One Baptism

Chapter 3 - To Possess

This chapter is taken up with another major crisis in the history of the Children of Israel. True to the divine principle of baptism, we shall discover the Lord repeating His former works, though with a different purpose in view, and as we may say, in a diminutive form. The first event concerned a universal flood, the second a small Sea; this one concerns the river Jordan. The account of the miracle with which we are here concerned is to be found in the book of Joshua, Moses' successor. Joshua, the name of the man chosen of God to lead His people over the river into the Promised Land, is the Hebrew form of the name that God gave to his Son — Jesus. Because of this, the book holds special significance for us, and if for our purpose we think of it as the book of Jesus, we shall perhaps be the more able to receive and apply its message to ourselves. The particular subject matter we need lies within the compass of the first five chapters, and contains yet more of the glories of the person of our Saviour and of the greatness of the salvation into which He has brought us.

Approaching the river from the wilderness through the land of Moab, which lay on the east side of Jordan, the Children of Israel found that the Promised Land lay westward from them over on the other side of the waters. To enter the land of the promise and make it their possession, they had to cross the river, which at the time they reached it was in full flood. It was harvest time: Jordan always overflowed its banks during the harvest period. The story of this crossing, called a pass-over, furnishes us with another marvellous insight into the glorious fullness of the One Baptism. The country which they were to possess was already occupied by seven nations, each of which was greater in power and numbers than themselves. Nevertheless, by oft-repeated promises, God had given the land to them for an inheritance. He had brought them to its borders fully intending to bring them right into it and make good to them all the things He had led them to believe in over the years. All He had meant when He made the original promises to Abraham, repeating them to Isaac and Jacob and Moses, He was about to fulfil.

Centuries before, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the three great national patriarchs, had lived in this land, but we are told that even though God had promised it to them, they had only been strangers in it. Moses, who had brought them to Jordan, had never dwelt in the land at all; he was only granted a fleeting glimpse of it before God took him away from the earth. All four of these men had received the promises of God, and in faith of God's word had embraced them; perhaps also they had dimly seen the fulfilment of them afar off, but now the redeemed nation was about to enter in to possess the land and realize the promises. Most probably it was a time of mixed emotions for many, for behind them, strewn across the wilderness of tragedy, lay a lost generation, a multitude of men and women of their own flesh and blood, who had failed to reach their desired haven. Fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, brothers and sisters, had died, overthrown in the wilderness for lusting after evil things, or practising idolatry, or fornication, or murmuring and tempting God. Yet they all had been included by God when He originally described the Children of Israel as His firstborn, to whom belonged the birthright and the 'double portion' of the inheritance. They all should have known both the joys of absolute deliverance from Egypt and also the wealth and blessings of unlimited possessions in the land of Promise, plus the immeasurable glory of having God as their God. But like Esau of old, they had despised their birthright, selling it for less than a 'mess of pottage', and had finally died, victims of their own lusts and disobedience, tasting bitterly of God's breach of promise action against them in the desert. They 'failed of the grace of God' and fell in the wilderness as carcases, some for burning, some for burial, but all for banishment.

What a dreadful anti-climax it had all been. They had left Egypt in such glorious victory; Canaan was only a few days' march across the desert, they should soon have been there; their God would supply all their need. Instead of this, frustration, bitterness, defeat, death; a harvest of hate. Refusals, disobedience, murders, rebellions, stubbornness, jealousy, presumption had welled up from within their hearts against God, until long-deserved judgement from the Lord quelled their insurrection and stilled their murmurs and complaints. The Lord had been preparing the Children of Israel for possession, but in the process of learning obedience a whole generation had died. For them and for God it had been an unspeakable tragedy. Nevertheless we see God's mercy in it all, for although that whole first generation had to pass away, it was in order that a new generation might take its place and receive the blessings which their fathers had forfeited. What a significant thing this is, full of plainest truth; if we will allow it to speak to our hearts, it will teach us a great lesson. But for the moment we will defer developing this precious truth, and examine something more of the dreadful loss suffered by that first generation of people who were the original passers-over.

The Hebrews letter, from which we may gather so much knowledge of the tragic affair, informs us that unto them was the gospel preached and the promises given, as well as unto their children. Yet they failed totally to grasp what everything was about, and what God was doing. It was an onerous and enormous mistake; but the fearfulness of it all is that the mistake made by that first privileged generation did not die with them; it is still tragically common among us to this day. In their self-centred ambition to possess what God had promised, they completely disregarded what He wanted from them in return for His faithfulness. Let no man be misled over this, for the lesson is vitally important. The entire Hebrews book is written as a precautionary, as well as an explanatory epistle, and the warnings that God gives in it are placed there to keep us from making the same mistakes as the Children of Israel. They made all these sinful errors because they failed to grasp the magnitude of the great salvation spoken of in Hebrews 2:3. It is utterly impossible for God to convey all His fullness of intention in words, but let us make sure that we do not fail like those of old to apprehend what God means by His statements in this our day. We must give earnest heed to the things we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip, for unto us as well as unto them is this gospel preached. It is a far more serious matter for us, because beyond what He promised to Israel, God intends to give us HIMSELF and all He has in a much more personal way.

The greatest promise made to the Children of Israel was not possession of the land, as their carnal minds mistakenly believed, nor yet was it self-fulfilment in terms of material things after which their craving hearts wrongly lusted. The chiefest joy and blessing designed for them was that in Canaan they should fully inherit and possess God, as God fully inherited and possessed them. That was the reason why He had made His promises, He included the lesser in the greater, but if this was known unto the Children of Israel, it was little accounted of by them. The thought that seemed to possess them rose from the anticipation of possessing cities they had not built, fields they had not sown, trees they had not planted, and cattle they had not reared, in a land full of blossoms and fruit they had not produced, flowing with milk and honey. It was perfectly natural that they should visualize all this in their imagination, but utterly carnal that it should take precedence over the desire to have God for Himself. Their slavish hearts and downtrodden souls sought a Canaan-paradise, but they did not want God and His righteousness. This was all so disappointingly revealed after only a comparatively few days' journey through the wilderness immediately upon their departure from Egypt, and long before they drew near to the Promised Land. Delivered from satan and Pharaoh and his host at the Red Sea they surely were, but not from self and sin, as the records in Exodus and Numbers all too clearly show. And who among us knows but that had he been there in an unregenerate and piteous state as they, he may not himself have been like them, even though, with them, he had enjoyed as many favours of God?

In Numbers 14 we see how God's dealings with that generation reached such a climax that He absolutely abandoned all hope and intention of bringing them into the land. It happened as the result of the undeservedly evil report of the land which rose from the evil unbelieving hearts of ten of the chief rulers of the people. This fell upon the ears of the people like a death-knell; it sounded so true to their equally unbelieving hearts, that they rejected the good report given by Joshua and Caleb. This awful national habit of tempting God had persistently developed by the people from the moment when Moses first announced his gospel to them in Egypt. From the very first they had never really believed God. And although since then He had done so many miracles for them, they still did not believe, but openly rebelled against Him. So when they eventually accepted the lies about the Promised Land, God finally said 'enough'. In grief and anger He reluctantly pronounced judgement upon them and refused to let them go one step further towards their goal; instead He turned them all to wandering in the wilderness, and the responsible males to death. It was all so paradoxical; the exact opposite of all their original hopes and the absolute antithesis of all God's promises. Virtually a whole generation of males and multitudes of females lost the promises and missed the blessing. Worse still, for the next forty years the entire nation, including many innocent children, became nomads; homeless, frustrated roamers, bitter of soul and sick at heart because of deferred hope.

It was because of this that the passage of Jordan had become necessary. It need not to have taken place at all, had the 'first-born' been true to their calling; it only became necessary to the second generation because of their forefathers' unbelief. As a result it is written into scripture as an event which took place in the nation of Israel quite separate in time from the crossing of the Red Sea. But it need not be thought, nor ought it to be taught, that by this God intends to convey to the reader the idea of a second experience through which all people must pass, for He had never originally planned it so. He plainly intended that the actual people He brought out of Egypt should enter Canaan, as Exodus 3:7,8, 16-18 and 6:1-8 clearly show. Why then, we may ask, did it not happen as God intended?

God does not make promises without intending to keep them. When He originally promised the land to Abraham, He brought him into it. To whom God makes promises, He commits Himself thereby to fulfil those promises; He is not a man that He should lie. That first generation of men who refused to go into the land sealed their own doom. God's refusal to let them enter later was manifestly right also; what happened subsequently in the wilderness was proof enough that He was absolutely justified in His action. All the sin lying latent in their hearts was fully manifested under wilderness conditions. Although it was not seen when God made the decision to turn them into the wilderness, it was nevertheless there, and had been from the very beginning. Sin and rebellion lay in their very nature. Despite all God's love, they could not believe and so they could not enter in. But God is faithful; He keeps His promise to the faithful heart; so in the second generation He brought the nation again to the borders of the land of His choice for them. This time they who had been robbed of the blessings by their fathers' sin, had the opportunity to enter in to what their fathers had rejected. The choice was theirs now. They had sought the Promised Land long enough, now for the first time they were to have opportunity to believe, obey and enter for themselves.

