The wilderness and its experiences we have seen is where you get God breaking down our wills, and testing and trying our hearts; we may be faithful there, but still be uncircumcised. You never get circumcision till you first get a heavenly place. Circumcision is the putting down the flesh practically into the place of death with Christ; and that, because we are dead! Israel were not circumcised until they reached Canaan.
After forty years they came up to Jordan. There we learn that we have not only Christ dying and rising for us, by which I am redeemed out of Egypt, but my dying and rising with Christ, and thus entering into heavenly places in Him. The passing through Jordan is not simply that He died for me, but it is I am dead, crucified with Him. The Christ that is in me as my life has died and risen again, so that I am looked at as not alive in this world at all. As in Ephesians, God has “quickened us together with him.” We were down there dead in our sins, Christ comes down there, dies to put away our sins, comes into the place where I was; I am quickened and raised up, and made to sit in heavenly places in Christ: united to Him who is there. We are thus members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones—and thus in spirit in the heavenly places. Now the experiences which follow are not my own exercises and trials in this world, but having got into heavenly places in Christ, self is not owned at all; but the moment you are in there, all belongs to you; “all things are yours, whether life or death,” &c. My place now is passing through this world as a wilderness; but if I talk of my privileges, I am in heavenly places in Christ. Well, if I am in the wilderness, I have a gracious neighbor, and I am gracious with him, but the moment I think of myself as a spiritual, heavenly man, it is another thing; for I find my neighbor an enemy to Christ. That will not do. Not that I am to be unkind; but I am in another sphere. If I am in Christ in heavenly places, a heavenly Christ is in me, and the standard I get of walk is to show out what is in heaven and nothing else. Let it be “always bearing, about in the body, the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” So Paul held himself as a dead man. In that spiritual sense “death” says he, “worketh in us, but life in you,”—that is, in and by Paul. That is Christian life. Failures are wilderness work; but if in her head, the Church has everything to manifest —Christ. In spirit we are in heaven; and on earth, Christ is in us for life and power. Now let that be seen. If that is true, what I have got to do is never to let anything be seen in me but Christ. This brings us into conflict with spiritual wickedness in heavenly places; every place was theirs, as He said unto Joshua, but the word was “put your foot on it.” It is not uncertainty, nor wilderness experience; but now I am looking to realize my title to everything, and Satan is against me. “The Canaanite is still in the land.” Suppose I want to put my foot down upon blessing, Satan at once opposes, and if I go to put my foot upon the thing, I find someone else’s foot is there too; and therefore it is that the man with his drawn sword appears, who says to Joshua, as “Captain of the host of the Lord, am I now come.” I find spiritual activity in the place that belongs to me. This world’s things are “another man’s,” the heavenly things are “your own.” “If you have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own.” Now how far in a spiritual way have you realized this inheritance? God has made you an heir, and you have scarcely realized it at all.
Now observe, when they had crossed over, twelve men took up twelve stones out of Jordan, the memorial of death-the ark had gone in as a type of Christ in death—(I have died to sin, the flesh, and the world) and set them up in Gilgal. We belonged to death once, hut now death belongs to us. You have died and risen, passed through Jordan—now I practically mortify my members—here Joshua circumcised all who had not been circumcised, “mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.” It is the application of the truth of our being dead with Christ to all our practice; and my title to do so is that I am dead.
You never find Scripture say, you must die to sin. You have liberty and power in Christ as being dead to sin, and now you have to apply that truth, and to “mortify therefore your member man.” For instance, if I see a man looking at vanity, or going on with the world, and all the nonsense of the town, “ Well,” I say, “you may be dead, but you are not circumcised; you want a little of Gilgal,”— “the putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;” the practical putting the flesh on the ground of “ye are dead.”
And so it must be, too, as we progress. Conquest after conquest they made, but after each they all—Joshua and all Israel—went back to Gilgal. No matter what success you may have in preaching the gospel, or in any other way in gaining Canaan ground, you must get back to Gilgal to judge the flesh.
