Joshua 3-5
The people are now to enter the promised land; but how enter it? For Jordan with its flood at the highest, lay as a barrier before the people of God guarding the territory of those that oppose their hopes. Now Jordan represents death, but death looked at rather as the end of human life, and the token of the enemy’s power, than as the fruit and testimony of the just judgment of God.
The passage of the Red Sea was also death: but the people were there, as participating (in type) in the death and resurrection of Jesus accomplishing their redemption, and setting them free forever from Egypt, their house of bondage—that is, from every claim of Satan. It was then that the people entered upon their pilgrimage in the wilderness. Redemption, complete salvation, purchased by the precious blood of Christ, introduces the Christian into this pilgrimage. With God, he only passes through the world as a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; still this pilgrimage is but the life down here, although it is the life of the redeemed.
1. THE HEAVENLY LIFE. There is the heavenly life, the warfare in the heavenly places, which goes on at the same time. When I say at the same time, I do not mean at the same instant, but during the same period of our natural life on the earth. It is one thing to pass through this world faithfully, or unfaithfully, in OUR daily circumstances, under the influence of a better hope; it is another tiling to be waging a spiritual warfare for the enjoyment of the promises, and of heavenly privileges, as men already dead and risen, as being absolutely not of the world. Both these things are true of the Christian life. Now, it is as dead and risen again in Christ that we are in spiritual conflict; to make war in Canaan we must have crossed the Jordan. It is, then, death and resurrection in Christ, looked at in their spiritual power not as to their efficacy for the justification of a sinner, but as their realization for his life in the heavenly places, into which Christ has entered.
A comparison between Philippians 3 and Colossians 2 and 3 shows how death and resurrection are bound up with the true character of the circumcision of Christ. In Philippians 3 the return of Christ is introduced as completing the work by the resurrection of the body. In both passages the heavenly life is spoken of as a present thing; but there is entire separation, even down here, between the pilgrimage and this heavenly life, although the latter has a powerful influence on the character of our pilgrim life. This influence was perfect and entire in the case of the Lord Jesus; but His life in connection with men, although the ever-perfect expression of the effect of His life of heavenly communion, was evidently distinct from it. The joy of the heavenly life entirely set aside all the motives of the lower life; and leading to the sufferings of His earthly life, in connection with men, produced a life of perfect patience before God. In Him all was sinless; but His joys were elsewhere.
Thus, also, with the Christian; there is nothing in common between these two lives. Nature has no part whatever in that above; in that below there are things which belong to nature and the world, not in the bad sense of the word “world,” but considered as creation. Nothing of this enters into the life of Canaan. Christ alone could pass through death, and exhaust its strength, in being in it as shedding the blood of the everlasting covenant; and He alone could rise again from death, according to the power of the life that was in Him, “for in him was life.” He has opened this way; He has converted death into a power that destroys this flesh which shackles us, and a deliverance from that in us that gives advantage to the enemy with whom we have to fight, being thenceforward brought into Canaan. Therefore the apostle says, “All things are yours, whether life or death.” Now, every true Christian is dead and risen in Christ: the knowing and realizing it is another thing; but the word of God sets Christian privilege before us according to its real power in Christ.
2. THE ARK. The ark of the Lord passed over before the people, who were to leave the space of two thousand cubits between it and them, “that they might know the way by which they must go; for they had not passed this way before.” Who, indeed, had passed through death, to rise above its power, until Christ, the true Ark of the Covenant, had opened this way? Man, whether innocent or sinful, could do nothing here. This way was alike unknown to both, as was also the heavenly life that follows. This life is altogether beyond Jordan; the scenes of spiritual conflict do not belong to man in his life below. No wilderness experience, be it ever so faithful, has anything to do with it, although the grapes of Canaan may cheer the pilgrims by the way. But Christ has destroyed all the power of the enemy and the token of his dominion. It is now but the witness of the power of Jesus. It is indeed death; but, as we have said, it is the death of that which fetters us.
3. LORD OF ALL THE EARTH. I will add some brief remarks. “Lord of all the earth” is the title Joshua repeats, as that which God had here taken; for it is in testimony to this great truth that God had planted Israel in Canaan. Hereafter He will establish in power, according to His counsels, that which had been put into the hands of Israel, that they might keep it according to their responsibility. This last principle is the key to the whole history of the Bible, as to man, Israel, the law, and all it has to do with. All is first trusted to man, who ever fails, and then God accomplishes it in blessing and power.
Thus this chapter supplies us with very clear indications of that which God has promised to accomplish in the last dais, when He will indeed show Himself to be “Lord of all the earth” in Israel brought back to grace by His mighty power. And we must attend to this testimony of the purpose of God in establishing Israel in their land. Harvest time will come, and the strength of the enemy will overflow its banks; but we, as Christians are already on the other side. The strength of the enemy passed all bounds in the death of Jesus; and we do not say now, “Lord of all the earth,” but “All power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth.”
