JOSHUA IN THE LIGHT OF EPHESIANS

INTRODUCTION

The Jews were called to be the earthly people of God, and the Old Testament records their history from the call of Abraham to the return from exile in Babylon. The goal of that history was the full possession of the land of promise and the complete enjoyment of it that came from a right relationship with their God. Everything centered on the land. It was the embodiment of all that is important to God’s earthly people.

In the New Testament, without finally rejecting the Jews, though for a time they are under judgment, God chose a new people, not a racial group like the Jews, but a spiritual group made up of men and women from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. They are spiritual because the origin of their common life is heavenly, the scene of their conflict is the spiritual realm, and their ultimate destiny is Heaven. Their goal is transformation into the likeness of God’s beloved Son, that he may be the firstborn among many brothers, then a place in his millennial kingdom as a part of his bride, and ultimately, eternal Heaven. Christ is to the Christian what the land is to the Jew. Everything centers in Christ.

In his creative genius, God arranged for the history of Israel in the Old Testament to be a physical picture of spiritual history. As we study what happened to Israel in the material world, we learn rich spiritual lessons. The land of Egypt is symbolic of the world and the lost condition of man. The crossing of the Red Sea pictures salvation from that lost condition. The crossing was possible because of the miraculous work of God, and involved no work whatever on the part of man. The Jews simply crossed on the dry land that God made available to them. That was an act of faith, and the spiritual truth is that we are saved by grace through faith with no reference to our works.

The wandering in the wilderness has a twofold significance. It refers first to the period of a Christian’s life in which he has not yet come into fullness of blessing in the Holy Spirit. He is easily defeated by Satan, and his own self-centered flesh nature often gains the upper hand. He may make no effort to go beyond being saved, or he may try by his own efforts to be victorious and know fullness in the Lord, but he fails. He is wandering in the wilderness spiritually.

The other significance of this wandering period is our time here on this earth away from the presence of the Lord. God is on his throne in Heaven, and the Lord Jesus is at his right hand. We are left here in this world, and without him it is a desert. We do have the Holy Spirit to dwell in us and guide us, and the Lord feeds us on his word and through fellowship, but the Scriptures make it plain that this world is not our home. Heaven is our home, and this world is a desert to the Christian.

The land of promise is taken by some to picture Heaven, but that interpretation does not seem to fit the facts. The land of promise was a land of war. The Jews had to fight to take the land. Thus the land is a picture, not of Heaven, but of the victorious, Spirit-filled life in Christ in this age. Our life as Christians is full of conflict, but we are assured of victory if we will fight in faith in our victorious Lord, just as the Jews were assured of victory in the land if they would fight in obedience to and dependence on the Lord.

The reign of Solomon represents the millennial glory of Israel, the golden age when Israel will be the greatest nation on earth, and the greater Solomon, the Lord Jesus as the millennial King, will reign in righteousness and peace, the meaning of the name Solomon (from Hebrew “shalom”).

In addition to these stages of Jewish history, which are only a sampling and not the whole story, there are many other aspects of Judaism that picture spiritual truth. The tabernacle, the sacrificial system, the priesthood, the festivals, and the regulation for daily life all symbolize spiritual truth. Many individual incidents, such as the victory over Amalek and water from the rock, paint spiritual pictures for us. Time would fail us were we to attempt to go into all these matters in detail. The point is that God has given us first a material picture, and then the spiritual interpretation, so that we may understand and enter into the good of spiritual truth.

There are two books in the Bible, one in the Old Testament and one in the New, that are companion books and deal with one aspect of the history we have outlined briefly. Those books are Joshua and Ephesians, and they deal with the matter of warfare, physical war for the land in the case of the Jews, and spiritual war for fullness in Christ for the Christian. They are both books of victory. Theologians have written about what they call positional truth, the way God sees us in Christ. Positional truth may not be true to our experience, but that does not make it untrue. That simply means that there is something wrong with our experience! It is our calling from God to make positional truth practical in our experience, what is called conditional truth. God says that we are sinless in Christ, for he has dealt with our sins once and for all and removed them as far from us as the east is from the west. Yet we all sin every day. Our sinlessness is positional truth. We are to fight to possess that bit of spiritual land and make it a practical reality. Joshua and Ephesians are the books of positional truth and the making of it into practical experience. God had promised the Jews the land. He had already given it to them, but they had to fight for it. He has given Christians every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph. 1.3), but we have to fight for those blessings. With these thoughts in mind, let us turn now to a consideration of these books. Our method will be to follow Joshua’s order, showing first God’s dealings with Israel, and then considering the spiritual counterpart in Ephesians.

THE CALL OF JOSHUA AND THE PREPARATION OF THE PEOPLE

1.1-18

The book of Joshua begins with the statement that after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua, Moses’ attendant. Both Moses and Joshua are types of Christ. Moses primarily pictures Christ as Savior, for he is the one who led Israel out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, but Moses was such a great man that he gives many pictures of Christ. He fed the people with manna in the wilderness, symbolizing Christ as our bread while we travel through the wilderness of this world. He gave them water from the rock, which is Christ supplying the Holy Spirit. We could go on.

The name “Jesus,” is the English form of the Greek Iesous, the Greek form of the name “Joshua.” Joshua shows us Christ in a different aspect. Joshua was the general of the armies of Israel, and it was he who led them in their fight to take possession of the land God had given them. If the spiritual correspondence of the land is Christ in us as victory, then Joshua would not picture Christ himself as present with us in person, for during this period of conflict the Lord Jesus is at the right hand of God in Heaven, but as present with us through the Holy Spirit, the power of God to overcome the enemy and take the spiritual land, all of Christ that God has given to us.

Moses had died without being permitted to enter the land. That seems a great shame to us, for Moses was such a great leader and so faithful to God. He endured so much for the Lord. Yet he disobeyed God in one particular, and because of that God would not allow him to enter the land. There are at least two lessons in this fact. One is how exacting God can be in his requirements on his servant. Moses was called to do a very great work for God. He was greatly used by God. Such a man is severely dealt with by God to prepare him for such a task, as Moses was through forty years, the forty best years of his life we might say, tending sheep on the back side of the desert, and he continued to be severely dealt with. He must come up to God’s thought for him if he was to be used by God in the way he wanted to use him. Thus this failure of Moses cost him entry into the land.

The second lesson is not spelled out in so many words, but comes out in a thorough study of the Scriptures. Above all things for the Jews Moses stands for the law. He was the lawgiver. But the land is the place of promise, of grace, and law cannot take a person into grace. It is not by our works, but by God’s grace, that we enter into fullness in the Lord. True, we are called on to work, but it is the work that results from, not obtains, the grace of God, and it is a work of faith that lays hold on what the grace of God has already given. The law cannot come into that, and thus Moses, the great symbol of the law, could not enter the land of promise.

Moses is now dead, so the Lord speaks to Joshua and gives him his calling as the successor of Moses. Since both Moses and Joshua typify Christ, this passing from Moses to Joshua pictures for us a passing into a new stage of our relationship with Christ. No longer is he just our leader and provider in the wilderness, though he continues to be that in the sense that this world is a desert for the Christian, but he now becomes our general in the warfare for spiritual fullness. Joshua is the general of Israel in its warfare for the land of promise. The Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ, is our general in the battle for spiritual victory, for claiming, standing on, and living in the promises of God, which ultimately are just Christ himself being all we need. All the promises of God are yes in him (2 Cor. 1.20). The Lord says to Joshua, “Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan,  and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.” That is the calling of Joshua.

In v. 3, we begin to see the correspondence with Ephesians. The Lord says to Joshua, “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread on, to you have I given it, as I spoke unto Moses.” The key words are “have given.” God has already given the land to Israel, yet they must fight for it. Eph. 1.3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ….” God has already given us every spiritual blessing, just as he had already given Israel the land. Yet we must fight to possess these blessings, just as Israel had to fight for the land. The “have given” is positional truth. The war is making the truth conditional, practical in experience.

Why does God make us fight? Why does he give us something, a free gift of grace, and then tell us that we have to go to war to possess it? He does so for our good. God wants us to be strong in our faith in him. He could easily just give us everything, but then we would always be weak babies. A parent could always carry its child. That would be easy for the child, much easier than straining weak muscles and falling down and getting hurt, but then the child would never learn to walk. How pitiful it would be to see a grown person, fully capable of learning to walk, having to be carried around, or pushed around in a wheelchair, by his parent. We have to strain those weak baby muscles and take those hurtful falls to learn to walk, but no one would deny the value if it. So it is in the things of God. He wants us to be strong in him. He wanted Israel to be strong in the land, and he wants us to be strong in spirit as we are filled with the Holy Spirit. That is why we have to fight to lay hold of what God has already given us. We have to possess it.

In 1.4 the Lord gives Joshua the borders of the land he is giving Israel. That land runs from the Mediterranean Sea on the west to the Euphrates River on the east, and included Lebanon on the north and parts of Syria and Iraq on the north and east and part of Jordan to the east. It was a vast land, much larger than Israel ever came into possession of. Therein lies another spiritual lesson. How many of us have come into the “every spiritual blessing” of Eph. 1.3? How many of us have comprehended “the breadth and length and height and depth” of Christ in Eph. 3.18? None of us, to be sure. It is a vast spiritual land, a vast Christ, the Lord has for us, with borders we have not reached. We have yet to possess all the spiritual land God has given us, and that land is Christ.

In v. 5, God tells Joshua that no man will be able to stand before him. What a promise of victory that is! The promise is based on the faithfulness and power of God, for, says the Lord, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you.” In Dt. 31.6 and 8, in his farewell address to Israel, Moses had promised first the people and then Joshua that God would not fail them or forsake them. Now God speaks the same word personally to Joshua. Joshua hears the promise unmediated. He is to be a general who cannot be defeated.

That is Christ through the Holy Spirit for us. He has already won complete victory. At the cross he defeated Satan once for all. Three verses in the New Testament make this truth very clear. Let us cite each one, beginning with Col. 2.15: “When he had disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them in him.” The point is that in Christ, God utterly defeated Satan and his forces at the cross. The rulers and authorities are Satan and the evil spirits through whom he rules the world. Paul is dealing with the spiritual realm in this verse. These spiritual rulers have been disarmed by God, and they have been publicly disgraced in the spiritual world. Every spirit being, God, angels, Satan, demon, deceased human, knows that Satan and his followers have been defeated and disgraced by God at the cross. It is only living humans who are still deceived by Satan. When Paul says that the rulers and the authorities have been disarmed, he means that Satan has no power. He cannot make us do anything. Rev. 12.8 says that when there will be war in the spiritual realm between Michael and his angels and Satan and his angels, Satan and his angels were not strong. My English version says “not strong enough,” but the word “enough” is not there in Greek. He is not strong, having been defeated by Christ. He operates by deceit. If we believe him, he can control us, but if we expose his lies by the word of God, we have victory over him. How complete the victory of our God is!

The second verse is Heb. 2.14: “Therefore since the children have partaken of blood and flesh, he also in the same way shared in the same things, that through death he might render powerless the one who had the power of death, who is the devil, and free those who in fear of death were in bondage all their lives.” I have read of people who worshipped demons because they were afraid of them and made offerings and worshiped them to appease them so they would by hurt by them. That is bondage, and they were in bondage to sin and its results. The Lord Jesus has conquered the one who had the power of death, the ultimate weapon of Satan, and thereby rendered him powerless.

The apostle John adds his thought on this truth in 1 Jn. 3.8: “For this reason the Son of God was revealed, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” What can we add? God has defeated and publicly disgraced Satan. The Lord Jesus has rendered him powerless by conquering his ultimate weapon. He has destroyed his works. How total is the Lord’s victory! How invincible a captain he is. Just as no man could stand before Joshua all the days of his life in his leadership of the people into possession of the land God had already given them, so no spiritual foe can stand before our victorious Lord Jesus Christ as he leads us through his Spirit into possession of “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” Israel already had the victory. All they had to do was fight. The outcome had already been decided. We already have the victory. All we have to do is fight.

In 1.6 God reiterates to Joshua his calling: he will give the people possession of the land. Thus he is to be strong and courageous. In just the same way we will be led into possession of our spiritual blessings.

Eph. 1.19-23 shows us the invincibility of Christ that corresponds to this promise to Joshua. Paul prays that we might know

what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who have faith, according to the working of the strength of his might which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his right hand in the heavenlies, far above every ruler and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the one to come, and subjected all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Is that not an invincible Christ? Indeed it is. No man, no evil spirit, can stand before him. We have assurance of victory.

This taking of the land under the leadership of God was the work of Joshua. He was to listen to what God told him and do it. But then in vs. 7-8 an invaluable safeguard is given to Joshua. He is to meditate day and night on the law of Moses, that is, the written word of God. He did not have the Bible as we know it, but he had the law of Moses. In v. 6 he was to listen to God speaking to him and obey. In vs. 7-8 he is to study the Bible and live by it. What is the point? It is that God speaks to man, but Satan does, too. Just because a person hears a voice, it does not necessarily mean that it is the voice of God, as atrocities committed by people who heard a voice attest. See 1 Jn. 4.1. We need to hear God speak and obey him, but the Bible is our safeguard. If we know it, we will be able to test the voices we hear. The Spirit of God will not lead us contrary to the written word of God, and indeed it is often in the written word that we will hear God speak. By hearing God, we do not mean audibly, of course, but in our spirits.

We need both, the spoken word and the written word. If we have only the spoken word, we can be misled by Satan, as we have seen. If we have only the written word, we can become very legalistic and judgmental. Knowledge without life is that way. We have all known people who knew all the truth and were very unloving and condemning in their application of it. We need both knowledge, the written word, and life, the spoken word. By “the spoken word” I do not mean something we hear with our outward ears, but what we sense in our hearts, and of course, the Bible often speaks to us in that way. The written word becomes the spoken word in our hearts. That was the lesson of God to Joshua: listen to my voice, but stay in daily touch with the Bible.

How does Ephesians correspond? In Eph. 4.15 Paul says to speak the truth in love. The truth is important, but the truth by itself can kill, as he writes in 2 Cor. 3.6. The truth is the written word. The love comes from the life of the Spirit within. Both are necessary. Further, Paul writes in Eph. 6.17 about the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. If the word of God is the Spirit’s sword, then it is self-evident that the Spirit will not speak to us in opposition to the word. He will speak to us, but he will do it by bringing the written word to life in our hearts, and he will do it in agreement with the Scriptures. What a priceless lesson this is for all of us, the need of both the voice of God and the written word. They are our guide and our safeguard against the deceit of the enemy.

The Lord concludes this call of Joshua with a final word of encouragement: “Have not I commanded you? Be strong and of good courage. Don’t be afraid or be dismayed, for I AM your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua has a great calling, to lead the people of God into the land that embodies all the blessing that God has for them. Thus he needs a great encouragement, and he receives it from the gracious God.

Having received his call from God, Joshua turns immediately to carrying it out. In doing so he gives us two vital lessons that are foundational to moving into victory in the Lord. These are found in vs. 10-18.

First, in vs. 10-11 Joshua tells the people to prepare provisions, for within three days they will cross the Jordan River to enter and possess the land. It is not exactly clear what he meant by provisions, for the manna had not yet ceased (that did not take place until chapter 5), but the Israelites were forbidden to gather more than one day’s supply of manna at a time, except on the day before the Sabbath. The answer appears to lie in the fact that Israel was about to go onto a war footing. It is necessary for an army to have food, but it cannot be concerned with getting food. The food must be provided so that the soldiers can concentrate on the fighting. If they must spend their time trying to acquire food, they will be overcome by a better-prepared foe. If Joshua was referring to manna, then perhaps the Lord was allowing the people to gather more than a day’s supply so that they would be ready to march and to go into battle. Or perhaps they were to gather food from the land by hunting animals and picking berries and such. We do not know, but the point is that there comes a time when the getting of food every day is not possible, and there must be something laid up in readiness for an emergency.

The physical lesson is obvious. The armies of Israel must have food provided so they could give their attention to the fighting. The spiritual lesson is the same. It is necessary for Christians to have spiritual food. In Eph. 5.29 Paul writes that Christ nourishes the church. What is the nourishment, the spiritual food, of Christians? It is Christ himself. Jn. 6, the Bible’s great chapter on spiritual feeding, makes it clear that the Lord Jesus is the bread of life. He gives life to the Christian, and he sustains it. He does not give something other than himself. He himself is our bread.

How do we feed on Christ? Through his word, primarily. In Jn. 6.63 the Lord Jesus said that his words are spirit and life. As we read, pray, and study over the word of God, we meet the Lord himself in it. That is its purpose. Our goal in spending time in the word of God is not to gain knowledge for its own sake, but to meet the Lord and to hear him speak to us personally. Christ is our nourishment.

The Israelites in the Old Testament had long gathered food daily, but there came the time when they had to have provisions laid up for a special situation. That is true of Christians as well. We need to meet the Lord and feed on him daily, but as we mature in spirit, we find that crises come up that demand that we have a ready answer, something laid up. We do not always have time to get alone, pray, and read the Bible. Like Israel we are in a war, though a spiritual one, and sometimes an attack must be met at once. If we do not have provisions laid up, we will be unable to prevail over the enemy. Just as Israel had to lay up food, so must the Christian have something of Christ and his word stored up in his heart that he can draw on in a spiritual emergency.

Ps. 119.9-11 is especially relevant to this thought:

How will a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed to your word.

 With my whole heart have I sought you.

Let me not wander from your commandments.

Your word I have hidden up in my heart

That I might not sin against you.

That hiding of the word in the heart is the laying up of provisions. It comes from spending time in the word of God, reading it, praying over it, seeking the Lord in it, memorizing it. It is the word of God with which we counter the lies of Satan, as the temptation of Christ in Mt. 4 and Lk. 4 teaches us. Each lie of Satan designed to lure the Lord Jesus into sin was met by the truth of the word of God that countered the specific lie. When those temptations came, the Lord Jesus did not take time out to read his Bible and pray and come up with the answer. The battle was hot and he had to have a ready answer. He had it because he had laid up provisions: the word was hidden in his heart. The same is true for us. When the battle rages, when Satan’s temptations are strong and his lies clever, we will not have time to think it over. We must have something stored in our hearts that will meet the challenge. That is one reason it is so important to spend time daily in God’s word, learning it thoroughly and meeting the Lord in it.

That is one of the foundational lessons we learn from Joshua and Ephesians. We must have provisions for the battle. We must be nourished by Christ.

The second lesson is found in vs. 12-18. The Reubenites and Gadites and half the tribe of Manasseh had already received their land on the east side of the Jordan. Num. 32 tells us the story of their desiring that land when they saw that it was suitable for their cattle and of Moses’ agreement to let them have it, on the condition that before settling in it, they would cross the Jordan with their brothers and help them conquer their land, too. The tribes had agreed. Now Joshua reminds them of their pledge and calls on them to honor it. They again agree and promise to cross the river into battle.

The lesson is one of major importance, both in the Old Testament and in the Bible generally. It is that Israel, the people of God, were not a large number of individuals, but a nation. They were a corporate body. The body was made up of a large number of individuals, and each had an identity and a place, but the overriding reality was the corporate whole. All the members needed all the others. The nine and one-half tribes could not conquer the land without the other two and one-half, and the two and one-half could not enjoy their inheritance until all the tribes had come into theirs. They had to help one another. There was no rest for any until there was rest for all. Those who had already come into their inheritance had to help those who had yet to do so.

