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Wherever we turn in Scripture,
we find the story of the Cross set forth, in many
different types and figures. Jesus Christ, smitten by
God for us, is clearly set forth in the rock smitten by
Moses in the wilderness (Exodus 17:6). We understand,
also, the reference to the crucified Lord in the word of
Jehovah to Moses, when He said, "I will put you in the
cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I
have passed by" (Exodus 30 3:22).
We easily recognize the same underlying reference to the
crucified one—that "Rock of Ages cleft for me"—as
we listen to the voice of the risen Lord speaking to His
redeemed one. He would turn her eyes to Calvary and
teach her that she is hidden in His wounded side,
planted by the Holy Spirit, into His death (Romans 6:5).
Hitherto, she has known Him as her indwelling King. She
has had glimpses of the cross, and has agreed to follow
Him in the pathway of the cross; but she has not yet
fully apprehended her position as buried with Him by
baptism into His death, and therefore separated from
herself, and from all the old life in its claims. She
must know that the cross stands between her and the
world—that she has died in her Redeemer—to be
joined to Him in His resurrection life and, in His
ascension, to abide within the veil.
The Well-Beloved, reminds the soul of her place in the
cleft of the rock, because He can recognize her as His
betrothed one nowhere else!
The bride for the first Adam was taken out of his side
during his sleep; made of his own nature and presented
to him by her Creator—a marvelous foreshadowing of the mystery of Christ and His
Church!
All the redeemed ones, born of the first Adam and under
the curse, were, in the foreknowledge of God, planted
into the God-man, the Second Adam, hanging upon the
Cross of Calvary, and becoming a curse for them. "We
judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died" (2
Corinthians 5:14). Planted into Him, baptized into His
death, there emerges a bride, formed of many members,
taken out of His side in the sleep of death, partaking
of His divine nature, and eventually to be presented
onto Him to share His throne.
The Well-Beloved entreats the soul to turn her face
toward Him, and to let Him hear her voice in glad
response to His call. He sees that her eyes are in the
wrong direction. He had drawn her within from all
outward things by the strong power of His manifested
presence at the center of her being; but now He desires
her to turn toward Him as not in her heart—although
He is there—but as in His Father's bosom.
Sweet is the voice of the blood-bought one to the
Beloved Lord; lovely to Him is the gaze of the soul that
turns towards Him as a sunflower to the sun. She is to
be as the moon that is a faithful witness to the unseen
orb of day.
(Jesse
Penn-Lewis, May 1899)
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