Joshua 3-4
“They went through the flood on foot” (Psa. 66:6).
“What ailed thee ... thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back” (Psa. 114:5).
Israel’s passage of the Jordan is usually considered a figure of the believer’s entrance into heaven after death, but there is more in it than simply this.
Israel were delivered from the judgment on Egypt by the Passover. At the passage of the Red Sea, Pharaoh’s pursuit was brought to its close, and Israel was delivered from his power. They passed dry-shod through the waters which had threatened to become their tomb, and therein their pursuer and his host were buried. They were freed from Egypt and its king, and set on the far shore, a pilgrim band bound for Canaan. But the passage of the Red Sea did not bring them into Canaan; this was accomplished by crossing the Jordan.
Before passing the stream, the people were, first to observe the ark; and, second, to sanctify themselves.
In the wilderness, if the ark abode beneath its curtains, the people remained in their tents; if it went forward, they followed. And now, as they are about to tread a path hitherto untrodden – a way of which they have no knowledge – in an especial manner, they must observe the leadings of the ark, that they “may know the way by which [they] must go,” “for ye have not passed this way heretofore.” Yet while they were to observe the ark and follow it, they were not to “come near unto it,” but to leave a set distance between it and them, a measured space of two thousand cubits.
In the second place, they were to sanctify themselves, because of the “wonders” which the Lord would on the morrow work among them.
The ark typifies Christ. The path of faith is of necessity a path that is ever new to God’s people, and it is simply by looking unto Jesus that any of us “know the way by which we must go.” Israel was not to press upon the ark, and the Christian must give the Lord Jesus full place, for in all things He must have the preeminence (Col. 1:18). There is a divine distance between Him and His people. If the people had not left a space between themselves and the ark, the fore-ranks would have prevented those that followed from seeing it. And the Christian must ever have a full view of Christ, if he would walk in God’s way.
But how shall we follow Christ? “Sanctify yourselves,” was the word of God to Israel, how much more then to us! Truly, there can be no following the Lord Jesus, save with holy footsteps. No approaching God’s “wonders,” save as Moses approached the bush. Then how shall we “sanctify ourselves”? Our only sanctification is Christ – “Who of God is made unto us ... sanctification” (1 Cor. 1:30). There is no power for separation from evil save by Christ. And the more closely we look into the Jewish ceremonial sanctification, the more evidently do we see that all pointed to Christ.
The ark of the Lord, at the passage of the Jordan, was called “The ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth.” The Lord Jesus said, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18), for the Father has committed everything into His hands.
The river Jordan barred Israel’s entrance into Canaan. Except by that river, God had no way for His people into the promised land. When Israel reached the borders it was harvest time, and “Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest”; thus, the stream was swollen into a mighty torrent, and stretched its broad waters over the valley. We can easily imagine the host of Israel, with the “men of war,” the women, and the little ones, crowded near its brink; and can picture to ourselves the ark of the Lord, borne by the Levites, two thousand cubits in front of the host. Every eye is fixed upon the ark of the Lord, for all are fully aware that if they are to get into Canaan, it must be by the ark. Surely none among that vast company doubt for a moment the power of God; nay, rather they are expecting to see His “wonders” wrought in their presence.
And thus, “As they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water ... .that the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, which is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed and were cut off.” In the Dead Sea the River of Death was swallowed up. And the threatening tide of rolling-in waters stood up upon an heap before the ark of the Lord. Was there among that company one heart that feared lest the “swellings of Jordan” should overwhelm him? Before one drop of the tide could touch the feeblest Israelite, God’s ark must have been swept away.
“Until all the people were passed clean over Jordan,” the ark stood before the heaped-up waters; but, when the “priests’ feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all his banks, as they did before.” This is a figure of the Lord holding back the out-pouring of judgment until His people be first all gathered home. Solemn consideration for him who knows not Christ as the One who delivers from death! Oh, consider that the long pent-up waters of judgment will assuredly sweep over this earth in irresistible power, and if the last of the host passes before you, and you are left behind, how shall you then find your entrance into the land of light and love beyond? May God in His mercy give you, dear reader, to pass over while the way is still open.
