This name is familiar to every one who is conversant with the things of nature. And in Scripture we meet with the continual mention of rocks by particular names, such as the rock of Horeb, the rock of Adullam, the rock of divisions, called Selahammah lekoth. See the margin of the Bible, 1 Samuel 23:1-29. But it would have been unnecessary in a work of this kind to have noticed the word had it not been for the special application of the term, in a figurative way and manner, to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as the visible JEHOVAH He is, if I mistake not, the glorious person all along spoken of in the Old Testament Scripture, and explained most clearly in the New "as the rock whose work is perfect? Beautifully to this purpose doth Moses, the man of God, speak of him under this figure,"He is the rock, (saith Moses) his work is perfect; for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he? And speaking of the defects of Israel, and his departure from the Lord, he saith, "he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation. Of the rock that begat thee, thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee." And then tracing the sad effects of their being brought into captivity by their enemies, to the cause of having forsaken their confidence in the Lord, Moses adds, "how should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up? For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges;" (Deuteronomy 32:4; Deuteronomy 32:15; Deuteronomy 32:18; Deuteronomy 32:30-31)
But the most striking and particular use of the term rock, as a figure applied to Christ, is that we read in the eventful history of Israel, beginning at Horeb, (Exodus 17:6) where we find the Lord speaking unto Moses in those remarkable words; "Behold, I will stand before thee upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink" Now it never would have been known to any farther extent concerning this miracle of grace, but that the Lord did here, as upon many other occasions, work a miracle to supply the pressing occasions and wants of his people, had not the Holy Ghost in his love and condescension to the church, thought fit to explain this transaction, and not only declared that it was Christ which wrought this mi racle, but that this rock was Christ himself, If the reader will turn to the tenth chapter of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, (1 Corinthians 10:1-33) and first and following verses, he will behold the gracious comment of the Holy Ghost upon it. "Moreover brethren, (saith the apostle) I would not that ye should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." The margin of the Bible is stronger, for it saith that this rock went with them.
Now I beg the reader's close attention to this most interesting of all subjects. It is what intimately concerns true believers in Christ to have just and right apprehensions of what the Holy Ghost hath so graciously explained.
Nothing can be more certain than that the Gospel was preached to the church in type and figure to Israel then, as much and as fully as it is now to the true Israel in sum and substance. For so the Holy Ghost declares by Paul, (Hebrews 4:2) so that Christ was the one great ordinance and design of the whole. And whether he was preached as the rock, or the paschal lamb, or the manna, or the brazen serpent, all pointed to Jesus, and in him all had their completion.
But what I more particularly beg the reader to observe is, the manifestation that is made by the rock, and the streams flowing from it of God in Christ. The proclamation of the Lord was on this occasion, "Behold, I will stand before thee upon the rock in Horeb;" intimating, as plain as words can shew, when opened to us by the Holy Ghost, that the whole dispensation is God in Christ. For as God in Christ was, and is, the foundation of all reconciliation, so is it God in Christ which was, and is, the source of all the blessings of redemption flowing there from. Hence the several manifestations of JEHOVAH in both Testaments of Scripture are all to this effect.
And as these several dispensations pointed all to Christ as the only possible supply for the church, so the church is uniformly considered under every estate, both in the Old Testament and New, as living by faith upon Jesus, and deriving all supplies from him. We are told that "they did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink." There was no difference in the supply, neither in the privilege of the receivers, for all was Christ. Hence it proves that from the beginning all the grace the church would stand in need of through the whole period of time in every individual instance of it, this glorious Head of his body the church had in him; and whether it was the manna or the rook, he, and he alone, was the sum and substance of all. Sweet consideration to my soul! Hence, with one of old, I would say, "when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I" (Psalms 61:2)