When a person seeks truth for the truth's sake and not in order to explain personal experience, it is often seen that what may have been reached or gained in some experience subsequent to conversion was what God intended to be obtained in the original experience and, for His will in the matter, was there to be taken at that time. Certainly when seeking principles of truth in matters of Bible interpretation, it becomes increasingly clear that the crossing of Jordan should not be preached doctrinally as a second experience properly so-called. Neither should it be taught as being an experience different from, subsequent to and consequent upon new birth. At first glance it may appear to permit of such interpretation, but closer examination of the facts makes it obvious that it was neither a second nor a first experience. As we proceed, we shall see that it was an unique, distinctive event, in fact the only one of its order.

Having brought the Israelites out of Egypt, God did not immediately lead them into Canaan. Had He wished, He could quite easily have taken them more swiftly to their promised home, but instead, for many necessary reasons, He delayed the journey. To Him the time factor was not important; His attitude to time and journeyings is luminously and parabolically revealed in Exodus 19:4. There He speaks of the whole period and labours of the prolonged operation of deliverance from Egypt, as bearing and bringing the Children of Israel on eagles' wings to Himself. Apparently it was just one swift, simple, sure solution to their need, which in execution brought total satisfaction to His own heart. It is equally certain that meeting the host on Canaan's shore decades later, He could have said the same thing to that second generation concerning their journeyings.

Upon leaving the Red Sea, the Children of Israel faced a journey to Canaan which, though tedious, could have been accomplished without undue haste within fourteen days. However, having many things to teach them, the Lord took a more leisurely pace and halted them for a number of months at Sinai. There He imparted unto them His handwritten law for righteousness, together with instructions for making and furnishing Him a Tabernacle. He was their God and He wished to dwell among them. He wanted to come right down to their level and have His own tent just as they all had theirs; further, if their hearts were willing for this, He also wanted to have some of them as household servants. This was a very precious thought to His heart — those people must have been unspeakably dear to Him, but they were ignorant of Him and of His ways. They had no love for Him at all; they could not even endure to wait forty days needed by Moses to receive all his instructions and learn the design for God's house. Even at that early stage of the journey their impatient hearts broke out into open rebellion at the delay, and utterly rejected both God and Moses. In open insult they deliberately substituted a calf of gold for God their glory, and foolishly denied all intentions of going on to any Promised Land.

It is almost unbelievable that within a few weeks of their thrilling exodus from the house of bondage, they should publicly exhibit such abysmal depths of inbred sin, and seek to go back to Egypt, but they did. To Egypt they would have returned except that God brought them out, and as far as He was concerned that was that; they were going to stay out. He made quite plain to Moses that. He would rather destroy them than that they should go back there. True it is that in the future their implacable attitude and repeated acts of temptation would finally result in God prohibiting them from Canaan, but even though He did not allow them to enter there, they could not go back to Egypt. God's will was set. If they would not go forward, they certainly could not go back.

Against the Lord's original intention, forty years of wandering intervened between deliverance from Egypt and entrance into Canaan, and it was entirely the fault of the Children of Israel. 'They could not enter in because of unbelief', we are told. It was not a momentary doubt that lost them the land; it was the final evil demonstration of a set disposition to disbelieve God that cost them their inheritance. God refused them permission to enter Canaan because they were in that unregenerate, hardhearted, rebellious, cynical condition which always turns all God's gracious truth into a lie. So instead of entering in, they were sent into the deserts until all those men worked out their own sin and died in shame in the wilderness. In that generation the inevitable outworking of sin and the consequent severity of God against it is displayed to the full. But extending far beyond His severity, we see also His innate goodness, for having exterminated the rebels, and eliminated the rebellion, He gave the next generation the opportunity to obtain all their fathers refused to have. Of this generation some had been babes, or at the most lads, when they passed over the Red Sea, and some had not even been born. They were, as near as typology can prefigure, a new race of men, and it is of this new generation of men that the book of Joshua treats.

In the preceding book of Deuteronomy we find this nation gathered on the wilderness side of Jordan with the long years of waiting, wasting, wandering and wickedness far behind them. They are standing listening to Moses reading to them the Law, together with the ordinances and the commandments and the judgements of God. It was as though they stood where their fathers had stood years ago at Sinai; for they are listening to the second giving of the Law. Now, differently from that past occasion, the floods of Jordan flowed at their feet, barring them from the Promised Land, and their baptism lay immediately before them. Their fathers' baptism had lain behind them when they had heard that same Law, but this generation was being shown the truth that the baptism and the giving of the Law were somehow joined. God had intended that the original people who had shed and sheltered behind the blood and eaten the lamb and had been baptized into life in the cloud and in the Sea, should also be the people of the Law and the Land and the Lord. His purpose had been to lead them from Sinai into the land. When they refused to go in, He had to bring about His purpose another way.

Man's disobedience and irregularity of behaviour always confuses his understanding of doctrine and experience of truth; but it never confuses God. To receive the Law, they must also receive the baptism. The works of Sinai and Pentecost are just as much one as the work of Calvary and Pentecost are one. In the actual process of the Baptism in the Spirit a man is baptized into all that Christ wrought on the cross, and all that Christ wrought there is baptized into him. The supreme reason why Christ wrought His work on the cross was to demonstrate the utter rightness of righteousness against the extreme sinfulness of sin. The Lord there vindicated Sinai and showed the righteousness of the Law in all its moral, ethical and philosophical rectitude, and also in its judgements. At the same time He justified the Levitical system of sacrifice, showing that it was really an amazing display of grace. Under that system He exacted less than the price of his sin from every man, taking but a token sacrifice from him whilst accepting all his gratitude as a thank-offering. The supreme revelation of the cross is hereby shown to be love. The complete work that Jesus wrought there, even if it could be fully known, is far too great to examine here, but we must not fail to notice that the supreme reason for the cross was the declaration of God's righteousness. So it is that at his Pentecost, a man has the Law written in his heart; it must be, for otherwise it cannot be made new. See Hebrews 8:11 and II Corinthians 3:3-6.

Returning to the type, we see that Israel at Jordan received the Law and went into their baptism, and this accomplished their passover (Joshua 5). The order here is reversed from that which took place originally. When first introduced it was Passover, Baptism, Law, but sin and disobedience had necessitated a different order. This may explain much that appears to be so irregular in many modern so-called 'baptisms' or 'births' or conversions. But in whatever order the three come, they form a unity of experience and therefore must be kept together, for they agree in one. They have a joint testimony because they form one whole work. As far as was humanly possible, that generation of people was going into the baptism with the Law ringing in their ears. It was repeated unto their hearts and put into their minds as well as Moses, the mediator of that Old Covenant, was able to do it. In type they were going to be baptized into Jesus (Joshua), and for that they must be baptized into heart and mind law in the flesh, not stone and Book Law in an ark. As with their fathers before them, they must experience a personal passover. With their forbears it had been unto Moses in the cloud and in the Sea; with them it was to be unto Joshua in the cloud and in the Jordan. The cloud is not mentioned here, but we know that it was there, for God had said that it should be with them; they would not have attempted to go over Jordan without its clear leading to show them the way (Exodus 40:38). Obviously then, this crossing was to be to these people the most important journey they would ever make.

Of all the men of the former generation who had passed over the Red Sea, only Joshua and Caleb remained at this time. It is also probable, indeed almost certain, that some of the women who passed over Jordan had also experienced the exodus passover. All these would be elderly survivors of husbands or brothers who, over the years, had died off as a result of their folly and disobedience, but to the vast majority it was an entirely new experience; however, these women are not under consideration here. This is not because they are of no importance; on the contrary, the very fact that they were now entering into what their husbands or brothers had rejected proves their value in God's eyes. The reason why those who belonged to a former generation and baptism were accorded the second baptism is simply this — they were women. Under Mosaic jurisdiction the female never bore the responsibility for making spiritual or legal decisions; therefore unless they were partners to their husbands' sins and decisions (as in the case of Achan and his wife and family), they never had to bear the punishments for them. All decisions and responsibilities at that time lay firmly upon the shoulders of the male. Taking this into account, the whole episode is brought into correct focus.

We see then that it was as a newborn race that Israel came to Jordan. Their fathers a generation before had come to the Red Sea, just as though they had been but newly born. Had that first generation behaved as God intended, they would have gone into the land by one baptism only, for neither the journey demanded, nor did they need, nor did God intend them to cross over Jordan. He had not planned more than one baptism for them any more than He has for any man, but He did plan and insist upon one. That is why Moses firstly led toward and Joshua finally brought Israel through Jordan. There was no evading it; both Moses and Joshua insist on one baptism per person, and it is seen to be the same with both John Baptist, Moses' representative, and Jesus, for each insisted upon the one baptism he ministered. So just as their fathers before them, the unbaptized sons of Israel had to face it in their day; the whole host must be baptized. It was an absolutely new and unique experience to them — their one and only passover-baptism.

