The Land and Life of Rest - Chapter 2
From The Land and Life of Rest by W. Graham Scroggie
Entering the Land (Chs. 1:1 - 5:12)
IN the first part of this Book of Joshua, that which treats of Entering the Land, the central feature is the Jordan, and in relation to it three distinct movements are discernible:
first, to the River, chs. 1-2:
second, through the River, chs. 3-4:
third, from the River, ch. 5:1-12.
The first tells of the Preparation to cross; the second, of the Passage across; and the third, of Purification after having crossed.
Let us look first of all at
The Preparation to Cross the River (Chs. 1-2).
This preparation is inward in ch. 1, and outward in ch. 2. The one reveals faith in principle; and the other exhibits faith in practice; and these emphasize the relation to one another of creed and conduct.
In the inward preparation we should observe that divine blessings are promised, and human conditions are imposed.
The blessings promised are: the land as a sphere of life, the gift of God to His people (2-4); victory over all foes (5, 8); and the comradeship of God Himself, all the way and all the time (9).
But these are not unconditional promises. Privilege always involves obligation, and so the responsibility of Joshua and the people is made plain. The conditions imposed are: knowledge of the will of God as revealed in His Word (8); obedience to all that God requires (8); and dauntless courage at all times (6, 7, 9, 18).
These promises and conditions are the roots of the Christian life, and are the secrets of all spiritual pro-gress, and must be apprehended by the faith which is trust in God.
God calls us to a sphere of life, tells us that we can live triumphantly in it, and assures us of His presence and help. But if all this is to become experimental, it must be met by knowledge, obedience, and courage. The life of rest has deep foundations, apart from which there can be no rest.
But we have already said that faith as a principle of action is not enough for the realization of God’s will for us; there must also be the action; only by faith and action can we experimentally enter the land, conquer our foes, and possess our inheritance; and so in chapter two, we see put into action the faith of chapter one.It is true that “God worketh in us,” but we must “work out” the salvation which He “works in” (Phil. 2:12, 13).
We may rely on God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, but we may not rely on Him to do for us what we ourselves are capable of doing. To expect God to give us help and direction without our em-ploying the means which He has placed within our reach, is not faith, but presumption; it is not trust, but trifling.
There is no victory without struggle; there is no perfection without perseverance. If we would triumph we must try; if we would win we must fight. There is a professed reliance upon the Holy Spirit which is just ignorance and indolence. Sun, and rain, and the virtues of the soil could not in ten thousand years produce a harvest if man did not sow seed; and having sown seed, the harvest can be of no use to him unless he reaps it.
God had said to Joshua, “I give to the children of Israel the land,” but in the same breath He said, “Every place that the soles of your feet shall tread upon shall be yours” (Josh. 1:2, 3; Deut. 11:24). The feet must answer to the faith. It is of no use indolently to dream about the goal; we must energetically foot the track.
As Joshua sent men to discover the wealth of the land and the strength of the foe, so we, by all available means, should learn how great is our inheritance in Christ, and the nature and strength of the foes and forces which would prevent our possessing it. As the first word should always be God, the second should always be go.
We should always be preparing for circumstances that will arise, and for blessings that are to come, without foreseeing what these circumstances and blessings will be. This preparation consists in atten-tion to present duty, and acceptance of present disci-pline. If day by day we first seek divine direction, and then follow it, we shall be ready, when new cir-cumstances arise, for the new blessings which will be offered. Today should be a preparation for tomorrow. The only proof that we shall be equal to tomorrow’s test is that we are meeting today’s test believingly and courageously. The only evidence that we shall be willing for God’s will tomorrow is that we are subject to His will today.
Faith and action constituted the preparation of Israel to enter the promised land; faith in God, and sensible effort; and not otherwise shall we enter into “that rest” of which the writer to the Hebrews speaks.
Some of our hymns expose themselves to criticism in this matter by laying emphasis on what, at most, is but half a truth. One hymn says, “Doing is a deadly thing, doing ends in death.” If by that is meant that effort alone cannot save us, it is true; but if it means that faith is enough, without effort, then it is not true; and James would reply, “Shew me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will shew thee my faith” (Jas. 2:18).
Another hymn says:
I struggled and wrestled to win it,
The blessing that setteth me free;
But when I had ceased from my struggles,
His peace Jesus gave unto me.
