Exodus 15:1-21 | “Salvation Must Be Sung”

Preston Highlands Baptist Church

Worship Shapes Culture

In Exodus 15, we find the first song in the Bible. It’s a song that informs the book of Psalms because it sets up the biblical pattern for singing, namely, God acts and God’s people respond with praise. Songs are responses to stories.

This isn’t unique to the Bible. Every culture has events that lead to celebrations and memorializations. Every High School and College has a fight song you sing at the end of every game to remind themselves who they are and what they’re about.

Singing in the Bible is driven by a master narrative. The narrative creates worship, and the worship shapes the community. Singing in the Bible is therefore culture-forming. The Feasts and celebrations and songs retell and interpret what God did and reinstruct and reenact and help us enter into and experience what God did all over again. Worship shapes community.

Word Shapes Worship

That the song of Exodus 15 is joined to the narrative of Exodus 14 teaches us that worship is shaped by the word. We don’t get to worship however we want. We start with the Word of God that shows us who God is and what he’s done and we let that determine how we worship him.

Worship shapes a community and the word shapes our worship. When I say, “the Word,” I mean the sum total of what God tells us in the Bible. The Bible tells one story. It’s not a series of disconnected and random stories, but smaller stories that add up to tell one bigger story.

As I said last week, the exodus and the Red Sea crossing are events that point backward and forward in the story of the Bible. They’re paradigmatic for how God works to save his people in all times and places. The exodus is the pattern of how God rescues his people.

In Exodus 15 we see more evidence for this claim. The exodus is set up as a pattern for, not just how God delivered his people in the past, but how he’ll deliver them in the future. This chapter shows us the pattern of the gospel, the promise of the gospel, and the praise of the gospel.

The Pattern of the Gospel

Verses 1-10 are a celebration of the Lord’s deliverance at the Red Sea. Verses 11-18 promise future deliverance. The song uses previous events to help Israel interpret future events, such as the conquest of Canaan.

There are several places in these verses that link to other places in the Bible, showing us the connectedness or oneness of God’s story. Again, the exodus functions like a paradigm, model, template, type, or key for how God will save his people in the future.

“The Lord is My Strength and My Song”

Verse 2 is quoted verbatim in two other places in the Old Testament. Isaiah 12:2, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation.” This comes immediately after Isaiah 11, where the final salvation of God’s people is prophesied.

Then Psalm 118:14 quotes it as part of the psalmist’s response to the triumph of the Messiah in Psalm 110. In Exodus 15, it’s part of the celebration of the exodus, but then Isaiah and the psalmist use the same exact words to point forward to God’s final victory that’ll come through his Messiah. Past events are used to interpret future events.

“The Floods Stood Up in a Heap” and “The Blast of Your Nostrils”

In verse 8, the phrase “the floods stood up in a heap” is the same language used when Israel entered the Promised Land. In Joshua 3:13, it says when the priests put their feet in the Jordan River, “the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heap.” Joshua connects what’s happening at the Jordan River with what happened at the Red Sea.

Then in Psalm 18:15, David quotes the first part of Exodus 15:8, “Then the channels of the sea were seen and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.” This psalm is about David’s deliverance from Saul. By pointing back to Exodus 15, David is saying that his salvation from Saul is like Israel’s salvation from Egypt. This psalm describes the Lord’s deliverance of David from his “Egypt.”

Israel sees their deliverance in the exodus as a picture of not just something that happened in the past, but a pattern God will continue to use in the future. Past events are used to interpret future events.

“Still as a Stone”

In verse 16, Moses says that the inhabitants of Canaan are “still as a stone,” afraid of what God will do to them. This links back to verse 5 where Moses says that the Egyptians went down into the Red Sea “like a stone.”

Moses is intentionally presenting the Canaanites as like the Egyptians, indicating that the way God saves Israel at the exodus is the way God will save Israel at the conquest of Canaan. He’s saying, “What God just did for you is the kind of thing he’ll do for you in Canaan.” Moses is consciously using the exodus as a pattern for future salvation. Again, past events are used to interpret future events.

Jesus the New Israel in Matthew’s Gospel

The writers of Scripture are showing us that the Bible is one story. The individual puzzle pieces are unique but they all fit together. The way God has saved his people teaches us how he will save his people. Past events are templates for future events.

The one story that all the stories point to is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to bring a new exodus for God’s people. One of the best places to see this is the way Matthew structures the opening chapters of his Gospel.

At the beginning of Matthew, we learn that Jesus was also hunted by a wicked king who was killing the baby Hebrew boys but he flees into Egypt. He’s baptized in the Jordan River, moving through waters into the land of Canaan, a new Red Sea crossing. Like Joshua, he’s going into the Promised Land to start a new conquest for the people of God. First he spends forty days in the wilderness being tested, but he doesn’t fail like Israel. He moves through the wilderness to give the Sermon on the Mount, giving God’s law for his new covenant people.

Jesus is the true and better Israel, succeeding where they failed. His story is the story of the whole Bible. The pattern of this story is in Exodus 15, as Moses and other writers of the Old Testament use past events to explain current events and as templates for future events.