We have seen that of the former responsible males, none but Joshua and Caleb remain alive. They had wholly followed the Lord, and because of this they both had special roles to fill in the future of the nation, and were preserved with a purpose. Joshua, we know, was elected of God to take the place of Moses as leader of the people, and became a type of Jesus; Caleb represents the true Israelite in whom there is no guile. Neither of them needed any such thing as a second experience of the baptism in either of its elements. Caleb is the perfect type of the one who, together with his Lord, steps straight out of Egypt into Canaan, which is God's intention and provision for every man. Caleb's inheritance was already known to him; he had already trodden on it and in his heart he was living in it. God testified that he had quite another spirit in him from all his contemporaries who had died by the way in the wilderness.

When these factors are taken into account, it becomes clearer than ever that what is so often preached as clear Bible proof of the need of a second experience leading to a second blessing, is in fact proof of the exact opposite. It is only the application of the first experience to a second generation. It was necessary because that first generation of unbelievers had to be annihilated. That being so, how could they undergo a second blessing baptism? Indeed they were cut off by God precisely so that they should not be said or held to have experienced a first and second experience.

By this the Lord Himself has emphatically precluded:

1. the possibility of experiencing the Baptism in the Spirit as a second blessing;
2. the propriety of using this event as a basis for preaching it.

To understand correctly the true spiritual meaning and importance of this passage of Jordan, we must once again leap the time-gap of forty years, and in thought substitute Jordan for the Red Sea. As we have seen, it was God's intention to lead His people directly from Egypt to Canaan. Only disobedience had delayed it, so now, the cause for the delay being removed, the delay in time, or the time-lapse, for the completion of the exercise may also itself be removed from our thinking. This is what is meant by leaping the time-gap. For the purposes of what God is trying to teach us it is as though the Children of Israel had stepped into the Red Sea from Goshen and had stepped ashore in Canaan. Yet there are certain differences in the two crossings which we must observe in order that we should learn just how much spiritual meaning lies within this national baptism.

This time there is no Pharaoh with his host of chariots in hot pursuit of the people so lately escaped from the house of bondage; the nation no longer felt that they were slaves. There was no fear in their hearts; recapture and re-enslavement had died out of their thinking, and they no longer had any desire to return to Egypt. That land was by now but a bitter memory in the minds of a few people, mostly elderly women. For a long while now Israel had been a victorious people, approaching the land wherein their days were going to be as the days of heaven on earth. Already they had encountered and conquered some of the giants their fathers had so feared to face, God's own personal Tabernacle was with them, and the Ark of the Covenant with His throne upon it was in their midst. They were His chosen people, His personal charge. He ruled over them in mercy, and His 'standard', the pillar of cloud and fire, towered above and over them day and night. They were an entirely different company from that which had earlier fled in fear from Pharaoh. Standing confidently at the waters' edge with the echoes of Moses' voice ringing in their memories, they calmly waited to pass over the river and possess their possessions.

They also had a new leader. By divine appointment Joshua now replaced Moses, who through disobedience, because of the weakness of the flesh, had been refused entrance into the land. He who gave the Law could not give the Land, and in this God is teaching us yet more of His eternal truth. He had originally given the land to Abraham by promise; it was an entirely undeserved favour, unmixed with legal qualification, and so before God could fulfil that promise, Moses must be removed. This same principle is revealed by Paul in Galatians 3:17, 18. The inheritance could not be given to them as of law, so Moses, the giver and the representative of the Law, had to go. God took him out of the way. He did not appoint Joshua over Moses' head, as though to demote law and exalt grace, neither did He appoint a junior above a senior, but He first removed Moses because his work was fulfilled. Moses had acted as schoolmaster or pedagogue to bring Israel to Christ (Joshua), and therefore his work was done.

There are other reasons why Moses must give way to Joshua, and perhaps not the least of these lies in the meanings of their names — and not just in their respective meaning only, but also in a further thing, perhaps not at first noted. Moses' name was given him as a baby by an Egyptian princess. In that name she described the action whereby he became hers, and being a heathen did so in terms of her superstitious beliefs; Moses means 'drawn out'. He was thereby named as a child of Egypt and a son of the Nile-god, with all the superstitious connotations and fleshly undertones and worldly ambitions that such a name could mean. Therefore, great as he became, Moses could not be allowed to lead God's people into the land of Promise, for in that land God intended all the reproach of Egypt to be rolled away. The entrance, conquest and occupation of Canaan was to be accomplished as the dispensation of the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham, and not even an Egyptian name could be connected with it.

In personal stature Moses had no equal in Israel. God was not dealing in personalities when He substituted Joshua for Moses. Neither before nor after Moses was there another prophet better than he; it was his name that was at fault, for not only was its origin wrong, but its meaning was too limited. 'Drawn out' only signified one aspect of the great work being wrought by God in the earth for His people; it is partial, incomplete. Also it is somewhat negative, like the words 'Thou shalt not ....', in which the law of Moses was couched. The move to bring His people out of Egypt was only preparation, a necessary prelude to bringing them into Canaan. God had no intention of bringing them into that land under the lawgiver, for that would seem to display inconsistency and a lack of concern for the promotion of eternal truth on His part. It would have been in retrospect a betrayal of Abraham and in prospect a denial of Jesus. Joshua, on the other hand, is a typically Israelitish name meaning Jehovah / Saviour, or Salvation of Jehovah. The truth is that the salvation of Jehovah which He had in mind for the Children of Israel was not a state of being just 'drawn out' of Egypt or of being just across the Red Sea, but right in Canaan. In himself as a man Joshua was no greater than, if as great as Moses, but in the plan of God he had to fill a more positive role. He must be a type of Jesus leading his people into personal experience of the fulfilment of the Promise and the promises. He was chosen of the Lord to divide unto the people their inheritance and this is just what he did.

Careful study of the opening chapters of Joshua's book will yield instructions of much value to those who wish to learn more detailed truth about our great salvation. Enlightening and desirable as this is, we shall not give time and space to indulge ourselves in it all here, but continue to pursue the main line of truth upon which we are set. This turns around the magnification of the person of Joshua and the work which he typically accomplished when he was chosen to represent Jesus Christ to us. This is brought into focus in chapter 3, where we discover that in the passage of Jordan, Joshua is very closely associated with the Ark, which is here called 'the Ark of the Covenant'. The place of their association is in Jordan, the river of death; Joshua and the Covenant are revealed as one there. At this vital juncture of the revelation of the mystery it is important for us to note this: so close is their union that as the account unfolds, the point of emphasis moves constantly from the one to the other. Watching closely as we follow the progress of the Children of Israel over Jordan on their way into the Promised Land, we shall see how some of the finer details of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ are pinpointed and highlighted. The outstanding lesson to learn is that the living Jesus, in leading His people into their inheritance, first stands, then stands firm, and remains standing in Covenant with them in His death; this He does in order to bring them by resurrection into His life.

Now we know that the Ark represented the crux of all the bloodshed and sacrifices and offerings of the Law. All that was ever done under law according to the Levitical code was done unto Him who sat on His merciful throne on the Ark. Spiritually the Mercy Seat and He who sat on it was the end of the Law in a twofold way, namely objectively and finally. Objectively it was the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that believed, and this was so because annually the blood of atonement was sprinkled there. Finally it was the end of the Law because there the Law ceased. Beyond that, it had no jurisdiction. All over Israel it had jurisdiction, but from that point upwards it had no power over anyone. Neither sin nor legal code has any dominion in heaven, and from the Mercy Seat upwards all was heaven. The Law was in the Ark; the Mercy Seat was upon that; the cloud was upon that; God appeared in that; and all was glory. That is finality. God was not under the Law but over it; the Law was under Him; it was in His body (the Ark), His Being.

Ordinarily the Ark was set in its exact position within the veil which covered the Holiest of All at the east end of the Tabernacle, but on this occasion it stood in Jordan; it was in transit. According to God's instructions it was wrapped within its veil, covered with sealskin, spread over with a cloth wholly of blue, its staves in place, the blood but a stain upon its throne, with the living cloud resting upon it and spreading far out over the river, the way, and the people. What more could God have done to show us (even if they did not then understand it) the glory of the Lord in death, and the wonder of that Baptism wherewith we are baptized? Here we see Jesus in all His glorious humanity, the Lord of life reigning over all in His brief death. Having dealt with sin where sin abounded, He deals with death where death abounded, that He might show us grace where grace abounds, and give us life, because life abounds; all is of His humanity.

