Joshua, and the Land of Promise

The best way to vindicate the Bible is to preach it. Each book contains within itself, sometimes in cypher, the autograph of the Holy Spirit. Every page has the water-mark of Heaven. And a patient consideration of the contents of Scripture, as of the book before us, will leave a stronger impression of God’s authority and authorship than any number of external evidences.

In addition to this, and altogether apart from the spiritual lessons that may be derived from a devout study of Old Testament Scriptures, there accrues to the thoughtful mind an ever-deepening conviction that, instrumentally, they date from the pens of contemporary historians. It is impossible to believe that a writer, after the return from exile, could have told the story with the vividness, the realism, the minute life-like touches, in which it is presented to us in the historical books of the Old Testament. In the perspective of time, many things that bulk largely to their contemporaries are dismissed as unworthy of notice, whilst general principles are discussed to the ignoring of details. But the reverse of these meets us in every paragraph of that wonderful series of books, of which the story of Joshua is one.

This study, in which the scenes of the conquest of Canaan are narrated again with such help as modern investigation affords, may thus confirm the wavering faith of some. But my main object has been to bring out the wonderful parallels between the story of this book and the experiences of the Church and the individual Christian — parallels so minute and precise as to establish with added force our faith in the Bible as one book, the production of one mind, which “at sundry times and in divers manners” has spoken to men.

In writing this book, I have, amongst other works, read Dean Stanley’s “Jewish Church “; “Joshua, his Life AND Times,” by Rev. W. J. Deane; “The Book of Joshua,” by H. F. Witherby; “The Fullness of Blessing,” by S. F. Smiley; and other smaller books: to all of which I gladly confess my obligations.

“What if Earth Be but the shadow of Heaven, — and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought!”

Milton.

THE order of the books of the Old Testament is due to something more than human selection, or even the period of their composition. The same Spirit that originally inspired them has manifestly controlled their position in the sacred Book. Gefiesis begins with God, and leads us back to the origin of that divine grace which strives against human sin; loves man before ever there is aught in man to warrant it; and binds itself by a covenant, “ordered in all things and sure.” Exodus tells the story of redemption; Leviticus, of worship; Numbers, of our position in the ordered ranks of God’s army; Deuteronomy, of that more spiritual conception of the law of God which is produced by love and faith; and the Book of Joshua is r.a indispensable link in this chain of symbolical teaching.

Finally, the history of the soul may be traced through the disorder of Judges to the royalty of the Kings; and onward to the hallelujahs of the Psalms and the prophetic visions of the following books.

There is, then, a special inner meaning in the Book of Joshua, which cannot be exhausted when we have learned from it the story of the extermination of the Canaanites; of the partition and settlement of Canaan; and of the noble simplicity and military exploits of Joshua. It is impossible to suppose that so much space should have been given to the record of these, unless there had been some deep and holy purpose — similar to that which has given such minute directions for Levitical sacrifice, each of which contained some deep spiritual truth required for the growth of holy souls throughout the ages. Of the Book of Joshua, as of the Paschal Lamb and the Passage of the Red Sea, it may be said, “All these things happened unto them for ensamples.”

The clue to this inner meaning is given by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the third and fourth chapters of which are all-important in determining the drift of our interpretation; and it is to the clearer appreciation of the true meaning of these chapters that we must attribute the increasing interest with which the church of God turns to this record of the simple-minded, transparent, humble, and strong soldier, the Miles Standish of the Exodus. If the river Jordan stands for physical death, and Canaan for heaven, there seems to be no satisfactory interpretation for many items which are narrated with significant minuteness, ere we come to the conquest and partition of the land; and on this line of interpretation there would be some anomaly in associating fighting with the calm restfulness of the New Jerusalem.

A careful study of the chapters referred to shows us that “HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST JESUS.” 9

though Canaan was not flie rest of God — because he spoke of rest through an unknown temple singer, four hundred years after Canaan was occupied — yet it was a vivid type of that blessed Sabbath-keeping into which we may enter here and now. We are to fear lest we “should seem to come short “of the rest, even as they whose carcasses fell in the wilderness came short of the Land of Promise. “We which have believed do enter into that rest.” Our Lord Jesus has entered into his rest, as God did into his; and has therefore received the ideal Land of Canaan, as the representative of his followers to whom he allots it as they believe. We are summoned to give diligence to enter into that rest, that “no man fall after the same example of disobedience.”

All these references go to establish the spiritual significance of this wonderful story, which tells of that satisfaction of rest, wealth, and victory which may be enjoyed by those who have come to know the secret things which God hath prepared for them which love him, and which are revealed by his Spirit- Oh that that Spirit may use these chapters for the purpose of leading many of God’s redeemed ones from the wilderness life into that rest! For that we have been redeemed; for that we have passed through the Red Sea; to convince us of our need of that we have been permitted to hunger and thirst in the desert waste; and our possession of that will alone convince the world that the Lord Jesus is the Christ of God. We were indeed brought out that we might be brought in; redeemed that we might be a purchased possession; justified that we might be sanctified and glorified.

There is another book in the New Testament in deep spiritual accord with the story told in the Book of Joshua, viz., the Epistle to the Ephesians; which rises above all its kin as the soaring cathedral tower rises above the maze of lO THE ‘BOOK OF fOSHU/f.

architecture beneath — on which it rests indeed, but whfdt it crowns, and carries within its heart bells that ring out the wedding peal. Already in that epistle we can detect notes which are to announce the consummation of creation in the marriage of the Lamb. The Book of Joshua is to the Old Testament what the Epistle to the Ephesians is to the New.

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