There is a very precious connection between “the serpent of brass” (Num. 21:1-18) and “the Jordan” (Josh. 5:1-15), for they are two aspects of the death of Christ. Each presents the truth in an entirely different way. In the serpent of brass we have the wonderful truth of how God gets rid of me, for Himself, while in the Jordan we have the truth of how I can get rid of myself, in my own experience.
The purpose of God for Israel was that He would bring them out from Egypt and bring them into the land of Canaan. In spite of all the opposition of Pharaoh, God brought them out of Egypt, and in spite of Israel’s failure in the wilderness, He brought them into Canaan.
First of all comes the truth of the blood on the lintel, by which we are secured from God’s judgment, as sinners. Then we have the passage of the Red Sea — the truth of the death and resurrection of Christ for us and our sins. The power of the enemy is absolutely broken, God’s salvation manifested, and the people brought to rejoice in it. The Red Sea is the death and resurrection of Christ for our sins, and for ourselves also. You touch the same truth in a certain way when you come to the Jordan. It is very striking to notice that you see Israel as a company go into the Red Sea, but you never see them come out. They did come out, but it does not say they did. When you come to the Jordan, you do not read of their going into the Jordan; you see the ark going in, but you see them come out. The fact is this, that the Red Sea and the Jordan coalesce. To bring them out of Egypt and to bring them into Canaan was God’s purpose. The wilderness came in between, but that was not part of the purpose of God. It was in His ways, but His purpose was to bring them out, and bring them in.
The Serpent of Brass
In Numbers 21 we have the story of the serpent of brass. It is very simple, but we do not learn its truth at the beginning of our Christian pathway, for there is something deeper than merely meeting the need of a poor sinner. What comes out here is that the flesh is incurable and incorrigible. They murmured, the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and “much people of Israel died” (vs. 6). But when they turned to the Lord and owned their sin, He told Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole, and when a bitten man looked upon it he lived (vss. 5-9). There, in type, is the wonderful truth that Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin. It is the spring of a totally new life. The first man is incurably bad, cannot be mended, and must go from before God’s eye.
The thing that did the mischief was the fiery serpent, and what cured them was a look at a fiery serpent. Sin brought in death, and only by death is sin put away. Sin in the flesh is incorrigible, incurable and ineradicable. What then can be done with it? God tells us: “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). That is the serpent of brass. What I am, as a man, has been utterly condemned in the cross of Christ and absolutely set aside from before God in death. Until this is learned, there is self-confidence and an attempt to improve the flesh. Very often, we have to learn by very painful and prolonged practical experience and failure what a poor thing man is. When I learn the truth of the serpent of brass, I find that God has got rid of me, in the cross of His Son, and only Christ remains.
You do not get the serpent of brass until the close of Israel’s wilderness history. It is a long time before we learn that God has set us aside, as children of Adam. What battles and struggles have souls gone through in trying to get rid of the flesh! I see here, with deep relief and thankfulness, that aspect of the death of Christ in which all that I am, as a man in the flesh, is gone and that I am replaced by the Man of God’s heart, the Lord from heaven. And it is He in the energy and power of the Spirit of God that leads the soul on.
The Jordan
If we turn to Joshua, we see the way in which we are brought into the blessing that is ours, for in order to enter into Canaan, Israel must cross the Jordan. They were simply to follow the ark, and I need not remind ourselves that the ark is Christ. It is Christ who has gone into death, as passing through the judgment of God, really ending man’s history, and overcoming the power of death.
When they went into the Red Sea, it was a narrow path; the waters stood up as crystal walls. But when they came to Jordan, there was not a drop of water to be seen, for Zaretan is some thirty miles up the river. So it is with us; I see that death is annulled by Christ. Jordan is death, not my death, but Christ’s, and mine with Him. It is not only death, but my getting the sense that Christ has gone into death and annulled it and overcome it. There was nothing but dry land in sight, and we read, “The priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan” (Josh. 3:17).
The Twelve Stones
When all the people had passed over Jordan, the Lord told Joshua, “Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night” (Josh. 4:1-3). It was the testimony of where the ark had been; it is like what the Lord’s supper is to us. But further: “Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there unto this day” (vs. 9). The putting in of these twelve stones expressed that what we were, so to speak, is all under the waters of death. I learn that in the death of Christ I am free to say good-bye to myself. I have life in a risen Christ, but God would always keep alive in my memory the way in which I have been brought into blessing and association with His Son. Also, they are consciously clean over Jordan. Each one could truly say, in type, I know I am dead and risen. Experimentally? Yes, certainly. The point is, I have deep in my soul the sense that I am in association with Him who is risen.
Gilgal
When Israel reached Gilgal, a new lesson was learned, for it was the place of self-judgment. There they were circumcised (ch. 5:2-9). You cannot cut off the flesh in the energy of the flesh. They were a dead and risen people in figure, before they were circumcised. You will never find a Christian able to walk practically in the power of what this brings out, until he knows that he is before God in the life of another. That is, I am practically to keep all that is of the first man in the place of death. That is our Gilgal. “The Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal [rolling] unto this day.” They set aside that which is the mark of a man who is living for this world. For a heavenly man to be worldly is his reproach; he needs to go again to Gilgal. And you will observe afterward that Israel always had to return to Gilgal; so must we, if we are to progress in the divine life.
May God guide us each to answer to this in the history of our souls. We are to know ourselves risen with Christ; then we feed on Christ and are to be led by Him to victory over all enemies who oppose our acquisition and enjoyment of heavenly life and blessings.
W. T. P. Wolston, adapted