How intimately the veil wrapped the Ark in Jordan. Just so, in death, the flesh of our Lord did not hang distantly from Him as the veil hung remotely some little distance from the Ark when set in the Tabernacle. The veil represented His flesh, and at Calvary the flesh and Spirit were especially one; they had each to serve the other for God's purposes there. The Invisible became the Visible especially for this, and by this picture we see how Jesus lived unto and in and through death. How appropriate now also is the covering of sealskin (note, not badger-skin but sealskin; the seal is a water animal), for He was born for this Baptism which, though it come in into His soul, should never be able to flood or destroy Him. Outside and around all, like an outer cloak, clung the cloth 'wholly of blue'. All was wrapped up in, yet revealed as total love. Above the Ark stood the cloud, as though it were the impenetrable density of heavenly love filling all space, reaching down from the blue infinity of heaven like the finger of God pointing out the Ark. All was love; love above and love below with the cloud in between: Father, Holy Ghost, Son, God so loved His people. He so wanted them to have eternal life (their inheritance) that He gave His Son. The whole scene presents God's view of Calvary. It is Christ's death as related to the priesthood. Joshua / Jesus is there, but he is only associated with the Ark, he is not carrying it. The priests are carrying it. In Jordan the Ark is Christ offered without spot to God through the eternal Spirit, and there passing by within sight of it were the people. It was invisible, yet it was visible; they saw it yet didn't see it. In a figure they could look upon God as though they had no conscience of sin, and by Christ pass over into their possessions, a nation of priests.

Approaching it all from another angle, we see how clearly too this prefigures Jesus' own water baptism in that same Jordan so long afterwards. As we examine it afresh, we find that all was just the same then, and confess with awe that whenever God appears, whatever be His purpose, eternal truth can never vary. The Gospels show us Jesus in the water — the Holy Ghost coming upon Him there and Father so lovingly and so gladly owning and presenting Him to the people. Then as always, all was enveloped in and overshadowed by love, for even so, that baptism was only a picture of the greater to follow. In fulfilment of this greatest Baptism, as though anticipating Calvary, the feet of the priests that bore the Ark stood on dry land; in the sides of the Ark were the wooden crosspieces, the staves upon which all was hung. All the love of God ever shown over the millennia was revealed by the cross. By the way of the cross He went into death, and by its virtue and power made death a way for all His people. Now denuded of all power of evil and terrors of hell, this death and resurrection way represents only the overpowering goodness of God and the glorious blessings of heaven. The whole scene is a setting forth of 'Christ crucified.. .the power of God, and the wisdom of God'. Yet the feet of those priests did get wet. The outer waters of the floods of death did come in unto His soul. He had to taste death for every man, but the great eternal spirit of Him drove back the floods, stopped the river and stood mid-stream to hold back the waters and make the royal highway for His spiritual house to pass over.

The blood on the Mercy Seat in Jordan was but a stain. It was not the bright crimson of blood in circulation, but the deep purple-brown stain of blood long shed. It was the blood of a past atonement, and it spoke of redemption previously accomplished; the sacrifice had been accepted, righteousness was established and declared. God was reigning in grace, because in the figure, Jesus who died was standing there alive, and His throne was for ever and ever. It was the blood of a past sacrifice perpetuated. At the seat of it all was the blood, and at the heart of it all was love, but the root of it all was the Law for righteousness lying as sacred treasure at the bottom of the Ark. The blood-seed and foundation of His life was righteousness; not just negative sinlessness, but positive sin-overcoming-and-destroying righteousness. The New Covenant was in His blood. If love is the bond of perfectness, then it is because righteousness is the sceptre of correct living and just rule. All this and much more in hidden meaning stood there in Jordan, and as Joshua drew everyone's attention to the Ark that day, he himself began to be magnified in everyone's eyes (chapter 3: 3, 6, 8, 11, 13-15 & 17).

Joshua was pointing to God's earthly throne, for it was in order to bear the throne upon its lid that the box was made. It was the treasure-chest of heaven and earth, holding within it the two tablets of stone which bore God's own handwriting. Treasured up at the heart of the nation, the law-stones were guarded from humankind and prevented from idolatrous worship by the presence of God. Had He departed from His throne, His very handiwork must surely have become an idol, and the Law He wrote would have become His rival. In fact, later this did actually happen: Israel sinfully worshipped the fact that they had the Law of God, and lost the God of the Law. Perhaps from this we ought to learn a lesson and be warned of the danger of allowing Bible-worship to substitute Him in our hearts. But whatever the failure in a later day, when Joshua pointed to the Ark, God was reigning there.

This was probably the greatest thing Joshua ever did in all his life. It is not surprising therefore to find that our Lord also did something similar to this. During His lifetime on earth, and especially as He neared the end of His ministry, the Lord referred increasingly to His cross; to Him it was absolutely crucial. Although only the barest facts of this are recorded by the four Gospel writers. They present enough detail for us to understand that the Lord made His meaning abundantly clear: the cross and the grave were the goal of His earthly life. Following their accounts of the crucifixion, each of the writers passes on to the story of the resurrection, and some to record the ascension, and one goes on to point to His enthronement in glory. Having faithfully fulfilled his task, Luke was chosen of God to take up and continue the story in the Acts of the Apostles. He first refers back to the Lord's crucifixion and enthronement, showing that it was with a view to the outpouring of the Spirit and the birth of the Church, and then goes on to record the history of its growth and spread. But it is through the epistles of the apostles that the living glorified Lord really teaches us the full and spiritual meaning of the value of His triumphant death. Consistently with this whole scheme of revelation and true to the type, John Baptist, when baptizing Jesus in water, pointed Him out as the Lamb of God while He was still in the world. John was Moses' representative, and it was Moses who, while still in Egypt (the world), pointed Israel to the lamb and its blood; but his successor, Joshua, that is the one who was raised up in his stead to represent the living Jesus, points to the Ark / Throne.

Reading the New Testament, we find that following the ascension and enthronement of the Lord Jesus, all the writers do this same thing, Peter leading the way on the day of Pentecost. How vital and indispensable all this is, for although while hanging on the cross the Lord did all the work necessary for our total redemption and reconciliation, it was not until He returned to heaven and was enthroned in glory that the gospel of His grace could be fully preached. The gospel for the present day is declared from the eternal throne and not as from Galilee or Judea, or even the historic cross. When Paul said 'we preach Christ crucified', he meant that we preach the living Christ, who, having been once crucified, now baptizes in the Holy Ghost into all the virtues of the cross. This is the particular aspect of truth which is so plainly being revealed at Jordan. Of old the people waiting in fear at the Red Sea for their baptism unto Moses, were fleeing from Pharaoh and the power and dominion of his throne. At that time Pharaoh was the great king over all the earth; but to the nation under Joshua, Pharaoh was nothing but a memory; he and his powers and principalities had been very effectively destroyed forty years earlier. Under Joshua it is the Lord enthroned on the Ark of the Covenant who is the centre of all thoughts and the object of everyone's vision. He is the Lord of all the Earth. The result is that no-one is running away from a pursuing host or casting fearful glances behind. Instead, in perfect peace, the great King of kings is majestically supervising His people's passover into the Promised Land. In the process of the unfolding type He is teaching us something of the scope of the eternal work which He wrought at Calvary in relationship to the throne of God. Far beyond what they saw or what was witnessed centuries later at Calvary, we see that in His death the Lord Jesus set up His throne.

The gospel preached to us is not a partial one. It is not just the story of the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but also of His ascension and enthronement, His glorification and Kingdom and coming again, and things too numerous to be completely known or mentioned by any man. Because of this, it is to the throne that we are pointed at this time and not to the blood, important and indispensable though it is. The Mercy Seat on which the blood was sprinkled was the more important thing, for it was in order to be sprinkled on the throne that the blood was shed. Joshua did not say, 'When you see the blood ...', but 'When you see the Ark, go after it'. It is God who had to see the blood; He said so in Egypt — 'When I see the blood I will pass over you'. At that time it was painted on the houses in which they were sheltering, eating the lamb. It was public blood; not only God but everybody saw it. But on the Mercy Seat it was private blood, God's exclusively; only He saw it. In Egypt what they received by virtue of it was seen and known, but sprinkled there on the Mercy Seat it speaks of what God got from it. Far beyond what Israel saw or could have anticipated when the Lord insisted that they shed and sprinkled the blood in Egypt, all was anticipatory of and consistent with the future thing that He intended to do in Canaan. When the blood was originally shed at His command, He had not fully revealed His purpose concerning it; unknown to them then, He planned to have the blood always in His sight, and whether or not the people at Jordan realized it, that was the thing which mattered most to them on their day of baptism.

God was keeping His sovereign word and oath to them — the Covenant He had made with Abraham. They could not see the blood under which lay the tables of the Covenant. They possibly did not even know then that the Law for righteousness which lay in the Ark was God's confirmation of the original promise made to Abraham, but it was. Had they known, it was the proof that they were certainly going to live in the land. God gave it them to be the Law for righteousness that He required of them, that by it they may live in the land of His promise into which they were now passing. All they had to do at Joshua's command was to trace the dim outlines of God's earthly throne under its many veils and follow the King through the flood and over the river to possess their possessions in full realization of all the promises of God.

