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This morning we are to think together of the first move that Joshua made in response to the commission he had received from God in order to take Israel over the Jordan and into their inheritance. So let us begin by reading some verses that will remind us of those familiar stories that tell the record of that great operation. Then alongside of them, let us read some verses from the New Testament that tell us what God has done at that basic level to qualify us also and to lead us into our inheritance.
So we begin to read in Joshua chapter two verse eight: And before they were laid down, she, that is Rahab, came up unto them upon the roof. And she said unto the men, I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you, eh, when you came out of Egypt, and what you did unto the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond Jordan, unto Sihon and to Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
And as soon as we heard it, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more spirit in any man because of you. For the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the Lord, since I have dealt kindly with you, that ye also will deal kindly with my father's house and give me a true token, and that you will save alive my father and my mother and my brethren and my sisters and all that they have, and will deliver our lives from death.
And the men said unto her, Our life for yours, if you utter not this our business, and it shall be when the Lord giveth us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee. Chapter three and verse nineteen. Sorry, chapter three and verse nine. Three verse nine. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither and hear the words of the Lord your God. And Joshua said, Hereby shall you know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites.
Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now, therefore, take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, for every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass when the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, and the waters of Jordan shall be cut off, even the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand in one heap.
It came to pass when the people removed from their tents to pass over Jordan, the priests that bear the ark of the covenant being before the people. And when they that bear the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bear the ark were dipped in the brink of the water, for Jordan overthroweth its all its banks all the time of harvest, that the waters which came down from above stood and rose up in one heap a great way off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan. And those that went down toward the sea of Araba, even the salt sea, were wholly cut off, and the people passed over right against Jericho.
And the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all Israel passed over on dry ground until all the nations were clean passed over Jordan. Some verses from the epistle to the Colossians chapter one and verse twelve: Giving thanks unto the Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
Who delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were all things created in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and unto him, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist.
And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. God give us good understanding of his holy word. When the massed armies of Israel rose up from Shittim and came to a halt within a short distance of the River Jordan, it must have been evident to Israel and to Jericho alike that deeds of tremendous significance were afoot.
And so, of course, they were. For four hundred long years, God had been observing the men of Jericho in particular, and the nations of Canaan in general. Already in the time of Abraham, their behavior had been coming, had been becoming obnoxious to the living Lord of the earth. But God, who is rich in mercy and long suffering and not willing that any should perish, told Abram in that far off day that four hundred years still will be given to the sinners, the Canaanites, before his judgment fell on them.
And if perchance you have ever been troubled by the seeming severity of the judgment of which you read in the book of Joshua, pause again to consider its his- its historical content, context. Four hundred years of the mercy and long suffering of God to this ancient, sinful nation. For God waited before he executed his judgment. Now the time of his long suffering had come to its end. Three days from now, and Jericho must be destroyed.
Ah, but even so, God is rich in mercy. Forty years before the judgment fell, he preached the gospel to them with every tramp of every foot in the thousands of Israel, as they marched across that wilderness, did God preach the gospel to Canaan. And some, thank God, heard the message. For Rahab, as we listen to Rahab the harlot speaking to the spies she had received, she tells how she had heard of the wonders of the living God.
We have heard what God, your God, did in Egypt, and how he brought you out with a high hand and cleared the Red Sea and brought you through. Said the harlot to the spies, it has become evident, we see it clearly that your God is the true God. Your God is Lord in heaven above and on the earth beneath. Are those judgments upon Pharaoh, that vessel of wrath, had not simply been the penalty of his obstinacy.
God had made Pharaoh a vessel of wrath, that that vessel of wrath might speak to other Gentiles and lead them to repentance. For God will save men and women, even if he has to use the punishment of the ungodly to induce them to repentance. Oh, what a God we serve. He's determined to save people. He'll save them every way he knows how. And here in that poor, bedar- darkened, benighted mind of a harlot woman in Jericho, the light of God's gospel has begun to dawn, and the difference between the idols of Canaan and the true and the living God, and oh, what a spectacle you are about to witness again, though you've rejoiced in seeing it many years now, haven't you?
On the eve of judgment, a pagan heart touched by the gospel and turning from idols to serve the living and the true God. And if in those days she didn't know how to wait for his son from heaven, she knows now, doesn't she? For she is at home with the Lord. Forty years of gospel. And some heard it and repented and were saved. For in his judgment, God remembers. But not all were saved.
The proud king of Jericho had heard as much as Rahab, and so had her fellow citizens. After the onset of judgment, they battened themselves down within Jericho City and thought they could weather the storm. For Jericho, you see, viewed with human eyes, had two excellent systems of defense, though they turned out to be a Maginot line indeed. First, there was the defense that nature had provided them with.