That is true only as “struggling and wrestling” are regarded apart from faith; but given faith, the New Testament bids us to fight and wrestle, tells us what foes we are to engage, and what provision is made for the conflict (Eph. 6:10-18).
I have laid emphasis on this twofold aspect of truth, because it has been charged against “Keswick” that it teaches quietism, a mystical and passive subor-dination of the will; but I do not hesitate to say that that criticism is contrary to fact. Let it be definitely said that those who would enter into the experience of a richer and fuller life, have something to do as well as something to believe.
Now let us come to the second movement in this part of our subject.
The Passage through the River (Chs. 3-4).
Here let us consider the meaning of the River; the distinction, typically, between the Red Sea and the River; and the spiritual teaching of this crossing of the River.
As to the meaning of the River, again we must be warned that our hymns do not always rightly interpret the Scriptures, and the matter before us is a case in point. There is a hymn that says:
Why should I shrink at pain and woe,
Or feel, at death, dismay?
I’ve Canaan’s goodly land in view,
And realms of endless day.
But what is there said suggestively is, in another hymn, and by a better-known writer, said emphatically. Speaking of heaven, he says:
Death like a narrow sea divides
This heavenly land from ours.
And he continues:
Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.
But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross the narrow sea,
And linger, shrinking at the brink,
And fear to launch away.
Oh could we make our doubts remove
Those gloomy thoughts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love
With unbeclouded eyes;
Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o’er,
Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore.
That is not worthy of the man who wrote:
When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of glory died.
In these hymns the Jordan is taken to represent death, and Canaan, to represent heaven. If that were so, heaven would lose much of its attractiveness for some of us, for to pursue the illustration, the first thing we would have to do on arriving would be to start a vigorous fight; and what is worse, if this representation were true, we would take into heaven all our faults and failings, to perpetuate there, what we bemoan here.
Surely it is clear that some other interpretation must be looked for, more consistent with the whole story; and to distinguish between the significance of the Red Sea and the Jordan may give us a clue.
If we believe that the history of Israel is typical, then their passage, first through the Red Sea, and then through the Jordan, must have spiritual significance. The order of these passages is important, first the Red Sea, and then the Jordan, and but for the former there could never have been the latter. Historically and geographically the order could not have been in-verted, and spiritually it cannot be.
By the passage through the Red Sea the people were separated from a life of bondage in Egypt, and by the passage through the Jordan they were dedicated to a life of blessing in Canaan. The first experience was from something, and the second, was to something. In the one case something lay behind them to which they could never return, and in the other case some-thing lay before them towards which they pressed. The Sea was a way of exit, and the River was a way of entrance.
Now this is precisely the order in spiritual experience. We must have a Red Sea experience before we can have a Jordan experience, though time is not a factor here. In the history, forty years lay between the two events, but in spiritual experience they may be, and should be, simultaneous, though, alas, too often they are separated by varying lengths of time.
Yet, that which these events signify—a deliverance from, and a dedication to—must be distinguished by us in apprehension and appropriation. The significance of the River is enfolded in the Sea, and the significance of the Sea is unfolded at the River; just as the five offerings are enfolded in, and are an unfolding of, the passover.
What, then, is the spiritual teaching of this crossing of the River?
Much emphasis is laid upon it in the New Testament, as, for example, in Gal. 2:20:
“I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live;
And yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me;”
and in Col. 2:20 and 3:1:
“Ye died with Christ.”
“Ye were raised together with Christ;”
and especially in Rom. 6:1-11, in which the words occur:
“Baptized into Christ’s death.”
“Buried with Him into death.”
“United with Him by the likeness of His death.”
“(United with Him) also by the likeness of His resurrection.”
“If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”
“Reckon ye yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.”
The teaching of these passages is that in Christ’s death the believer died, and in His resurrection the believer was raised to live a new life. The pro-foundest truth of the New Testament is that which declares that the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ indicate what happens to the individual who trusts Him for salvation.
If you are a Christian, this is not something that can happen now, but is something that did happen in the hour of your regeneration, afterwards to be appre-hended and reckoned upon. It is nothing that we can do, but is something that has been done; which the believer should accept by faith, and to the impli-cations of which he should commit himself whole-heartedly.
