin)." (Rom. v. 11.)
What force and beauty, therefore, can we see in those emancipating words, "Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness." "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." (Luke iv. 18.) The glad tidings of the gospel announce full deliverance from every yoke of bondage. Peace and liberty are the boons which that gospel bestows on all who believe it, as God has declared it.
And mark, it is "that they may hold a feast to _Me_." If they were to get done with Pharaoh, it was that they might begin with God. This was a great change. Instead of toiling under Pharaoh's taskmasters, they were to feast in company with Jehovah; and, although they were to pass from Egypt into the wilderness, still the divine presence was to accompany them; and if the wilderness was rough and dreary, it was the way to the land of Canaan. The divine purpose was, that they should hold a feast unto the Lord in the wilderness, and in order to do this, they should be "_let go_" out of Egypt.
However, Pharaoh was in no wise disposed to yield obedience to the divine mandate. "Who is the Lord," said he, "that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." (Chap. v. 2.) Pharaoh most truly expressed, in these words, his real condition. His condition was one of ignorance and consequent disobedience. Both go together. If God be not known, He cannot be obeyed; for obedience is ever founded upon knowledge. When the soul is blessed with the knowledge of God, it finds this knowledge to be life (John xvii. 3.), and life is power; and when I get power, I can act. It is obvious that one cannot act without life; and therefore it is most unintelligent to set people upon doing certain things in order to get that by which alone they can do anything.
But Pharaoh was as ignorant of himself as he was of the Lord. He did not know that he was a poor, vile worm of the earth, and that he had been raised up for the express purpose of making known the glory of the very One whom he said he knew not. (Exod. ix. 16; Rom. ix. 17.) "And they said, 'The God of the Hebrews has met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God; lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.' And the king of Egypt said unto them, 'Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their work? Get you unto your burdens ... let there more work be laid upon the men, that they may labor therein; and let them not regard _vain words_.'" (Ver. 3-9.)