This corporate nature of Israel is of great importance. All through the Old Testament we read the commands of God that all Israel treat each other as brothers and sisters. They were not to take advantage of the weak among them. They were not to charge interest on money loaned. They were to help the widows, the orphans, the beggars. Special harvest provisions were given to provide for those who needed to glean the leftovers in order to have food. Why did God so order his people?

He did so to reveal his own nature. God is love, and he lives in relationship within himself, being a Trinity. Fellowship and love are of the very essence of God. One of his purposes in creating man was to exhibit this love nature, as he said in Gen. 1.26: “Let us make man in our image,” proceeding then to make male and female so that he would live in relationship. “Let us” is a reference to the Trinity, and that intimate relationship of love between man and woman is a picture of the fellowship within the Trinity. That is why the corporate nature of the people of God is so important: it reveals what God is like.

How does Ephesians develop the spiritual counterpart of this thought? In the first place, Ephesians is not about individual Christians, but about the church. The epistle shows the heavenly position and the earthly walk and warfare of the church. The individual Christian in Ephesians is a part of the church.

In Eph. 1.23 Paul likens the church to a body when he calls it the body of Christ. What is a body? It is a living organism made up of many members, all of which have a job to do and all of which need each other. They all share the same life. No part looks down on other parts, but whatever any part does is done for the good of the body.

A human body is highly organized, consisting of many systems that all work together to sustain life and health. The skeletal, nervous, respiratory, circulatory, glandular, reproductive, and elimination systems all work together in perfect harmony. What a complex and marvelous organization a body is. Yet the organization is secondary. What matters is the life. A dead body is just as organized as a living one. All the systems are there, but they do not work because there is no life. An automobile is highly organized, but it has no life and is dependent on someone alive to operate it. The church is the body of Christ, a living organism. Its life is Christ.

In Eph. 2.19-22 Paul changes the metaphor from a body to a building. A building consists of many stones all put together. Each stone is necessary, and the stones must fit. That explains many of our trials, especially those involving difficulties in relationships with other Christians. Prov. 27.17 says, “Iron sharpens iron. So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” The reason God allows us to be in fellowship with Christians that we have problems relating to is that he wants to rub us together, thus knocking the rough edges off both of us. That is what Paul means in Eph. 2.22 about being built together. God uses all of us to smooth out the rough edges and make us fit together. A building is made up of many stones, but the important reality is the building, the corporate structure.

Paul returns to the idea of the body in Eph. 4.3-16. He says that there is only one body and warns against division. It is truth that there is only one church, and all the divisions we see are of man, not of God. Then Paul shows that the various ministries in the church are given to build it up to maturity, just as all the parts of a body work together to cause the body to grow. One of the advantages of being a part of a body is pointed out by Paul in 4.14: we are protected from false teaching that would lead us away from Christ. When ideas come up, they can be tested by the body before the Lord. Where one Christian might be misled, if all will wait before the Lord, they can develop a corporate witness to the truth. Divisions come from one or a few insisting on their way rather than submitting to the body, all of them getting on their knees and seeking the Lord’s way.

A third metaphor used by Paul for the church occurs in Eph. 5.22-23, where he compares the church to marriage, recalling to our minds the thoughts of Gen. 1 about God making man male and female. The intimacy of relationship in marriage, Paul writes, is intended by God to be a picture of Christ and the church. A marriage does not consist of two individuals, but of two who have become one. It is the corporate entity that is vital.

In all of these likenesses, body, building, marriage, Paul shows that the corporate nature of the church is of utmost importance. Why is this so? For the same reasons that it was true in Joshua. In the first place, it reveals the nature of God. That is a part of the meaning of Eph. 3.10. It is through the church, the corporate body, that God’s manifold wisdom is revealed, not through the individual Christian. One Christian may show a bit of God’s wisdom, but it is through the body that the manifold wisdom is revealed. The body in a relationship of love shows what God is like.

Furthermore, the corporate nature of the church is vital in that we need each other. Just as all the tribes, including those that already had their land, had to fight, so we must all help each other. As Christians we are involved in a war with a very clever foe. Satan has lost his power to the Lord Jesus, as we saw, but he is the ablest liar who ever lived, and he operates by deceit. He is of superior intelligence, much smarter than any of us, and he knows how to play on our emotions and our natural pride and self-centeredness and our desires. If we try to face him alone our chances are not good, but God has so designed his people that we are parts of a body that can stand against the enemy if it is true to the Lord.

Another truth that emerges from a consideration of Joshua is that the more mature are to help the less mature. Reuben and Gad and half of Manasseh had already gotten their land, symbolizing fullness in Christ, yet they had to go across the Jordan and help the others. Those Christians who have gone on some way with the Lord, not having arrived, to be sure, but having gained some ground with him, are to help those who have not yet tasted fullness. No Christian has rest from battle in this life, for there are always those who need help to come into their inheritance, their fullness in Christ. It is absolutely vital that Christians grasp the supreme importance of the corporate nature of what we are about.

These, then, are two foundational lessons that we must learn in coming into fullness in Christ and victory in the spiritual war. We need provisions, Christ through his word stored up in our hearts, and we need to see the corporate nature of the people of God. Joshua is about Israel in battle. Ephesians is about the church in battle. With Joshua called by God and these lessons set forth, we turn now to the first steps taken by Joshua to possess the land given to Israel by God.

RAHAB AND THE SPIES

2.1-24

After his call, recorded in 1.1-9, and the lessons about provisions and the corporate nature of what Israel was about in vs. 10-18, Joshua, in 2.1-2, sent two spies into the land of Canaan. The reason for this act is obvious. One of the major needs of an army is intelligence. Every army has spies and reconnaissance teams, and nowadays a lot of technology, to gather information about the enemy, the terrain, and other conditions that might affect success in battle. The people of Israel were about to cross the Jordan River and engage the people of Canaan in battle. Thus they needed intelligence.

The spies Joshua sent to Jericho went to the house of a prostitute named Rahab. We are not told why or how they found her, but it was obviously the doing of God, for she was the one person in Jericho that they needed to meet, for she, of all the people of that city was a person of faith. She herself told the spies in vs. 9-11 that the inhabitants of Jericho had heard of what God was doing for and through Israel, and that as a result their hearts had melted within them. They were living in panic. But Rahab had more than panic. She had faith in this God they had heard of and decided to join him.

In v. 11 she said that the God of Israel was “God in heaven above, and on earth beneath.” That may not seem like a particularly significant to us, but when we understand the religious context in which it was said, it takes on deeper meaning. Almost all peoples of that day believed in many gods, and believed that each people had its own god or gods. Usually the power of these gods was confined to the geographical location where the people lived. They were local deities. If a people were to invade another land, they would have to try to insure that their god or gods could defeat those of the enemy. Rahab, though, had come to a remarkable conclusion. She had decided that not only was God not a local deity, not only was he stronger than the gods of Jericho, but he was above even that. He was God in Heaven and God of all the earth. Her understanding of God transcended that of many of the people of Israel, as subsequent history shows.

Because of her faith in God and her decision to take his side, Rahab helped the spies. She hid them and helped them to escape, on the condition that they would spare her and her family when they destroyed Jericho. They agreed, if Rahab would tie a scarlet cord in her window to identify her house, and would see to it that all her family were in the house when the invasion came. Then they made their escape and returned to Joshua with the good report that they could take the land. What an interesting contrast with the report of the first group of spies thirty-eight years earlier, of which Joshua was a dissenting member. They had reported that it was a good land, but that they feared the people and defenses and said that they could not take it. Thus God allowed all that generation to die in the wilderness except Caleb and Joshua, the two spies who had faith, and now, having had that faithless element dealt with, Israel was ready to enter the land in faith that God had given it to them.

How does Ephesians draw out the spiritual lessons from this account of a historical intelligence-gathering operation? In the first place, it is clear from Ephesians that we as Christians need knowledge, too. In Eph. 6.12 Paul calls our spiritual enemies “world powers of this darkness.” What is darkness but lack of knowledge? Satan is the master of deceit, as the Lord Jesus taught in Jn. 8.44. He defeated Satan, so the devil has no power to make us do anything, but he is the cleverest liar ever. He is able to whisper thoughts that we think are our own. He is able to focus our thoughts on circumstances. He is able to suggest his interpretation of those circumstances. How do we overcome such a crafty foe? By knowledge of the truth. How is darkness dispelled? By the admission of light. How is deceit dispelled? By the admission of truth.

Paul prayed in Eph. 1.17-18 that God “might give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of r heart being enlightened.” That is a prayer for spiritual intelligence. We are in a war with a spiritual enemy who is trying to take possession of all that God has given us. Just as a physical army needs intelligence, so do we. We need to know the truth so we can combat the lies of Satan. That truth comes only by revelation from God. We have his written word, and that is our source of truth, but we cannot understand it without revelation, by “the eyes of r heart being enlightened,” for it is discerned spiritually, not naturally. There are many who know the Bible thoroughly, but do not understand it and give false interpretations

In addition, we gain intelligence from the testimony of others who have experienced what God has for his people. Like the spies of 2.2, Paul bore such testimony. He was a spiritual spy. He had been into the land of victory and fullness and come back with a good report. Listen to his own account of his visit to that rich land:

In know a man in Christ who, fourteen years ago, whether in the body I do not know or out of the body I do not know – God knows – such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man, whether in the body or without the body I do not know – God knows – that he was caught up to Paradise and heard inexpressible words which it is not permitted for a man to speak…. And in the superabundance of revelations…. (2 Cor. 12.2-4, 7).

Paul was a man who had been caught up to the heavenlies he writes about in Ephesians. He is not speculating. He is giving a report of what he has seen. There are inexpressible words he is not permitted to report, but there is truth he can report. Eph. 1-3 is his report. We could cite the entire three chapters, but let us quote only a few verses to see what Paul tells us of the spiritual land God has for us now. It will be to the readers profit to read all of Eph. 1-3 from this point of view.

We have already noted Eph. 1.3 where Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ….” That is the first aspect of Paul’s spy report. We already have every spiritual blessing, just as Israel in Joshua already had the land of promise. We are in the heavenlies. We are not waiting to enter the realm of spiritual blessings. We are already there. We are in Christ. How can we understand what it means to be in Christ? It is a spiritual matter, but whatever else it means, it means that we are in the one who has won ultimate victory, and thus we share that victory. What a marvelous report from this spy!

In 2.6-7 he repeats his assertion that we are in the heavenlies in Christ, and adds that a result of that position is that in the ages to come, God will show the surpassing wealth of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ. We experience that wealth of grace and kindness in Christ now, and when the battle we are in to possess that good land is over and the smoke clears, we will be a demonstration throughout eternity of that wealth. Just as Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey, so the fullness that God has brought us into flows with grace and kindness. Paul’s report remains good.

In 3.18-19 he prays that we “might be fully able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of God that surpasses knowledge, that [we] might be filled to all the fullness of God.” Then he adds in v. 20, “Now to him who is able to do superabundantly beyond all things which we ask or think according to the power that works in us….” How truly rich is the spiritual land we are called to possess: it is filled with the love of Christ; it is a place where we may be filled to all the fullness of God; this God is able to do, not just more, but superabundantly more, than we ask, or even think; his power works in us. “Works”: that is present tense. Paul is not writing about what awaits us in eternity. He is writing about what God wants us to experience as the church in this life.

Those are just a few thoughts from the report that our apostle and spy has brought back from his experience of spiritual victory. What should our response be to his report? We will not go into great detail on this question now, for these matters will come up as we continue in Joshua, but let us cite a few verses that show our response.

Ephesians falls into two divisions. The first we have just seen. Chapters 1-3 contain Paul’s report of what we have in Christ. Chapters 4-6 tell us what our response should be. In 4.1 Paul writes that we should walk worthy of our calling. How do we do that? V. 2 says that we should be lowly, humble, patient, forbearing. Vs. 3-16 deal with the unity of the body and the need of each member of the body to maintain that unity, to respond to the ministries given by God to the body, and to exercise his own ministry for the good of the body. Remember that we saw in 1.12-18 that what we are about is corporate. We are not Christians by ourselves, but are members of the body of Christ. We cannot come into the fullness God has for us alone, but only as we function in the body. Thus Paul stresses that part of our response to his report is that we take our place in the body.

Also, Watchman Nee has written a delightful little book entitled Sit, Walk, Stand that divides Ephesians into three parts. It would be very profitable for one to read it. In it he says that Ephesians sets forth three aspects of Christian life. One is that we must begin by sitting. That is, we must first rest in the Lord Jesus for salvation. In the creation story of Gen. 1 we see that God made man on the sixth day. Thus his first full day of life was the Sabbath. He rested before he began his work. We cannot do effective word for the Lord until we first find rest in him. Then we can walk, serving God and doing his will. As we grow in him through that process we come to point at which we can stand against Satan and his forces. We do have to conquer Satan. Christ has already done that. We stand in his victory.

Eph. 5.18 says that we should be filled with the Spirit. That indeed is what we are dealing with. What God has for us is the fullness of the Spirit. We obviously cannot experience it without that fullness. What is the fullness of the Spirit? It is that spiritual condition beyond new birth (in which the Holy Spirit comes into our dead spirits and makes them alive toward God, Jn. 3.6, 8) in which we have given ourselves wholly to the lordship of Christ and the Spirit takes charge, not in the sense of possession, when the person has no choice, but in the sense of revealing the will of God and empowering us to obey it. Our response to Paul’s revelation of what God has for us should be to yield ourselves fully to God so that he can fill us with the Spirit.

Eph. 6.13 says that we are to take the armor of God. God has given us a spiritual land of great blessing, but like the physical land of Canaan that he gave to Israel, this land is full of enemies, as Paul is describing in the context of Eph. 6.13. Thus we must fight to possess what we have, and to fight we must be properly equipped. The aspects of the armor of God will be dealt with more fully at a later point.

These, then, are some of the aspects of our proper response to the report of Paul the spy. A worthy walk, consideration of the body of Christ, openness to the fullness of the Spirit, taking the armor of God. All of these matters come to mind as we consider the spiritual lessons we learn from the spies on their intelligence-gathering mission.

Having thought about the spies, let us now turn to Rahab. She was indeed a remarkable woman. She had no advantages at all. She was a pagan, and among the pagans she was a wicked woman, a prostitute. She had no background in the things of God, and had probably never heard of him until the stories of Israel’s deliverance began to find their way to Jericho. Yet when the news did arrive something in her responded. There must have been better people in Jericho than this prostitute, but she was the only one who responded. When everyone else’s heart melted with fear her heart was filled with faith.

There is a valuable lesson in this fact that the hearts of the people of Jericho melted with fear. They knew they were a defeated foe, even before Israel arrived on the scene. That is true spiritually in our day, too. Jesus Christ utterly defeated Satan at the cross, and it is only a matter of time until the Lord Jesus takes the authority he won at the cross and casts out Satan and his forces. Satan and the demons know what their destiny is. It is hell. People often speak of hell as Satan’s headquarters. That is not true to the Scriptures. According to the word of God, Satan has never been in hell and has no desire to go there. It is his place of eternal punishment, prepared for him and his angels (Mt. 25.41). Ja. 2.19 says that the demons believe in God and tremble. Why do they tremble? Because they know that hell awaits them. The hearts of Satan and the demons melt with fear at the name of Christ.

How does Paul put it in Ephesians? In 1.21-22 he writes that God has placed Christ “far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come…. And he subjected all things under his feet.” Satan and the demons know the truth of Eph. 1.21-22. They know that Christ is far above them and that they have little time. Their hearts melt before him.

We have already referred to the armor of God in 6.11 and 13. Those verses tell us that in that armor we are able to stand against Satan and his forces. They do not fear us, but they do fear us in Christ. In Christ we are the army of God before whom the hearts of the armies of Satan melt. What complete victory we have! Oh that we might learn to walk in it!

Beyond this, Rahab is an Old Testament picture of a vital truth of the New Testament. In Eph. 3 Paul uses the word “mystery.” We think of a mystery as either a deep puzzle that either cannot be figured out or can be figured out only by great intellectual effort, but that is not what the Bible means by the term. In the word of God a mystery is a secret of God that cannot be figured out at all, but can be known only by the revelation of God. Indeed it is not a puzzle that man knows about at all, but something that God chooses to keep secret until his time, and then he reveals it. (See my paper “Mystery” in the New Testament.) The mystery that Paul says was hidden until the times of the New Testament is, he writes in Eph. 3.4-6, the church, the spiritual people of God. The Jews are the earthly people of God, and their blessings center in the land of promise. But the earthly was intended by God to point to something beyond itself, to spiritual reality. The earthly lessons that God taught the Jews in the Old Testament have a spiritual counterpart in the New Testament.

In the Old Testament, the idea of the people of God was a racial term. Only the Jews were the people of God. A non-Jew could become one of the people of God, but he had to accept circumcision and the Jewish law to do so. There were two kinds of people in the Old Testament, Jews and Gentiles. With the coming of the Lord Jesus that changed. The people of God has been opened to Gentiles, who can now become part of the people of God, and can do so without becoming Jews. Now there are three kinds of people, Jews, Gentiles, and the church (1 Cor. 10.32).

It is in Eph. 2 that Paul first brings out the coming in of the Gentiles. He writes in vs. 11-19,

Therefore remember that you were once Gentiles in the flesh, called “uncircumcision” by those called “circumcision,” in the flesh, made with hands, that you were at that time without Christ, having no connection with the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one and destroyed the dividing wall, the enmity, in his flesh, doing away with the law of the commandments in rules, that he might create the two in him into one new man, making peace, and that he might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, having put to death the enmity in him. And having come, “he preached the good news of peace” to “you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

The Jews and Gentiles had been enemies in the Old Testament, but now in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile. The enmity between the two has been destroyed by the blood of Christ and the two are made into one new man, neither Jew nor Gentile, but Christian, the spiritual people of God, the church.

Rahab is a picture of this reality. She was a Gentile, but she became a part of the people of God. The way in which she did so is also instructive. Those who come into the spiritual people of God do so, not as the Jews did, by physical birth and works, but by faith. That is how Rahab entered in. She heard the reports of what God was doing with these people and she had faith. That was the basis of her decision to become one of the people of God.

Perhaps the greatest verses in the Bible on this theme occur in Ephesians. In Eph. 2.8-9 Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of you. It is God’s gift. It is not of works, that no one should boast.” One of the great foundational doctrines of the Christian faith is that salvation is not by works, but by grace through faith. It is all of grace to begin with. Grace is in part God’s unmerited love. Why did he love sinners like us? We cannot say, except that he is a God of grace. We do not deserve it, but he loves us anyway. Even while we were still sinners and opposed to him, he loved us and gave his Son to die to provide salvation for us (Rom. 5.8). It is all of grace and nothing of us.

That was the case with Rahab. Why did she, of all people in Jericho, have faith? We do not know. She was one of the worst people there to all outward appearance, a prostitute, but when she heard, she responded. Why? It was grace. There is no other answer. The scarlet cord that Rahab hung in her window to identify her house is a picture of the blood of the Lamb. Like the Passover blood on the doorposts and lintels, so the scarlet cord pictured the blood, and when God came in judgment on Jericho through his people, he passed over that house. As Eph. 2.13 puts it, she, a Gentile, was brought near by the blood of Christ.