4. VICTORY CERTAIN. Let us remark, also, how God encourages His people. They must combat; the sole of the foot must tread on every part of the promised land to possess it; and it must be in conflict that the power of the enemy and entire dependence upon God are realized. But while fighting boldly for Him, He would have—as know that victory is certain. The spies said to Joshua, “truly the Lord hath delivered, into our hands all the land, for even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because of us.” This is what we know and prove by the testimony of the Holy Ghost, so different from that of the flesh, as brought by the ten who came back with Caleb and Joshua.
5. THE MEMORIAL. But if we are introduced into a life which is on the other side of death, by the power of the Spirit of God, as being dead and risen in Christ, there must be the remembrance of that death which is on this side of it, of the ruin of man, as he now is, and of the fallen creation to which he belongs. Twelve men, one out of each tribe, were to bring stones from the midst of Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood firm with the Ark, while all Israel passed over on dry ground. The Holy Ghost brings with Him—so to speak—the touching memorial of the death of Jesus, by the mighty power of which He has turned all the effect of the enemy’s strength into life and deliverance. Death comes with us from the grave of Jesus: no longer now as death, it is become life unto us. This memorial was to be set up at Gilgal. The meaning of this circumstance will be considered in the next chapter; we will only dwell here on the memorial itself. The twelve stones, for the twelve tribes, represented the tribes of God as a whole. This number is the symbol of perfection in human agency, in connection here as elsewhere, with Christ, as in the case of the showbread.
Here also the Spirit sets us—Christians—in a more advanced position. There were twelve loaves of the showbread, and we form but one in our life of union by the Holy Ghost with Christ our Head, which is the life we speak of here. Now, it is His death that is recalled to us, in the memorial left us by the loving-kindness of our Lord., who condescends to value our remembrance of his love. I only speak here of this memorial as the sign of that which should be always a reality. We eat His flesh, we drink His life given for us. Being one now in the power for our union with Christ risen, dead to the world and to sin, it is from the bottom of the river into which He went to make it the way of life—heavenly life—for us, that we bring back the precious memorial of His love, and of the place in which He fulfilled His work. It is a broken body which we eat, a poured out blood which we drink; and this is the reason why blood was entirely prohibited to Israel after the flesh; for how can death be drunk by those who are mortal? but we drink it because the death of Christ is our life, and it is in realizing the death of that which is mortal that we live with Him. The remembrance of Jordan, of death when Christ was in it, is the remembrance of that power, which secured our salvation in the last stronghold of him who had the power of death. It is the remembrance of that love which went down into death, in order that, as to us, it should lose all its power; except that of doing us good, and being a witness unto us of infinite and unchangeable love.
6. GILGAL. The power of resurrection—life takes all strength from Satan: “He who is born of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.” In our earthly life, the flesh being in us, we are exposed to the power of the enemy; and the creature has no strength against him, even though it should not be drawn away into actual sin. But if death is become our shelter, causing us to die unto all that would give Satan an advantage over us, what can he do? Can he tempt one who is dead, or overcome one who, having died, is alive again? But if this be true, it is also necessary to realize it practically. “Ye are dead... Mortify therefore,” (Col. 3) This is what Gilgal means.
7. CIRCUMCISION. The matter in hand was not yet the taking of cities, the realization of God’s magnificent promises. Self must first of all be mortified. Before conquering Midian, Gideon must cast down the altar that was in his own house. The wilderness is not the place where circumcision is carried out, even though we may have been faithful there. Circumcision is the application of the Spirit’s power to the mortification of the flesh in him who has fellowship with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Therefore Paul says, (Phil. 3) “We are the circumcision.” As to an outwardly moral life, Paul had that before. Had he now added true piety to his religion of forms, the true fear of God to his good works? It was far more than that. Christ had taken the place of all in him—first of all as to righteousness, which is the groundwork; but, further, the apostle says, “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead.” Therefore it is in “pressing towards the mark” that he waits for the coming of Jesus to accomplish this resurrection as to his body. In the Epistle to the Colossians, chapter 2, he speaks to us of the circumcision of Christ. Is it only that he has ceased to sin? (the certain effect indeed of this work of God.) No; for in describing this work, he adds, “Being buried with him in baptism, wherein also we are risen with him, through faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead.” The consequences of this heavenly life are found in chapter 3 verse 1, which is in immediate connection with the verse just quoted. Here also the work is crowned by the manifestation of the saints with Jesus when He shall appear in glory.