Sometimes in our fervent evangelical zeal, and because of deepest heartfelt appreciation of the eternal worth of the precious blood of Christ we may endanger the objective which He had in view when He shed it. Due to fear lest the vital truths of our redemption be filched from us by humanistic tendencies or modernistic teaching, we give the blood an over-emphasis neither intended by God nor needed by man. Such fears need not be. A sane spiritual approach to both the whole and the wholeness of the Bible concedes nothing to unbelief. Faith grows the stronger for the thought, and truth flourishes by investigation and thrives on honesty.

The relationship of the blood and the throne is as vital as the relationship of the blood and the cross. The blood had to be shed, for it is the only remedy for sin. Except it had been outpoured at Calvary there could be no redemption, no conclusive fulfilment of and justification for all the shed blood of past atonements, and no present reconciliation brought in. In the whole plan of reconciliation the blood in Jesus' veins had to become the blood of His cross, which in turn had to be brought in by Him to become blood on the throne. The throne was before the blood was, and the blood was before the cross was. Both the blood and the cross were, indeed just had to be, because of the throne. By use and means of the cross the redeeming blood was shed; from the cross it was sprinkled on the throne. Jesus used the cross for the throne; it was totally necessary to the throne and Him that sits on it. Apart from the blood on the throne there could be no redemption. Sprinkled there it had reached its ultimate end and achieved its greatest work.

It is totally erroneous to think or preach that redemption was completed or that reconciliation was fully effected at the cross. Without belittling for one moment the complete and consummate work that Jesus accomplished there, we must see most clearly that no-one would have been saved except the blood shed at Calvary had been carried up and on to the throne. The two actions are indispensable parts of a whole in which each is necessary to the other or else could have no meaning to us. So it was that Joshua in the day of his magnification in the eyes of Israel, shows his magnificence by turning all eyes to the Ark.

Among the many things God accomplished by this man at that time, two were of outstanding value to the Children of Israel: (l) He cut everything down to size; (2) He put all things into perspective; that is He showed things up for what they really were. This was especially necessary in connection with Jordan, for to Israel it represented death. Now Jordan does not represent physical death, although erroneously it is pressed into that meaning from time to time. Quite contrary to the popular ideas all too often versified for use as hymns, Jordan does not represent the physical death which came by sin and is now the common end of all flesh, but the royal spiritual death that came by Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life. It is an entirely new death, being spoken of in Romans 6 as 'His death'; it is the death into which all must be baptized if ever they are to become men as God requires. Since the memorable day when Israel crossed Jordan, it has represented the Lord's death. The Lord Jesus used physical death as a means to reveal the death He died to sin for us. His death is the immediate death to the sin-death of man and the eventual death to his physical death too. By means of physical death the great Spirit, Jesus the God-Man, proved that He could not be overcome and slain as were others. He did this by first taking man's sin-death upon Him and then entering the realms of physical death in order that He might reach the place where all other human spirits lay dead, slain by satan and sin.

One of the main reasons why the Children of Israel were brought to Jordan when it was in flood was to set forth this lesson. Before their eyes the waters (of death) were first cut back to proper proportions, so that the main stream (the real death) should be revealed. It was there, and not in the deceptive floodwaters, that the true business of 'His death' was really transacted and established. The feet of the priests did not 'stand firm' until they rested on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, though they momentarily paused as soon as the soles of their feet rested in its floodwaters. Of all the people, they alone got their feet wet; no-one else did; they took the first unseeable, adventurous steps — for all the others it was firm, dry walking. As nearly as possible God has shown us by this how truly Jesus 'tasted death' for every man, and then stood firm in His death that every son of God should cross over 'dry' unto glory. Hallelujah, what a man calls death is not the real death at all. In His love the Lord has revealed all to us so that we shall not be deceived or held by terrors.

Let us watch it all happening as it is recorded in the story. When the feet of the Ark-bearing priests touched the brim of the water, straight away things really began to happen. Immediately the floods started to assuage, and as the waters receded, before their eyes the river assumed its correct size, falling into true shape and taking its proper course; very soon it disappeared altogether, leaving the bed bare and dry. The waters were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth. Then, with majestic pace, the priests proceeded into the midst of the river bed. The waters had either fled helter-skelter downstream to the sea of death, or piling up somewhere back upstream away from His presence, had refused to come near His face. It was an amazing spectacle — a miracle wrought in a physical element; yet viewing it today we see the wonder of the Lord's working for us in the far more important realm of the Spirit.

Pausing to cast back a reflective glance to Noah, we note that terminologically the flooding of Jordan strangely links up with the original Flood. Pondering further we can see that the second of our illustrations also joins with the first and this third illustration of the Baptism to reveal just one event, for Jordan was swollen almost to flood proportions, and was like a sizeable inland sea. So Noah's flood and Moses' sea and Joshua's river are as one for the telling of the story of the true Baptism, each speaking the same thing in another way. Thereby they provide the opportunity of examining that Baptism in three different aspects of its amazing fullness. The exactitude of God in this speaks with inexorable logic. God does not wander from the original truth when further outlining or illustrating new ideas of a definitive nature connected with it. Instead, as we see here, when bringing in another new aspect of eternal truth, He also hints at and includes things revealed of old. This is He who says that 'the wise scribe who is instructed into the Kingdom of Heaven bringeth forth out of his treasures things new and old', for He Himself does it. In this way we see the whole in perspective and are instructed into the continuity, progression and development of the doctrine of the Baptism.

The crossing of Jordan took place 'very far from the city Adam'. Undoubtedly the spot was chosen most carefully by God in order to speak most powerfully and unmistakably to our hearts. The introduction of this name is of great significance, for as the fact of the flooding river links us with the tragedy of the Flood, so does the name Adam carry us back beyond the Flood to the greater tragedy that originally made it necessary. Adam provides us with the key to the special emphasis given by God to this particular illustration of the Baptism. It is the only place in scripture where we find that name attached to a city. Apart from the fact that it was hard by Zaretan, we know nothing about it, except that the waters of Jordan piled up a long way from it. It is as though God was saying with amazing insistence that in passing over Jordan's flood, they were leaving all of old Adam behind; a long way behind; altogether behind. There was no passover for him, for it was he who passed the whole human race over to satan, who flooded humanity with sin. Moreover, the Children of Israel were not going over Jordan just to settle down and rest in Adam again. They could not possess the land or inherit the promises of God in old Adam; neither in any connection with him nor anywhere near him. Never again! Adam, with his legacy of sin and death is finished. What a terrible legacy it was.

Yet linking Adam with Joshua, God is bringing to the fore the real lesson of this chapter, for Joshua represents Jesus, the last Adam. So we have before us the first, old, evil Adam, and the last, new, good Adam. The one in whom sin began in man, and the One who as a Man ended sin. First Adam became a sinner and commenced it among men; the last Adam was made sin to end it among men. In this incident we may also find an interesting pictorial comment upon that difficult scripture which says, 'As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive'. Jordan, the river of death, flowed by Adam into the world and flooded out upon and into all men (Romans 5:12). Adam died and left all men in death, but our Joshua leads through death into the chosen life of God for His people. God finished Adam by Christ. That is the chief reason why on the cross He cried, 'It is finished'. So much was ended there — it was the terminal point of much more than we know, and the pivotal point of all time. Then and there God brought to judgement and death the elusive Old Man of satan and sin; there He finally nailed him down and buried him.

Until that moment Adam had lived on in the human race unchallengeable and unassailable as the nature of sin in man. Physically Adam died at the age of 930 years, but in spiritual nature he lived on in the race for millennia until a new spiritual nature from God came and destroyed him. Only Abraham among men has outlived Adam spiritually. Abraham became the new 'father' in Adam's place because he was the man of obedient faith as against the disobedience and unbelief of Adam. By this he has lived on spiritually far longer than Adam in man, for at Calvary Adam was crucified and slain and buried, but at the same time Abraham was justified. Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus' day, 'and', says Jesus, 'he saw it and was glad'. Until the cross Adam and Abraham co-existed as spiritual 'fathers' in the race, producing two kinds of person, which at times co-existed as dual natures in one person. Since Calvary, however, Adam has been slain, so that no man need live now as a split personality, having two different springs of spiritual nature rising and warring within his one human nature.