God allowed Israel no way through the Jordan except that which His ark made. Israel had, thirty-eight years before, in self-will, endeavored to fight their way into Canaan, they had tried their unbelieving utmost to reach it – but in vain; and the Lord now showed them His way must be trodden in the strength of the ark alone. If an Israelite could not gain the earthly inheritance by his own strength, how shall the sinner gain heaven by his own efforts?
Now, like a Jordan, death bounds this wilderness world, through which men are journeying, and there is no ford, no ferry, no bridge, whereby we can cross the stream. Sooner or later each of the children of men must come to the brink of the river, but none shall enter the land of life beyond, save by God’s own chosen way.
As in the figure before us, Israel’s course, as murmuring and unbelieving wanderers, ended in the Jordan, so our history, as men in the flesh, terminates in the sight of God, in the death of His Son. In the grace and power of God, what the Son accomplished He accomplished for all. And for each of His people. The Lord and His people are “planted together” (we could not say united, for death does not unite) in death. They occupy the same place – we are “dead with Christ.” It is the believer’s comfort to realize this; for when we know that in the sight of God we are judicially dead, and that He looks not upon us in our natural condition, but in His Son only, our doubts and fears are buried, and we are enabled to “reckon [ourselves] to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The same power which carried the priests who bore the ark dry-shod through the river, was effectual in the passage of the least of the host. The ark and the people were identical. Christ has gone down into death and emptied it of its power, as the ark of the Lord exhausted Jordan’s stream; and it is by Him that every believer enters the heavenly land beyond. If we are “planted together” with Christ in the likeness of His death, we are united to Him in His life. Because He lives, we live also. We are “saved by His life” (Rom. 5:10). “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). Christ, our ark, has brought His people clean through the river of death into the promised land. In Christ, the believer is, as it were, on the far side of Jordan, and at rest in Canaan. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3).
It may be well to place together the three great symbols of the Passover, the Red Sea, and the Jordan.
From the night of the Passover we learn of the work of Christ as the Spotless Lamb, whose precious blood has answered every claim which justice had against us, and has “delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10).
From the night of the Red Sea we learn God’s glorious work in delivering His people from the power of Satan. Pharaoh would have snatched blood-bought Israel from Jehovah’s hand if he could; he tried his utmost. But when the morning came, Jehovah looked through the pillar of fire and cloud upon the pursuer and his host, and they cried “Let us flee”; Jehovah fights for His people against the Egyptians. Then the sea returned upon them, “There remained not so much as one of them” (Ex. 14:25, 28). Thus, in Jehovah’s strength, the six hundred thousand of Israel passed dry-shod through the sea, and sang on its far shore, “the Lord hath triumphed gloriously”; the women answering the song with timbrels and dances. And more than this song of freedom, they, by faith ascribing all the work of their blessing to Jehovah, spake as if they were already in Canaan; “Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation” (Ex. 15:13).
When the Lord rose from the dead, the power of Satan, the pursuer of the Lord’s people, was overthrown. From that triumphant morning, the song of victory has been sung by every believer who has known the Saviour as his Deliverer. And, by faith, every believer can say not only that he is “redeemed,” but that, notwithstanding the intervening wilderness, he is brought by God’s “strength” into the heavenly places – His “holy habitation.”
When Israel began to tread the wilderness, their strong faith changed to unbelief. Their enemies, indeed, were dead, but self was in full activity; and, they became so occupied with themselves, that they forgot their great deliverance and their song of triumph at the Red Sea.
They reached the Jordan in the morning, and crossed over in full daylight. We read of no shouts of victory accompanying the passage, no timbrels nor dances, but a solemn stillness appears to pervade the host as they observe the Lord’s ark go down for them into the flood.
In the full clear light of this scene, we learn death to self and life with Christ. We learn that the same Almighty Saviour, who shed His precious blood for His poor enthralled people; and who, by His own strength, overthrew their enemies, has, in the power of His life, brought them into the heavenly places. It is blessed, indeed, to realize, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, the greatness of Christ’s work for His people as shadowed in the passage of the Red Sea, and our standing in Christ as set forth in the passage of the Jordan.
Before the Jordan was crossed, Jehovah said to Joshua, “This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel”; and when they had passed over, “On that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared Him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life” (Joshua 4:14).