8. MORTIFY THEREFORE. Our Gilgal is in the 5th verse. “Mortify therefore.” We see that it is founded on grace. It rests on the power of that which is already true to faith. “Ye are dead.... Mortify therefore.” This being the standing, it is realized. “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead,” said the apostle (Rom. 6) when speaking on the same subject. This is the practical power of the type of the stones brought from Jordan. They are a symbol of our union with Christ who was dead. Raised up together with Him, we can say that we were dead with Him, He has been once dead for sin: God has quickened us together with Him. All that He did was for us. Associated with Him in life, united to Him by the Spirit, I appropriate to myself, or rather God ascribes to me, all that He has done, as though it had happened to myself. He is dead to sin, in Him I am dead to sin. Therefore I can “mortify;” which I could not do as being still in the flesh. Where was the nature, the life, to do it in? Now, circumcision being the practical application of that of which we have been speaking, we remember the death of Christ, and the mortification of our members on the earth is accomplished through grace in the consciousness of grace. Otherwise it would only be the effort of a soul under the law, and in that case there would be a bad conscience and no strength. This is what sincere monks attempted; but their efforts were not made in the power of grace, of Christ and His strength. If there was sincerity, there was also the deepest spiritual misery. In order to die, there must be life: and if we have life, we have already died in Him who died for us. The stones set up in Gilgal were taken out of the midst of Jordan, and Jordan was already crossed before Israel was circumcised. The memorial of grace, and of death as the witness to us of a love which wrought out our salvation, by taking up our sins in grace, stood in the place where mortification was to be effected. Christ dying for sins, in perfect love, in unfailing efficacy, is our strength in dying unto sin. In every circumstance, then, we must remember that we are dead, and say to ourselves, If through grace I am dead, what have I to do with sin, which supposes me to be alive? Christ is in this death, in the beauty and in the power of His grace; it is deliverance itself. As to growth, the apostle says, “I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”
9. THE REPROACH OF EGYPT ROLLED AWAY. Thus, in being dead, and only thus, will the reproach of Egypt be taken away. Every mark of the world is a reproach to him who is heavenly. It is only the heavenly man, who has died with Christ, that disentangles himself from all that is of Egypt. The life of the flesh always cleaves to Egypt; but the principle of worldliness is uprooted in him who is dead and risen with Christ, and living a heavenly life. There is in the life of a man a necessary link with the world as God sees it, that is, corrupt and sinful; with a dead man there is no such link. The life of a risen man is not of this world; it has no connection with it. He who possesses this life may pass through the world and do many things that others do. He eats, works, suffers; but as to his life and his object, he is not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world. Christ risen and ascended up on high, is his life. He subdues his flesh-he mortifies it-for in point of fact he is down here, but he does not live in it. The camp was always at Gilgal. The people—the army of the Lord—returned thither, after their victories and their conquests. If we do not do the same, we shall be feeble, the flesh will betray us; we shall fall before the enemy in the hour of conflict, even though it may be honestly entered into in the service of God. It is at Gilgal the monument of the stones from Jordan is set up; for if the consciousness of being dead with Christ is necessary to enable us to mortify the flesh, it is through this mortification that we attain to the knowledge of what is to be thus dead. We do not realize the inward communion, (I am not speaking now of justification,) the sweet and divine enjoyment of the death of Jesus for us, if the flesh is unmortified. It is impossible. But if we return to Gilgal, to the blessed mortification of our own flesh, we find there all the sweetness, (and it is infinite,) all the powerful efficacy of this communion with the death of Jesus—with the love manifested in it. “Always bearing about in the body,” says the apostle, “the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal body.” Thus we do not remain in Jordan; but there remains in the heart all the preciousness of this glorious work, a work which the angels desire to look into, which is for us, and which Christ in his love appropriates to us. We find Him with us at Gilgal-a place of no outward show or victory to attract the eyes of men, but where He, who is the source of all victory, is found in the power and communion which enables us to overcome.
10. THE TWELVE STONES IN JORDAN. But there were also twelve stones set up in the midst of Jordan; and, indeed, if we apply the power of the death of Christ to mortify the flesh, the heart—exercised in, and fully enjoying heavenly things—loves to turn again to Jordan, to the place where Jesus went down in the power of life and obedience, and to gaze upon that Ark of the Covenant, which stood there, and stayed those impetuous waters till all the people had passed over. One loves, now that He is risen, while viewing the power of death in all its extent, to behold Jesus there who went down into it; but who destroyed its power for us. In the overflowing of the nations, Christ will be the security and the salvation of Israel; but He has been our security and our salvation with respect to much more terrible enemies. The heart loves to stand on the banks of that river—already crossed—and to realize, while studying what Jesus was, the work and the wondrous love of Him who went down into it alone, until all was accomplished. But in one sense we were there. The twelve stones show that the people had to do with this work, although the ark was there alone when the waters were to be restrained. In the Psalms we can especially there contemplate the Lord, now that we are in peace on the other side the stream. Oh, if the Church knew how to seat herself there, and there meditate on Jesus! In doctrine, the Psalms set forth also the connection between the death of Jesus and the residue of Israel passing through the waters of tribulation in the last days.
Behold, then, the people out of Egypt and in Canaan, according to the faithfulness of God’s promise; not only redeemed out of Egypt, but brought into Canaan; the reproach of Egypt being rolled away, and the people of God having taken their place at Gilgal—the true circumcision of heart of which we have spoken.