When the Lord Jesus came into the world, He was born of Abraham's seed; physically He was born in the likeness of sinful flesh, but spiritually He was born in the image of God. This was accomplished by using the seed of the woman, Genesis 3:15, instead of the seed of man. Even in so doing God had to use the highest power (Gk. 'dunamis') he had, overshadowing Mary with the Holy Ghost in order to bring forth His Son of Man. It is very doubtful that the seed of the woman is in and of itself less tainted by sin than man's, but in exact contrast to Eve, who believed the word of satan, Mary believed the word of God by the angel. That word being mixed with faith in her, became the human life-seed from which the babe Jesus was generated. So apart from man, and being all-powerfully operated upon by the Holy Ghost, Mary brought forth her firstborn son. Whatever else God did in commencing in Mary the birth-cycle which resulted in the babe of Bethlehem, He certainly showed by Christ that old Adam was finished with; that degenerate man was not the father of the spiritual or natural life of the carpenter of Nazareth. God's utter rejection of Adam is nowhere more plainly shown than in the birth of Jesus Christ; nor is that fact more openly exhibited than in His death.

The Lord Jesus on the cross dealt with all the original and cumulative characteristics of the sinful man; He bore his curse, carried his sins, took his punishment, died his death and buried him in his grave. More, much more, He superseded him — blotted him out. He nullified the accumulated power and effects of his continuing existence during the thousands of years which had run their course between his rejection in Eden and Calvary. More than that, He made those years themselves to appear as though they had never been, for we read that Jesus is the second man. The Lord who created the first man, Himself became the second. So again, in order to understand truth so vital to us, we have to leap the time gap, for this thing is spiritual. What we seek to demonstrate is entirely in the realm of Spirit. This is why it is always the Spirit that bears witness, for the Spirit is constant; things are always consistent in meaning and interpretation as well as constant in power in the kingdom of the Spirit.

In the man Christ Jesus, God finished that old Adam, but continued with man. By the life that He lived Jesus showed that by His birth He had ended the inevitability of the continuity of the Old Adam nature and manhood of sin. Much more, by carrying that life over into His death in our behalf, He also finished that old nature for us forever. It was to show us this that the Ark stood firm in Jordan, where it remained central in the stream of death until all the people had passed clean over into the land of promise; it was first in but last out. He is Alpha and Omega whenever He appears. In keeping with this Joshua fills two roles at Jordan: he standing with the Ark in the centre as the last Adam and he leads many sons unto the glory of Canaan as the second Man.

Again it is as though those centuries of sin, failure, frustration, disappointment, toil, pain, bondage, heartache, Egypt, taskmasters, Pharaoh, and the wilderness had never existed. Adam the first commenced sin; Adam the last ended it. The first man lost paradise, the second gained Canaan for all the children of God. Even though men seem yet to be cast in the mould of Adam the first, they who by spiritual heredity are the children of God in the line and nature of the second man, may know sweetness far above Adam's lost paradise and Joshua's Canaan, for our Jesus is the Leader of all the file of God's sons who with Him share jointly in all the Father has.

What a glorious insight all this affords us into the character of God. He has always stood with His people. No-one would have thought it wrong if the Ark, instead of standing still in Jordan, had continued on leading the people into Canaan. But had it done so, the type would not have been true, although no-one would have known it, for none knew that what was happening was in fact a prefiguring of a greater reality yet to be revealed. God's concern is that we by this should get a clear sight of the truth that Jesus stayed long enough in death for the whole multitude of the redeemed to pass over. So vital is this truth, that by God's own commands the memorials of it were retained to Israel in a peculiar way.

From the very place where the feet of the priests that bore the Ark stood firm in Jordan, twelve fore-ordained men bore a stone apiece over with them onto the other bank to build a cairn at Gilgal. Similarly, Joshua built a cairn in the exact hallowed spot midstream where the feet of the priests that bore the Ark stood firm in Jordan, and from whence the twelve other memorial stones were taken. The floods eventually returned and swamped from view the stones which Joshua erected, so that no-one could see the path through the mighty waters, but the identical erection built by Joshua's command at Gilgal remained. It bore visible testimony to succeeding generations that God dried up the waters of Jordan before His people as He did the waters of the Red Sea before their fathers. In this way the Lord links the two crossings as one. By these two witnesses everybody's thoughts were to be directed to four things — Egypt, Red Sea, Jordan, Canaan. To us the truth abides clear. Jesus did not come up out of death until He had completely dealt with and finished all our enemies and brought every one of His people into His life in God through His death for them. Sin, Judgement, Death, Adam, Pharaoh, Principalities, Powers, everything was overcome in that one solitary act. It abides as total as it is eternal.

The people passed over as 'new creatures', baptized unto Joshua, no longer now to be wilderness wanderers, any more than they were ever again to be Egyptian slaves. In Canaan they were no more in the wilds than in the world; they had not only passed over, but also 'out of' and 'into'. God had not brought them out of Egypt to live as nomads in the wilderness, but to possess their possessions in fulfilment of His promises. But man has to learn his old nature and see the justice and righteousness of God in condemning it to the cross. He may not like the lesson, but in so learning he will also be taught the grace and love of Christ in taking it to the cross for him. Moses had already said that God led them into the wilderness to prove them and know what was in their heart, and to make them know that man can only live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. But this is a very hard lesson for man to learn, and a painful one, for natural carnal man wants to live by every word that proceeds out of his own mouth. He loves to decide for himself, gainsay the word of God, make fear or his better knowledge the plea when it is only pride, unbelief and rebellion that generate his refusal to do as God says. A man always has to learn that it is his own evil heart of unbelief which causes him to live in a wilderness. He also has to learn that only by baptism into Christ can he discover his Promised Land and enter into his possessions.

As we have seen, when the Children of Israel came up out of Jordan, they were not allowed to stay 'just over' on its bank. In any case it was impossible, for the river was in flood, so they pitched their camp in Gilgal. There the cairn of stones was erected, and there the Lord kept them until some further things upon which He insisted should be fulfilled. The significance of what took place during those early days at Gilgal must not be regarded as something taking place some time much later than or subsequent to the baptism. All that took place at Gilgal at that time, whether in the natural or spiritual realms, is directly connected with the Jordan crossing, and must be regarded as taking place in the one true Baptism. The New Testament shows that by it God synchronizes many things which may not be consciously realized as having been wrought thereby, and which cannot be shown as simultaneous in the type. The things listed in Joshua 5 have great spiritual significance for us. They are as follows:

1. Israel was circumcised;
2. They kept the passover;
3. They ceased to eat Manna and ate the old corn of the land;
4. The captain of the Lord's host assumed command.

These four are closely linked by God with one another and with the passage of Jordan. It is, therefore, vital that we come to an understanding of what it was that God accomplished at Gilgal, for spiritually it is at this precise place and in this experience that the true Baptism 'lands' us. Firstly God revived and reinstated the neglected sign of the Covenant — Circumcision. Gilgal means 'rolling', and God brought them there with the intention of rolling away from them what He called 'the reproach of Egypt', and it could only be accomplished by this means. It was in keeping His Covenant with Abraham that He had brought them into the Promised Land. At Gilgal God enforced circumcision upon them, for circumcision, besides being the sign of the Covenant, was the seal of their faith in the promises of God, and it had to be cut into their mortal bodies. The Baptism in the Spirit is for this purpose — it accomplishes heart-circumcision, the initial putting away of the filth of the flesh and the inscription in the heart of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

The Baptism in the Spirit is to produce men of the Spirit, who live in the Spirit, and possess the promises of God. The flesh cannot inherit the promises, hence the circumcising Baptism. The reproach of Egypt is fixed permanently in the flesh; 'the world' and 'the flesh' cannot be separated, for without the flesh there could be no world. Worldliness is the indulgence and expression of the lusts of the flesh in the earth, and a man is not out of the world until his flesh is circumcised from him with the circumcision of Christ. This 'circumcision of Christ' is not to be confused with the ceremonial circumcision which took place in His boyhood. It is rather to be thought of as the spiritual power with which He invested the cross in taking there all His perfection of life manifest in the flesh. The fact of His birth as the Son of God, together with the accumulated virtue of His private life as Jesus of Nazareth and His public life as the Christ (during which He proved too strong to succumb to either the direct or indirect temptations of the devil) gave power to His cross to become God's 'sharp knife' for circumcision. We may see how truly this is highlighted by examining the two major occasions in His life when He was directly confronted with the choice of doing: (a) the devil's will, or (b) His own.

In the first, when He was tempted in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry, it was in the three realms of all human existence — spirit, soul and body. This only proved that He was indeed fit for the immediate ministry unto which He had just been anointed. Had He failed in either test, it would have been through the flesh or self-indulgence. To have sought bread for His body, or the keeping and protection of angels for Himself, or to have hoped for life or gain or 'blessing' on the devil's terms, or even at his suggestion, would have been of the flesh; He refused point blank. So also in Gethsemane, where He underwent the second test. This time He proved that He was fit for the ministry of Reconciliation immediately to hand, and ultimately for the ministry of mediation which lay beyond resurrection. To have insisted on doing His own will and having things His own way would have been then, as at any other time, nothing but 'flesh'. This complete absence of desire for self-fulfilment, total refusal to gratify mental, emotional, spiritual and bodily desires for solely selfish ends is indeed truest proof of heart circumcision. His testings proved how truly the world, the flesh and the devil were cut off from Him. This utter refusal on His part either to live or die for self gave power to His cross to become the instrument of God unto circumcision. To receive it all we must be baptized into His death.

