Tonight, we resume our study of the book of Joshua. I didn’t intend to, but last time we were in Joshua I left everyone with a bit of a cliffhanger.
I preached Joshua 3, which begins a huge event in the life of the history of God’s people. After being miraculously redeemed from slavery in Egypt, after being led through the parting of the red sea and walking on dry ground through it, and after 40 years of wandering through the desert, God’s people finally begin to enter the promised land.
They finally begin to take possession of the land that God had promised to their father Abraham so many hundreds of years before. But chapter 3 ends with them in the middle of the process of crossing the Jordan river. They are in transition. The people were crossing over, and the priests, holding the ark of God’s Covenant, which is the representation of God’s own presence, they are standing in the middle of the dry riverbed after God had miraculously parted the waters, just as he had done 40 years ago in the red sea.
That’s where we will pick up tonight, mid-stream we might say, and pick up the second half of this miraculous episode. Let’s read together Joshua chapter 4, and conclude the story of God’s people finally entering into the promised land:
When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 2 “Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, 3 and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’” 4 Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. 5 And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, 6 that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ 7 then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”
8 And the people of Israel did just as Joshua commanded and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, just as the Lord told Joshua. And they carried them over with them to the place where they lodged and laid them down there. 9 And Joshua set up[b] twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood; and they are there to this day. 10 For the priests bearing the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua.
The people passed over in haste. 11 And when all the people had finished passing over, the ark of the Lord and the priests passed over before the people. 12 The sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh passed over armed before the people of Israel, as Moses had told them. 13 About 40,000 ready for war passed over before the Lord for battle, to the plains of Jericho. 14 On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses, all the days of his life.
15 And the Lord said to Joshua, 16 “Command the priests bearing the ark of the testimony to come up out of the Jordan.”17 So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” 18 And when the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up from the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were lifted up on dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks, as before.
19 The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. 20 And those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. 21 And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ 23 For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, 24 so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
As we work through this large chunk of text, I’d like to highlight 3 points for us tonight. The first of which is the significance of the crossing. The significance of the crossing.
We’ll start by doing a little bit of biblical theology. I’d like for us to first look at the big picture of what is happening here, and notice some themes. We might say, let’s zoom out, and see how the Old Testament, and indeed the whole bible, views the significance of this event, and see how that also makes a difference in how we read our bibles.
One key point for us to observe is that the crossing of the Jordan River here in Joshua 4 is seen as a continuation of God’s prior work of redeeming Israel out of slavery in Egypt.[1] Or to say it another way, God leading his people out of Egypt and Into the promised land are not seen as two disconnected events, but rather as one unified act of God’s redeeming his people.
Let me show you from scripture what I mean. The parallels between our text about the crossing of the Jordan river, and the Exodus event of crossing of the Red Sea are pretty clear. Even children can recognize the connections between the two events.
But what is interesting is that later passages in the Old Testament blur the lines between the two events even further. For example, hold your finger here and turn with me briefly to Psalm 114. Psalm 114:
When Israel went out from Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
2 Judah became his sanctuary,
Israel his dominion.
3 The sea looked and fled;
Jordan turned back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like lambs.
5 What ails you, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
The psalmist here is speaking of the Event of the exodus and the event of the Jordan being stopped as if they were a single event. There is continuity in God’s work, from beginning to end. God’s plan of redemption started in Egypt, but it was not complete until they crossed over the Jordan in order to take possession of their inheritance.
Indeed, there are even hints of this connection earlier in the history of Israel. When Moses and the people are on the safety of the banks of the red sea, and Egypt’s army had just been judged by God in the waters, Moses speaks of the people entering into the promised land with such assurance that he speaks in the past tense: “You brought them in and planted them on the mountain of your own possession,
the place, O Lord, that you made your abode,
the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established.” Exodus 15:17 (NRSV).
Moses was so confident of God’s work of bringing his people into the land that he had promised, that he could speak of it as if it were in the past tense.