There is absolutely no work whatever for us to do to gain salvation. All the work has been done by Jesus Christ, and that is what is meant by that wonderful old theological phrase, “the finished work of Christ.” All that remains is faith on our part, receiving what he has given us. Salvation is by grace through faith. Rahab is a picture of this faith as well as of grace. When the grace of God touched her heart, she had faith. She received what God held out to her and became one of the people of God.

The truth of salvation by grace through faith cannot be overemphasized in itself. However, some do emphasize it to the exclusion of works. The thought that comes through is that it does not matter how one lives so long as he believes. Nothing could be further from the teaching of the Bible. God has work for us to do, but it is work that results from salvation. We do not work to try to get saved, but because we have been saved. Rahab typifies Eph. 2.8-9, salvation by grace through faith, but she also typifies the next verse, Eph. 2.10: “For we are his doing, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Rahab was God’s doing. He saved her by grace when she had faith, but then he had work for her to do, and she did the work he had for her. His work for her was to cooperate with him by hiding the spies and helping them to escape, and she did so. Because she had faith (Eph. 2.8-9), she worked (Eph. 2.10). Thus she pictures for us that great Bible truth, that the Gentiles have been brought into the people of God, but it is a new, spiritual people who come in by grace through faith, and then work the works of God.

We may tend to look down on Rahab, sinful as she was. There is no basis for such an attitude. We are all sinners saved by grace. We are all spiritual prostitutes (Ja. 4.4), if not physical. We are no better than she was. Indeed, she had excuses for her behavior. She was born into a pagan people and never heard of the only God. What excuse have we, who have been exposed to the good news all our lives? None whatever. Let us understand that we are all spirituals Rahabs, and like her, receive the grace of God by faith and walk in the works he has prepared for us. And it is of note that Rahab was an ancestor of the Lord Jesus (Mt. 1.5).

Crossing the Jordan

3.1-17

The third chapter of Joshua tells the story of the crossing of the Jordan River into the land of promise. The priests took the Ark of the Covenant and carried it into the waters of the river. When they did so, as God had said, the waters were rolled back and the people crossed on dry land while the priests stood in the riverbed with the ark. Joshua adds the note that it was harvest time and thus the river was overflowing, intensifying the miracle that occurred. When the waters were at their strongest, they were no match for God.

The Ark of the Covenant is a type of the Lord Jesus. It was a box made of acacia wood overlaid with pure gold inside and out. The wood symbolizes the humanity of Jesus, and the gold, his divinity. Inside the Ark were the two tablets of the ten commandments, a golden jar of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded. The ten commandments are the word of God and the Lord Jesus is the Word. The jar of manna pictures the Lord Jesus as the Bread of life. Aaron’s rod, a dead stick that budded, symbolizes resurrection, life out of death, the life of the Lord Jesus. Genesis tells us of the great flood. Waters sometimes stand for death in the Scriptures. The ark carried Noah and his family safely through the waters of death that destroyed every other living creature. That is another picture of the Lord Jesus, but the Ark here in Joshua was a box as described.

The point is that just as the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea from bondage in Egypt by faith through waters that would have killed them, so did the Israelites pass through the waters of death into the promised land by faith. This is all about resurrection, life out of death. The Bible teaches in Rom. 6 especially that when the Lord Jesus died we died with him, and when he was raised from the dead we were raised with him. That is accomplished fact. But it is what we called positional truth. It is true, but we must make it actual in our lives by considering ourselves dead to sin and living to God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6.11). We were saved by faith. We also enter into victory and fullness of life by faith, taking as truth what God says, that we are dead and resurrected with Christ. Living in victory by faith is living in resurrection life.

Ephesians does not deal specifically with the moment of entry into fullness and victory, but the book as a whole creates the impression of entry by faith that we see in Joshua. And it does tell us to be filled with the Spirit (5.18). It also teaches us how to stand in victory in chapter 6.10-18. Some teach that being filled with the Holy Spirit is a separate experience from being saved. I would say that this is usually what takes place, but it is certainly possible for a person to be filled with the Spirit at the time of new birth. In Jn. 20.22 the Lord Jesus breathes on the disciples and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit, but I believe that they were not filled with the Spirit till Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out. I take it that receiving the Holy Spirit is equivalent to being saved. When we are saved what actually takes place is that we are born of the Spirit (Jn. 3.8), meaning that the Holy Spirit comes into our dead spirits and makes them alive. Rom. 8.9 says, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this one is not his.” Reception of the Spirit is what makes us spiritually alive and is essential. I do believe, as in my own experience, that most Christians who are filled with the Spirit receive this fullness at some subsequent time.

It is vital that we grasp the lesson of Joshua 3, that we enter fullness by faith. It is often taught that some experience is necessary, and the experience usually considered essential is speaking in tongues. Many teach that unless a person has the evidence of tongues, he has not been filled with the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues is a scriptural experience, as Paul makes clear in 1 Cor. 12 and 14,  and there are those to whom God does give that gift, but Paul also labors to make it clear that not everyone will be given that gift. He says in 1 Cor. 12.30, “Do all speak in tongues? No.” Different Christians receive different gifts. The body is not all eyes or ears or hands. The way an individual manifests the fullness of the Spirit is up to God, and the manifestation is not the means of gaining the fullness, but only the result of it. The means of gaining it is faith. We come into full victory in the Lord in the same way that we are saved, by grace through faith when we surrender ourselves wholly to him.

Ephesians creates this impression in the way that the book is put together. We saw in the last chapter that the first three chapters of Ephesians are Paul’s report of what God has promised us that we already have in him. That is the word of God, and faith is believing the word of God and acting on it. Do we believe what Paul reports in Eph. 1-3? Let us review a few of those promises.

In 1.3, Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” We are blessed with every spiritual blessing. It does not say “will be blessed.” We are already blessed. That is easy to say, but when life gets difficult, do we really believe it and rely on it? Do we accept the testimony of circumstances and the lies of Satan, or do we trust the word of God that we have every spiritual blessing? God is able to use those hardships of life for our good and the furtherance of his purposes, as Paul writes in Rom. 8.28-29 and elsewhere, and that is one aspect of the blessing that we have. No matter what happens to us Christians, God can use it for good. But do we believe that, really believe it by acting on it?

In the Old Testament, God made many promises to his people. They were all earthly promises, bound up with the land of Canaan. He told them that if they would keep the law, they would dwell securely and peacefully in their land, that they would be prosperous and healthy, that they would have neither crop failures nor barren women. Israel failed to keep the law and did not enjoy those blessings fully, though the Bible teaches that one day they will, when they acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah. Christians have the same promises from God, but they are now spiritual instead of material. We may or may not dwell in physical peace and security, but we can have the peace of God that passes understanding in our hearts, and we have eternal security in Christ, where no man can touch us, though one may kill the body. We may or may not be materially prosperous and physically healthy, but we will be spiritually rich and healthy. Our work in the Lord will be fruitful and we will not know spiritual barrenness. We have every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. That is the word of God. Do we believe it, and thus enter in?

Paul expands on the realm in which we have these blessings in 2.6, where he writes that we are seated “together with Christ in the heavenlies,” just as Christ himself was exalted to the heavenlies (1.20). What does that mean, the word “heavenlies”? The word refers to the spiritual world. As humans beings alive in the flesh we inhabit two worlds, the visible physical world and the invisible spiritual world. It is in the spiritual realm that we have every blessing in Christ. Christ lived on the earth as a man, and because of his sinless life, after his resurrection he was able to pass through the heavens, as Heb. 4.14 puts it, to Heaven, to the right hand of God. Jesus is a man who has gone to Heaven. The teaching of Ephesians is that as Christians, we, too, have gone to Heaven in Christ. That is spiritual, of course. Our bodies and souls are still here. That is just where faith comes in. We still live here in this world physically, and it is the one that we perceive by our five senses and the one that seems to demand all our attention by its constant assault of circumstances. The spiritual world seems unreal. It is fine to talk about it, but we have to make a living and deal with all the situations that come up in life. We have to be realistic

Genuine realism, says Paul, under the inspiration of God, is to grasp that the spiritual world not only is real, but governs the material realm. The material that is not of God will one day pass away. There will also be a new earth in which righteousness dwells (Is. 65.17 and 66.22, and 2 Pt. 3.13). Only what has been laid up for eternity in the spiritual world will matter then. In addition, it is how we function in the spiritual realm that determines how we fare in the material world. That is not to say that if we triumph spiritually we will not have any problems in the material. It is to say that we will know the presence and peace and victory of God in the midst of the trials of this life. We will experience God using those trials to develop us spiritually and to deposit something of eternal value in us.

Do we really believe that spiritually we are dwelling in the heavenlies in Christ now, seated with him? That is what the Bible says, and that is what should govern our outlook on the present life. Believing that and acting on that belief, trusting God and surrendering to him, is the means of entering into the fullness of victory that God has for us. Do we believe it? Are we actually putting our trust in him and surrendering our lives to him?

In 3.16-19, Paul prays that we may be

strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell by faith in r hearts, being rooted and founded in love, that you may be fully able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.

What glorious promises of God those are! When we face the hard, trying circumstances of life, are we strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man? Do we know the presence of Christ in our hearts? Are we rooted and founded in love? Do we comprehend the vastness of our blessing in Christ, indeed the vastness of our Christ himself? Do we know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? Are we filled to all the fullness of God? The word of God says we have all these blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. The critical question is whether or not we take it by faith. It is by faith that we enter into this fullness of God, just as we entered into salvation by faith in the finished work of Christ and just as Israel crossed the Red Sea and the Jordan River.

Faith, as we have seen, is not just accepting a statement as true in our minds, but committing ourselves to act on the basis of that statement. God says that we have all these things. Faith accepts that as true and lives as though it were! It is Eph. 4-6 that shows us this faith response. It is the part of Ephesians where we live out what God says we have. It contains a large number of what we might call ethical instructions, a kind of list of “do’s and don’t’s,” though it is not a matter of legalism. It details our acceptance of the reality of the body of Christ and our place in it. It shows us how to relate to others in marriage, family, and work so as to demonstrate Christ. It explains that our wrestling is not physical but spiritual and tells us about the armor of God that enables us to stand against our spiritual enemies. As we walk in the light of Eph. 4-6, we are thereby making a faith response to Eph. 1-3. As we make that response, we begin to come into the spiritual place of full blessing in the Lord. We do not yet experience full blessing totally, for that takes a lifetime of walking with God and indeed will never be realized perfectly until we see the Lord face to face, but we begin and we grow. We move out of the wilderness and into blessing. We get a taste of victory.

The important lesson to learn, again, is that all this comes about by faith. Israel crossed the Red Sea by faith. They crossed the Jordan by faith. We were saved by faith. We enter the victorious life by faith. We must step into the waters.

This entry into fullness in the Lord is an entry into resurrection life. We see the type of this in Josh. 1.1-2. The people waited for three days. The Lord Jesus died and was in the grave for three days. On the third day he was resurrected to new life, life that can never die again. Rom. 6 teaches us that we died with Christ and were raised up with him when he was resurrected. We see the same thing in Eph. 2.5: God made us alive together with Christ. All of this is accomplished fact. We have already died with Christ and been resurrected with him. We went through the three days.

Paul says in Eph. 1.20 that Christ was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God in the heavenlies. That means, as we noted a bit earlier, that a man has gone to Heaven. That is a vital point. It is not surprising that as God Christ went back to Heaven, from which he came. What else would we expect of God? But he went back as a man. Our great hope is that there is a man in Heaven now. Because he is there, we have hope of being there, not in our own merits, to be sure, but through faith in his merits. But Jesus did not get to Heaven as a man except by dying. He went there as a resurrected man, and one cannot be resurrected unless he dies.

Especially in Rom. 6, Paul teaches that Christ died for our sins, that we might be forgiven and saved, escaping hell and gaining Heaven, but he also died for our sin, that is, our sin nature, our flesh, that gives rise to sins, that we might escape the wilderness of the flesh-life and enter into fullness in the Spirit. It is the latter concept that Ephesians is about. When Paul writes about being seated with Christ in the heavenlies, having every spiritual blessing, and being filled with the Spirit, he is referring to the experience of the Christian that results from having the sin nature dealt with and coming into the present experience of the resurrection life of Christ. That is exactly the figure that he uses in Rom. 6: he says that we have died with Christ and been raised with him. That is twofold, of course. In him we died to our sins, thus gaining forgiveness, but in him we also died to our sin nature, the flesh, thus gaining freedom, not just from the eternal consequences of sin, but from sin’s hold on us as well. The point is that to come into the experience of resurrection life, we must pass through death.

The death that we died with Christ, referred to by Paul in Rom. 6, is what we called positional truth in chapter 1. In God’s sight, we have already died with Christ and come into resurrection life. Now it is up to us to make that truth good in our experience. How do we do that? By submitting to God in the trials of life. They are God’s means of dealing with our flesh, our self-life. They are his application of the cross to our flesh. The dying that we are called on to go through is a dying to self, as Jesus put it. But this dying results in resurrection life. (See my paper Life out of Death in 2 Corinthians.)

In Josh. 3.15-16 God’s miracle: the waters of the Jordan “stood and rose up in one heap” so that the people could go over on dry ground, just as at the Red Sea. By faith the Israelites entered the promised land.

THE MEMORIAL STONES

 4.1-24

In Josh. 3.12, the Lord had told Joshua to choose twelve men, one from each tribe. Then we hear no more of those twelve in chapter 3. The reason for their choice is now explained. After the nation had crossed the Jordan, each of these men took a stone from the river, carried it into the land of promise, and laid it down at the place where they camped that night. V. 7 tells us that the reason for these stones was that they were to be a testimony: when future generations asked what they meant, they would be told that the waters of the Jordan had been cut off before the Ark of the Covenant and Israel had crossed over on dry ground. They were a memorial to what God had done.

One of the primary lessons we learn from this story is that God is a God who acts in history and in individual lives. In most religions, the god has no interest in men’s lives or in how they live. The practices of the religion are designed solely to placate the god so that he will not harm his subjects. But the Bible teaches that God cares for his people and that he acts in their lives for their good. It teaches that history has a goal, a goal set by God, who is bringing it to the realization of that goal.

It is vital that we understand that God does do things among men. Judaism and Christianity are not mythological religions. They are, among other things, records of what God has actually done. Paul makes it clear in 1 Cor. 15 that the resurrection, for example, has to be a real, historical deed or we are still in our sins. It is not our belief in some principle exhibited by the story of the crucifixion and resurrection, but the actual shedding of blood in death and rising from the dead by Jesus, that provide our salvation. Those stones in Israel were a continuing testimony that God is the God of history and that he cares for his people in such a way that he acts in their lives for their good.

         How does Ephesians draw out the spiritual implications of this story of the stones? Paul makes it clear in 1 Cor. 10.4 that in the Bible Christ is the Rock. It is a very interesting study to look up all the occurrences of the word “rock” in the Bible and see how many of them teach something about Christ. Thus the stones in Josh. 4 speak to us of Christ. There were twelve stones, one for each tribe, so that they represented the whole nation of Israel. The meaning of the stones was that the whole nation had passed through the waters. In the New Testament, and in Ephesians and 1 Pt. 2 particularly, the stones represent all the church, the spiritual people of God. We are living stones. But we said that the stones speak of Christ. In fact, the stones stand for the deposit of Christ in his people. The use of the word “stones” for the people of God indicates that there is something of Christ in them, for he is the Rock. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. What is of man will not be found in Heaven. Only what is of Christ will be found there. That is why it is vital that Christ be formed in us, that the Rock make us stones through his dealings with us and his life within us.

The stones in Josh. 4 were a testimony to what God had done. The church’s testimony rests on the eye-witness testimony of the twelve apostles who correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel and thus show that they are the ones who laid the foundation of the new, spiritual Israel. Eph. 2.20 says that the house of God has “been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” We are told in 1 Cor. 3.11 that the Lord Jesus is the only foundation. He is the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets. The first thing, then, that the stones of Josh. 4 tell us is that the deposit of Christ in his apostles is the foundation of the new Israel.

In addition, 1 Pt. 2.5 tells us that Christians are living stones. Not only do the twelve stones picture the twelve apostles as the ones having laid the foundation, but, as representing all the people of God, they also stand for each Christian as one in whom Christ, the Rock, lives. Each Christian is a living stone. Eph. 2.20, quoted above, shows the foundation. Eph. 2.21-22 shows that we are all built together on that foundation as living stones, “… in whom all the building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom  also are being built together into a dwelling-place for God in the Spirit.” God is in the process of building a temple to dwell in, and that temple is made of living stones, not of physical stones. God wants to dwell in his people.

The twelve stones in Josh. 4 were specifically a testimony to what God had done. What was the testimony? Josh. 4.6-7 tells us:

… that this may be a sign among you, that when your sons  ask in time to come saying, “What do you mean by these stones?” Then you will say to them, “Because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of I AM. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off, and these stones will be for a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.

What were the waters? They were death. What was the Ark of the Covenant? It was Christ. When Christ passed through, death was cut off. That is, the testimony of the church is that Christ has conquered death. Mt. 16.18 says that the Lord Jesus said to Peter, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and gates of hades will not prevail against it.” The gates of hades are not the gates of hell. “Hell” is a different Greek word.” (See my booklet, Hades, Hell, Paradise, and Heaven.) The Greek word is hades, and hades here represents death and the grave. Death will not prevail against the church because it has the life of Godin it. The church’s testimony is life. That testimony is not just that Christ has conquered physical death so that we escape hell and gain eternal life. It is indeed that, but it is much more. Physical death is the end of all things in this world, but there is also a working of death in the midst of the life of this world. What is disease but a working of death on a living person? What are the ills of society but a working of death in the affairs of men? Our society is crumbling before our eyes. Everything is in crisis: our family life, educational system, judicial system, economy. We could point to the drug crisis, the garbage crisis, the grid-lock of our highways, illegal entry into our country. Everywhere we turn the affairs of man are in crisis and there are no apparent solutions. What is all that but a working of death even in the midst of life?

The world has no answers for all of these problems. Does the church? The church claims that Christ has conquered death, but is there a manifestation of life in the church? For the testimony is not just words. It is reality. When a problem arises, can the church, from the life of Christ welling up within it, find an answer? Life is the acid test of our words. When people come into our meetings, do they touch life? Do they go away knowing they have been in the presence of something spiritually alive? We read in 11 Cor. 14.24-25,

But if all prophesy, then if some unbeliever or ungifted [spiritual gifts] one should come in, he is convicted by all, his heart is searched by all, the secrets of his heart are revealed. And so having fallen on his face he will worship God declaring, “God is certainly among you.”

Has this ever taken place in your church or in mine? Has someone ever fallen on his face are declared, “God is certainly among you”? That is life.

We have been stressing that the point of Joshua and Ephesians is that we can enter into fullness and victory in the Lord now, in this life, without waiting for Heaven. Heaven is indeed the total fulfillment, but God wants us to know victory now in the midst of the evil and suffering of this world. What is the life that constitutes the testimony of the people of God? It is not just our belief that we will survive physical death with eternal life, but our experience of the Lord’s fullness of life in Christ now.

