This entire passage is a revelation of the Lord’s love for his church.
When we are adopted as children of God through Jesus Christ his Son, it does not mean that things will be necessarily easier, but that they will be different for us.
Our status as covenant children of our heavenly Father distinguishes us from many other religions that talk about God. The Lord claims his fatherly rights over us, as he delivers us from sin through his chosen Mediator Jesus Christ, and he rescues us from all the worldly influences and pressures that can so easily entangle (Heb. 12).
The Lord is a father to his people. He not only loves and protects his church, but also guides them into his truth, so that like faithful firstborn sons, we may be prepared to manage the kingdom we will inherit. Our text highlights that in his relationship with his church through Christ his Son, God reveals that he wants his children to distinguish themselves from the world, he disciplines us when we are disobedient, he forgives our sins through the blood of Christ, and he shows us the way to worship. The way the Father guides his church stands as instruction for Christian parents concerning how they can lead their children in the home.
As Moses and all the Israelites would learn, this sonship brings us into responsibilities. The fellowship with God that Christ obtained for believers, must be received by faith, and we express our trust in God and love for his grace with the new covenant sacraments of baptism and Lord’s Supper. Rather than neglect to think about sins (like those who thought they could have a relationship with God without the blood of circumcision), we are called to be diligent in our confession of sins, and therefore all the more joyful in the life that Christ obtained for us by his death.
18 Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”