The pattern of the gospel is that the Lord saves his people from enemies too strong for them. The patter is that salvation belongs to the Lord, whether it’s salvation from Egypt, Canaan, Saul, or sin, Satan, and death.

The Promise of the Gospel

The promise of the gospel is living with God. We see this already alluded to in verse 17 of Moses’s song.

The idea of God “planting” his people resonates throughout the Old Testament. In 2 Samuel 7:10-11, when God is promising to make David great and give him an everlasting kingdom, he says, “And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more…And I will give you rest from all your enemies.”

God promises to “plant” his people in a place where they’ll live in peace and never have to worry about evil again. This is the where the imagery of beating swords into plowshares comes from (Isa. 2:4). When God plants his people in his place there will be no more violence.

The psalmists pick up this language of “planting” as well. Psalm 80:8-11, “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the River.”

The psalmist compares Israel to a vine that was taken out of Egypt and planted in Canaan. But then a few verses later he moves from talking about a nation being planted to a man who’ll be planted (vv. 14-17).

When Jesus says, “I am the true vine” (Jn. 15:1), he’s saying that he’s the true Israel. His Father planted him on the earth and his branches are spreading out offering shade and relief to the nations. He’s the vine, the plant of the Lord, and we are his branches (v. 5). The first bread crumb of this trail is in Exodus 15.

The Lord says he’ll bring his people to his “own mountain” (v. 17). This is Sinai first, but then the Lord brings them into the Promised Land and they build the temple on Mount Zion. All this points forward to God’s cosmic temple, when God’s dwelling comes out of heaven and he’ll live with his people on the earth.

Images of the Garden are reemerging in Exodus 15:17. Because of the exodus, Israel will be a new garden planted on God’s mountain so they can live in God’s house.

This verse helps us understand the goal of the exodus. Why does God redeem Israel? Because he wants to live with them. This is why the vast majority of the book is about his sanctuary and how Israel is to live with their God. Through the exodus, the Lord is restoring to Israel what Adam lost, namely, life in the presence of God. The promise of the gospel is life with God.

Made to Live with God

We were made to live with God. We intuitively know this, which is why we’re so unsatisfied with everything the earth offers. As one writer puts it, “The only ultimate disaster that can befall us…is to feel ourselves to be at home on earth.”[1]

God made us for himself, to live with him in his place. We feel a sense of alienation with this world because we were made for another world. This is why the Bible calls us “strangers and pilgrims” (1 Pet. 2:11).

1. S. Lewis puts it this way, “If you really are a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don’t feel at home here? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet?…Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. (‘How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!’) In heaven’s name, why? Unless indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal.”[2]

Nearly every society on earth (except modern secular people) believe in some form of life after death. Why? Because, as Peter Kreeft says, we have a “homing instinct” or “home detector” in us: “Earth just doesn’t smell like home.”[3] These instincts are in us because God made us to live with him. He made us to be “planted on his holy mountain.” He made us for heaven.

But because of our sin, we’ve forfeited our right to live with God because God is holy. Nothing unclean can live in God’s presence but must be put outside. This is why Jesus says, “If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (Jn. 15:6).

The promise of the gospel, however, is that everyone who understands their uncleanness and runs to the clean One will be brought back into the presence of God. On the cross, Jesus became unclean so we can be washed. Our sin makes us dirty and Jesus’ blood is the only thing that can make us clean. He’s the spotless Lamb who rescues us from the death our sins deserve. He was drowned in the floodwaters of God’s judgment so we wouldn’t be. He came safely through the Sea of evil and darkness so that everyone who joins him can too.

God wants to live with his people, and his people are those who run to Jesus with repentance and faith. In Jesus, God has made a way for us to live in his presence once again. This is the promise of the gospel.

The Praise of the Gospel

Why did the Israelites sing when they got to the other side of the Sea? Because what the Lord did for them was worth celebrating! Salvation can’t just be said, it must be sung.

If the gospel was, “The Lord will save you if you’re a really good person,” or “God will love you when you clean your life up and stop acting out sexually and stop drinking and stop cussing,” then there’d be nothing to sing about.

The reason we sing is because we understand that salvation is from the Lord (15:2), that he did everything and we can do nothing. We sing when we realize that God doesn’t owe us anything but judgment but in Jesus he wants to make us his sons and daughters.

Praise wells up in people who understand their deep need for Jesus. People who take pride in their morality don’t sing like people who take pride in Christ’s righteousness.

Those who take his message of grace deep into their hearts can’t help but sing. If there’s no joy, no dance, no music in your heart toward Jesus it may be because you’re the prodigal son who’s letting your badness get in the way of God, or you’re like the older brother and letting your goodness get in the way of God. Either way, you’re trying to control him. It doesn’t matter how religious you are, if there’s no song in your heart, you still don’t get the gospel.

The pattern and promise of the gospel creates praise to the God of the gospel. You may see the pattern of the gospel and want the promise of the gospel, but is there the praise of the gospel in your heart? Can you say verse 2 will all your heart: “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him”? Does Jesus’ love song for you fill your heart?

[1]Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 47-8, quoted in Peter Kreeft, Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, expanded ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 63.

[2]Quoted in Kreeft, 66, italics his.

[3]Ibid.