By circumcision this baptism was directly linked with the original covenant promise to Abraham. Canaan was the land of promise given originally to him by God, wherein all God's promises to him were to find fulfilment. Insisting upon this before anything else should take place, the Lord was beginning again at the beginning and showing the deep fundamental importance of the Baptism — what it is, what it deals with, and the means by which it is accomplished. At the same time He also showed that the Passover was secondary in importance to circumcision, for it is plain that the feast may only be kept by people already in the covenant of circumcision. This order of truth is strikingly brought out in Colossians 2 by Paul, where he speaks of circumcision in verse 11, and then afterwards of the spoiling of principalities and powers in verse 15. Going on from that point, he first tells us of our completeness in Him who is the head of them all, showing that all was accomplished by the cross and death and burial and resurrection of Christ. Thus we find that what We have discussed of the Red Sea and Jordan is joined in one in the New Testament doctrine of Christ. In Him all is dealt with at once, for all was done by Him in one glorious act.

The wandering man of the wilderness is an uncircumcised man. He may be out of Egypt, but he is also out of a personal experience of the covenant which is most vital to him. Man's salvation rests only in the fact that God covenanted to save him; apart from that covenant he has ho hope at all. The important thing was to be not only out of the world, but also in God's covenanted Salvation in the Promised Land, otherwise there was no point in bringing them out of Egypt. That is why, after forty years of wandering, the only way into Canaan for them was by baptism, just as for their fathers the final episode of the exodus from Egypt was by the Red Sea. Following our earlier practice of putting the two incidents together, we arrive at the truth. God had told them in Egypt that they were to keep the Passover when they were come to the Land; it was never conceived or instituted as a wilderness feast. So although the Passover came first in national history, upon crossing Jordan it was placed in its correct position by the Lord, that is secondary to and dependent upon personal circumcision.

Long before the institution of the Passover, the Lord, in Abraham, constituted membership of the race in the sign of circumcision — 'the seal of the faith'. The race was fathered in circumcision. Born in circumcision, it was emancipated in the Passover which was to be 'kept' annually only in remembrance of a past redemption by blood, water and Spirit, but circumcision is an intensely individual thing. By its very nature it has to be a personal, intimate experience, not a national ritual kept by all at once on one special day of the year; circumcision was almost certainly being ministered to someone every day of the year throughout the whole nation. Thus as God intended, it became the basic 'common' ritual of everyday life and not a special religious festival. Individuals were personally, privately brought into the covenant by circumcision, and thereby qualified to eat the lamb; no-one else was allowed the privilege. The penalty for eating the Passover uncircumcised was death. God does not allow uncircumcision to accompany possession. At Gilgal His perfect will was applied to His people. All being adjusted to the eternal order, we discover that circumcision precedes the Passover; the reason for this being that it is the greater of the two.

Rectifying their disorder and putting all things in proper perspective, God caused them to keep the Passover in the bond of the Covenant as He originally intended. It is only as we accept the implications of this that we may arrive at the full message of the type, for the Lord Jesus combined both the Circumcision and the Passover at the cross. When dying as the Passover Lamb, He not only shed the Lamb's passover blood, He also forged the sharp knife of circumcision for use in connection with the One Baptism. It was as improper to keep the Passover and be uncircumcised as it was to be circumcised and not keep the Passover. Upon reading the New Testament, we find that the work of the cross seems to point the fact that, beyond impropriety, in the realm of the Spirit it is impossible also.

The third thing recorded at this point is just as surely joined to the Passover as the Passover was to Circumcision, and by the Passover is linked with it: 'The Manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land'. This was something else the Lord had been aiming to do. Manna was a mystery, as its name signifies; it had been their wilderness food. Supplied originally by God as a temporary measure, it was intended only to be a short-term provision until His people should reach 'the land of corn and wine'. He had no more intended them to live the rest of their lives on Manna than He had originally intended them to live for forty years in the wilderness; He had always had something better in mind for them. Their fathers had once said that their souls loathed 'this light food'; it was a strong expression, but they felt they wanted something more solid and meaty, and of greater variety than the Manna, and God had lovingly provided some better thing for these their children but not in the wilderness. Manna, we are told, was really angels' food. Small, white, wafer-thin and honey-like, it was an emergency ration only. God's real intention and provision for them was the corn of the land, so He brought the nation over Jordan in the time of barley harvest. Now although this was so, we must note that upon entrance into the land they did not eat of their own immediate reaping and threshing. Likewise they did not eat of the stores laid up by dint of their own self-effort; they were not allowed to eat new corn either, but 'the old corn of the land'. It was the new food for a new people in a new land.

Manna represents Jesus in the body of His flesh as He is revealed in the Gospels, an entirely unknown entity, unknowable in quantity and quality. They never could understand what He meant when He said, 'My Father is in Me', or 'I and My Father are one'. Who was He? What was He? Was He really three in one and one in three? Reading John 14, we find Jesus saying to Philip, 'Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me?' No-one apparently knew Jesus Christ after the flesh. He was a complete mystery even to His disciples before Pentecost. Consistently with this whole truth, we read in John chapter 6 that having fed the multitude in the wilderness, Jesus, in talking with those who came after Him, made reference to this Manna. He said, 'Moses gave you not that bread in the wilderness, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven'. He was speaking of Himself, but they were mystified, for He had deliberately changed the figure from Manna to Old Corn or Bread, that is from the wilderness food to the food of the promised land. Of old in the wilderness His Father had given Manna, or angels' food to the Children of Israel, but now He was offering them His very own food if they would have it. They were actually being given the opportunity of accepting God's living, life-giving bread — Jesus. Jesus is the Bread of God, the original 'Old Corn' of the land, but they had no appetite or taste for Him.

Old Corn, gathered up and stored from an old or past harvest is not for the old man; he seeks to feed on small, white, round, sweet, seed-like things gathered in the morning dew, tasting like honey, mixed and milled together for staple diet, the result of the ritual of the self-effort of early rising and much searching. True it was better than hunting for straw and stubble in Egyptian slavery, but it was not God's best, except under the circumstances. Miraculous it was, but not mature. God-given and guaranteed, it was created fresh every morning from heaven, with a glory sweet and precious among men, but not yet the Jesus ascended up into the former and everlasting glory that He had with His Father before the world was. The bread of the new man is the Jesus in and of the Spirit, not Jesus in the flesh, though both are essentially the same for they are one.

At the time of speaking Jesus was God's bread, but not yet man's, for the simple reason that He had not yet died and risen again. Moreover, those to whom He was speaking were all as yet unborn — their nature was Old Man. The risen, glorified Lord of the Acts and the Epistles and the Revelation is the new man's true bread. He is God the Father's bread; the Father feeds on the Son even as the Son feeds on and lives by the Father — each is food to the other. So when upon crossing Jordan and being circumcised and partaking of the passover lamb they ate of the old corn of the land, the Children of Israel ate new food. Thus it is that in progression of true spiritual thought, as well as in scriptural order, we pass from the truth of circumcision to the passover and then on to the provision of the old corn of the land. From there it is but a step, and fourthly we are brought to see and recognize the captain of the Lord's host.

Joshua, out walking one day, sees a man with a drawn sword in his hand. Approaching him, Joshua is warned not to draw nigh but to take his shoes from off his feet because he is standing on holy ground. When Joshua asked this man if he was on Israel's side or for their enemies, he replied, 'As Captain of the Lord's host am I now come'. Hitherto Joshua had been recognized as Israel's captain, but now a heavenly captain appears and Joshua on earth had to give place to him. Something like this also happened to Jesus in the flesh. The two on the Emmaus road as good as said so: 'We trusted that it had been He that had redeemed Israel', they said of the earthly Jesus to the unrecognised 'Stranger'. But He soon identified Himself to be the same Jesus when they broke bread at Emmaus and thus He was referred to by the angels later on the mount of Ascension.

He had said earlier in the guest chamber in Jerusalem before His crucifixion, 'I will come to you ... at that day'. So on 'that day' of Pentecost He came by the Spirit to take up His rightful place at the head of His people. According to the heavenly revelation, that day coincided with the Lamb standing in the midst of the throne with the book in His hands, and breaking the first seal, so that the rider on the white horse should go forth conquering and to conquer. By the Spirit, Jesus of earth who had become Jesus of the heavens came all unseen, yet now to be known in all fullness to His people as Captain of the Lord's host. He was the same Jesus of Nazareth they had followed on earth, come back to lead them on in victory unto victory.