Josh. 4.6-7 says that the waters [of death] were cut off before the ark. Eph. 1.20 says that Christ was raised from the dead, and Eph. 2.5 says that he made us alive. Christ has indeed conquered death, and that is our testimony. Do we have the deeds to validate our words?

It is very interesting that the stones came from the river. That is, they came from the place of death. The testimony that Israel set up in the land came from the place of death. What are we to make of that fact? Quite simply, it tells us of God’s method. God’s method is life out of death, resurrection. When we receive Christ as Savior, he comes to dwell in us and we have the life of God in us. The problem is that we have a sin-nature that the Bible calls flesh. That life of God that is in us is surrounded by our flesh, and our flesh is of no profit, no use to God (Jn. 6.63). In it dwells no good thing (Rom. 7.18). Thus God will put us through experiences designed to apply the cross to the flesh, to put it to death that the life of Christ may grow in us and find release. As we lose our self-life, as Mk. 8.34-35 says, we save it. That is, as the flesh dies, the life of Christ increases in us. It is that life of Christ, the Rock, that makes us stones useful for God’s building.

That is the meaning of our trials in life. They are God’s dealings with our flesh, designed to put it to death that his eternal life may grow in us. Our trials are his grace, for they deal with what would destroy us and replace it with what will give us victory now and our inheritance in the Lord forever. Our trials are a place of death, death to our flesh. As we submit to Christ in the place of death, something of him is deposited in us. Yieldedness and faithfulness to him in trial produce stones, living stones, from the place of death that are an eternal testimony that Christ has conquered death, not just physical, but spiritual as well.

Josh. 4.9 says that there were also twelve stones set up in the middle of the Jordan. Thus there were twelve stones on the bank, in the land of promise, and there were twelve stones in the river. What is the meaning of the stones in the river? The stones on the land show us the new man in life. The stones in the river show us the old man in death. Eph. 4.22-24 says that “…  should put off the old man, corrupt according to the desires of deceit, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, which is created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (see also Col. 3.9-10). The old man is the flesh-nature we dealt with above. The new man is the human spirit made alive with resurrection life by the indwelling of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians does not present the process by which the old man is dealt with, rather presupposing that and dealing with the result of it, life in the heavenlies. We have seen that it is in Rom. 6 that Paul tells how Christ dealt with the old man. Rom. 6-8 are three marvelous chapters that describe the progress of spiritual life from defeat to victory and the work on the cross that makes victory possible. Rom. 6 tells us what Christ has accomplished on the cross, giving us the theory, so to speak. Rom. 7 shows a Christian trying to apply the truth of Rom. 6 in his own strength and failing miserably, finally crying out, “Wretched man that I am….” Rom. 8 shows the way to victory, life in the Spirit rather than in self-effort. It is Rom. 6 that concerns us now.

Rom. 6.6 says that our old man was crucified with Christ. That is, it is not only that Christ died in our place for our sins, though that is true, but that we also died with him. He is a representative man, just as Adam was. In Adam we all sinned and died. In Christ, we died to sin and thus were made alive. As far as God is concerned, when Christ died, we died, too. It was the old sinful nature that died with Christ, with the result that we are free from it. We cannot overcome sin by self-effort, but as we learn to trust in the finished work of Christ, we find that it includes not only the payment of the penalty for sins, but the death of the sin-nature as well. As we rely on that truth by faith, we find that we are indeed free from sin. That does not mean that we never sin again. We are still capable of sinning because the flesh-nature, while in God’s sight has been put to death, is still in us and we all contend with it, but it does not have mastery over us and we can say no to sin. In our weakness sometimes we do not, but we can do as Eph. 4.22 says, “put off the old man.” When Paul tells us in Ephesians to put off the old man, he is presupposing our death with Christ on the cross. Putting off the old man is putting that death into practice. Putting on the new man is the positive side, the new, resurrection life in Christ. It is life in the heavenlies. That is what Ephesians means by putting off the old man and putting on the new man, and that is what Joshua means by the stones in the water. The old man is dead in Christ. And there are stones on the land, having come out of the waters of death into resurrection life. We can indeed live in the heavenlies.

Josh. 4.14 says, “On that day I AM magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel.” In Eph. 1.19b-23 we read of God’s work

according to the working of the might of his strength, ²⁰which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenlies, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come, ²²and he subjected all things under his feet and gave him to be Head over all things to the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all in all.

We have a corresponding passage in Phil. 2.5-8:

⁹Therefore indeed God highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above every other name, ¹⁰that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in the heavenlies and those on the earth and those under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

We saw that Joshua is a type of the Lord Jesus as our General in the spiritual war that we are in. Our General is highly exalted, far above all and has all things subjected under his feet. He already has the victory and it is his victory that we live in as we trust and obey him. Joshua typifies Christ to us, Christ as present in the person of the Holy Spirit and leading us to possess our possessions now. As we move more deeply into the Lord and what he has for us, we find that Christ grows in our estimation. For most of us, our coming to Christ was to him as Savior. We knew that we deserved hell because of our sins and we wanted to do something about it. Christ promised salvation from the penalty of our sins and eternal life in Heaven with him, so we trusted in him and found salvation. What   a tremendous truth that is! If that were all God ever did for us, eternity would not provide sufficient time for us to thank him. Let us never underestimate the value of our salvation.

At the same time, let us realize that what God has for us goes far beyond escape from hell. Christ is Savior, but he is so much more than Savior. Joshua was exalted in the sight of Israel. As we come to know the Lord better, Jesus Christ becomes more and more exalted in our sight. Ephesians has a very exalted view of Christ. Let us look at a few examples of that view.

  In 1.10, Paul tells us that it is God’s intention “to sum up all things in Christ.” We do not fully understand that statement. It is a great statement. It says that everything there is finds its meaning in Christ. In the end, everything will revolve around him. It is easy to see that a person’s life finds its meaning in Christ, but so do the animals, the vegetable kingdom, the mountains, the seas, the skies, the stars, the planets. Everything was made by and for Christ, Paul says in Col. 1.16, and in the end, everything will finds its meaning in him. God’s purpose is not just to save us, though we tend to think that way in our self-centeredness. His purpose is to sum up all things in his beloved Son and Heir. What a great Christ we have!

Eph. 1.20-22 says that God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And “he subjected all things under his feet.”

Can Christ get any higher than that? Do we see him in that way? He was raised from dead because he was sinless and did not deserve to die. Death had no claim on him. He gained the throne of God by his sinless obedience to God. He has life as a man in the heavenlies. He is far above all other kind of rule and far above every name. All things are under his feet. What can we add to that? How exalted Christ is in Ephesians, and how exalted he becomes in our eyes as God opens them.
      In Eph. 2.20, Paul says that Christ is the cornerstone of the building that God is making out of us. The cornerstone is the one that is located in the most prominent place, bears the inscription, and gets the attention. God is making a building of us, but all the glory goes to Christ. It is his work in us. He is the cornerstone. He is exalted.
  Paul writes of “the fathomless wealth of Christ” in 3.8. In 3.12 he says that it is Christ who has given us boldness before God and access to him. Imagine the likes of us having access to God at all, not to mention boldness! But Christ has provided that for us. V. 19 says that the love of Christ surpasses knowledge. What a great Christ he is!
        We are told again of the ascent of Christ to the heavenlies in 4.8-10, and Paul adds that he led captives, gave gifts to men, is indeed far above all the heavens, and that he will fill all things. It is impossible to know all that those statements include. Ephesians is the Bible’s book of superlatives, for it deals with the Christ who is exalted beyond the ability of human language to describe. All through the book we get the impression that Paul is struggling to express what    he knows in his heart by revelation but simply cannot find adequate words for. His subject matter is beyond him: it is the exalted Christ!
  In 5.22-33, Paul compares the relationship between Christ and the bride to that between husband and wife. Our human marriages are intended by God to be a picture of his nature of love as revealed in Christ and his bride, the church. In that wonderful passage, Christ is the Savior, the lover of his bride to the extent that he died for her, her sanctifier, the one who will make her “glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and blameless.” That is beyond comprehension. We are so full of sin, yet Paul says that in Christ our sins have been done away with. He will see to it that in practice as well as in positional truth we become blameless. We will be a beautiful bride when we are presented to Christ on the wedding day.
      Every man longs for his wedding day, the day the one he loves becomes his bride. What a moment that is when a man stands at the altar waiting, and then the door opens and his bride steps through. He sees her in her wedding dress for the first time. How beautiful she is to him! What love fills his heart! That is the way Christ feels about us. He loves us and longs for the day when we become his bride. That is the profoundest thing we can say about our Christ. We try to be so deep, but the deepest thing we can say is that he loves us. What a great Christ he is!

In 6.24, Paul show us our proper response to this great Lover. We love him. He is so great. He is so exalted. He is so far beyond even our imaginations. Yet he loves us, sinners that we are. How can we do anything but love him? Just as God exalted Joshua in the sight of Israel, so he exalts Christ in our sight, and our response is to love him.

In Josh. 4.15-17 the Lord tells Joshua to command the priests to bring the Ark out of the water. The Ark, the Lord Jesus, has come up out of the waters of death in resurrection. Then the waters of the Jordan returned to their place, and overflowed all its banks as before. Death is still there and will be until the end of the millennium, but we live in life in Christ.

In Josh. 4.18, we learn that when the priests who carried the ark left the river and arrived on land that the waters returned. It then flowed between the old life in the wilderness and the new life in the land of promise. What does that say to us spiritually? It says that our death with Christ forever stands between us and the old life when Satan tries to drag us back into it. Our crucifixion with Christ is an accomplished fact. It is a part of the finished work of Christ. When    Satan tries to lie to us and tell us that we cannot have victory over sin, we can point to that river and remind him of the truth, that it flows between us and the old life of sin, and that we have no way over the river. We are forever in Christ, and in him we are dead to sin and alive to God.

It is true that we can choose to sin and live like the old man, but there is no reason for us to do so. Christ has provided freedom from sin for us, and it is our fault, not his, it we do not avail ourselves of what he has provided. Satan cannot make us sin. He does tempt, but we choose to sin. We can also choose not to sin, and Christ has provided the power to make the choice effective.
        It needs to be understood that our death with Christ is positional truth. We do not just consider ourselves dead to sin, as Rom. 6.11 puts it, and then never have another problem. When we see that truth, that we were crucified with Christ and are therefore dead to and freed from sin, and claim it as our own, we will be tested. Satan will unleash temptation designed to prove to us that we are not dead to sin. We will, of course, fail, and Satan will try to use that failure as   evidence that we have not died with Christ and do not have victory. How do we respond? We believe the word of God. We maintain the position that we have died with Christ and are free from sin, no matter how things look. This truth is one that we learn by experience. Paul himself knew Rom. 6, but he had to go through Rom. 7 to get to Rom. 8, and it was he who cried out, “Wretched man that I am!”
      God had already given Israel the land of promise, but Israel had to cross the river and then see the river flow back over those stones of the old life and separate her from the wilderness life. The crossing is the faith-appropriation of what God says we have. Then comes the real test. Israel then had to fight to take the land. So do we. We have died to sin in Christ. We cross the river into the land of promise by taking it by faith. Then we have to fight to make it ours in     experience. That is what Paul means by Eph. 6.13: “For this reason take the full armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having accomplished all things, to stand.” We are living in an evil day when Satan will do all in his power to rob us of our death with Christ and consequent victory. If we will take the full armor of God and fight in the truth of his word, we will be able to stand in the evil day of testing. We will make the truth ours in experience.
        May the Lord grant us the grace ever to see that river of our death with Christ flowing between us and the old man and assuring us of our victory in him.

It is of note that these events occurred on the tenth day of the first month. The Jewish new year originally began on the first day of their month Tishri, corresponding to our September-October. When God was ready to lead the Israelites out of Egypt on the day of Passover, he told them that from that time on the first day of that month, Nisan, our March-April, would be the first day of their year. That is, they had a new beginning, a new life. That day was the tenth day of Nisan, making the crossing of the Jordan to occur on the same day as the crossing of the Red Sea. As the crossing of the Red Sea was a symbolic picture of deliverance from the death of the slavery to sin and the lost condition in this world, so was the crossing of the Jordan symbolic of the deliverance of the fleshly Christian from the slavery to the sin nature and a defeated Christian life into the promised land, the land of victory in Christ. It was a new Passover, passing from defeat into victory in the Christian life. All praise to our God.

In Josh. 4.22-24 the Lord says,

Then you shall let your sons know saying, “Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. ²³ For I AM your God dried up the waters of the Jordan from before you until you had passed over, as I AM your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up before us until we had passed over, ²⁴ that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of I AM, that it is mighty, that you may fear I AM your God forever.”

And how did that new Passover occur? In the same way as the first, by faith. We yield ourselves wholly to the Lord and cross over by faith into the land of victory.

Eph. 6.14-17 says,

¹⁴Stand, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ¹⁵and having shod the feet with the readiness of the good news of peace, in all having taken the shield of faith, with which  will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one, ¹⁷and take “the helmet of salvation….”

We enter the land by standing, standing on the word of God. He says that we have victory. John writes in 1 Jn. 5.4: “This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.” God says we have victory. Stand on that word. We do not attack the devil. He attacks us, but we can stand there in faith and fend off all his flaming arrows because the Lord Jesus has defeated him completely, as we have seen. The shield is faith. Stand in victory.

We stand now, knowing victory. At the end of this age, all “the peoples of the earth [will] know the hand of I AM, that it is mighty.”

GILGAL – PREPARING TO STAND IN VICTORY

5.1-15

Israel had crossed the Jordan and was in the land! What a moment in the history of God’s dealings with his people. This land embodied all that God had promised Israel, and now they were there.

Josh. 4.19-20 tells us that the Israelites camped at Gilgal after crossing the Jordan. Here in chapter 5 he starts to tell us the significance of Gilgal. In the first place their victory was somewhat assured by what Josh. 5.1 tells us:

And it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan westward and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea heard that I AM had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had passed over, that their heart melted, nor was there spirit in them any longer because of the sons of Israel.

Just the awareness of what the Lord had done already was enough to strike fear into the hearts of the occupants of the land.

But first, God told Joshua to circumcise all the sons of Israel. God had commanded Abraham in Gen. 17.10-11 that all the males should be circumcised and that this was the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham that God had made with him in Gen. 15.18 and Gen. 17.2. All the males who had come out of Egypt had been circumcised, but those born in the wilderness had not, so God made this command. 

But circumcision

was not just a physical requirement. The physical was a symbol of the more important matter of the heart. We see the heart matter in several passages in the Old Testament. Lev. 26.27-45 deals with the blessings of Israel’s obedience to God and the penalties of disobedience. In the course of these thoughts we have v. 41 which speaks of “their uncircumcised heart.” This is the first verse that says that circumcision is really a matter of the heart. Dt. 10.16 says, “Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff necked any longer.” Dt. 30.6: “I AM your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your seed so that you may love him with all youu heart and with all your soul and live.” Is. 29.13, quoted by the Lord Jesus in Mt. 15.8: “This people draws near with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” All of these men were circumcised.  Jer. 4.4 is a word from the great prophet when Judah had wandered far from God: “Circumcise yourselves to I AM. Take away the foreskins of your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done, burn with no one to quench it.” Jeremiah continues in 9.25-26: “’Look, the days are coming,’ says I AM, ‘that I will punish all them that are circumcised in uncircumcision, Egypt and Judah and Edom and the children of Ammon and Moab and all who have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness, for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.’” Passover is for the people of God. No one else can feed on the Passover lamb. But this ultimately means that true Jews are circumcised in heart, and not just in their flesh. [Taken from my article, The Appointed Times of I AM, which see.]

This is the true meaning of circumcision, and this is its significance for Christians. We are not commanded to be circumcised in the flesh, though many Christian men are. Paul makes a big issue of this when the Judaizers, apparently Jews who had become Christians, insisted that Christian Gentiles must also be circumcised to be saved. I want to deal with this matter thoroughly because it is so important. In Gal. 5.2-6 Paul writes to Christians,

Look, I Paul say to you that if you should be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. ³Now I testify to every man being circumcised that he is one obligated to keep all the law. ⁴You are severed from Christ who is being justified by law. You fell from grace. ⁵For we eagerly await the hope of righteousness through the Spirit by faith. ⁶For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is significant, but faith working through love.

Strong words! In Gal. 6.15 he says, “For neither circumcision nor circumcision is anything, but a new creation.” And in Col, 2.10-11 he defines true circumcision: “… you are complete in him who is the Head of all rule and authority, ¹¹in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands in the putting off of the body of the flesh, with the circumcision of Christ….” In Phil. 3.3 he adds, “³For we are the circumcision, those worshipping in the Spirit of God and boasting in Christ Jesus and not having confidence in the flesh.” Circumcision is confidence in the flesh. Flesh is our great enemy, the origin of all our sins.

Ephesians, the book we are comparing with Joshua, mentions circumcision only once (2.11), and not in the context we are considering, but it does speak of the flesh in unfavorable terms in 2.3, and it does stress faith strongly in 2.8-9: “⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of you. It is God’s gift, ⁹not of works, that no one may boast.” Not of works, such as circumcision. In 3.17 we read of Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith.

The Old Testament law requires circumcision, and every Old Testament Jew should be circumcised because God commanded it. But the Old Testament law and types are pictures of God’s requirements and not the reality. Passover, for example, was not the real thing spiritually, though it was real deliverance of the Jews from slavery in Egypt, but the spiritual reality is deliverance from slavery to sin and its consequences by the application of the blood of the Lamb. Circumcision is a picture. It pictures the removal of the flesh, not of the body, but of our sinful flesh nature, and that comes by yielding ourselves wholly to God, putting on the new man, and walking in faith and obedience.

So all the uncircumcised males of the Jews who had just crossed the Jordan were circumcised, which, pardon me, leads to one of the more humorous statements of the Bible: “And Joshua made knives of flint and circumcised the children of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.” Gibeath-haaraloth means “the hill of the foreskins”! Imagine that.

Then we have vs. 8-9:

And it came to pass when they had done circumcising all the nation that they abode in their places in the camp till they were healed. ⁹ And I AM said to Joshua, “This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. Therefore the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.”

The word “Gilgal” means “rolling.” God had “rolled away the reproach of Egypt.” The reproach of Egypt was not just the outward reproach of being slaves, but the picture it paints of people lost in slavery to sin in this fallen world. 

Gilgal has a very prominent place in Joshua, as we will see as we proceed.

We noted that the date of the crossing of the Jordan was the same as the making of a new month as the first month of the Jewish year, the month in which Passover was observed. That was on the fourteenth day. Now in Josh. 5.10 we see the sons of Israel celebrating Passover for the first time in the land of promise, their eternal homeland. One writer (C.A. Coates, An Outline of the Books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth) points out that this observance shows that the Israelites did not leave Passover in Egypt or in the wilderness, but took it into the land of promise and victory. That is, we as Christians must always keep in mind the basis of our salvation, the death of our Lord Jesus. Of the Lord’s Table, a Passover observance, Paul wrote, “For as often as you may eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till he come” (1 Cor. 11.26). Ephesians does not dwell on the death of the Lord because it deals with the church walking in victory, as does Joshua of the Old Testament people of God, but he does refer to his death in 2.13, the blood of Christ, and in 5.25, the Lord giving himself up for the church. 