God the Father magnifies the Lord Jesus as the Victor over death; and the Lord is never thoroughly honored by God’s people, until the greatness of His work in resurrection is apprehended.
When all the people were passed over Jordan, the Lord bade Joshua: “Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, and command ye them, saying, 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.”
These twelve stones represented all the people of Israel, one stone for each tribe; and being taken from the depths of the Jordan, they told of the work of God, who, by His ark, had brought the people over. These stones were set up in the land, a sign that all Israel was one family – that Jehovah’s twelve tribes were one people. A sign also, (being set up in the promised land), that the manifested union of the tribes was effected in Canaan. Some of Israel’s tribes might choose their dwelling on the wilderness side of Jordan – they might not practically come up to the full measure of blessing which the land of promise offered to them; but their stones were set up in the promised land, and, despite the poverty of their faith, they were one with their brethren there.
Israel was built up in manifested unity in Canaan; the church is One body in the heavenly places. No tribes, no divisions, neither Jew nor Gentile are recognized in it. We are quickened together ... .raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This oneness is effected by the Holy Spirit, as the result of the work of Christ. We are members of each other, being members of His body.
If any members of the Church of God (like the two and a half tribes of Israel who chose a portion short of the promised land) choose a position which practically denies the oneness of the body, still, being united to Christ, they are of the undivided company. They lose the enjoyment of their portion, so long as they live below their privileges, it is true; but they cannot defeat God’s counsel, or mar His purpose of blessing them. And though, on this earth, divisions spoil the beauty of God’s Church, yet, in the glory, it shall be found that not one member is lacking. When, by faith, the Body is beheld in its divine and heavenly beauty, the Christian can look calmly on the divisions of Christendom, and can undismayed regard its schisms – for Christ is not divided – and can pity the vanity of endeavoring to form a union on the wilderness side of Jordan, as it were a union which is not heavenly, nor in the power of Christ’s resurrection.
The twelve men carrying upon their shoulders the stones from the Jordan, also illustrate what the condition of the Lord’s risen people should be as they walk through this world. “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Cor. 4:10). As the representatives of the twelve tribes trod the promised land, bearing the stones upon their shoulders, they testified not merely that they were brought into Canaan, but also of the way by which they entered it. The life of Jesus is not made manifest in us by our simply saying, we are risen with Him; but by a denial of self, a dying to the world, through the power of His death.
These stones were set down at Gilgal, and became a “memorial unto the children of Israel forever.” How much more should the death and resurrection of the Son of God be the one and only memorial for every believer! “When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What mean these stones?’ then ye shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up from before us, until we were gone over: that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the Lord your God forever.’” Thus was Israel to answer the question, “What mean ye by these stones?” which would naturally arise in the minds of many in after days. Should any inquirer put a similar question to us concerning our salvation, we can boldly reply, Christ died and rose again; by Him we have come dry-shod through the river of death; and not only has His death and resurrection freed us forever from our enemies, but it has also freed us from ourselves; and now it is the happy, yes, glorious portion of every believer in the Lamb once slain, to testify to the exceeding greatness of God’s power to them that believe.
Has the lapse of a short eighteen hundred years drawn away God’s people from the ground of the Christian faith? Are other signs required now, signs which the early Church would have scorned? It is a sad fact for every faithful heart, that human reason, and humanly invented religious machinery, have marred the simple and bold testimony to the work of Christ. Yet, be the answer which God’s people give to their children what it may, a crucified, and risen, and ascended Son of God is the alone foundation of faith, as every sinner saved will some day testify. May we be witnesses for God in this matter! (Read 1 Cor. 15:1-4, 14-15.)
Before leaving this scene of Jehovah’s “wonders” let us note this word; “And 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.” The ascended Son of God never forgets the people for whom He died. He never forgets His death. The deep waters, where His almighty feet “stood firm” are present to Him and to His God and Father. From the throne on high He remembers the cross.
May we, who, in Him, have trodden the wondrous way of which human reason had no knowledge, and who have in Him entered the heavenly places, while enjoying the unspeakable blessing of life in the risen and exalted Son of God, abide in the remembrance of His death – look, by the power of the divine Spirit, into the deep waters!