There are other connections in the text that tie together the events of the Exodus and the Jordan crossing as well. I won’t chase all of these, but consider a few of these similarities between the journey out of Egypt and the journey into the promised land:
- The exodus story begins with a deception, the Hebrew midwives and the story of moses in the basket. So too does the journey into the promised land begin with spies and Rahab’s deception.
- Similarly, the Exodus episode contains a memorial meal and circumcision, just like we will see in Joshua 5 after the crossing of the Jordan.
- The two crossings of the red sea and the Jordan are linked by the provision of manna from heaven, which ceases immediately after they enter the land, Joshua 5:12.
- In Joshua 5, Joshua meets the commander of God’s army and is told to take off his sandals, parallelling Moses’s experience of meeting with God in the burning bush and being told to remove his shoes.
Lord willing, we will see more of these kinds of connections next week when we get into chapter 5, but my goal tonight is to get you to see that the Exodus event and the entrance into the promised land aren’t two disconnected things. They are seen in scripture as two connected episodes within God’s one plan of salvation for his people.
So if that is the case, then the question you might have is, “so what? Why does that matter?”
Well, it matters because scripture uses the exodus event as a picture for a deeper reality. He uses the physical redemption of his people from slavery in Egypt as a picture for the spiritual reality of salvation from slavery to sin.
And if that is the case, then let’s tease out some of the implications for our understanding of salvation in the New Testament, and see how understanding the continuity of God’s plan of redemption from Exodus to Canaan helps us understand the salvation experience we all share in the new covenant.
Just like Israel’s redemption from slavery was a process that involved two transitions, through the waters of the red sea through the waters of the Jordan, so too is salvation in the new covenant book-ended through two transitions. We enter into the covenant publicly through our baptism, and we enter into the final promised land when we transition through death.
Furthermore, the continuity of God’s work of redemption is helpful because we can rightly speak of God having redeemed his people in the exodus, and that he was keeping them redeemed through the desert, and that he finally redeemed them into their inheritance across the Jordan. Their redemption happened at the Red Sea, was happening through the desert, and was finally completed when they entered into the land. Redemption from three different angles.
That same perspective is used in the new testament to speak of our salvation. The New Testament speaks of us :
- being saved at our conversion (past tense),
- of us currently being saved through God’s work sustaining us now,
- and we will finally be saved when we are united with Him in our heavenly inheritance.
The biblical authors speak of our salvation, of our redemption in all three tenses, and us seeing the continuity of the Exodus through the Jordan helps us understand that picture.
But, before we move on to the second point, I want us also to notice that there are differences between the Exodus and the Jordan crossing. And highlighting those differences will also help us highlight the glory of New Covenant redemption as well.
We might say that there is an intensification, or an escalation, as we move from different pictures of salvation in the bible. And that escalation in the images, which increases as we move closer and closer to Jesus.
So for example, in the Exodus event, it was the staff of Moses, the prophet of God that stands on the first bank that is the instrument that God uses to separate the waters. But that’s not what happens in the Jordan. Something different happens when they cross into the promised land.
It’s not the staff of Moses or Joshua from the bank, but it is the Ark of the Covenant, the image of God’s very presence is what leads the people of God into the waters. It’s as if God is preaching to us that He will be the one who stands in the waters. Unlike the Red Sea, God is the one who will take the lead through the waters of judgement. No mediator here; its not Joshua or Moses. God himself stands in the gap.
And that escalation, that difference between the Exodus and the Jordan, points us toward the New Covenant, where God himself is the one who stands in the midst of judgment on the cross. The almighty God who split the red sea and stopped up the Jordan, that same God in the person of the Son is hanging on the cross, leading the way for His people to inherit blessing.
It’s as if, on Calvary, the waters of judgment are released again, but not on the wicked Egyptians this time, but upon the perfect Son of God.
He bears the wrath, he takes the punishment of His people, he suffers, not through holding up a heavy staff, not through carrying some wooden box on poles, he suffers in his flesh on that tree, so that God’s people might walk through the dry ground, through the grave, into their heavenly promised land and into their inheritance.
