Joshua Chapter 3

Now we come in chapter three to the account of the actual crossing of the Jordan, and we can see it is indeed very similar to the crossing of the Red Sea. Did our Lord not say before His Crucifixion, “I have a baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?” We know that the Lord was baptized by John in Jordan at the outset, and the Holy Ghost like a dove descended and abode upon Him there, therefore the baptism of which He spoke was not water baptism, nor yet the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but the baptism of death. But the bodily death was not our bodily death, but His. Jordan is the place of our dying with Him, but it is not our bodily death. Just as the Red Sea baptism was our acknowledgement of His death and resurrection, and was witnessed by the Egyptians, so Jordan typifies our going with Him into death also, but this time it is our death with Him, so that we being crucified with Him also go into death with Him. It cannot be spoken of as our bodily death, nor is it spiritual death, but it is our death with Christ, not witnessed by the Egyptians.

“And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.” We must notice the order of this verse. The resurrection is put before the tomb, lest we be confused in our minds. “Joshua rose early in the morning”—Jesus is risen, He is alive, for we do not follow a dead Lord but a risen Saviour, the Overcomer, who was once crucified for our offences but is risen again for our justification.

“And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan.” We follow a risen Lord, yet we come by the same route that He took, we walk in His footsteps, we are crucified with Him and we go into death with Him. The body is taken down from the Cross, placed in the tomb—“removed from Shittim and came to Jordan.” “He and all the children of Israel”—clearly we are all meant to come this way—“and lodged there”—for how long?—“before they passed over.” “And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host, and they commanded the people, saying…” There is no word for the people for three days, for obvious reasons. But God is careful to word His Scriptures so that we cannot go wrong, we cannot escape from His plain truth. The account of the crossing of the Jordan clearly begins with the stark statement, “And Joshua rose early in the morning.” Jesus is risen! It is paramount, it is clearly stated, it is necessary for us to see that. We are following a risen Saviour into death! We do not follow a dead Lord, we do not conform to the death of One who died centuries ago. No, no! We are taking the route of the Overcomer, we are following a risen Saviour into death. Jesus is risen, He is alive to die no more, the victory is already won, Jordan is dry ground, and we merely follow in His footsteps. “If Christ be not risen, your faith is vain,” says Paul, “ye are yet in your sins.” We are not interested, humanly speaking, in Joshua’s bedtime habits, but God recorded the fact that Joshua rose early in the morning so that we might see the truth as it is in Christ.

“And they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore.” For we have not passed this way heretofore—this is why we must be careful to get it right. No such instruction is given at the crossing of the Red Sea, but let us be sure we know what we do when we cross the Jordan. We are to go into the inheritance intelligently, with our eyes open, and not blind to the forces that will oppose us, and we are to watch well at the crossing of the Jordan to make sure we get it right, for we have not passed this way heretofore.

The sign given to us to follow is the Ark of the Covenant going before us. Now in this context the ark is symbolic of the body of Christ. We have seen the Crucifixion, and in a previous verse we have seen the body of the Lord taken down from the Cross—removed from Shittim to Jordan. Now as we follow Him we are taught by the Spirit to concentrate all our attention on His burial. With our spiritual eyes we are to see the Lord in burial, we are to focus our attention on that great fact. We may not lightly pass over this Jordan. The priests, the Levites, have gone before us bearing the ark—the gospel writers, the apostles, the church fathers, and particularly in our day the Roman Catholic church—all support the fact that the Lord lay in the tomb for three days and nights. We are no nearer than (about) two thousand years from the event, yet we are to closely observe all that happened to the ark, and take our cue from it. Paul told us that they died daily—for the Jordan “overflows his banks all the time of harvest,” and in proclaiming the death of Christ, death lapped at their feet. Those who put Christ to death were still in power when the apostles testified to the death of Jesus, yet it is still true to the end of the harvest that the world that crucified Christ would gladly put to death all those who remind them of their ghastly deed. The body in burial is “the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth,” for the angels could say, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” Those few today who are still faithfully bearing the ark, openly testifying in public that it is the wickedness of man which has caused the death of Jesus, if they dare to lay the charge of murder on this generation will feel again the waters of Jordan lapping at their feet, and this should be part of the work of the priests, the Levites. For the rest of us, the people of God, it is enough to follow the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, into Jordan, but death does not lap at our feet, nor are we in daily danger here, for our part is not seen of men. We go over Jordan dry shod, as long as the priests stand firm. “And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.” All the people were passed clean over Jordan—we are all meant to go this way, to enter the inheritance, and to leave at last our doubts and fears buried in the wilderness, for if we go this way we will never doubt again the greatness of the love of God for us.

Finally, let us look at the waters. “The waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho.” The waters are divided, and yet not quite in the same way as the waters of the Red Sea. The Red Sea waters formed two walls of water between which the Israelites passed on dry ground. At the Jordan, the water above stood and rose up upon an heap, while the water below failed and was cut off. At Calvary, Christ is seen in the midst of the water, all thy waves and thy billows came over My head, but in death the picture changes. Now the water which came down from above is piled up upon an heap, it has ceased to come down and has begun to pile up, showing that the judgment of God from that moment on has begun to pile up waiting for the day of reckoning, while the water which formerly came down has failed and been cut off, showing that during the day of grace there is no judgment for sinners on earth any more since Christ died, but all may be forgiven even as we have been forgiven and all may freely partake of the mercy of God. It is the death of our Lord that has caused the difference, just as the picture shows clearly it is the ark going into Jordan that has divided the waters. While the day of grace lasts there is mercy and pardon for the worst sinners on earth if they turn to God by Jesus Christ, and just as clearly there is piled up wrath against the day of wrath in store for all who here rejected the dearly-bought salvation offered to them in Christ.

“The waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan.” To those in the place of Adam these heaped up waters seem very far away, far-fetched fancies indeed, but the place of Adam is beside Zaretan, it is close to Sodom, it is nigh to being burned. Zaretan means destruction and sudden death, and those in the place of Adam are very close to destruction and sudden death, even though to them the piled-up waters seem very far away. On the other hand the waters that failed, and were cut off, were “those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea.” The salt sea in the plain is a picture of all who have accepted Christ, they whom He said were the salt of the earth, and our Lord’s death is the division of the waters, so that all wrath and judgment is cut off from these entirely. Whenever we look at Jordan let us remember that the Lord in going into death has divided the waters—on the one hand wrath is piling up for sinners till the day of judgment, and for us on the other hand there is now no condemnation, the waters are failed and cut off. On the Cross He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, He died, the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God, He was the Lamb of God bearing the sins of the whole world, He was our sacrifice, our propitiation, our Saviour. And now we see that it was in the Jordan He divided forever the waters from the waters, so that the wrath of God cannot fall on us who believe in Him. But let us close chapter three by reminding ourselves of its own opening sentence, “And Joshua rose early in the morning.” Thank God for our great Overcomer. How great Thou art!