The history illustrates this profound truth by two facts. First, by the fact that the ark, which represents Christ, was the first to go into the Jordan, and the last to come out of it (3:17 & 4:11), for Christ is the Alpha and Omega of salvation, “the leader and completer of faith” (Heb. 12:2). And secondly, by the fact that twelve memorial stones were placed “in the midst of Jordan” (4:9), soon to be submerged by the returning waters; and twelve were placed on the west side of Jordan (4:4-8), to be a perpetual witness to the miraculous passage through the River. The memorial in the Jordan tells of death, and the memorial over Jordan tells of resurrection; truths which are summarized in the apostolic words,
“Ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).
If the Red Sea passage typifies God’s judgment on sin, the Jordan passage typifies His judgment on self. The Christian is not an old self renovated, but cruci-fied; one who has had a new self imparted and im-planted. Perhaps the last truth which we are willing to believe and act upon is that our natural self was put to death on the Cross, and must continuously be regarded as in the place of death.
The things in our experience which we regret and deplore, or should do, are activities of the old nature; but we are exhorted to
“reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin,
and alive unto God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).
Soul of mine, must I surrender,
See myself the crucified,
Turn from all of earth’s ambition
That thou may’st be satisfied?
Yes, that is what is required, and in no other way can one experience the rest which is inward peace.
God views the believer as dead and risen in Christ, but it constitutes a crisis in spiritual experience when the believer comes to view himself in this way. To multitudes there once came an hour when by faith they “passed clean over Jordan;” an hour when they came to recognize and to reckon upon what, by Christ’s death and resurrection, is already accomplished, namely, that they “died,” and that their “life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).
We are not to try to die, but to reckon upon death as a fact. I have already quoted, “reckon ye your-selves to be dead unto sin” (Rom. 6:11). Here some-one may say, “but self in me is not dead, so how can I reckon it to be?” That line of reasoning does not take in the whole truth. Think, for illustration, of a man condemned to death for murder, waiting in his cell for the execution of the sentence. Two things are true of him; first, that he is dead; and second, that he is not dead. In the view of the law he died when sentence was pronounced upon him, and he will actually die when that sentence is executed. In his cell the condemned man is robbed of liberty, of all rights and privileges, and of his existence as a member of society. By his sin he has forfeited all this, and so his is a living death until he goes to the gallows.
In like manner, by dying, Christ condemned sinful self to death, so that in the believer that self is under sentence of death, robbed of all rights, and awaiting only the day of decease, or of Christ’s return, when it will be finally eliminated. This is how we are to “reckon” our sinful self to be “dead.”
But the Christian is denying this fact and truth, who claims the right to think, and say, and do what he likes. The experience of Christians is often a sad thing, but Christian experience is making true in daily life that which is already true of us in Christ Jesus. Well did John Wesley say:
Frames and feelings fluctuate:
These can ne’er thy saviour be!
Learn thyself in Christ to see:
Then, be feelings what they will,
Jesus is thy Saviour still.
The apostle does not tell us in Rom. 6:11 to reckon sin dead, but to reckon ourselves dead to it, and Godet appreciates this distinction when he says:
“the Christian’s breaking with sin is undoubtedly gradual in its realization, but absolute and con-clusive in its principle. To break with sin there is indeed a decisive and radical act, a divine deed taking possession of the soul, and interposing henceforth between the will of the believer and sin.”
By Christ crucified and risen we are crucified “unto the world” (Gal. 6:14); and, as an old puritan has said: “though corruption is not ejected from its in-herency, it is, by Christ, dejected from its regency.”
This, then, is the teaching of the passage through the Jordan.
There remains one more movement in this part of our study. We have considered the preparation to cross the River, and the passage through the River, and now there is
The Purification Beyond the River (Ch. 5:1-12).
Two things here claim our attention: the circum-cision of the new generation of Israelites at Gilgal; and the new fare at the old feast.
On the west of the River the first encampment of the Israelites was at Gilgal, a name which means the rolling away of reproach. All the males who had been born in the wilderness were uncircumcised, and as soon as the Jordan was crossed the Lord commanded Joshua to circumcise them; which, of course, he did.
The attention which is given to this matter in the record indicates its importance, and the references both to Gilgal and circumcision, here and in other Scrip-tures, sufficiently indicate the spiritual significance of the event (ch. 5:1-9).