In vs. 11-12 we read,

And they ate of the produce of the land on the morning after the Passover, unleavened cakes and parched grain, on this same day. ¹² And the manna ceased on the morning after they had eaten of the produce of the land and the sons of Israel had manna no more, but they ate of the produce of the land of Canaan that year.

While the Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years they were unable to provide food for themselves. They were constantly wandering in a place where they could plant and harvest no crops. There were no grocery stores in those days! And few if any markets in the wilderness. So God provided for them because they could not provide for themselves. He sent manna from the heavens. The Hebrew word “man” means “what.” When the people first saw the manna they asked, “What is it?” So that became its name. God fed the people with “What?” We call it manna from the Hebrew word “man.”

The Lord provides milk for baby Christians. Just as a mother feeds her baby, so does God have those who feed milk to newborn Christians (1 Pt. 2.2). The baby does not work for the food or buy it somewhere. It is given to him because he cannot help himself.

But God wants his children to grow up and mature (Heb. 5.12-6.2, 2 Pt. 3.18). He wants them to be able to provide for themselves. He wants them to cross over into the land of victory in the Lord where they eat the produce of the land, “unleavened cakes and parched grain.” What is the food of maturing Christians? Ultimately it is the Lord Jesus himself. He is the Bread of life. We are to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood (Jn. 6). This is obviously a spiritual concept. We do this by prayer, study of his word, fellowship, being taught by more mature students of the word. We do it by carrying out his will as he reveals it. It is still God who provides the food as he provided the manna, but now we have to make an effort to receive that food. We cannot just lie in the bed or sit in the easy chair and expect God to feed us. God said to Joshua in Josh. 1.8, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night….” See also Ps. 119.11, 23, and 148. God provides abundantly, but we must take hold of what he provides.

The day after the Israelites kept Passover in the promised land the manna stopped. God said that he was through hand feeding them. They had to gather their own food. So should we as Christians do what is necessary to gather what God provides.

Eph. 5.29 says that the Lord Jesus nourishes the church.

We come to Josh. 5.13-15:

And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went to him, and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” ¹⁴ And he said, “No! But as Commander of the army of I AM I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my Lord say to his servant?” ¹⁵ And the Commander of I AM’s army said to Joshua, “Put off your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.

We saw that Joshua was the general who led the army of Israel into battle in the promised land and that as such he was a type of the Lord Jesus, our General in our warfare here against the armies of Satan. Now Joshua meets that General, called the Commander. There were several appearances of an angel of the Lord in the Old Testament which some interpreters think was actually the Lord Jesus appearing in angel form (Gen. 16.11, Num. 22.32, Jud. 6.12, 13.3 and 18). I take that to be the case here. Think of Rev. 19.11-16. Joshua was the general. The Lord Jesus was The General. He appeared to Joshua with drawn sword, ready for battle. When Joshua asked him if he were “for us or for our adversaries,” he said “No!” I like what some have said about the Lord. He did not come to take sides. He came to take over. He did take sides here, of course, but he is way beyond taking sides. He is Lord of all. We had better be on his side!

I do not know if Joshua knew that this was the Lord or thought he was an angel. Whatever, he fell on his face. Wouldn’t you? It says he worshiped, so he probably at least hand an inkling that this was the Lord he was facing. Now, instead of Joshua saying, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” he asked, “What does my Lord say to his servant?” I cannot count all the times I have told the Lord what he ought to do, when he should do it, and how he should do it. I think I would have done better to ask, “What does my Lord say to his servant?” We can be so busy instructing or begging the Lord to do what we want that we can easily forget that he is in charge. It is much better to listen than to talk sometimes.

And what did the Lord say to Joshua? “Put off your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy.” He says the same thing to Moses in Ex. 3.5. Why does the Lord tell people to put off their shoes in his presence? I think it is because when one meets the Lord in this way he goes away a different person. He cannot walk the same way in the same shoes. “Take up your cross and follow me.” We are “the new man” and the new woman (Eph. 4.22-24). 

Ephesians is a remarkable book on what it is to meet the Lord as Joshua did. We learn that we have every spiritual blessing as we sit with Christ in the heavenlies (1.3 – present tense). We learn that he chose us before the foundation of the world (1.4). He predestined us for son-placing (1.5). What is son-placing?

This word is usually translated “adoption,” and people say that we have been adopted by God into his family. I strongly disagree. We are not adopted by God. We are born of God (Jn. 3.8). We have an adopted daughter. She is as much our daughter as if we had given her birth, but she will never be our seed, as the Scriptures put it. Is. 53.10 says that the Lord Jesus will see seed. That is, because the he gave his life for us in obedience to his Father that he himself would have offspring. We who are his by new birth are his offspring, his seed, not physically. He had no natural children. We are his seed spiritually, and that is what we are dealing with here. If the Greek word is not “adoption,” what is it? The word means literally “son-placing.” It has nothing to do with our becoming Christians. It has to do with our place in the millennial kingdom.

The word appears five times in the New Testament. In Rom. 8.15 we read, “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again unto fear, but you received the Spirit of son-placing, by whom we cry ‘Abba, Father.’” That is, the Holy Spirit in us gives us the cry of the faithful Israelites in Heb. 11.13-16:

In faith these all died, not having received the promises, but having seen and greeted them at a distance and having confessed that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth. ¹⁴For those saying such things reveal that they are seeking a fatherland. ¹⁵And if they were remembering that from which they went out, they had opportunity to return. ¹⁶But now they are desiring a better, that is, a heavenly, one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he prepared for them a city.

And vs. 39-40: “And these all, having received a testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, ⁴⁰God having foreseen something better for us, that they might not be perfected without us.” There is an awareness in all of us who know the Lord that this world is not our home, that there is something better awaiting us. That awareness is the Spirit of son-placing.

In Rom. 9.4 Paul writes that the son-placing belongs to the Jews. That is, salvation is of the Jews, and salvation is not just “getting saved” as we put it at the beginning of life, but there is “a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” and “the outcome of the faith, salvation of souls” (1 Pt. 1.5, 9). That outcome is the son-placing, receiving our place in the kingdom. “Getting saved” is only the beginning, and there is no end.

Gal. 4.1-7 is a key passage in this regard:

But I say, for as long a time as the heir is a child he does not differ from a slave though being lord of all, ²but he is under guardians and stewards until the appointed time of the father. ³So also we, when we were children, were enslaved under the elementary rules of the world. ⁴But when the fullness of the time came God sent forth his Son, having been born of a woman, having been born under law, ⁵that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive the son-placing. ⁶Because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying “Abba, Father.” ⁷So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, an heir through God.

Here we see Christians in this age as children. We are no better than slaves in a sense, just as a child who is heir to his father’s wealth has to be trained and disciplined and told what to do until he grows up. But when he grows up he receives the son-placing. Growing up here is entering the millennial kingdom, and the son-placing is receiving his place of responsibility there, just as a child receives a place of responsibility in his father’s business when he grows up.

Here in Eph. 1.5 we see that we have been predestined to the son-placing. We do not have it yet, but we will have it in the kingdom. Predestination has nothing to do with being saved. God does not predestine anyone to hell or Heaven. It has to do with foreknowledge. God knows who will be saved and those are the ones he predestines. It has to do with our place in the kingdom. Rom 8.28-29 says, “But we know that all things work together for good for those loving God, for those being called according to purpose, for those whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son….” We are in the process of being conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus. The outcome of that is the son-placing, finding our place in his kingdom.

The clincher in this discussion is Rom. 8.23: “… we ourselves also groan in ourselves, awaiting son-placing, the redemption of our body.” We do not receive our son-placing until we come to the millennial kingdom. We have been saved, our dead spirits being made alive by the new birth and the entering of the Spirit of life (Jn. 3.6, 8, Rom. 8.2, Rev. 11.11). We are being saved (1 Cor. 1.18), and we will be saved (1 Pt. 1.5, 9). Our final salvation is the redemption of the body, the transformation of the body to incorruptibility in the blink of an eye (1 Cor. 15.51-52), from its humble state in this world to likeness to the body of the glory of the Lord (Phil. 3.21). At that point, when the dead in Christ are raised and those alive at the time are caught up into the air to be with the Lord, we will receive our son-placing, our assignment of a place of responsibility in reigning with the Lord, if we endure with him to the end  (2 Tim. 2.12).

Back to Ephesians. We have redemption and forgiveness (1.7). We have an inheritance in the kingdom (1.11). We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, guaranteeing our inheritance. (1.13-14). We were made alive with Christ and are seated with him in the heavenlies (2.5-6). Those of us who were Gentiles “were at that time separate from Christ, having been alienated from the people of Israel and strangers of the covenants of the promise, not having hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you, the ones once being far off, came near by the blood of Christ” (2.12-13), and “we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (2.18-19). We are “fellow heirs and fellow members of the same body and fellow partakers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the good news” (3.6). As we abide in him we are

strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, ¹⁷Christ to dwell through faith in your hearts, you having been rooted and founded in love, ¹⁸that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what are the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God (3.16-18).

Put off your shoes. You are on holy ground!

Then there are chapters four through six of Ephesians which tell us what our response should be in living out what we have come into in Christ. As the land in the Old Testament is the place of blessing for the Israelites of that day, so is Christ is the land of blessing for us. He is a great land, vast, flowing with milk and honey and every blessing we can imagine. Indeed, he “is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all things that we ask or think of according to the power that works in us (3.20). V. 21 is the appropriate response: “To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus into all the generations of the age of the ages. Amen.”

JERICHO

6.1-27

Joshua’s encounter with the Lord continues in chapter 6.1-5. We saw in chapter 2 that Rahab had said in vs. 9-11 that the inhabitants of Jericho had heard of what God was doing for and through Israel, and that as a result their hearts had melted within them. They were living in panic. Now we are told in 6.1 that “Jericho was shut up because of the sons of Israel. No one went out and no one came in.” And I AM (here the Man who stood opposite Joshua in 5.13 is identified) said to Joshua in v. 2, “See, I have given into r hand Jericho and its king and the mighty men of valor.” Here is the promise of God made before the fact. What does that call forth? Faith. Joshua and the people must trust in God that he would do what he said.

So do we. Everything comes back to faith, genuine faith, not just saying that we trust God, but doing it. I have heard of people drowning in worry who, when they are told that they must trust the Lord, say, “I am trusting God.” No, they are not trusting, they are worrying. I know that we all worry sometimes, but we have to take a stand. Either God is able to see us through or he is not. We say that he can, but we don’t act like it. Those hard times come from the hand of God for our good. He is trying to build faith in us, to strengthen us, to mature us. I believe a lot of Christians are trusting God for salvation, but not for the current issue. Yes, he will get us to Heaven, but he will also get us through “this,” whatever it is. God has purpose for everything that comes into our lives, a purpose for his glory and our good. Joshua believed and acted on that belief and we know the result.

The Lord gave him the well-known instructions to have all the men or war to march around Jericho once a day for six days. Seven priests were to march with seven trumpets of rams’ horns for the six days before the Ark of the Covenant. Then on the seventh day they were to march around the city seven times and the priests were to blow the trumpets, and when they heard the trumpet blast all the people were to shout with a great shout. Then, God said that the wall of the city would then fall down flat and the people were to “go up, every man straight before him.”

Guess what? Joshua believed God and acted on his belief. He did what God said. On the seventh day he told the people to shout. The priests blew the trumpets. The people shouted with a great shout and went into the city. Joshua had told the people in vs. 17-19 that everything in the city was to be destroyed except for Rahab and her family and the silver, gold, bronze, and iron, which were to go into the treasury of the Lord.  They did this, killing all the people and their animals. Rahab and her family were saved and the city burned.

Then Joshua made the people take an oath:

Cursed be the man before I AM who rises up and builds this city Jericho. With the loss of his first-born will he lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son will he set up its gates.

We are not told about it here, but this oath came to pass. We are told about it in 1 Kings 16.34.

The chapter closes with these words: “So I AM was with Joshua and his fame was in all the land.”

What are we to learn from this story? Primarily that we are to trust and obey. Joshua and the people trusted in God and acted on what he said, and they did so in obedience. The result was a great victory. That should characterize our lives. We will probably not see cities fall down, but we can see the efforts of Satan to destroy us spiritually fall down. Ephesians is very strong on this point. We have already seen his instruction in 6.10-20:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the might of his strength. ¹¹Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, ¹²for our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies. ¹³Because of this, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. ¹⁴Stand, therefore, having girded r loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ¹⁵and having shod the feet with the readiness of the good news of peace, in all having taken the shield of faith, with which  will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one, ¹⁷and take “the helmet of salvation” and the sword of the Spirit, which is the speaking of God, ¹⁸through all prayer and petition praying in every time in the Spirit, and for this purpose watching with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, ¹⁹and for me, that a word may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the good news, ²⁰for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak freely, as I ought to speak.

We must not attempt to attack Satan in our own strength and wisdom. He does not operate out of power because he has been defeated by the Lord Jesus, but he is the cleverest liar and deceiver there is and he knows much more than we do and is much smarter than we are. He can plant thoughts in our minds that we think are our own. He can try to counterfeit the Lord. He can make things that are wrong, or at least not God’s will for us, look so good and desirable. He can tempt us to put our hands on the things of God, trying to work things out for the Lord when he is fully able to do so himself.

One of Satan’s greatest weapons is theology. Theology is right and useful, but it is not what we are about. We are about the Lord Jesus. Satan can get people into arguments about theology, especially with regards to questions that cannot be answered. One good example has to do with the Lord’s Table. Because of John chapter 6, Catholics say that at the Lord’s Table the bread and wine miraculously turn into the actual body and blood of Jesus. This is called transubstantiation. Protestants disagree, but they also disagree among themselves. Some believe in what they call consubstantiation, meaning that the actual body and blood of the Lord are present with the bread and wine. This is Lutheran. Some believe that the bread and wine are just symbols. Can this question be answered? Of course not, so why argue about it. Just observe the Lord’s Table as he said to, whatever it is theologically. That is how Satan operates.

So how do we deal with this clever enemy? By putting on the whole armor of God, and this armor is not physical, but spiritual. We do not take up arms against those who disagree with us. We are not wrestling with flesh and blood. Lost people and people who disagree with us theologically or with regards to practice are not our enemies. Satan is their enemy and ours. Our battle is “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.” We take up the spiritual armor of God.

Then, Paul writes, we are to stand. He says it three times, in vs. 11, 13, and 14. What does he mean by standing? We stand the victory of our Lord Jesus. As we have dealt with before, the Lord Jesus utterly defeated Satan at the cross. See again Col. 2.15, Heb. 2.14, and 1 Jn. 3.8. We do not have to defeat Satan. He has already been defeated. We simply stand in the victory of our Lord. We clothe ourselves with truth (v. 14), the truth that Christ is victorious and all the other truth of his word. The Lord Jesus himself did this in his temptation at the beginning of his ministry, as seen in Mt. 4.4-11 and Lk. 4.1-13.

We clothe ourselves with righteousness. Christ is our righteousness (1 Cor. 1.30). Our sins have been forgiven. We have exchanged our sins for the righteousness of Christ. We are free from slavery to sin and are slaves to obedience and righteousness, which is freedom indeed (Rom. 6.16 and 19).

We have our “feet shod with the readiness of the good news of peace.” This means that we are ready to go anywhere the Lord leads to share the good news of the Lord Jesus. As we share the Lord we are strong in his power as he speaks through us.

We have the shield of faith, perhaps the most fundamental aspect of Christianity. Without faith there is nothing, not even a beginning, for faith is the beginning. We are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2.8). But faith goes beyond initial salvation. With it we can extinguish all the flaming arrow of Satan. Whatever he sends against us, if we trust in God in the situation it puts out the arrow, and the arrow itself cannot penetrate us because of our shield of faith.

We have the helmet of salvation. Eph. 4.18 speaks of a darkened mind or understanding, but salvation is enlightening. As 1 Pt. 2.9 puts it, when we are saved we have come out of darkness into his marvelous light. But Satan tries to get at us through our thoughts. Heb. 6.4-6 speaks of those who have once been enlightened, but then have fallen away. The helmet of salvation will keep our minds from being led astray as we keep them on the Lord and his word, as we see in Is. 26.3: “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you   because he trusts in you.”

We have the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. When the Lord Jesus was tempted in Mt. 4 and Lk. 4, as we noted above, he used the word of God to counter the temptations. We cannot do better than follow his example. But it is not enough just to have a Bible in the house. It requires much time reading and studying the word to be able to use it as a sword to fend off Satan’s attacks.

Then there is prayer. I do not feel qualified to advise anyone on prayer. Many people think of prayer as just asking God for things and when they do not get what they want, they question God. But there is much more to prayer. I am sure we all have heard about worship, giving thanks, intercession, and so forth. Those things are true and necessary, but I believe the heart of prayer is simply relating to God as we would to someone dear to us, but with the realization that he is GOD, he is infinitely holy, and he is infinite love and grace. He is a Father to us, but he is worthy of the utmost reverence and respect, and faith and obedience.

So we see God’s method of warfare. He has the victory and we stand in it and watch him provide.

Defeat and Conquest

Chapters 7-8

Now we come to a dark chapter in Israel’s history with a valuable lesson for us to learn. God had already given the Israelites the land before they even started into battle and had promised them victory, but now they are defeated by Ai. V. 1 tells us that Achan had taken some of the items that were under the ban, that is, to be destroyed or put into the Lord’s treasury.

Going back in the story we see in 7.2-5 that Joshua sent men to spy out the land around Ai. They reported to Joshua that Ai was small and they needed only two or three thousand men to take it. Take note that Joshua did not consult the Lord first, but just sent three thousand to take Ai, but Ai drove them away and killed thirty-six of them.

Here we see that when we have won a victory, or more accurately, God has given us a victory, it is imperative that we do not think that we now know how to do it and we can just tackle the next enemy. It is imperative that we turn to the Lord and seek his directions before proceeding. I am sure that if Joshua had asked the Lord what to do next, the Lord would have told him that there was sin in the camp that had to be dealt with, but this was not done and they learned the lesson the hard way.

In Eph. 5.15-17 we read, “See carefully therefore to how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, ¹⁶redeeming the time, for the days are evil. ¹⁷Because of this don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” How do we see carefully how to walk? By continually consulting the Lord. God does not reveal his entire will for our lives all at once. He usually reveals it one step at a time. When we have taken a step, we turn to the Lord for the next step. If Joshua had turned to the Lord after the victory over Jericho, it is very likely that those thirty-six men would not have been lost at Ai. Let us see to that we also seek the Lord’s next step after we have completed one.

Then we have vs. 6-9:

 And Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the ground on his face before the ark of I AM until the evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. ⁷ And Joshua said, “Alas, Lord I AM, why have you brought this people over the Jordan to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? Oh that we had been content and had dwelt beyond the Jordan! ⁸ O Lord, what will I say, after Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! ⁹ For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name?”

God answered.

And I AM said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you thus fallen on your face? ¹¹ Israel has sinned. Yes, they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. Yes, they have taken of the devoted things and have stolen and deceived also, and they have put it among their own things.”