That’s how we connect our biblical theology. That’s how we use our big picture reading of scripture to connect the different images of redemption.
Don’t you see the glory of New covenant, and how the Captain of our salvation is greater than even Joshua or Moses? Don’t you see the glory of God in the plan of the cross? Marvel at the mercy of God, that he’d be willing to sacrifice his own son so that a wicked nation might be redeemed.
Trust in that Savior. Cherish his work, and love him because of his glorious, connected work of redemption, first pictured in the Exodus, and now secured in the final Exodus.
Now, let’s keep going, and I want to zoom back into our text. We’ve been at the high level, now I want to move back into some details of the text.
When they had passed over, God tells Joshua to pick up some stones and set up a memorial. We’ll get to that in a bit. First, I’d like to pick up in verse 10 and notice the Lord’s Awesome Servant. The Lord’s Awesome Servant.
Look again at verse 10: The people passed over in haste. 11 And when all the people had finished passing over, the ark of the Lord and the priests passed over before the people. 12 The sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh passed over armed before the people of Israel, as Moses had told them. 13 About 40,000 ready for war passed over before the Lord for battle, to the plains of Jericho. 14 On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses, all the days of his life.
Verse 14 makes clear that this whole miraculous episode had an effect among the people. The work of the Lord led to the exaltation of the servant of the Lord. That’s how God often works in the lives of his people.
God’s miraculous works lead to a sense of Awe and wonder, resulting in the exaltation of the servant of the Lord. Just as they had stood in Awe of Moses, the text says. You can read about that in Exodus 14:31.
God parted the red sea, letting them walk over on dry ground, and then he judged the Egyptian army by collapsing the walls of water upon them, and one result of that whole episode is that God’s people fear him, and then the text specifically says they believed in the Lord’s servant Moses.
Awe and reverence among the people, and trust in the servant.
In fact, you could do a whole study on the theme of God’s works producing Awe and amazement in the bible.
The Lord’s servant David was given great success by God and the result was that Saul stood in fearful awe of him, 1 Samuel 18:15.
Later, David’s son Solomon had a similar effect when he ruled between the two prostitutes fighting over the child. 1 Kings 3:28 says, “And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him.”
God’s mighty works produce Awe among his people, resulting in the exaltation of the servant of the Lord. You could look at other places like Psalm 66 or Psalm 106 and see the mighty work of God in the Exodus as specifically linked with producing awesome wonder in His people.
And all of this builds until we get to the New Testament, where we see the final servant of the Lord exalted high and producing Awe. But it doesn’t happen the way that we would expect.
We would expect God’s Son to be a glorious military king ,to come in and subdue all the enemies of God’s people at the tip of a sword.
But that’s not what happens. In fact, we do see the son of God exalted high, not on a throne or pedestal, but lifted up on a cross. He’s elevated, but not exalted as we would expect.
In fact, do you remember what happens in Matthew 27 after the crucifixion of Jesus?
The text says, “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.52 … 54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!””
Just like with Moses and Joshua, God’s mighty work of redemption produced awe and wonder. Even the pagan was marveling at the Son of God.
There’s a hymn from a few decades ago called “I stand in Awe of you” and one line says this:
You are beautiful beyond description
Yet God crushed You for my sin
In agony and deep affliction
Cut off that I might enter in
That’s exactly what has happened on the cross. He was cut off, so that I might enter in, So that you might enter in.
He was separated, so that we might never be. He was granted the curses of the covenant, so that we might taste only of covenant blessings.
Lord forgive us for becoming dull to such glorious good news. Forgive us from becoming numb to this awesome reality. If Christ’s sacrifice doesn’t move you, if it no longer amazes you, then you need to repent.
The gospel ought to drive us to awe-struck worship and praise, it should move our feet to be ready to serve him, it should loosen our lips to speak of his gracious work on our behalf.
