In these chapters we read of two passages of the river Jordan, one by the spies and another by the whole camp. The first of these was made in weakness. It was therefore the test of faith.
Rahab receives the spies, though this was done in peril of her life, in spite of their weakness, as having a title paramount to the rights of every relationship in which she then stood.
These three are among the finest qualities of the faith of God’s people. Surely they are the fruit of the workmanship of the Spirit in the saint, so that all the glory is God’s, but they do shine brightly, and the more so when found together as here. They greatly ennoble the soul that is illustrating them, as Rahab the harlot of Jericho did.
She set the claim of these strangers, in weakness and danger as they were, above that of her king and country, for she recognized God in them. “He that receiveth you receiveth me.” This was like Abigail, or Joel, or Jonathan, who, in their several days, made more of God’s witnesses, than of husband, or guest, or parent. This was faith, and she accounts for her faith, just as faith must always account for itself. A report, tidings of what the Lord had done for Israel, was her warrant. Faith comes by hearing.
Grace then shows itself ready to answer faith, as surely it always does. It pledges security to all who will use its provisions, and it gains a sure token; only requiring that there be faithfulness to them in this the day of their weakness.
If we noticed the fine qualities of faith illustrated in the way of Rahab, surely all this in the spies tells us of the excellent ways of grace.
The cross has been left in this judged world as the sure token of salvation to all who will use it and take shelter under it before the day of judgment come. Only we must be faithful to it, have no other confidence, but hold it fast, our only refuge and plea, to the very end.
The spies may have exceeded their commission. They had been sent by Joshua from the camp in the wilderness to spy the land, and not to shelter the people. Be it so. But grace is “a sea without a shore.” It is “a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall.” They who know it, need no ordination to publish it, and He whose it is has never told them that they are to wait for orders, ere they pledge it, and the fruit of it in life and justification to all they meet in the highway of this world, ruined and condemned as it is. And then, the sureness and decision with which the spies, though in their day of weakness, pledge and promise salvation to Rahab, is very blessed in its grace and meaning. It reminds me of that word of the Lord Jesus, “But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins. There is no future to settle the great question of our souls. It is to be done here, and at once ours is a present salvation, and so was Rahab’s. “More happy, but not more secure” is the language of the believer touching himself and the glorified.
And what strength and weakness meet here! The men who were lying under stalks of flax to hide them from their pursuers, assure safety to all who will take it from them. The Son of Man, the despised One of Galilee, Jesus, the rejected, seals the forgiveness of a sinner. What gleams of Christ do we get through the chinks and openings of the Book of God from its very beginning!
The faith of this woman of Jericho, thus answered by the grace of the spies from the camp of God, is also quick to avail itself of the pledge of salvation. She hangs out the mystic line from her window as soon as the spies had departed; and this is another fine quality of faith. It runs to its refuge. It parleys not with probabilities nor does it suffer delays. It knows its safety in its refuge, but knows it nowhere else. David was afraid to stir from the threshing-floor where mercy had rejoiced over judgment, and where God had had respect to his offering. All this has character in it. And then by her faith, Rahab condemns the Canaanitish world—for all the inhabitants of that land had felt the report of what God had done by Israel, as well as herself; but she alone had acted upon it (see chap. 2:9 and Heb. 11:77By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. (Hebrews 11:7)).
One cannot but be moved by the goodness of giving us such a narrative as this, at the opening of such a book as this. We are about to witness the doings of the God of judgment, but before we enter upon that we are given this rich and precious sample of the ways of the God of grace. It is, as we speak, the eleventh hour—yea, and all but the last minute of that hour—but as its day is not quite spent, as its sun has not yet gone down, grace is itself still and will spew itself unwearied in the greatness of its ways. Its earliest moment revives in all its strength and freshness, here at its last. The 12th of Exodus is read again in the 2nd of Joshua. The blood is sprinkled on the lintel again for the redemption of the sinner—the scarlet line preserves the household of faith in devoted Canaan as the sprinkled lintel had done in judged Egypt.
And the work of Grace is done with its own proper attributes, and in its own excellent style. All certainty marks its pledges which it gives, and they are rendered with a ready heart.
The moment also, yields an attraction to this work which no other could have done. It is, as we have said, all but the last moment of the eleventh hour of its day, and yet it serves and is active, displaying thus its divine unweariness.
Surely, we may well take up and enjoy this story of Rahab the harlot of Jericho; somewhat set forth, as the story of Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor, a pattern of all long-suffering in the grace of the God of Salvation. And happy is it again, I may say, to get such a scene as this in such a book as this, that while the judgments we are now about to witness are His needful work, the grace which we here witness, is His own dear and welcome work.
“His wakened wrath but slowly moves,
His willing mercy flies apace.”
The second of these passages of the Jordan is altogether of another character. It is made in strength and is full of glory. It is “the Ark of the God of all the earth,” that is now crossing the river, at the head of the hosts of the Lord. The divine presence is making itself known in majesty. The Lord is about to prepare His throne for judgment and to take His Kingdom.
All is greatness. As soon as the feet of the priests who bear the Ark touch the brim of the water, it retires. “What aileth thee, O Jordan, that thou art driven back?” The presence of God was felt. In calm undistracted majesty, in the consciousness of nothing less than divine strength and title, this passage is now made. The hills had but yesterday been a hiding place for the spies, but now the water itself shall stand up as an heap in the service of the camp.
There is, accordingly, no appeal to faith now, as there had been before, no weakness, no seeking countenance and shelter, no apparent degradation, as of one hiding himself on the roof of a house under stalks of flax laid there by the hand of a woman. All is strength, rendering rewards to them who had been faithful; delivering those who had received the word of grace; and judging those who had feared, but who had not acted on their fears. It was the day of glory redeeming the pledges which grace had already left in a judged world. It was the day of power and of the Kingdom, erecting a memorial to itself in the place of the inheritance, which had but lately been the place of the enemy.
These are the characteristics of the second passage of the Jordan recorded in these chapters. And when we look at the two passages, so different as they are, we cannot but catch the image of the two advents of the Lord into this judged world of ours; the first addressing itself in weakness, in faith, and pledging redemption, in faith—the second, in strength, asserting the rights of the God of all the earth in the judgment of a world that had filled up its measure; giving the promised deliverance to those who had received Him and trusted Him in His day of humiliation; and establishing the honor of His deeds as by a Pillar of twelve stones, the praise of all His saints, in the place of their inheritance.
How full, how clear, how simple! What a scripture do these three chapters furnish! Have we, like the harlot of Jericho, so accepted the grace of the first advent, that we are ever standing with a welcome for the glory of the second? Do we know that perfect love that is in Him now, so that we have boldness in the thought of the judgment yet to be executed?
But in closing my meditations on these chapters, I cannot refuse to add how much I admire the action of this book taking by way of introduction this deliverance of Rahab. It strikingly recalls to mind the redemption of the heir, now when we are about to enter on the great action of the redemption of the inheritance.
We have in this story of Rahab in Jericho, a vivid remembrance of Israel in Egypt; and again I say it is so beautiful that we should have this picture of the salvation of a sinner, just as we are about to enter on that scene which will so tell us of the kingdom or the glory! for, in principle, there is but a step—just as the two passages of the Jordan lay near each other. “Whom He justified, them He also glorified,” As in the twinkling of an eye, the believing thief on the cross was the saint in paradise with Christ.