For Jericho stood not far distant from the River Jordan. And though there were, of course, fords over the River Jordan, it was easy for the Jerichoites to post sentries on the fords and to do what Ehud did in a later age and slit the throat of everybody who tried to come across, or like Horatio who kept the bridge for the Romans. Take Jordan, uh, without the fords, and it forms a natural defense line for all invading armies coming in from the east. Take Jordan at flood time, and the King of Jericho was as confident in his Jordan as the French were in their Maginot Line until Hitler turned it.
And if their first line of defense was nature, because to attempt to cross Jordan at flood time was virtual suicide, then they had the second line of defense, which was a man-made defense in the stout and, as they thought, impregnable walls of Jericho. And they thought they were safe within nature's and man-made line of defense. What foolish men. And Rahab, though she was but of lowly profession, could see through the folly of it.
Your God, she told the spies, is the God of heaven and earth. If the transcendent Lord of creation determines to invade Palestine, no line of defense will ever keep him out. Why, if he comes to Jordan, nature will fight back before him. And nature itself is no match for nature's Lord. And if once nature's barrier is penetrated, then Jericho's man-made walls must fall.
We would do well to tell, remind our modern secular friends the same thing, shouldn't we? How many men and women think that they can barricade themselves against God? Spinning their little philosophies that our world, our universe is a closed system, and there's no God out there, and we can afford to live in our planet as though it were a self-contained flat, get inside, lock the door, and prevent any disturbance from the outside. Rahab had seen differently.
Let's follow her into the house, and I promise not to tell anybody that you've been there. And listen to her conversation. What a miracle of grace it was, wasn't it, as many a missionary preacher has seen and preached. For Rahab belonged to the oldest profession in the world. A woman who had spent her days pursuing pleasure without love. Who thought you could have love without loyalty.
And become the vivid symbolic expression of all her people, who in a deeper sense had thought the same thing. You see, the charge against the Canaanites, as later reiterated in Romans chapter one is this: that originally they had known the true God, who blessed them with fruitful crops and all the blessings of creaturely comforts and life. They had known the true God that gave them these gifts, but in that profound and fundamental disloyalty to the God of heaven, they had turned their backs on him and gone in their adulterous fashion to make this world their God, and gone after their endless lovers, as the Jewish prophets would have described them.
And even to their own man-made gods they were scarce loyal, for their philosophy of life was Rahab's, really. The ultimate li- in life is your pleasure, your passing pleasure. And they lived in Canaan as though Canaan was their earth, regardless of the creator and the moral demands he made upon them. They should have loved him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, but fickle in the perversity of the human heart, they had abandoned the love of God and lived for the world without God and made pleasure their final ambition.
And it had happened to them, as Paul relates in Romans chapter one, when they cared not to retain the knowledge of God, but degraded the image of God as the Canaanite idolatry did. Then God gave them over to a perverse mind to do those things that are not fitting. Their cruelties by way of child sacrifice were monstrous. The disease with which they were ridden as a result of their perverse sexual practices were a threat to the germ gene pool of humanity.
And all that somebody might get up to our modern Canaanites and tell them exactly the same thing. Where men and women's philosophy is that pleasure, love without loyalty, mere passing gratification is the ultimate God, and they live in this world as though it were their world, regardless of its owner. Then ultimately, they will come to the same end as the Canaanites. But you wouldn't doubt the conversion of this woman, would you?
Well, we've got the writer to the Hebrews to tell us that she got really converted, even though that little bit of a fib, that big, rather big whopper she told. Never mind, says James. Ah, she, she meant it well. It was all in the interests of her newfound faith. For she saw so vividly that if ever she was to be saved from the impending judgment, it would mean a complete transference of her loyalties. And conversion, my brethren, is nothing less than that. You say it was treachery of the first order for her to receive those spies and give them comfort and consolation against the king of Jericho and her fellow citizens.
But, ladies and gentlemen, when the judgments of God are at hand, you have to think, don't you? And ultimately it will be every man for himself, will it not? We shan't stand in batches before the great white throne. Then all loyalties must be tested and judged in the light of the supreme loyalty, as the human heart will ask, be asked, whom do you love? What evidence is there that you love him? And she decided to take a stand in loyalty against Jericho and in favor of the living God, the Creator.