Israel was not defeated because God could not give victory. They were defeated because there was sin in the camp, as we saw in v. 1. I will not go into all the detail in vs. 13-19, but God directed Joshua how to find out who had sinned, and Achan was discovered. He confessed his guilt. He had seen “a beautiful cloak of Shinar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold of fifty shekels weight. Then I coveted them and took them, and look, they are hidden in the ground in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.” So Joshua sent men to the tent and they found it as Achan said. Then he, the things he had stolen, his sons, his daughters, his cattle, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that belonged to him were taken to the valley of Achor. There they were all stoned and burned. “And they raised over him a great heap of stones, there to this day, and I AM turned from the fierceness of his anger. Therefore the name of that place was called the valley of Achor, to this day.” Achor means “trouble.” We encounter this word again in a better context in Hos. 2.15, “the valley of Achor as a door of hope.”

The lesson of this event is very obvious. There was sin in the camp. We cannot indulge in sin and expect God to give us victory in our lives. But if we are walking with the Lord in faith and obedience, he will use even our trouble as a door of hope. Even death is a door of hope – into Heaven.

We see the effects of sin in Ephesians. In 2.1-3 we read,

And you, being dead in your falling by the way and sins, ²in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, ³in which we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the wishes of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were children by nature of wrath, as also the rest.

These are lost sinners that Paul is writing about here, but if we allow sin in our lives we are opening the door for these things to come back into our lives. In 4.17-19 Paul writes,

This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸being darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart, ¹⁹who having become insensitive have given themselves to sensuality for the working of all immorality in greediness. ²⁰But you did not so learn Christ.

When Paul tells the Ephesians not to walk as the Gentiles walk he is implying that they could walk as the Gentiles walk. It is possible for a Christian to walk in sin. I do not mean the sins that we all commit in our human weakness, of which we repent immediately, but the deliberate walking in a way that we know is contrary to God’s will for us. We can walk in sin as a Christian, but we cannot walk in victory in that way. We will make it to Heaven, but we will lose rewards that we could have had. See 1 Cor. 3.10-15. And Paul says, “But you did not so learn Christ.”

In vs. 22-24 Paul tells his readers to put off the old man and put on the new man. The old man is our flesh, and it is constantly flaring up. That is part of our warfare. But we repent of that and seek to go on with the Lord. But it is possible to hold on to the old man even as a Christian.

In 4.25 through 6.9 Paul gives a long list of things to do and not to do. He instructs us about the old man and the new. Putting on the new man is the way of victory in this life and of reward in the kingdom.

Yes, Ephesians is the book of victory for Christians, but it does not come automatically. We must yield ourselves to the Lord and walk in faith and obedience to him.

After this bitter lesson of defeat rising out of sin we come to chapter 8, where sin has been dealt with and Israel gains the victory over Ai. I will not go into all the long details, but the Lord directed Joshua to set an ambush behind Ai, then have a few men attack Ai from the front and turn and run when the men of Ai came out to do battle with them so that the men of Ai would think the Israelites were fleeing before them as before. Then the ambush behind Ai were to enter the undefended city and set it on fire and then pursue the army of Ai, which would be trapped between the two bodies of Israel’s army. Of course, God’s plan worked and Ai was defeated and destroyed.

In this battle the Lord allowed Israel to take the cattle and the spoils of war for themselves, whereas at Jericho he had commanded to destroy everything except the things that were to go into the Lord’s treasury. He did this to teach us that the firstfruits are the Lord’s. In Lev. 23 we are told of the seven festivals that Israel was to observe. After Passover and Unleavened Bread came Firstfruits. This was the offering to God of the first sheaf of the barley crop as a thanksgiving to him for the crop. After that the people could eat of the harvest. Jericho was the firstfruits of Israel’s victories in the land. It all belonged to God. After that the people could partake of the spoils. This is a lesson to us that we give ourselves to the Lord and that we give to him the firstfruits of our substance.

In Dt. 11.26-29 God had said to Moses,

 Look, I and setting before you this day a blessing and a curse, ²⁷ the blessing if you listen to the commandments of I AM your God which I am commanding you this day, ²⁸ and the curse if you do not listen to the commandments of I AM your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known. ²⁹ And it will come to pass when I AM your God brings you into the land where  are going to possess it, that you shall set the blessing on mount Gerizim and the curse on mount Ebal.

And in Dt. 27.2-8 he had commanded Moses as follows:

And it shall be on the day when you pass over the Jordan into the land which I AM your God is giving to you that you shall set up great stones and whitewash them with lime. ³ And  shall write on them all the words of this law, when  have passed over, that  may go into the land which I AM your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as I AM, the God of r fathers, has promised . ⁴ And it shall be, when you have passed over the Jordan, that you shall set up these stones which I command  this day, in mount Ebal, and  shall whitewash them with lime. ⁵ And there you shall build an altar to I AM your God, an altar of stones. You shall lift up no iron tool on them. ⁶ You shall build the altar of I AM your God of unhewn stones. And you shall offer burnt offerings on it to I AM your God. ⁷ And you shall sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there. And you shall rejoice before I AM your God. ⁸ And you shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly.

Now here in Josh. 8.30-35 Joshua carries out God’s command to Moses. The purpose of these commands by God is to show that victory and blessing come by way of obedience to the Lord and curses come to those who do not obey. The curse in this case is not necessarily some terrible thing done to people, for, as we saw, the rain and the drought both fall on the just and the unjust. It is a spiritual matter. Those who obey the Lord know spiritual blessing, as we see in Eph. 1.3, “every spiritual blessing.” Those Christians who are not obedient in the Lord may or may not know material plenty and many other good things in this world, but they will miss the spiritual blessings that are not temporal, but eternal. What they have on earth will one day pass away, but treasure laid up in Heaven will see those who laid it up through eternity. Of course, a curse on those who are not the Lord’s means eternity away from him, no matter how much they may have in this world.

These passages note that they were to build an altar. An altar is a place of sacrifice where one makes an offering to God. On that altar we are to offer burnt offerings and peace offerings. The burnt offering is first of all the Lord Jesus, who presented himself to God as a whole burn offering (Lev. 1), dying to himself, and the offering of ourselves as a living sacrifice, as Paul urges us in Rom. 12.1, to live for God and not for ourselves.

We have seen that Eph. 1-3 tells us of the blessings of Mt. Gerizim that God has lavished on us, and chapters 4-6 show us how to lay hold of those blessings. It is by obedience to all that we see in those chapters.

Joshua built an altar of uncut stones, as commanded by God in Dt. 27.5-6. The fact that there was no iron tool used to fashion this altar shows that what is being accomplished in the conquering of the land is wholly of God. A tool is something man devises. The stones are made by God. Nothing of man is to come upon the things of God. We are not to devise ways to accomplish the will of God, but to seek his leading. We have a lot of programs in Christian work. Are they the doing of the Holy Spirit, or the efforts of man? Eph. 5.18 tells us to be filled with the Spirit. He is the one who makes the plans and leads us and empowers us to accomplish what he commands. We do not need the tools of man when we have the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit we have the futile efforts of man.

I think one example of this is the matter of revival. Sometimes we hear that someone is going to preach a revival. No he won’t! Only a move of the Spirit of God can bring revival. Our place is to pray:

… through all prayer and petition praying in every time in the Spirit, and for this purpose watching with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, ¹⁹and for me, that a word may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the good news, ²⁰for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak freely, as I ought to speak (Eph. 6.18-20).

There is one more lesson of great importance that the book of Joshua brings out. When the Israelites conquered Jericho, they did so by following God’s plan for the conquest. They marched around the city once a day for six days, then seven times on the seventh day, the shouted, and the walls of Jericho fell flat. It would have been easy for Israel to say, “Ah! Now we know how to conquer a city. We will march around it once a day for six days, and then seven times on the seventh day.” But notice that God never had them do that again. He had a different plan for each city. The lesson is that God is not a God of techniques. He does not want us to learn how to conquer cities. He wants us to know him! He wants us to go back to Gilgal after each victory, make sure the flesh is under control, consult with him on what to do next, and get his directions. That way we get to know him. We are to love that way, not by techniques. We can never say, “Oh, I know how to do that.” We will never know how, except to turn to the Lord for the next step. I am afraid there are too many techniques in Christian work. We do not need them. We need to know the Lord and the power of his Spirit.

That is the way of victory.

Trickery

9.1-27

Chapter 9 opens by telling us,

And it came to pass when all the kings that were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the lowland and on all the shore of the great sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite the Hivite and the Jebusite, heard of it ² that they gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua and with Israel with one accord.

Some wag added, “and the Parasites”! This shows us that any time a move of God is made it stirs up the forces of evil. We can expect to be opposed if we live for the Lord. We have taken note on Eph. 6.10-20 several times. These forces of evil attack and try to derail what God is doing. We certainly are in a war.

Eph. 6.11 refers to Satan’s schemes, as my NASB puts it. The Greek word is methodeia, from which we get “method.” The idea is using methods, evil organized in schemes proven to cause evil. When we think of organized evil we think of what Eph. 6.12 says about our enemies. Satan has his forces in the spiritual world organized to carry out his schemes: we wrestle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.” These are demonic forces that are always on the lookout to tempt or thwart or make trouble for God’s people.

This word is also used in Eph. 4.14, along with a word that comes from the Greek for “dice.” It has to do with gambling, a notorious place of cheating by sleight. Satan does not play fair. He is a liar and operates by deceit. The other word in this evil trio has to do with cunning and craftiness. Satan is a master of catching his victims unawares. Eph. 4.14 reads, “… that we may no longer be children, tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, by craftiness for the purposes of the scheming of deceit.”

How are we to deal with this organized gang of evil forces? Eph. 6 has told us to take the whole armor of God. Going back to Eph. 4 we read in vs. 11-,

And he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, ¹²for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, ¹³until we all come to the unity of the faith and the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴that we may no longer be children, tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching….

We are the body of Christ (Eph. 1.23). Just as our bodies have many members and all have a role to play, so does the Lord place in the church many members. Each one is to contribute to the growth of the whole. We have those who have specific ministries, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, but we also have the rest of the body, those who may not be in specific ministry, but who have something to contribute, prayer, fellowship, sharing of our experiences of dealing with evil, comforting, counseling, and so forth. I hear of people who say that they do not need to “go to church,” a term I do not like – we do not go to church, we are the church and we go to meetings of the church – that they can worship by themselves at home or in the woods or somewhere. Yet they can. We should all be worshipping all the time, but we are members of a body. If I cut my hand off it will die. If a Christian cuts himself from the body of Christ he will die spiritually. I do not mean he will lose salvation, but he lose the nurturing of the body that keeps us strong and growing in the Lord. We need the Lord most of all, but we very much need one another.

Talk about crafty, the next section of Joshua gives us a shining example. Gibeon was a town about twenty miles west of Gilgal, where the Israelites camped when they entered the land. Again I won’t go into all the details, but the Gibeonites heard about what the Israelites had done at Jericho and Ai, destroying the cities and killing all of the people. To save themselves they came to Joshua in Gilgal and told him that they had come from a far country and wanted to make a covenant with Israel, saying that they would be their servants. Joshua questioned them a bit, but then agreed to make peace with them and let them live. When he learned three days later that they were neighbors, Hivites, one of the seven tribes that God had promised to give into the hands of the Israelites in Josh. 3.10, he could not kill them because of his covenant, but he made them “hewers of wood and drawers of water” for Israel. He said to them, “Now therefore you are cursed and there will never fail to be of you slaves, both hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.”

The key to this situation is found in v. 14: “And the men took some of their provision, and did not ask for the mouth of I AM,” that is, for his counsel. Just as they had done at Ai they did not seek the Lord before acting. It shows how important it is for us to seek the Lord’s mind before we act. Their covenant with the Gibeonites was to have serious consequences for Israel, as seen in chapter 10 and in 2 Sam. 21.

In Eph. 5.8 and 10 we read, “… for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light … ¹⁰proving what is pleasing to the Lord.” “Proving what is pleasing to the Lord.” We are to go to the Lord to test our thoughts when we have a decision to make. Some course of action may seem right and reasonable to us, but God sees all the consequences of every act. We saw the sleight, craftiness, and scheming of the devil. He can make a pathway look very good to us. What does God have to say about it? We are not to walk in our own light, but in the Light of the world. We refer again to prayer as set forth in Eph. 6.18. We need to be seeking the mouth of the Lord, as it is put in Josh. 9.14, in every decision.

Consequences and Victory

10.1-12.24

The first consequence we see from Joshua’s pact with the Gibeonites is that six kings in the land joined together to attack the Gibeonites because they had made peace with Israel. The Gibeonites sent word to Joshua and he had to defend Gibeon. Again we see the importance of consulting the Lord before acting. I can think of things I did many years ago that still have a negative impact on my life today. We must live with our decisions.

But God is merciful. The matter of the bad decision was behind them in the sense that God forgives and moves on. He promised Joshua victory over these tribes, which occurred, and in addition he destroyed one more city. He pursued these six kings to Makkedah and while he was there he also destroyed it. The Lord joined in the battle by casting large hailstones onto the fleeing army and more died from the hailstones than from the sword. Joshua said in the hearing of the sons of Israel,

“Sun, stand still upon Gibeon, and you, Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.”And the sun stood still and the moon stayed until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is this not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stayed in the midst of the skies and did not haste to go down about a whole day. ¹⁴ And there was no day like that before it or after it, that I AM listened to the voice of a man, for I AM fought for Israel.

Eph. 4.25-5.2 shows us God’s desire that we turn from our sins and go on with him:

Therefore having put off lying, “each of you speak truth with his neighbor,” [Zech. 8.16] for we are members of one another. ²⁶Be angry and don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your irritation, ²⁷and don’t give a place to the devil. ²⁸Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the good, that he may have to give to the one having need. ²⁹Let no bad word go out of r mouth, but if anything is good for edification of the need, that it may give grace to those who hear. ³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹Let all bitterness and rage and anger and angry shouting and slander be taken away from you, with all malice. ³²Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also forgave you. 5. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, ²and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God of a smell of fragrance.

The Lord says, Alright, you sinned, but you confessed and repented. You are forgiven. Now learn from r mistake and let’s move on. Joshua’s failure to seek the Lord before acting was dealt with and he moved on with God in victory.

Then Joshua and Israel returned to Gilgal. This returning to Gilgal is very important. We first encounter Gilgal in Josh. 4.19, where we see that the Israelites camped there when they had just crossed the Jordan River. Then in 5.8-9 we read,

And it came to pass when they had done circumcising all the nation that they abode in their places in the camp till they were healed. ⁹ And I AM said to Joshua, “This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. Therefore the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.”

Circumcision, as we saw, is symbolic of dealing with the flesh, our selfish sin nature. At Gilgal God did that.

In 9.6 we see the Gibeonites coming to Joshua at Gilgal. The Israelites were still camped there, but, as we saw, Joshua did not seek the Lord’s counsel and got off the track, the consequences of which we see in 10.6-9. Then in v. 15 the sons of Israel returned to Gilgal. In 14.6 we see that the headquarters of this invading army are still in Gilgal.

The point we want to see is that Gilgal is the place where the flesh of the Israelites was dealt with, but the flesh is still with us. It was dealt with once for all at the cross by the Lord Jesus when we died with him. We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies and are done with the flesh is that sense (Eph. 2.6). But as we have seen, what is finished in the heavenlies must be worked out in life here in the world. That is a process. So we must keep returning to Gilgal, keep crucifying the flesh (Gal. 5.24). But it is not enough just to return to Gilgal, but we must seek the Lord constantly. God does not reveal to us his entire plan for our lives. Usually he reveals one step at a time. When we have taken that step we go back to Gilgal and wait for the next step, all the while being aware of the flesh and its attempts to lead us astray. As Eph. 6.18 says, “always being alert.”

Vs. 29-42 of Josh. 10 tell us about Joshua’s many conquests in the southern part of the land, and v. 43, that after this they once again returned to Gilgal.

Chapter 11 records the conquest of much of the rest of the land and is much the same as chapter 10. One passage has note for our purposes here. In 11.19-20 we read,

There was not a city that made peace with the sons of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. They took them all in battle. ²⁰ For it was of I AM to harden their hearts to come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them, that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as I AM commanded Moses.

Recall that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart not to let the Israelites leave Egypt. I do not believe that God hardens someone’s heart just so he will be lost. I do not believe in predestination for salvation. As we saw, God predestines that those he foreknows will trust in him will be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8.29) and predestines them for son-placing (Eph. 1.5, Rom. 8.23), the redemption of our bodies and receiving of our place in the kingdom.

Hardening of the heart is a different matter. We see in Is. 6.8-10, quoted or referred to in Mt. 13.11-15, Mk. 4.11-12, Lk. 8.10, Jn. 12.40, Acts 18.26-27, and Rom. 11.8, that there is what is called judicial hardness. It is possible for a person to resist the Lord to the point that God will judge him unsavable and will harden his heart beyond recovery. In 1 Tim. 4.2 we read of people who sear their consciences to the point that they no longer perceive the difference between good and evil or have any sense of conviction. That is a fearful place to be. The people that Joshua was conquering in the land were such people. They were so given to evil that in God’s eyes they were no longer able to be saved. He hardened their hearts so that they would resist God’s people and be destroyed. Gen. 15.16 refers to the Amorites, the very people Joshua is destroying, in saying that he was not yet ready to destroy them in Abraham’s day, “for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.” By the time of Joshua their iniquity was fulfilled and God destroyed them, even hardening their hearts so that they would be destroyed. There comes a point when God has had enough. Beware! 

We have already seen that Eph. 4.17-5.18 there is a long list of things that the evil do and that the Lord’s people are not to do. In 4.17-19 Paul writes,

Therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸being darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart, ¹⁹who having become insensitive have given themselves to sensuality for the working of all immorality in greediness.

Here we see the hardening of the heart through repeated sin. These are like those who have seared their consciences, darkened in mind, insensitive, unable to understand the life of God. This is really a warning from Paul – it is possible to walk this way. There are many more such sins listed in this passage. Do not harden r heart toward God, even as a Christian. You will not lose your salvation, but you will lose your reward, your son-placing, saved as through fire (1 Cor. 3.15).

Then Joshua gives a summary of the kings defeated by him in chapter 12.

Dividing the Land

13-1-33

All of events of the book of Joshua up to this point took a long time, and chapter 13 begins with these words, “Now Joshua was old and advanced in years, and I AM said to him, ‘You are old and advanced in years and there remains yet very much land to be possessed.’” Then in vs. 6 there is a list of the areas still to be conquered. Following that is instruction about the inheritance of the tribes. I will have to go back to the book of Numbers to give a little history leading up to this point.

In Num. 32 we read that the tribes of Reuben and Gad had a large number of cattle. They had seen that the land east of the Jordan River, Moab and Ammon, was suitable for cattle, so they asked Moses and Eleazar the High Priest to let them have their inheritance in those lands. When Moses got them to agree to cross over the Jordan and fight with the other tribes until they had won their territory, Moses agreed. In Josh. 13.7 I AM told Joshua to divide the territory that had not yet been conquered between the nine and one-half tribes that would settle west of the Jordan. The tribes of Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh would settle east of the Jordan.

Josh. 13.14 tells us that Levi would not have an inheritance in the land because “the offerings of I AM, the God of Israel, made by fire are his inheritance, as he spoke to him,” in Dt. 18.1-2:

The priests, the Levites, all the tribe of Levi, will have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They will eat the offerings of I AM made by fire, and his inheritance. ² And they will have no inheritance among their brethren. I AM is their inheritance, as he has spoken to them.

