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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 figure 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. To 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 membership 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 AND THE SEA. (For the narrative of the crossing of the Red Sea and the movement of the cloud, see Exodus 14.) 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 perpetual 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 avenges 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 Father, a gracious and almighty Redeemer; - it is this that we here see typically represented. The miraculous apparition or incident, which in its very nature was local and temporary, did but bear witness to the universal and abiding fact. 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 providence 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. The mountains are not found to be so terrible as they seemed. The 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, The angel of the Lord still goes before his people as in the days of old -

"Leader of faithful souls and guide
Of all who travel to the sky."

II. THE BAPTISM UNTO MOSES. We regard this as referring to nothing in Christian baptism beyond the essential idea and principle of it. As a formal 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 pledge, 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 allegiance to him as God's anointed "leader and commander of the people." And his leadership of that emancipated host did but dimly shadow forth Christ's headship of his ransomed Church (Hebrews 3:5, 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 following and obeying Christ. The supreme tact in the history of all the ages is God's redemption of the human race by Jesus Christ his Son. Through him God. enters into a new relation to humanity. In him humanity rises into its true freedom and dignity. By him the kingdom of God upon earth is established, consummated, led on through varying fortunes to final victory and glorious everlasting rest. "The Head of every man is Christ." He bears to every man the triple relation of "Prophet, Priest, and King." Shall not this historical covenant relation of the fathers to Moses teach us seriously to consider how far we are worthily maintaining our true personal allegiance to Him?

III. THE SPIRITUAL MEAT AND DRINK. The word "spiritual," as applied to the manna and the water from the rock, refers to their supernatural origin, rather than to their essential quality. They were not the result of ordinary physical causes, but the direct and miraculous product of an unseen spiritual power. Whether, in saying the rock "followed them," the apostle gives countenance to a fanciful Jewish tradition or not, this deeper truth is sure - "that Rock was Christ." Both the manna from heaven and the water from the rock were shadows, the substance, the "body," of which is in Christ (John 4:13, 14; John 6:32-35, 49-51). Here, again, is an old world witness to that grand truth which is at once the centre and the circumference of the whole circle of Divine revelations - that in Christ alone is there life for the souls of men. He alone can satisfy their hunger and allay their thirst; he alone can nourish and build up the fabric of their being unto a blessed immortality. Faintly gleaming through those ancient types and figures, as in the morning twilight, it is to us the glorious, full orbed revelation of the gospel day - life from God for a perishing world through Jesus Christ his Son. "This is the record," etc. (1 John 5:11). The providence, the lordship, and the life-giving power of Christ are the three great truths that we find typically represented in these historical memorials. How nobly did the lives of many of our fathers bear witness to their faith in these truths! The world in which they moved may have been strangely different in its outward aspects from ours, but the substantial realities of human life were the same.

"The old order changeth, giving place to new;"

but the vital principles that underlie that order change not. As regards the Divine relationships and the essential needs of our being, we stand just where our fathers did. We are encompassed by the same almighty power and love. We pass through the same kind. of discipline, are exposed to the same dangers, realize the same deliverances, bear the same burdens of responsibility. We live by the same spiritual food, are saved by the same mercy, redeemed by the same atoning sacrifice. "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass," etc. (1 Peter 1:24, 25). - W.

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Parallel Verses

KJV: Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;

WEB: Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;