OUR picture this week is of a beautiful spot on the river Jordan. There are many rivers in the world that present such a picture and many, more beautiful than this one, yet we know that many of our Sunday school scholars are interested in that river on account of the many incidents recorded in Scripture in connection with it.
Many people are quite superstitious about it, as if it were more sacred or holy than any other river on account of the children of Israel having been brought through it on dry land; and John the Baptist having baptized people in it unto repentance, and the Lord Jesus associated Himself with the repentant few who were confessing their sins and turning away from them. But these things do not make that river any better than any other, save that it has a particular interest.
As we have mentioned the fact of the Lord associating Himself with those who were confessing their sins, it will be well for us to mention that the Lord Jesus had no sins to confess, but it was a righteous thing for those people to confess their sins, and therefore the Lord could say to John (who wondered at the Lord for wanting to be baptized of him), “It becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” God at that moment opened the heavens, and said,
“THIS IS MY BELOVED SON IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED.” Matt. 3:17.
God would not allow the people to think that the Lord Jesus was a sinner, like the rest of them.
The river flows swiftly, so it gets its name from the Hebrew word “Yarden” which means descent, and it empties into the Dead Sea.
God has used it as a type of His righteous judgment against sin, which flowed over Christ unto death, so when the Israelites passed through the Jordan, God caused the waters to stop, and pile up in a heap, when the priests stood bearing the ark in the midst of Jordan. The ark, therefore, as a type of Christ, stood between these waters of judgment, and the people, and they passed over on dry ground.
We, too, pass into heaven through the work of Christ on the cross, for there He bore the judgment for us, and, therefore, stopped it for us, so that we might go in free.
ML 03/19/1922