Well, that's repentance, you know, and let us not forget to preach it either. Listen to Peter, a veritable John the Baptist, risen from the dead, wasn't he? On the day of Pentecost, when he preached his sermon that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead and God hath made him both Lord and Christ. And the crowd came round, pricked in their very heart. What shall we do, they said to Peter. I'll tell you straight what you'll do, said Peter. You'll get baptized in the name of Jesus. Well, they said, ah, but you, oh, but Peter, you see, perhaps you don't understand. I mean, we're convinced by what you said, and what is more, we want forgiveness, of course, we're very sincere, but you'll see, uh, uh, just to stand at this moment away from our society, that would be a cultural difficulty for us, you'll say.
Some of us are members of the Sanhedrin, and uh, and anyway, you should be preaching salvation by faith, you know, Peter, not by works. I mean, why can't we just believe on the Lord Jesus and carry on as we were before? No, you won't, says Peter. You tell me you've professed, you tell the living God you've, you, you have come to, to repentance. Then, ladies and gentlemen, you will show the genuineness of your repentance by standing clear of the nation that has murdered God's son. Save yourself from this untoward generation.
You cannot be loyal both to the Sanhedrin that murdered Jesus and to Jesus himself. We still need to preach, do we not, brethren? The need of works to demonstrate the reality of people's repentance. But now put yourself in the shoes of the good woman. She was prepared to transfer her loyalty, and risking her very life, she received the spies and sent them out another way.
But what guarantee had she that that act of hers would bring her salvation? She looked into the eyes of the spies. They were saving their own skin, weren't they? They'd make her any old promise. Ha. And when they got back to the camp, what would happen then? Likely enough that when they came with the armies of Israel, they'd know the way to her door, and her throat would be the first one they, they, they slit. Could she rely on these men? She had shown covenant faithfulness, kindness, kesef in Hebrew, covenant faithfulness to them, but would they return covenant faithfulness to her?
Where could she find a guarantee of loyalty? Oh, she'd not asked that of any of her lovers recently, had she? But now, with the judgments of God facing her, now this became the supreme question, these men and their God. What was their God like? If she could get an oath of those men in the name of their God, would it stand? I showed kindness to you, she said. Covenant kindness, Keseth. Pray, show covenant kindness to me.
Swear an oath by your God. Lord of heaven and earth, and give me a token of truth. Nice, isn't it, when people brought up to tell lies start concerning themselves about truth. And they bound the cord in the window, and the spies slithered down the rope, and off they went back to the camp. Do you suppose they were a little anxious those days that followed? How many times must she have said to herself, will that oath stand?
Will the Lord of heaven and earth honor the oath taken in his name? All that's trust, my brethren, my sisters. Thereby do we guilty sinners find our way back to God and discover the security against all judgment, past, present, and future. His oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the whelming flood. Though all around my soul give way, he still is all my strength and stay.
Oh, you worship a merciful God, God of heaven to this fickle woman, who has yet to learn the true meaning of love, that love means loyalty. She's come to know a God who loved her while she was yet a sinner, and though she couldn't yet know it, loved her so much that he'd give his only son for her, lest she perish the loyalty of a creator, even to a sinful creature. Great God of wonders, all thy ways are full of majesty divine, but the blessed glories of thy grace above thine other wonders shine.
Who is a pardoning God like thee, or who has grace so rich, so free, not only to save us and pardon us, but to swear an oath about our security, that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, you might have strong encouragement who fled for refuge to take hold of the hope that is before you. And you'll see the discovery of a God who cannot and will not lie is the beginning not only of security in heaven for us, it's the beginning of the changing of our character, isn't it?
If you'll promise not to tell them that I said so, that believers in Crete at one stage were a little bit difficult. Well, ha, national characteristics take a lot of grace to iron out, don't they? And we'll leave present company out of consideration. But the, ah, the Cretans, what one of their own self said, the Cretans, always liars. Can't begin to believe them. They'll promise you they'll be at the prayer meeting, and they won't turn up. Always liars. Can't rely on them, you know, slow bellies they are. That's rather strong language. Uh, yes.
How on earth did they get changed? Into reliable, loyal Christian people whom you could trust, whose profession of love was not mere sentiment, a whim of the emotion blowing hot today and cold tomorrow, but a love of God that expressed itself in constant loyalty to God and his truth and his people. That's conversion, isn't it? You know, I, I, and I anticipate a story.
When Rahab was eventually delivered, says the text, she was among Israel even unto this day, which is an interesting observation. Apparently, she isn't haven't hadn't even taken a tourist ticket back to her former haunts. No, she stood with the people of God. What is it that changes people? What is it that changes those difficult characters, the Cretans? Says Paul, it happened through the word of the gospel, you know, the, the promise that God made of eternal life, a promise made by a God who cannot lie.
