This chapter opens with Israel's magnificent song of triumph on the shore of the Red Sea, when they had seen "that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians." They had seen God's salvation, and they therefore sing His praise and recount His mighty acts. "_Then_ sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord." Up to this moment, we have not heard so much as a single note of praise. We have heard their cry of deep sorrow as they toiled amid the brick-kilns of Egypt, we have hearkened to their cry of unbelief when surrounded by what they deemed insuperable difficulties, but, until now, we have heard no song of praise. It was not until, as a saved people, they found themselves surrounded by the fruits of God's salvation, that the triumphal hymn burst forth from the whole redeemed assembly. It was when they emerged from their significant baptism "in the cloud and in the sea," and were able to gaze upon the rich spoils of victory which lay scattered around them, that six hundred thousand voices were heard chanting the song of victory. The waters of the Red Sea rolled between them and Egypt, and they stood on the shore as a fully delivered people, and therefore they were able to praise Jehovah.
In this, as in everything else, they were our types. We, too, must know ourselves as saved, in the power of death and resurrection, before ever we can present clear and intelligent worship. There will always be reserve and hesitancy in the soul, proceeding, no doubt, from positive inability to enter into the accomplished redemption which is in Christ Jesus. There may be the acknowledgment of the fact that there is salvation in Christ, and in none other; but this is a very different thing from apprehending, by faith, the true character and ground of that salvation, and realizing it as _ours_. The Spirit of God reveals, with unmistakable clearness, in the Word, that the Church is united to Christ in death and resurrection; and, moreover, that a risen Christ, at God's right hand, is the measure and pledge of the Church's acceptance. When this is believed, it conducts the soul entirely beyond the region of doubt and uncertainty. How can the Christian doubt when he knows that he is continually represented before the throne of God by an Advocate, even "Jesus Christ the righteous"? It is the privilege of the very feeblest member of the Church of God to know that he was represented by Christ on the cross,--that _all_ his sins were confessed, borne, judged, and atoned for there. This is a divine reality, and, when laid hold of by faith, must give peace; but nothing short of it ever can give peace. There may be earnest, anxious, and most sincere desires after God,--there may be the most pious and devout attendance upon all the ordinances, offices, and forms of religion; but there is no other possible way in which to get the sense of sin entirely removed from the conscience, but seeing it judged in the Person of Christ, as a sin-offering, on the cursed tree. If it was judged there once for all, it is now by the believer to be regarded as a divinely, and therefore eternally, settled question; and that it was so judged is proved by the resurrection of the Surety. "I know that whatsoever God doeth it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it that men should fear before Him." (Ecc. iii. 14.)
However, while it is generally admitted that all this is true in reference to the Church collectively, many find considerable difficulty in making a personal application thereof. They are ready to say, with the Psalmist, "Truly, God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. _But as for me_," etc. (Ps. lxxiii. 1, 2.) They are looking at themselves instead of at Christ in death and Christ in resurrection; they are occupied rather with their appropriation of Christ than with Christ Himself; they are thinking of their capacity rather than their title. Thus they are kept in a state of the most distressing uncertainty, and, as a consequence, they are never able to take the place of happy, intelligent worshipers. They are praying for salvation instead of rejoicing in the conscious possession of it; they are looking at their imperfect fruits instead of Christ's perfect atonement.