So in the type before us we see Joshua the man-captain on earth bowing and yielding to this Man-Captain from heaven. It is a picture, though not yet the fullest picture, of what happened on the day of Pentecost. 'At that day' Jesus came to them with the sword of the Spirit in His hand to lead His people on to complete victory and full possession of their inheritance. Whilst He was with them in the flesh they rejoiced and entered into His blessings and shared in His ministry; now they were to enter into that which was their own. Having been faithful in that which was another Man's (His) they were given their own, and how truly they inherited and lived in it all in His name and power, and for His sake. Thus we see the way that circumcision finds its fuller outcome in victory under the personal captaincy of Jesus. We are to find our inheritance among all them who are sanctified; we are on holy ground. All the hosts and powers of darkness that have invested Mansoul are indeed defeated and destroyed in this Baptism, and we are to prove it so.

Finally, and in connection with this, before we leave this account of the Children of Israel at Gilgal, we will notice one thing more. The opening verses of this fifth chapter show quite clearly the defeated condition of the Canaanites. All that the people of God needed to do was to act with the moral courage of faith, in the spiritual power of Christ, under His leadership, and possession was assured. The inhabitants of the land were shut up in fear and trembling. The news of what God had done for His people in delivering them from Pharaoh had preceded them. Oh why then had they wasted their time in the wilderness of internal strifes and rebellion and revolution for forty years? All the nations in Canaan already knew and had known in their hearts for forty years that they were defeated; the defeat of the major power at the Red Sea had also been the death-knell to all other powers. All these knew it, and were afraid of the Children of Israel, yet the Children of Israel had been afraid of them. How paradoxical is the spiritual state to which disobedience degrades us! Nevertheless, we see that not only was their heavenly Joshua come to them at this time, but their enemies were found to be without power also. Our risen Lord has told us that all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth, 'Go ye into all the world', He said, 'and preach the gospel to every creature', and 'lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world'.

When the Ark of the Lord of all the earth had gone over Jordan before the Children of Israel it was immediately followed by the armed men leading the rest of the nation on their way into the promised land. They were going to possess Canaan by conquest as well as by promise and gift. From this fact we have much to learn, because for us Canaan represents Mansoul. By crossing over in this order they staked their claim to the land in its entirety; they were in. So it is with us in regeneration. At the immediate point of our birth / Baptism the new life and manhood is assured; the soul is saved; the future is secured; the ultimate destiny is fixed; yet possession of all our possessions in the immediate and progressive future depends entirely upon obedience to our heavenly Jesus. Each individual of old had to possess his own inheritance for himself. At the time of crossing they all knew beyond question that they were the people of God and the extent of their land, but no-one knew as yet the particular lot of his inheritance. This each of them had to discover and possess for himself.

Whatever it meant to them then, today we must understand that the extent of 'the land' we are to possess is the entirety of the soul-state of the proper man, Christ Jesus. Each individual is promised and privileged, and therefore must possess the glory of that blessed state in his own soul; that is the fullness of the length and depth and breadth and height of the promise. But knowing it for himself he may not therein rest content, for the battle must be joined until all regenerate spirits commonly enjoy in their own souls Jesus' personal soul-life; this is 'the lot of our inheritance'. Not knowing the exact number of souls that are saved or are yet to be saved, our commission is to press on until all are in possession of their souls — until no power or state foreign to those known and enjoyed by our one Lord shall remain in the soul of any redeemed person. We all must enjoy our common heritage; in our souls all the promises of God for us in Christ Jesus must find fulfilment. The Lord seals us with His Spirit that this should be so, telling us that all God's promises are in Him 'Yes' and in Him 'Amen'.

In Jesus every one of God's promises was fulfilled as well as all the Law and the commandments and ordinances. He lived His eternal life in and by these to the glory of God the Father, that we who are in Him may also glorify God as they are fulfilled in us as our own conscious experience of eternal life. They were fulfilled in and enjoyed by Him to God's glory and it was precisely in this accomplishment that His soul-life lay: these same experiences that He knew are also our inheritance, for this is the life He laid down in order that we might have it. We do not fully inherit our land, that is the full possibilities and capacities of our souls, whilst living on this earth, unless by His Spirit we are enjoying His spotless soul-life. Being spiritually regenerated by the Baptism, we have to possess (take in possession) our own souls. We are saved from sin because He, having preserved His own soul from sin grants us to know and show forth His own victorious living. Our eternal spiritual inheritance is God, not a land; because He came to us as a Man we may truly inherit Him. Only as we do so shall we surely inherit true and fullest manhood here and now.

Because Israel of old became obsessed with their land and their possessions and not with the God of all the earth, they comparatively soon lost what they had gained. By this let us be warned in our day. We must not allow the present popular trend of preaching, which over-emphasizes the emergence and manifestation of the sons of God and their inheritance, and their ministry and gifts and joys and blessings and soul-states, to become the main content of our ministry, lest running on unchecked to its logical end, it should so fill our vision that we lose sight of Him. Should we do that we shall lose all. The subtle danger is all the more insidious because it lies unseen and unrecognised beneath the surface of such phrases as 'Body-ministry', 'Deliverance', etc. Talk about milk and honey, and vines and wines and pomegranates and inheritances and possessions could, if unwatched, result in the exact opposite of what is intended. God's purpose is to shift the soul from self to Christ, not from Christ to self. Ministry must be of Him and not of subjective experience, though the two must never be divorced. The latter is manifestly subject to the former, because it is and ever must be the proper enjoyment of it. I must be in Christ, not dwelling in self, or in mere joy or blessings or a hundred other additional soul-states that His salvation provides, wonderful and real in me as they are. Perhaps one of the biggest lessons we have to learn in these days is that which John on Patmos points out for all who have eyes to see, as well as ears to hear. When he saw the Lord revealed in the midst of the churches, John says that His body was covered. Head and hands and feet were exposed, but the body was thoroughly clothed from head to foot; it was obviously there, but hidden. Let us all agree to let it remain so. We are told to hold the Head, not the body, for the body is us. We are to hold and enjoy the experience of the Head; it is only for this that the Body exists at all.

We must therefore note the relationship between the destruction of the devil and all his hosts in the earlier picture of this Baptism and the full conquest of the land. This latter entailed many battles with many powers and princes until all had rest, while the former was a cataclysmic judgement resulting in total annihilation. A full study of the book of Joshua with this in mind would be out of place here, so confining ourselves strictly to the theme, we note that all the time the Children of Israel maintained the order of God and destroyed everything, leaving nothing to breathe, all was well. The joint lesson of the Flood, the Red Sea and Jordan is totality — complete, constant destruction. To disregard this fundamental lesson is finally to lose all. The Children of Israel proceeded in utter victory all the time they practised utter destruction. God ordered complete extermination of all the former inhabitants of Canaan, but altering that to partial extermination with a degree of subjugation, the Children of Israel brought about their own undoing. The land was never totally cleared of the seven nations that previously indwelt it, and was therefore never fully occupied by Israel alone. Conquest, sadly enough, was mixed with compromise which inevitably ultimately turned conquest into defeat.

The secret of utter victory is first to understand the devastating all-comprehensive power and intention of the cross, and then to carry it over into every situation of life. Paul, in I Corinthians 15, says 'thanks be to God who giveth us the victory'. Note the definiteness of it — not a victory, but the victory'. He also says in Romans 8 that we are 'more than conquerors'. What a glorious position! To fight a battle and win it is to be a conqueror, but if one lives in the blessing and glory of a former victory, enjoying what is won, he is more than a conqueror, he is a ruler and sharer of the spoil. Scripture assures us that Jesus divides the spoil with the strong. He won the victory and gives it to us, inviting us to live and rule in it with Him; His is a shared victory. This is His eternal life, which is the gift of God to us. There are too many people fighting too many battles, struggling to get the victory in their own lives, when they ought to be resting and ruling with Him. Because Paul needed not to fight his own battles, he was free to fight for other people. He had great conflict he said, but it was for the Colossians and the Laodiceans and others in need, not for himself. Like His Lord, he was free from his own inner conflicts, so that he could fight for the world of men that they also might enter into the victory of Jesus.

Certain it is that we shall never in this life, if ever, fully understand the mystery of Jesus' work at Calvary, and there will almost certainly be occasions when we are pressed out of measure beyond strength so that we even despair of our life, but this need not be because of inner conflicts. Jesus knew such times. Those who have experienced the true Baptism are crucified with Christ unto His death and resurrection within themselves, so that they can and do live by His faith and not their own. To such people inner conflict can only arise if they seek to re-introduce their own self-life again. Subtle or blatant assertion of one's own will, or questioning the wisdom of God, or disobeying the word of God, or seeking one's own interests will most certainly do it. Seeking one's own life and finding it destroys the work of God in the soul. By such things spiritual gifts sink into psychic powers (spectacular but not spiritual, and if persisted in, self-destructive), or fleshly demonstrations, or else they disappear entirely. But let a person seek nothing else except to fulfil and achieve the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, which is that same high(est) calling of God to which Jesus responded and followed throughout all His life on earth, and he shall entirely possess all his possessions — for that is exactly how our Joshua / Jesus possessed His.

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