We need to discover him. When he talks about judgment on sin, he means what he says. He's not like some soft, indulgent parent that says ten thousand times a day to the difficult child, I'll smack you if you do that again. And the child manages to do it again four hundred and fifty times before it goes to bed and still doesn't get a smack. So a bachelor oughtn't to talk of those things. But you see, ha, you see what's that doing to people's character, don't you? We need to live not only in a stable physical universe, we need to live in a stable moral society, where truth is truth. How will you build a paradise or an inheritance, if you please, on any other principle?
We need to come to know a God who, when he says he'll judge, will judge. He does not lie. And oh, thank God, we need to come and can come to know a God who, when he says he pardons and will save and will give us an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. He cannot lie, and he means every comma he says. That is salvation. And the story then turns, not to describe in this first movement the destruction of Jericho.
That belongs to the second objective. The story turns now to talk about the judgments of God from the other point of view, as to how they appeared to Israel. For Israel, of course, the crossing of Jordan meant entering into their inheritance. But you may care to notice in advance what presently we shall see, that whereas for Rahab the objective was to be saved from death, God took Israel over Jordan into their inheritance, the consummation of their salvation, by taking them through death.
Ah. For there are always two sides to a penny, aren't there? And there are generally two sides to God's truth. For the gospel promised us a salvation from death. And when we feel ourselves secure, it then explains that we are saved through death. Is it not so? Then how were Israel saved and brought to the consummation of God's purpose, their introduction into their inheritance? The story of the crossing of Jordan is told us in three major movements, which has sorely troubled some unbelieving and not too perceptive critics, for they imagine the story is all a muddle, whereas, of course, in the manner of Hebrew narrative prose, it is genius.
For it presents the same story you would imagine three times over and brings it to its climax three times over, but the story from three different points of view. The first record of the crossing of Jordan is for the purpose, as God explained to Joshua, two things. Say to the people, sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. And then to Joshua said the Lord, this day I will begin to magnify you in the sight of the people.
The second record of the crossing from chapter four verse one following down to verse fourteen concentrates not merely on the fact that Israel came through the waters to the land the opposite side, but tells the story how they there, at God's command, erected the stones, says verse six of chapter four, that this may be a sign among you. And that's interesting, because that word for sign is the same word that Rahab used. Give me a sign, she said, a sign of truth.
And I think as she sat by the window, nervously peering through to see how near the armies had got, she fingered the old rope a bit, didn't she? Well, that was the only security she got hold of, you know. And as she tugged at one end, she said, the other end used to have men on the bottom. I hope they can feel that rope in their hands just now. You'll see this connection between us and the great oath of God. A sign. Nice to have a sign to get hold of, isn't it? But to Israel, as they were about to enter their inheritance and pass through Jordan, there was given a sign, not merely for them, but for all, uh, consequent generations, an historical sign that forever should remind them of the basis of their entry to the Promised Land.
And finally, the third record of the crossing begins in chapter four verse fifteen, where Joshua commanded the priests to come up. And they came up, and once more we are told what the stones were for, as the stones spelt out the implication of it all for the people of Israel. Let us briefly meditate upon those things. First, I must ask you to perceive the wonder of what happened.
Said Joshua and the officers to the people, rise up when you see the ark move, but leave a space between you and it. Don't go milling around the ark, for one, the ark must go before you, and you must be able, all of you, clearly to have space enough to see it. Why? Well, this is the biggest wonder of all that happened that day. Ark. As the Levites took it up in stately procession, Israel verily believed that the Lord of the whole earth sat enthroned on the cherubim of that ark.
Would you see a wonder? The Lord of ten myriad galaxies. Whatever is he going to do now? You say he's come to take possession of the land of Canyon. It's his land, isn't it? He made every blade of grass in it. Yes, you say, but if the Lord of the whole earth is come to take possession of that bit of earth that is Canaan, that is his anyway because he made it.
What's he doing? Why didn't he come down direct from heaven? Direct into Canaan. Why must he go through Jordan? Ah. He could have come down direct, couldn't he? He could. But Israel would never have got in. They couldn't come down direct from heaven to it, could they? So watch now as he becomes the file leader, the archagos, as Hebrews puts it, the captain of their salvation.
And with Joshua leading the people and commanding them and telling them and explaining them what now is happening, the transcendent God comes down to earth and goes into Jordan. Oh Lord, you say, don't go down there. It's muddy down there. But all the wonder. When nature saw her creator, nature gave way to make room for nature's Lord.
And as we think of it, our minds irresistibly go to later centuries. Palestine belonged to God's son, promised to him as the seed of Abraham. He could have come down from heaven direct and taken it without dying, couldn't he? Why didn't he? Because we could never have entered into our inheritance direct. Well, we too were sinners. Not only Rahab, but Israel, and all of us ungodly sinners.