Do you know this awesome God and his wonderfully-good news? I hope you do. I hope you trust in him and relish in the gospel to the core of your very being.
I hope you believe, because scripture doesn’t say that Christ’s awe stops at the cross.
In fact, another very clear time that the Lord is spoken of in terms of being awesome is on the day of final judgment when Christ returns.
Joel 2 says, “For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?”
Or Zephaniah 2 which says:
“The Lord will be awesome against [his enemies];
for he will famish all the gods of the earth,
and to him shall bow down,
each in its place,
all the lands of the nations.”
All nations will bow down before this awesome God, and the unbelievers will be judged and cast out into outer darkness because they refused to honor him as Lord in this life.
Don’t let that be the case. Consider the awesome works of God recounted for you in scripture. Trust in his exalted servant Jesus Christ, his own Son, who came and was lifted up on the cross so that sinner might be spared. He was elevated at Calvary, so that he might be exalted in the hearts of all people.
Believe in him and you too can know the blessing of life eternal in the land that he’s promised to his people, the new heaven and the new earth to come.
Finally, we’ve seen the significance of the crossing and the exaltation of the servant, now let’s move to the last point and see the necessity of a memorial. The necessity of a memorial
God tells Joshua to gather up 12 stones, one for each tribe, as they pass through the dry Jordan. These stones were to be used to set up a little memorial marker.
Stones had been used similarly, earlier in the history of God’s people. For example, when Jacob had his dream about angels ascending and descending to heaven, he later anointed the stone on which he had slept, and set it up like a pillar, Genesis 28.
Likewise here, stones were to be used as a reminder of the significant events of that day. And as we will see at the end of Joshua in chapter 24, a large stone is again used to be a witness to the covenant between Joshua as God’s representative, and the people of Israel.
Why stones? Well, stone is universally seen as the most long-lasting substance. Humanly speaking, it lasts forever. It won’t be blown away by wind. It won’t be washed away by rain. And so, the memorial would last. In modern language, its as if God is telling his people to write this down and use a sharpie.
There is a little debate among the commentaries about how many memorials are set up in this text: is it one stack of stones or two? Verse 9 says that Joshua set up 12 stones in the middle of the Jordan where the feet of the priests were standing, and those stones are still there to this day, the text says.
And then verse 20 says they set up twelve stones in Gilgal. So was it one set of 12 stones that was initially in the river, but later moved? If so, how could they be in the river to this day? I think there were two different stacks of stones. One in the river, and one in Gilgal.
Either way, the main point is clear: they used stone, the most durable material they had, to set up a perpetual reminder of what God had done. Those stones served as a permanent history lesson, prompting his people to recall God’s might and power and faithfulness to his promise.
And these stones weren’t merely for the current generation. Look at Verse 21:
And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ 23 For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, 24 so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
There was a discipleship component to this memorial. They were to pass on the reminder. They were to train their children to know and to remember what God had done.
This discipleship component, by way of brief application, reminds each of us of our duty to pass on to the next generation the news of what God has done. Parents and grandparents should remember their duty to inform their children of what God has done through his might works.
None of us was born with the knowledge of what God has done in redemption. Nobody reasons their way to God on their own. We must be taught, we must hear from someone else what God has done, and may we be ever faithful to proclaim that good news.
Don’t wait for your children to ask what these stones mean; tell them. Tell them early and tell them often.
In fact, in God’s wonderful providence, we have another memorial tonight that we get to point to.
Our greater Joshua, our great captain of salvation, Jesus Christ, has set up a memorial for us. But it is no mere memorial of stone. It is a memorial of flesh and blood.
He’s set up the Lord’s supper as a perpetual reminder of what he has done in redemption. At the cost of his own life, the separation of his body and blood, we have been given entrance into the new covenant.
[1] For more on this connection: Alastair Roberts, Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption through Scripture (Wheaton: Crossway, 2018), 53-54. This work was instrumental in my thinking about this passage. Highly recommended.