Vs. 15-32 tell us the details of the inheritance of the land east of the Jordan of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and the last verse, 33, repeats v.14: “But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave no inheritance. I AM, the God of Israel, is their inheritance, as he spoke to them.”

In Eph. 1.13-14 we read that “You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, ¹⁴who is the earnest of our inheritance for the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.” We have an inheritance in the kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit is the earnest of it. The picture is of putting down some money as a guarantee that the rest will be paid. Usually in our day when a person buys a house, when he makes the offer, he writes a check for a small, but substantial, part of the cost of the house. It is earnest money, a guarantee that he is in earnest about buying the house. He will pay the balance at the right time. If he does not, he forfeits the earnest money. In the same way the Holy Spirit is given to us by God when we are saved as a guarantee that we will receive our full inheritance.

What is our inheritance? In a word, Christ. Just as the land was Israel’s inheritance, so is Christ ours. God promised the Israelites the land in perpetuity. In Gen. 13.15 he made this promise: “… for all the land which you see, to you I will give it and to your seed forever.” Forever is not just until the return of Christ or until the end of the millennium, but eternally. All of the conflict over that land today will one day end with Israel possessing it forever and ever. We could say that the land that Israel actually occupied was an earnest, for they have never yet possessed all that God promised them. Gen. 15.18 says, “To your seed I have given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” The land also extends into modern day Turkey. In the millennium Israel will receive her full inheritance.

Christ is our inheritance, and we have never yet possess all that he is. In Eph. 3.18 we read “that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what are the breadth and length and height and depth” of Christ. He is vast. He is far more than we can comprehend. We saw in Eph. 6.2 that we are seated with him in the heavenlies in spirit. When we leave this world we will dwell in Christ and will begin to comprehend the infinity of our inheritance.

In Eph. 1.18 we read of “what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” That is God’s inheritance in us! Are we worth inheriting, especially by God who already has everything? From eternity God has desired to have a people as his wife, his companion, as we have seen. That is why he made Adam and Eve. He wanted a people that would include a wife for himself, Israel, and a bride for his Son, the church. When we have been saved and sanctified and purified he will have his eternal heart’s desire. Bless the Lord!

Just as a word of caution, let us look at Eph. 5.5: “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or greedy person, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” Paul writes in 1 Cor. 6.11 that “such were some of you.” I have tried to stress that there are rewards in the kingdom for God’s people, but they can be lost. I am sure that all of us have committed one or more of the sins listed in Eph. 4.4 and in 1 Cor. 6.9-10, but God has forgiven us and cleansed us (1 Jn. 1.9). There is a stern warning in 2 Pt. 2.20-22:

For if having escaped the defilements of the world by the full knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but having been entangled with these again they are overcome, the last things to them have become worse than the first. ²¹For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn from the holy commandment having been handed down to them. ²²It has come about to them the true proverb, “A dog having returned to his own vomit” [Prov. 26.11], and, a sow having washed, to wallowing in mire.

 You cannot lose your salvation, but you can lose your inheritance (1 Cor. 3.15). Beware!

Caleb’s Request

14.1-15

Chapter 14 begins the description of the lands assigned to each tribe in the land west of the Jordan. V. 4 mentions that Joseph was to have two portions. We will deal with this important point in chapter 17. When the portions of the land had been assigned, we come to v. 6: “Then the sons of Judah drew near to Joshua in Gilgal.” I quote this statement just as a reminder that we need always to come back to Gilgal, the place where the flesh is dealt with and we seek the Lord.

Then we read of Caleb’s request:

You know the thing that I AM spoke to Moses the man of God concerning  you and concerning me in Kadesh-barnea. ⁷ Forty years old I was when Moses the servant of I AM sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. ⁸ Nevertheless my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed I AM my God. ⁹ And Moses swore on that day saying, “Surely the land on which r foot has trodden will be an inheritance to you and to your children forever because you have wholly followed I AM my God.” ¹⁰ And now, look, I AM has kept me alive as he said these forty-five years, from the time that I AM spoke this word to Moses while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, look, I am this day eighty-five years old. ¹¹ As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me. As my strength was then so my strength is now, for war and to go out and to come in. ¹² Now therefore give me this hill country of which I AM spoke in that day, for  heard on that day that the Anakim were there, and cities great and fortified. It may be that I AM will be with me and I will drive them out, as I AM spoke.

Caleb and Joshua were the only two men of the twelve spies sent into the land by Moses (see Num. 13), and indeed of all that generation, who wholly followed the Lord. All the other men from twenty years old and up died in the wilderness because they did not trust the Lord at Kadesh-barnea. We read in Dt. 1.36 that God said that Caleb would see the land, “and to him I will give the land that he has trodden on, and to his children, because he has wholly followed I AM.” Now we see here in Josh. 14.13-15 that Joshua did fulfill God’s promise to Caleb. Joshua and Caleb were old friends and it must have been very gratifying to Joshua to see Caleb come into his inheritance in the land, “because he has wholly followed I AM.” Let that be a word to us. We are to have an inheritance in the kingdom if we wholly follow the Lord.

We have emphasized that chapters 1-3 of Ephesians are God’s promises to us, and 1-4 are his instructions as to how we are to live so as to gain this inheritace. Let us be careful to walk in the light of these chapters. As Eph. 4.1 puts it, “… walk worthily of the calling with which you were called….” That is the way to insure our inheritance.

The Dividing of the Land

15.1-19.51

These chapters tell us about the dividing of the land west of the Jordan among the nine and one-half tribes. It lists all the boundaries. I will not go into all this detail, but just make a few comments on certain passages. We are told in 15.14-45 about Caleb taking the land given him by God. This is a good spiritual lesson for us. God gave him the land, but he had to fight to take it, just as he had given Israel the land, but they had to fight to take it. All that these promises God has made to us in Eph. 1-3 have been given to us, but we have a vicious opponent who does everything he can do keep us from taking possession. This brings us back to Eph. 6.10-18, which we have noted several times.

Then in v. 16-17 we read that Caleb said, “He who smites Kiriath-sepher and takes it, to him I will give Achsah my daughter as a wife,” and that Othniel captured it and received his wife.

Achsah had her own request in v. 18-19. Apparently the land that Caleb had given to her for a home was barren, and she asked him to give her springs of water. So he gave her the upper and lower springs. As Christians we live in a barren land spiritually, this world. We need water from the Lord. In the Bible water is often a symbol of the Holy Spirit, as in Jn. 4.14 and 7.37-39. In Ephesians we find a number of references to the Holy Spirit. We are told in Eph. 5.18 to be filled with the Spirit. God has provided us with water in this barren land.

Chapters 16-17 go together in dealing with the inheritance of Joseph. You may have noticed that Joseph is never mentioned in these lists of the tribes as such, but he had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, and they each had a part of Joseph’s inheritance. You will remember that half of the tribe of Manasseh settled in the land east of the Jordan and that the other half had their inheritance west of the Jordan. The territory of Ephraim is listed in chapter 17, and that of Manasseh in chapter 17. Why did Joseph have two portions?

In the Old Testament it was the law that the firstborn son of a family would have both the birthright and the blessing. The birthright was the right to inherit a double portion from the father and the headship of the family. That is, if there were two sons, the older would get 2/3 and the younger 1/3. If there were four, the older would get 2/5 and the others would get 1/5 each. If you will look up the phrase “double portion” in your Bible, you will find that this double portion applies spiritually as well. The blessing was also the right of the firstborn. The father would bless each son, but the oldest would get the best blessing. The best example of all of this is Jacob and Esau.

In Josh. 17.14-18 we learn that Joseph inherited a double portion of the land when the Israelites crossed the Jordan and began to possess the land of promise. But Joseph was not the firstborn son of Jacob. That was Reuben. So why did Joseph get the double portion? Two reasons. First, in Gen. 35.22 and 1 Chron. 5.1 we learn that Reuben defiled his father’s bed by having sexual relations with his father’s concubine, and 1 Chron. 5.1 says that because of this his birthright was taken away and given to Joseph. The reason that Joseph was chosen was that he was the one of the sons of Jacob who was most faithful to the Lord. His brothers, out of hatred for him, sold him into slavery in Egypt, but if you read the story of Joseph in the Bible you will see that he remained true to God through all his troubles, interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and became the second ruler in Egypt to put away food for the famine, and he blessed his brothers when they showed up for food. That, by the way, is a picture of the Lord Jesus overcoming all his sufferings and coming to the throne.

In Job 42.10 we read that when Job’s trials were over and he had prevailed over Satan’s effort to destroy him, “I AM restored Job’s captivity when he prayed for his friends and I AM increased all that Job had double.” He had twice as many sheep, camels, yokes of oxen, and female donkeys, and he had seven sons and three daughters. Job had seven sons and three daughters at the start. Why were these not doubled? A brother now deceased, Warren Hathaway, told us that Job did have twice as many children. Ten awaited him in Heaven and he had another ten at the end.

The double portion in the Bible also has a spiritual meaning. In 2 Kings 2.9 we read, “And it came to pass when they had gone over that Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Ask what I should do for you before I am taken from you.’ And Elisha said, ‘I pray you, let a double portion of your Spirit be on me.’” Is. 61 is that wonderful millennial passage quoted by the Lord Jesus in Lk. 4 as to the blessings that will come with his second coming. V. 7 says, “Instead of your shame, double, and instead of dishonor they will rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they will possess double. Eternal joy will be to them.” This passage was prophesied to the Jews first, but the fact that the Lord quoted it in Luke shows that it applies to Christians also. The New Testament passage that brings out this truth is Heb. 12.18-24. In v. 23 we read of “the church of the firstborn ones.” The firstborn ones are the overcomers of Rev. 2-3, those who have been faithful and obedient to the Lord, living not for themselves, but for him. These are the ones who will not lose their rewards in the kingdom, but those who have built gold, silver, and precious stones on the foundation (1 Cor. 3.12) and will be blessed with the double portion. These are those who “walk worthily of our calling” (Eph. 4.1). In Eph. 4.17 Paul tells his readers to “walk no longer as the Gentiles walk.” It is possible for a Christian to walk as the Gentiles walk, but there are consequences. If it were not possible, Paul would not have said not to do these things that the lost do. Be a Joseph – qualified for the double portion.

Let us go back now to Josh. 17.3-4. In Num. 26 and 27 we are told of a man named Zelophehad who has died, leaving no sons and five daughters. As noted, the firstborn son received the double portion of the inheritance, and the others a proportionate amount. What about a man who had only daughters? In Num. 23 these daughters went to Moses and asked why their father’s name should be lost because he had no son, and asked Moses to give them a possession among their father’s brothers. Moses went to the Lord and was told that the daughters were right and that they should be given a possession. Now in Josh. 17 they come to Joshua and asked him to make good on Moses’ command. Joshua granted them an inheritance.

What do we learn from this account? It seems to me that it is a hint of grace in the Old Testament. There was certainly grace in the Old Testament. I do not remember if I was taught this or someone gave the impression or even if I believed this or what, but somewhere I came across the notion that the Jews in the Old Testament were saved by keeping the law and Christians were saved by grace. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone in the Old Testament who was saved was saved by grace through faith. Abraham “had faith in I AM and he counted it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15.6). The Jewish law was that a father’s inheritance passed through his son or sons. But grace said that the daughters should have an inheritance when there were no sons. We have emphasized Eph. 1.3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ….” Ob. 17 says that “the house of Jacob will possess their possessions.” We are the spiritual house of Jacob. As those daughters did, let us possess our possessions. God has already given them to us. Take them!

Josh, 19.49-51 concludes the passages on the dividing of the land by saying,

 So they made an end of distributing the land for inheritance by its borders, and the sons of Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua the son of Nun in the midst of them. ⁵⁰ According to the commandment of I AM they gave him the city which he asked, Timnath-serah in the hill-country of Ephraim, and he built the city and dwelt in it.

⁵¹ These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the sons of Israel distributed for inheritance by lot in Shiloh before I AM at the door of the tent of meeting. So they made an end of dividing the land.

Take note that the sons of Israel gave Joshua an inheritance. Joshua is a type of the Lord Jesus as the General of the Israelites in the wars of taking the land, and the Lord Jesus is our General in conquering, in overcoming, in possessing our possessions which he has already given to us. If we fight we will win. That is guaranteed. And what is the inheritance of the Lord Jesus? Ephesians does not use the term “inheritance” of the Lord Jesus, but we read in 1.18-23 of “the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” The inheritance mentioned here is that of God the Father, but then see what that means to the Lord Jesus. He is seated

at his right hand in the heavenlies, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come, ²²and he subjected all things under his feet and gave him to be Head over all things to the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all in all.

Is that not an inheritance! And Heb. 1.3 tells us that he is heir of all things. Our Lord is indeed a deserving Heir, having given himself for our forgiveness and salvation, and our inheritance in him, for he is indeed our inheritance, the land in which we dwell eternally with him. Blessed be his name.

Cities of Refuge

20.1-9

In Num. 35.6-28 we read of The Lord telling Moses to set aside six cities of refuge that a person who had committed involuntary manslaughter could flee to for safety until his case could be decided. If it turned out that he was guilty of murder he was to be put to death. If his manslaughter was involuntary he was to stay in the city of refuge until the death of the High Priest. Then he could return home. See also Ex. 21.13, Dt. 4.41-43 and 19.1-10. In Josh. 20 these commands were carried out.

Speaking frankly I must say that this is a difficult command to sort out. We also have rules for involuntary manslaughter today, but there are differences. It appears that in the days of Moses and Joshua it was the case that a member of a family that had someone killed could have a blood avenger, a member of the offended family, take revenge on the killer and kill him. In order to provide safety and proper judgment in the case for the offender, the cities of refuge were designated. We do not legally have blood avengers today, but courts of law. So far so good.

But how do we interpret this command spiritually today as Christians? Some believe that this applies to the fact that the Jews killed their Messiah, but they did so in ignorance of who Jesus was, as Acts 3.17 says, so God will forgive those who repent and receive their Messiah. Paul himself writes in 1 Tim. 1.12-13,

I have gratitude to the one having empowered me, Christ Jesus our Lord, that he considered me faithful, having appointed me to service, the one formerly being a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent, but I was shown mercy because being ignorant I acted in unbelief….

Others might say that the cities are types of the Lord Jesus who is our refuge (Ps. 91.2). It is one of the ironies of the Bible’s story of the Lord Jesus is that he is the one offended – he died for sins he did not commit – and the offense was ours – we put him to death by our sins, but he died so that he could forgive that greatest of sins, the putting to death of the Lord Jesus, a sin that we all participated in by sinning. The Offended forgives the offenders and he deliberately gave his life so that he could do that. What grace!

There is also the matter of Satan. In Col. 1.13-14 we read that God “delivered us from the authority of the darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son of his love, ¹⁴in whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of the sins.” Satan has the power of death (Heb. 2.14) over sinners. Before we are saved we are subject to death, eternal death, and Satan has every right to take our lives, within the boundaries set by God. But when we are transferred from his authority to the kingdom of the Son of his love Satan has no more claim on our lives. It is God who determines the date of our death and calls us home. We are all sinners, but when we sin we flee into our refuge who protects us from Satan’s claims.

Eph. 4.22-24 tells us to put off the old man and put on the new. When we put on the new we are putting on Christ our refuge. When we put on the armor of God (Eph. 6.11) we are putting on our refuge. In him we are safe. Even death cannot hurt us. It will only put us into the very presence of our Lord.

Cities of the Levites

21.1-42

We saw in Josh. 13.14 that the Levites were not to have an inheritance of land, for “I AM is their inheritance.” In Num. 35.1-5 we read that Moses commanded that the Levites have cities to live in and pasture land around the cities. Now here in Josh. 21 we see the Levites coming to Eleazar and Joshua to ask for their cities. This was done at that point. A total of forty-eight cities was provided for the Levites. This chapter names these cities. We need not go into this list.

In Ex. 13.2 the Lord said to Moses, “Sanctify to me all the firstborn, whatever opens the womb, among the sons of Israel, both of man and of beast. It is mine.” God had killed every firstborn of Egypt, of men and beasts. When he saw the blood on the lintels and doorposts of the Israelites’ dwellings he spared their firstborn. Now he says that the spared firstborn are his. They are to be sanctified or set apart for him. In Num. 3.11-13 we read,

And I AM spoke to Moses saying, “And look, I have taken the Levites from among the sons of Israel instead of all the firstborn who open the womb among the sons of Israel. And the Levites will be mine, ¹³ for all the firstborn are mine. On the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified to me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast. Mine they will be. I am I AM.”

All of the priests of Israel were from the tribe of Levi, but not all the Levites were priests, but only those descended from Aaron. All priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests. The non-priestly Levites were set aside to serve the priests and the tabernacle. There are reasons why they were so chosen. But there is much more.

In Ex. 19.5-6 God says that he wants a kingdom of priests. That is, all of the Israelites would know the Lord and be able to come into his presence. But because of sin God withdrew from his people and dwelt in their midst, but they could not come into his presence. When the Israelites crossed the Red Sea from Egypt, a type of the world and lost sinners, they were what we would call saved people, but they still had sin, as we do, and they still could not enter the presence of God. Provision for forgiveness of sins had not yet been made. God ordered them to build a tabernacle in which he would dwell. The tabernacle had two rooms, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. God dwelt in the Holy of Holies. No one could go into the Holy of Holies except the High Priest, and he could go only once a year, and that with blood.

I am going to quote a somewhat lengthy passage from Ex. 19 about Moses on Mt. Sinai.

And it came to pass on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mount, and the voice of a trumpet exceedingly loud, and all the people who were in the camp trembled. ¹⁷ And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God and they stood at the lower part of the mount. ¹⁸ And Mount Sinai, the whole of it, smoked because I AM descended on it in fire, and its smoke ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount trembled greatly. ¹⁹ And when the voice of the trumpet grew louder and louder Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder.

Then in Ex. 20.18-19 we read,

And all the people perceived the thunderings and the lightnings and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it they trembled and stood far off. ¹⁹ And they said to Moses, “You speak with us and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us so that we will not die.”

The people were afraid to be in the presence of God.

In Ex. 25 God begins to give Moses the plans for the tabernacle in which God would dwell among the people, but out of their presence.

Then in Ex. 32 we have the dreadful story of the golden calf when the people, impatient for Moses to return, had Aaron fashion for them a golden calf to be their God. When Moses came down and found out he threw down the two tablets of the ten commandments and shattered them, symbolizing the breaking of the law by the people. Then

Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, “Whoever is on I AM’s side, come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. ²⁷ And he said to them, “Thus says I AM, the God of Israel, ‘Every man put his sword on his thigh and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother and every man his companion and every man his neighbor.” ²⁸ And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. And Moses said, “Consecrate yourselves today to I AM – yes, every man has been against his son and against his brother – that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.

That blessing was being set apart to be servants of the tabernacle. Because the people has asked that God not speak to them and the Levites obeyed the Lord in the midst of such great sin, God set them apart to be his servants. In addition to this reason for God’s setting the Levites apart, we read in Num. 25.1-13 of another such event. So the kingdom of priests went by the way for the time being. God appointed Aaron and his descendants to be priests, with the Levites as servants of the tabernacle, but no one could go into the presence of God with the one exception of the High Priest on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.