When you come to the book of Judges Israel was not faithful in putting down their enemies, they left a Hittite here, and a Hivite there; and we find the Angel of the Lord—that is, the presence of the Lord, goes from Gilgal to Bochim; He leaves the place of power and goes to Bochim—the place of tears. They build an altar there and worship, but they do it in tears. This has been the case with the Church in departing from her heavenly calling.
The place of self-judgment is practically the place of divine power-we must go back to Gilgal, for that is where we get God; the angel, or presence of the Lord, was there. Otherwise you will find victory itself dangerous.
Jericho is taken, for with God the cities may be walled up to heaven, yet what matter, the higher they are, the more they will be humbled. Jericho falls down. Then as for Ai, “it is a little city;” you need not all go up there; three thousand men will be enough. Victory leads to negligence, and confidence in human strength; they did not even consult the Lord, and therefore it was they could not prosper.
Now they eat the Passover; they can look back at the foundation of all; not now as looking to be protected by it from judgment; now they could look back to the very beginning; so we at the Lord’s table, eating His flesh and drinking His blood; (wonderful to think that it was nothing less than the death of the Son of God!) I am celebrating, as a circumcised person, that which was the ground of all blessing; and I do this as in the glory with Christ by faith. The more we look at it, the more we shall find the Cross taking a place above everything, saving of course Him who was crucified. The Cross is a deeper thing than the glory—it is God’s moral nature glorified in the place of sin. Here I am dwelling on it, thinking of it, circumcised in Canaan, and looking back at the Cross, not feeding on the manna, but on the produce of the land, “the old corn of the land.” The manna is Christ humbled here. He meets us in the journey suited to our circumstances, and we feed on Him—the constant food of my soul. But as the old corn He has a heavenly character; a glorified Christ. I look upon Him, and feed on Him there, and am changed into the same image from glory to glory. We feed both on a humbled Christ, and a glorified Christ; but it is in beholding a glorified Christ we are conformed to an humbled Christ. Now, notice another feature here, as yet they had not taken a single city. All is ours before we gain one victory. God has given me Christ as my delight; I sit down here in the presence of my enemies; all is given me before I have drawn a sword to take possession, and I sit down and feed on everything as my own!
Then follows another thing. A man comes with a drawn sword in his hand; he comes for conflict; and Joshua asks the question, “Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?” In social things we are to be kind and gracious, but here it is a question, “Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?” Now this is not in the wilderness, but in the land. The world has crucified Christ, and Satan is prince of this world; I am associated with Christ, and either I go on with Him, or I go back with the world. “He that is not with me is against me,” and again, “He that is not against me is for me.” What does this mean? People say, I cannot understand it. It is simple enough—there is no mixing up the two things—they are completely opposite. If you are for the world, you are against Christ; and if you are not for the world, you are for Christ. There is a complete split between the world and Christ. The moment it comes to be a question of Christ, it is either for or against. I may put out the candle, or make it so dim that the light cannot be seen, but if you bring in the light then there is no middle place. Christians are trying to snit Christianity to the world in order to win it; then God has made a mistake: for Christ tried to win it, and it cast Him out and crucified Him. You may dim Christianity, but you will never get the world to go on with Christ.
“As Captain,” he says, “of the host of the Lord am I now come.” It was the Lord! “Loose thy shoe from off thy foot,” it was holy ground. In the spiritual conflicts that we have to carry on, holiness is as completely in question as in the wilderness. In conflict the condition of our strength is holiness—as with Moses at the bush, “put off thy shoes,” it is holy ground, so here, we cannot get on in the warfare unless we are in practical holiness. As in redemption, so in conflict, He is “Jehovah Nissi:” the Lord our banner. But the one who is there is holy, He would not go out with Achan. We must go back to Gilgal, and our captain is holy. “He that is holy, he that is true.” He looks for practical holiness in us who are redeemed; to whom the Lord is our strength. How far are we going on as dead, or allowing quantities of flesh, and of the world, to hang about us? Is it Gilgal or Bochim with us? Are we walking, as those who are dead with Christ, from the rudiments of the world; and engaged in taking possession of our own things,—putting the sole of our feet on our heavenly portion—as heavenly men?
The Lord grant us that it may be ever so with us—for His name’s sake. Amen.