But to return to the Jordan. At the Passover atonement was made; at the Red Sea redemption was accomplished, and salvation obtained; but here it is another question. In order to take possession of the land of Canaan, the people must be in a certain condition.
Between the Red Sea and the Jordan, Israel had crossed the desert, and this journey is divided into two distinct parts. In the first part, up to Sinai, it is grace which leads the people—the same grace which had redeemed them from Egypt, and by which they experience the resources of Christ in the midst of all their infirmities. In the second part, after Sinai, Israel is under the reign of law, and it is then that they are proved to know what is in their hearts. The trial only demonstrated that they were "carnal, sold under sin"; that they had no power, that their will was enmity against God, that it was not subject to the law of God, finally showing itself in positive open rebellion when it was a question of going up into the mountain of the Amorites, and entering into possession of the promises.
The condition of Israel was an absolute obstacle to their entering Canaan. When they come to the end of their experiences in the flesh, they find the Jordan, an overflowing flood, as a barrier to their onward progress. The Red Sea hindered their escape from Egypt, the Jordan prevents their entrance into Canaan, and to attempt to cross it would be their destruction. Here we have a fresh type of death. It is the end of man in the flesh, and, at the same time, the end of Satan's power. How can we, who are without strength, withstand it? It separates us forever from the enjoyment of the promises. "Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
But the grace of God has provided for it. The ark goes before the people; it not only makes them know the way by which they should go, for they had not passed this way heretofore (Josh. 3:4), but it associates them with itself in the passage. The priests, the representatives of the people, were to take up the ark of the covenant and pass on before Israel. (Josh. 3:6.) It was indeed the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth (Josh. 3:13) which was to pass on before them across Jordan, but not without them. The ark maintained its preeminence. "There shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure" (Josh. 3:4); but as the eyes of the people were fixed upon it (Josh. 3:3) they beheld at the same time the priests of the tribe of Levi who bore it. As soon as the soles of the feet of the priests rested in the waters of Jordan, they were cut off and ceased to flow. A power was there which was victorious over the power of death, and which associated Israel with the victory.
If it was thus for Israel, how much more for us! All that we were in the flesh has, found its end in the cross of Christ. We can say: I am dead to sin, dead to the law; I am crucified with Christ. My eyes, fixed on the ark—on Christ—see in Him the end of my personality as a child of Adam; but in Him also a victorious power, now made mine, introduces me in resurrection-life in Him, beyond death, into the full enjoyment of the things which this life possesses: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
Death itself, of course, is not yet swallowed up: "When the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord were come up out of the midst of Jordan ... the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all his banks, as they did before." (Josh. 4:18.) But when "this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." (1 Cor. 15:54.) Then Christ's place, beyond all that which could hinder us, will be ours, even as to our bodies. But before the fulfillment of these things, we can already say: "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. 15:57.)
We find then in the Jordan, in a special way, death to that which we were in our former status, and the beginning of a new status in the power of life with Christ, with whom we are risen. His death and resurrection introduce us now into all the heavenly blessings, and what we have just said explains the reason of our not finding enemies here as at the Red Sea. At the Jordan the Israelites are not pursued by Pharaoh and his host, but the enemy is in front of them, and does not begin to act until they have crossed the river.
Now they enter upon a new series of experiences. In the desert of Sinai the old man has been proved to be sin; then follows, in type, at the Jordan, the knowledge acquired by faith, that we have been taken out of our association with Adam, and set in a new association with a dead and risen Christ; finally, in Canaan, we have the experiences of the new man, though not without weakness and failure if there be a lack of vigilance, but with a power at our disposal, of which we can make constant use in order to be strong and to fight valiantly and resist the subtle wiles of the enemy.