But God will yet have his kingdom of priests. In Rev. 1.6 John says that the Lord Jesus “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father,” and in 5.10, “… you made them to our God a kingdom and priests.” Peter tells us that “you yourselves as living stones are being built a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 2.5). In Christ, the provision for the forgiveness of sins, every member has been forgiven of his sins and is a priest, able to come into the very presence of God in the Holy of Holies. Indeed, we live in God’s presence all the time, for he lives in us. And, like the Levites, we can be servants of the tabernacle, which I would think applies to the church in this sense. God does not dwell in houses made with hands, but in his people, the church. And there is a sweet little verse in Isaiah, 61.1: “But you will be named the priests of I AM. Men will call you the ministers of our God.” God’s ancient people, the Jews, will yet be his kingdom of priests, as we are now.

I give this as background to Josh. 21. It tells us why the Levites had this position. Even they could not enter the Holy of Holies, but they could have a special place of ministry to the Lord.

We saw in Eph. 1.3 that we have every spiritual blessing of God in the heavenlies in Christ. One of those blessings is this place of being servants of God. There is not higher service that service to the King. Our Lord Jesus set the example. He was the suffering Servant who gave his life to save us. He did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. He did not command his disciples to wash his feet, the lowly task of a slave, but he washed theirs. And he said, “A slave is not above his lord” (Mt. 10.24). If our Lord did the work of servants and slaves, so should we. We are greatly blessed to be servants of God.

In Eph. 3.2 Paul speaks of his stewardship of God’s grace and in v. 9, of the stewardship of the mystery. We tend to think of stewardship as having to do with titles and offerings. That is certainly true, but stewardship goes far beyond money. Stewardship applies to our entire life. What do we do with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”? God revealed the truth of grace to Paul and called him to be a good steward of that revelation, the fact that we are saved not by our works, an impossibility, but by God’s grace through faith. He called him to take the good news to the Gentile world and to suffer greatly in that role. He revealed to him the mystery that God was creating the church and that the Gentiles were to be included. He had to be a steward of that revelation end endure the onslaughts of the Jews against that truth. What are we doing with that same grace and mystery that God has revealed to us? Paul was blessed to be a servant, even a slave, of God’s will for him, and in the end to lay down his life for the Lord, if tradition be true. Money is a small part of stewardship. God does not need our money. The cattle on a thousand hills are his (Ps. 50.10). He wants us to give money because it is good for us to do it. It is more blessed to give than to receive. God wants us, not our money, though that is a part of it.

Eph. 4.11 says, “And he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers.” These are ministries in the church that God has provided. Those who have these ministries are obligated to discharge them in service to the church. They are not lords over the church. They are servants of it. It is a blessing to be called to such service, like that of the Levites. There are sordid stories in the history of the church, or some so-called churches, of those in these positions using them to lord it over the church and extorting money from the people. Peter alludes to this in 1 Pt. 5.2-3 in telling his fellow elders and witnesses to “shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but willingly, according to God, and not for shameful gain, but with passion, ³and not as lording it over those in your charge, being examples of the flock.” He would not have written this if that sort of thing were not going on. In 3 Jn. 9 John writers of “Diotrephes, the one loving to be first among them.” The Lord Jesus, the servant of all and slave of all, said, “Whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first of you will be slave of all” (Mk. 10.43-44).

But there is more to Eph. 4. After listing some of the ministries in the church in v. 11, Paul writes that these ministries are “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry,” so that those who do not have those callings may also learn to minister. And by the way, the Greek word that means “minister” also means “servant.” Ministers are not lords, but servants. And it is probable that some of those who are by one of those titles may become such ministers themselves.

And what is the goal of these ministries as far as the church is concerned? The “building up of the body of Christ, ¹³until we all come to the unity of the faith and the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ.” In the end it is all about Christ and his body, the Servant and Slave of all, whether it be evangelism in spreading the good news to the lost or the building up of the body of Christ. These are some of the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. Because of the blood of the Lord Jesus we are both priests and Levites, those who live in the very presence of God and are privileged to serve him.

Rest 

21.43-45

In Josh. 21.43-45 we are told that after these wars of conquest God gave his people rest. We saw in considering Watchman Nee’s book Sit, Walk, Stand that we must first rest in Christ before we go into battle, but it is also true that God has a time of rest for us when the battle is over. Eph. 1.21 speaks of the age to come. We are living in a wicked age. The longer I live and the more news I see or hear the more I realize how wicked this world is. What is called the inhumanity of man to man is incomprehensible. I need not give examples. But there is an age to come, the millennial kingdom of God, in which there will be no more war or all the other evils of this world, and not just peace as a passive thing, no war and fighting of any kind, but an active peace. I am sure that the most recognizable Hebrew word in the world is mlv, Shalom. It is usually translated as peace. It has to do with completeness and perfection. In fact, the well-known verse, Is. 26.3, a bit difficult to translate, basically says ,”The one whose mind is stayed on you you will keep in shalom shalom,” perfect peace. It is as though peace were an active thing, galloping through the land and pouring out peace everywhere.

And what is our peace? Eph. 2.14: “For he himself is our peace….” In the end peace is not a thing, but a Person. Where there is Jesus there is peace. We know that in our hearts. When we are troubled and worried or afraid we turn to the Lord Jesus who lives in our hearts and as we turn the situation over to him and trust in him, he gives us peace? No, he is our peace. If you are in Christ you are in peace. He will just fill Heaven and earth in the millennial kingdom and there will be peace. In v. 14 we see that he will abolish enmity. He makes two who are at odds into one.  V. 17 quotes Is. 57.19: “And having come he preached the good news, peace to you the ones far off and peace to the ones near.” That is true now in the church ideally, as Paul is stating here in Ephesians, and it will be true everywhere in the millennium. Even the Old Testament recognizes that the Lord Jesus is peace: “And this one will be peace” (5.5).

In Eph. 3.19 we read “and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.” Is that not peace and rest, even in this life?

A Problem in the Land of Victory

22.1-34

This chapter is a bit difficult to deal with. The two and one-half tribes that settled in the land east of the Jordan River, Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, were summoned by Joshua. He said to them, 

You have kept all that Moses the servant of I AM commanded you and have listened to my voice in all that I commanded you. You have not left your brothers these many days to this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of I AM your God. ⁴ And now I AM your God has given rest to your brothers, as he said to them. Therefore now turn and go to your tents, to the land of your possession which Moses the servant of I AM gave you beyond the Jordan. ⁵ Only take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of I AM commanded you, to love I AM your God and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

And they went to their lands.

When they reached the Jordan they erected a large altar. When those living west of the Jordan learned of it they sent Phinehas the priest and ten leading men to them, ready to go to war because of the altar. The westerners said to the easterners, “What trespass is this that you have committed against the God of Israel, to turn away this day from following I AM, in that you have built an altar to rebel this day against I AM?” The easterners answered back,

The Mighty One, God, I AM, the Mighty One, God, I AM, he knows and Israel will know. If it be in rebellion or if in trespass against I AM do not save us this day, ²³ that we have built an altar to turn away from following I AM. Or if to offer on it burnt offering or grain offering, or if to offer sacrifices of peace offerings on it, let I AM himself require it. ²⁴ No, but in fear, for a purpose, we have done this saying, “In time to come your children might speak to our children saying, ‘What have you to do with I AM, the God of Israel? ²⁵ For I AM has made the Jordan a border between you and us, you sons of Reuben and sons of Gad. You have no portion in I AM.’ So might your children make our children cease from fearing I AM. ²⁶ Therefore we said, ‘Let us now prepare to build an altar, not for burnt offering or for sacrifice, ²⁷but it will be a witness between you and us, and between our generations after us, that we may do the service of I AM before him with our burnt offerings, and with our sacrifices, and with our peace offerings, that your children may not say to our children in time to come, “You have no portion in I AM.”’”

Phinehas the priest said, “This day we know that I AM is in the midst of us because you have not committed this trespass against I AM, but now you have delivered the sons of Israel out of the hand of I AM.” Then the westerners went home pleased.

Some take this incident as showing that the two and one-half tribes had chosen to be the Lord’s, but were willing to live at a lower spiritual level because they were not in the promised land. The New Testament teaches that there are overcomers (Rev. 2-3) among Christians and those who are not overcomers. We have dealt with the matter of rewards and what is built on the foundation of Christ (1 Cor. 3.12). There are Christians who are not wholly surrendered to the Lord, as Caleb was. They are saved and believe and may attend worship services and so forth, but are satisfied with that and do not “pursue holiness,” as Heb. 12.14 puts it. These interpreters see the situation in this way.

But we saw in Josh. 1.4 that the land God promised to Joshua extended from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River, and that those borders have never yet been reached. Could it be that the two and one-half tribes were forerunners on the way to the Euphrates? When the Lord returns he will set up that boundary and the Jews will have all the land that God promised them.

I can see truth in both views, but I do not know which is correct. Perhaps God intended for us to see both possibilities. There certainly are Christians who are not all out for the Lord, but there are also pioneers who press on, as Paul did in Phil. 3.12. What do you think?

And what does Ephesians have to say about this? In 2.10 Paul writes, “For you are his doing, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we may walk in them.” There are good works and dead works, as Heb. 6.1 and 9.14 put it. Many people think they will go to Heaven because they have done good works. But God does not want us just to do good works, he wants us to do his will. Good works done outside of Christ are dead works. God has specific works he wants us to do and we are to walk in them. They will not save us. We do them because we have been saved and want to serve the Lord. And they will insure our place in the kingdom if we do them.

We have already taken note of Paul’s stewardship of God’s grace and of the mystery in Eph. 3.2 and 9. In v. 10 he says that he does this so that “the manifold wisdom of God may now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies through the church.” May NOW be made known to spiritual beings. We are the church. Are we so exercising our stewardship that the church manifests the manifold wisdom of God to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies NOW?

We saw in 4.1 that we are to walk worthily of our calling. Chapter 4 goes on in v. 3 to say that we are to be diligent. Are we diligent in our service to the Lord, or halfhearted? In v. 12 Paul speaks of the work of service. Are we actively serving?

V. 13 says, “…¹³until we all come to the unity of the faith and the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ.” Are we progressing toward unity, the full knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity as Christians (see Heb. 6.1 again)? Are we making progress in coming to “the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ”? My word! How could we ever attain such a stature? Only by being so yielded to him that he may live his life through us.

In 5.15-17 we read, “See carefully therefore to how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, ¹⁶redeeming the time, for the days are evil. ¹⁷Because of this don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Are we careful in how we walk or do we allow people who are not the Lord’s see using doing things that are dishonest or selfish or seeking revenge or a host of other things that are unwise? Are we redeeming the time, cashing it in for something of value and not wasting it on junk? We live in evil days. People need to see the Lord’s people doing his will, what is right and a good testimony. Are we living foolishly, just wasting our time on things of this world, or wisely, understanding what the will of the Lord is?

And we have already referred to 6.10-18, or warfare. Are we good soldiers of the cross?

Whether the two and one-half tribes were all out for the Lord or halfhearted I cannot say, but I can say that we as Christians need to be all out and wholehearted. God give us grace to do so.

Joshua’s Farewell Address

23.1-24.33

We see in vs. 1-3 of chapter 23 that God had given rest to the Israelites on every side and that Joshua had grown old. He called all the elders, heads, judges, and officers together to make his farewell address. He says, “You have seen all that I AM your God has done to all these nations because of you, for I AM your God is he who has fought for you.” This is such an important point. Whatever victories we may win in life we may be sure that it is not we who have overcome the enemy, but God working through us. We are no match for Satan in ourselves, but God is almighty and Satan is no match for him. As we yield ourselves to the Lord and allow him to mature us and work through us he manifests his victory in us. We can never take credit, but must give all glory to God.

In v. 4 Joshua says that he has apportioned the conquered lands to the tribes. Then is vs. 5-13 he says to them that God will continue to drive out the conquered peoples before them, and thus we learn that not all of the enemy have been killed or driven out. In 13.1 we read that God had already said to Joshua, “You are old, advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to be possessed.” The territory of each tribe had been apportioned, but not all had yet been taken during the lifetime of Joshua. We read in 13.1 3 that Israel did not drive out the Geshurites or the Maachathites and they were still living among the Israelites to the day this was written. In 15.63 we learn that Jerusalem and the Jebusites had not been taken when the book of Joshua had been written. In 16.10 we see that the Canaanites had not been driven out of Gezer in the territory of Ephraim. In 17.12-13 we read of several cities, “Yet the sons of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities, but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. ¹³ And it came to pass, when the sons of Israel had grown strong that they put the Canaanites to forced labor and did not utterly drive them out.” Finally, in 18.3 we read these words of Joshua to the Israelites, “How long will you neglect to go in to possess the land which I AM, the God of your fathers, has given you?”

In 23.6-13 Joshua urges the people to be faithful to God and his written word (the books of Moses, Genesis-Deuteronomy) and not to associate with the nations that remain. He warns them in vs. 12-13, 

If you do at all go back and cleave to the remnant of these nations, these that remain among you, and make marriages with them and go in to them, and they to you, ¹³ know for a certainty that I AM your God will no more drive these nations from out of your sight, but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a scourge in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which I AM your God has given to you.

This warning continues in vs. 14-16:

And look, this day I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which I AM your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass to you. Not one thing of it has failed. ¹⁵ And it will come to pass that as all the good things have come to you of which I AM your God spoke to you, so will I AM bring on you all the evil things until he has destroyed you from off this good land which I AM your God has given you. ¹⁶ When you transgress the covenant of I AM your God which he commanded you and go and serve other gods and bow yourselves down to them, then will the anger of I AM be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you.

Of course, we know all too well that this is exactly what took place, and to this day Israel is under God’s judgment, scattered throughout the world, though they have regained their land, which I believe is prophetic. See my article Unfulfilled Bible Prophecy.

But for now we are dealing with victory, Israel’s victory in taking the land of promise under their great commander Joshua, and our victory as Christians under our great Commander, the Lord Jesus, as set forth in Ephesians.

The fact that Israel did not destroy all their enemies has two lessons for us. One is that we should obey God implicitly. If we fail to do so we leave for the enemy in our lives. If we allow any room for sin and the flesh we will suffer for it. We should drive out every hint of sin and evil from our lives. The second lesson may seem contradictory to the first.  It is that we are all redeemed sinners who have not yet reached perfection. The elimination of flesh and sins will not be complete as long as we are in this world, but it is our duty to God to keep at the battle.

We see this clearly in Ephesians. In chapter 4 Paul tells us to grow and mature in Christ “until we all come to the unity of the faith and the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ” (v. 13). How many of us have reached that plateau? Not one, but we are to keep up the fight. The rest of chapter 4 gives us a list of all the things we are to battle against. There is more of this in chapter 5, and in 6 we have the warfare passage: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the might of his strength. Put on the whole armor of God” (vs. 10-11). We are in a war, just as the Israelites were in the book of Joshua, and we will be as long as we are in this flesh. There is always more victory to be won.

In 24.1-13 we have a repetition of the history of the Israelites by Joshua. Then he comes to one of the high points of this book:

Now therefore fear I AM and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve I AM. ¹⁵ And if it seem evil to you to serve I AM, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but as for me and my house, we will serve I AM.

In vs. 16-18 the people promise to serve I AM.

In vs. 19-20 Joshua tells the people that they will not be able to serve God, for he is holy and jealous and will not forgive transgressions. I take this to mean that we the people of God, Old or New Testament, will not be able to trust and obey God in our own strength. Just as Joshua had said in 23.3, it is God who fights for us. We are required to fight, but we do so knowing that we have no hope unless God fights for us as we fight. Our fighting is trusting and obeying, and as we do, God gives the victory. This is so clear in Eph. 6.10: “…be strong in the Lord and in the might of his strength.” We must trust and obey, but the strength is all of God.

The people insist that they will serve God, and Joshua makes a covenant with them and writes “these words in the book of the law of God.” I take this to mean that Joshua wrote down this book that bears his name and added it to the five books of Moses, thus extending Scripture. Then he sets up a large stone and says, “Look, this stone will be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of I AM which he spoke to us. It will be therefore a witness against you, so that you will not deny your God.” Then he dismisses the people to their inheritances, the land promised them by God and given to them by him as a result of their warfare.

This inheritance is earthly, land on this earth. We also have an inheritance, but it is not land. It is a share in Christ in his kingdom. He is our promised land. Eph. 1.14 tells us that the Holy Spirit is given to us as an earnest of our inheritance, and 5.5 says in a negative way that we will have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. It is clear in Eph. 3.18 that our Lord Jesus is a vast spiritual land in which we have an inheritance.

Josh. 24.29-30 tells us that Joshua died at 110 years of age. He was buried in his inheritance in Ephraim. Vs. 31-33 conclude the book:

And Israel served I AM all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua and had known all the work of I AM that he had wrought for Israel. ³² And the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money, and it became the inheritance of the sons of Joseph. ³³ And Eleazar the son of Aaron died and they buried him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim.

So concludes this book of victory. We have tried to understand it in the light of the book of Ephesians, a book of victory in the New Testament.

One of the points of Joshua is that God is giving the Israelites the land of promise, as stated in Josh. 1.2, “the land which I am giving them.” The people must fight to take the land, but God gives the victory. Josh. 23.3 says that “you have seen all that I AM your God has done to all these nations because of you, for I AM your God is he who has fought for you.” And v. 10 of that chapter reads, “One man of you will chase a thousand, for I AM your God is he who fights for you as he spoke to you.” That is, Israel was not fighting for victory, but from victory.

It is the same with us as Christians, but our fighting is not physical, but spiritual. It is as Eph. 6.12 says: “… for our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.” We must fight, but we know that we are not fighting for victory, but from victory. God is almighty. Satan has no power against him. The Lord Jesus won the victory for humanity at the cross by being a man himself who was never led astray by Satan. He was sinless, and therefore victorious. In him we have that victory.

We saw in Eph. 1 that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, and the chapter goes on to speak of these blessings, setting forth the great glory which we have because of what God has done in Christ. One of those great blessings is victory. The victory has been won by our Lord. As noted, we must fight, but we fight knowing that it is God who is fighting for us, just as he did for the Israelites in Joshua. In one sense we do not fight at all, but just stand in the victory the Lord has won for us, as Eph. 6.11, 13, and 14 show us. Of course we do fight. Life is a struggle, especially for Christians who want to be faithful to the Lord. It is a fight just to stand against the opposition of Satan and his forces. But we can fight because God has already won the victory and is fighting for us and in us.

That is the message of Joshua as interpreted in the light of Ephesians. God promised the Israelites the land. That is their great blessing, their inheritance. But they had to possess their possessions, as Ob. 17 puts it. They were able to do so because God was already victorious over Satan and he fought for them. Our promise from God, our inheritance, is a place in Christ, our spiritual land. We must fight to possess that place, but we fight not for victory, but from victory. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Copyright © 2021 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved. You may share this work with others, provided you do not alter it and do not sell it or use it for any commercial purpose. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Also you must include this notice if you share it or any part of it.

Old Testament quotations are the author’s updates of the American Standard Version.

Quotations from the New Testament are the author’s translations.