It is impressive that the Apostle Paul after saying, “ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God,” continues, “mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth” (Col. 3:3, 5). This word “mor-tify” means, put to death, deprive of power, render impotent.
Now this may seem to contradict what has already been said, namely, that in Christ’s death, we died; for if this be so, it may well be asked, what is there left to be put to death? At the risk, therefore, of some repetition, let it be said again that the teaching of the Epistles distinguishes between what, by divine grace, we are in Christ by virtue of His death and resurrection, and what experimentally we may and should become by faith and effort in the energy of the Holy Spirit. In other words, there is in thought, and too often and too largely in fact, a difference between our spiritual standing, and our spiritual state.
This truth is expressed clearly in 1 Corinthians 5:7, which says:
“Get rid of the old yeast so that you may be dough of a new kind; for in fact you are free from cor-ruption.” (Weymouth)
What in effect this passage says is, become what you are; and therein is the whole philosophy of the Christian life. We should die because we are dead; we should live because we are alive; we should conquer because we have won. To quote the couplet again:
Faith is an affirmation and an act
That bids eternal truth be fact.
What we should recognize is the fact, and that recognition will lead us to act. And so, as Paul says, because “we died,” we should “put to death” those passions in us which belong to earth (Knox), our earth-ward inclinations (Weymouth); that is, we should achieve the accomplished.
This is the significance of the operation at Gilgal. The Israelites had entered into a new experience; they had exchanged the wilderness for the land, and they were called upon in the first place to act upon the known will of God, by putting away all cause of reproach.
Here it is necessary to point out that in the experi-ence which the history typifies, the events are not consecutive, but contemporaneous. It is psychologically unsound to tabulate an order of spiritual experiences which the believer should follow. So many things happen simultaneously as to make distinctions possible only in thought.
As in regeneration there are not separate moments of justification, forgiveness, and sonship, so in sancti-fication there are not separate moments of yielding, of cleansing, and of the infilling of the Spirit. But though we cannot regiment spiritual experience in that way, we should endeavour to see what are the factors which enter into and constitute the more abundant life.
The last thing in this part of our study relates to the old feast and the new fare (5:10-12). We read that, after the operation of circumcision, the children of Israel kept the passover. This feast had not been observed once during the thirty-eight years of wander-ing in the wilderness; but that being ended, it is again observed. Spiritual revival always unveils the Cross afresh.
But what distinguished this passover from all others that had previously been observed, is that from then “the manna ceased,” and the people ate of “the old corn of the land.” The manna had come down, but the corn came up; and as Christ is the Bread of Life it is not difficult to see Him here in two aspects, first as incarnate, coming down from heaven, and then as risen from the dead, to be the sustenance of His people. In the history “the manna ceased” when the Israelites entered the land, but in the spiritual counterpart we cannot separate the manna from the corn, we cannot separate the incarnate from the risen Christ, for it is the whole Christ, incarnate, living, crucified, and living again, Who is the food of His people.
We cannot think too much of the crucifixion, but we can and do think sadly too little of the resurrection, the resurrection which is not only a historical event, but also a spiritual power and experience. Life in the land represents ideally our living in the power of our risen Lord.
Lord Jesus, are we one with Thee!
Oh height, oh depth of love!
Thou, one with us upon the tree,
We, one with Thee above!
This, then, is the message of the first part of the Book of Joshua. While we are in this world we cannot cease to be “strangers and pilgrims,” but we should cease to be sinful wanderers.
There is an experience which is spoken of as “rest,” to which the children of God are entitled and en-joined, and it is something other than and after regeneration. When our Lord said “I came that they may have life” (John 10:10), surely He referred to regeneration; and when He added: “and have it abundantly,” surely He referred to the entire experi-ence of which we have been speaking; and surely our being here at this time is for this purpose.
I will conclude with some words written by Evan Hopkins, and set to music by Handley Moule, men of blessed memory at Keswick, who, though dead, are yet speaking, inviting us all to claim and enter into “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” Let us make these words the sincere prayer of our hearts now.
My Saviour, Thou hast offered rest
Oh, give it then to me;
The rest of ceasing from myself,
To find my all in Thee.
Oh Lord, I seek a holy rest,
A victory over sin;
I seek that Thou alone should’st reign
O’er all without, within.
