Joshua 3:17-4:8
The Jordan, as we remarked last week, typifies the fact that we have died with Christ. In this it is not a question of our sins, which were like mountains on either side, but of the fact that in His death our old sinful self has been put entirely out of sight, Like the waters of Jordan cut off very far from the city Adam, so our history as men in the first Adam has been cut off before God. “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Cossloians 3:3. The waters flowing toward the Dead Sea failed too, figuring to us that there is deliverance from sin’s power, “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Romans 8:13. How wonderful this is and yet how few Christians lay hold of this side of the truth. They knew I le.ir sins are forgiven, but are greatly troubled to find that the old nature is still within and not improved at all. What marvelous deliverance it gives to know that “our old man the old sinful self) is crucified with Him” (Romans 6:6), and though it has not been improved it is utterly condemned and set aside before God, and we, on our part, are to just reckon it so. (Romans 6:11.) Then, with the eye upon Christ, arid by the power of the Spirit of God who indwells our bodies as believers, we are to be occupied with Christ, allowing the new man “which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24), to act. This is true liberty and deliverance, and it is so beautifully pictured in our chapter. The waters of Jordan were out of sight, hut the ark, a picture of Christ was before them, and so they passed over on dry ground.
Alas, there is a reason why so many believers do not lay hold of this precious fact, and this we shall see later is figured in the twelve men, each taking his stone out of the bottom of Jorden. Nevertheless, whether it is laid hold of or not, thank God it is blessedly true, just as the feet of the priests, who were bearing the ark, stood firm in the midst of Jordan until all the people were clean passed over on dry ground. It was not even wet ground, as a river bed would ordinarily be, but dry ground, for the Lord Jesus bore all the judgment when He stood condemned in our place. “‘He (was made) sin for us ... that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” 2 Corinthians 5:21. Wonderful deliverance full and complete!
After all the people were clean passed over, then, as we have just remarked, the twelve men, one from each tribes were told to go to the place where the feet of the priests had stood in the midst of Jordan, and take a stone from there. Each man was to carry his stone to the other side of Jordan, and put it in his lodging place. This was, in figure, laying hold of the truth of their deliverance, each man for himself. Their full and complete deliverance was a fact, but as a ohm from each tribe took his stone to his lodging place, he made the deliverance his own. This took the energy of faith, for perhaps the stones were heavy. Then too, putting the stones in their lodging places would tell us of putting the sentence of death upon all the desires of our old sinful Adam nature. Do we have anything in our lodging places that would not be in accordance with this truth? May we search our hearts about these things!
ML 01/18/1953