And if he would become the Archagos, the captain of our salvation, and bring the many sons to glory, then it behoved him in all things to be made light to his brethren, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil. Do you know the prince of this world has had one mighty great defense line, hasn't he, all down history? It's called in Hebrews chapter two, the power of death. And says Hebrews, you'll see, using that power of death, he has subjected people to bondage, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
And where he has allowed his sway, anybody that professes loyalty to the God of heaven, he will threaten them with death. And multitudes of men and women, because they fear the ultimate death, give in. Oh, I pray God, if ever conditions come in which I find myself and I'm faced with the stake, or the psychiatric hospital, or the torture camp, for loyalty to Christ, oh God, give me the grace to look death in the face, that I shall not let myself be scared by him who has the power of death.
When the great Son of God came down to earth, Satan made a great effort, didn't he, to keep him away and to stop his gospel. Satan knew no better than to put him to death, and they thought they'd seen the last of him. Ah, pray see the wonder, brethren, as the blessed translate transcendent Lord, creator of heaven and earth, became incarnate. He was scarce thirty years old when he went again to Jordan and literally stood with sinners in the mud of its riverbed. A few years later, stand back, or if you can stand back, and see the wonder as those holy feet entered the river of death.
Lord of life, to death made subject, blesseth thou, the curse once made of thy father's heart, the object yet in depths of anguish laid. Thee we think on, thee recall, bearing here our sorrows all. I wish I could tell you that when he stood there, the waters kept back, but the record is they went over his head. For he bore our sins, all sinners himself, in his body, and he tasted death's waters, dark, bitter, offensive, and for his lost sheep he went down to the grave.
Oh, but hail his victory. Death couldn't keep its prey. Jesus, my Savior, Lord of heaven and earth, he tore the bars away. And the third day he rose again and went triumphantly to the right hand of God. And he destroyed him that has had the power of death and took his defense away and has opened up the way to our great inheritance. See the wonder of it and see the sign of it. For they were charged that when they came up, they should have twelve men to bring up twelve stones from the river and put them on the bank and take other twelve stones and put them down into the river.
That these stones should be a sign to Israel in the coming generations. For it could have been, couldn't it? The generations who had not personally come through the literal Jordan, some four or five generations on, as they, uh, munched their grapes and enjoyed their olives, so to speak, and, uh, entered into houses such as they'd never known before, their parents hadn't because they were slaves in Egypt, they could conceivably begin to forget what was the basis of their being in the inheritance at all. And a little bit of old Rahab could start to, yes, don't you think, creeping into the heart.
Not you, of course, nor me, but you adulteresses, says James. Know you not that friendship with the world is enmity with Christ, you adulteresses? How easy for the believer to forget, enjoying his inheritance, then live for his own enjoyment, and presently for his gratification, and forget the Lord and the basis of our inheritance. Bring them back generation after generation, says God to to Joshua, and show them those stones.
What for? To remind them that when your fathers came into the land, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of the whole earth went down into those waters and came up again. Wisely, do you not think our Lord commanded us and gave us a token, a sign, and bade us meet with bread and wine to remember him? Don't you say that's a brethren's fetish, will you? There was never anything more practical in Christian life than the Lord's Supper.
How shall my la- disloyal, wayward heart be kept loyal to God? Why, even the very benefits of the gospel, if I'm not quite careful, will bring me away from the Lord as I get singing my hymns nearly for my own enjoyment of the tune. Huh. I better come back and stand by the bread and the wine, by the stones on the further bank, and say, is it true? What down there in those swirling waters, I can't quite see it, was that a stone down there? Yes, there's one there, twelve stones down there. Is it true that the ark of the Lord of the whole earth was once down there?
How would Israel forget it? The basis of their being in the inheritance. And what's your basis for enjoying your inheritance, Ida? Oh, you say, I give thanks to the Father every day of the week. He's made us qualified for the inheritance of the saints in light, you see. Been redeemed, you tell me. I'm delighted to know it, my friend. Uh, by whose blood? Oh, oh. Don't you know whose blood it is? By his blood, who is the beginning. For in him were all things made, and for him and by him, and by him all things consist.
This is the Lord of heaven and earth, and we have redemption through his blood, the transcendent living Lord once lay in the waters of death. We shall never forget it, shall we? Not to the remotest bound of eternity. I think they're going to have twelve standing stones in heaven, but we shall be brought back to remember how we got there. And the third story says, well, it's Joshua, if you can hear him down the ages, talking to the priests.
My brethren, says he, they're standing in the bottom of the river. Come up! So up they came. And the stones were put there. What for this time? To remind Israel that not only was the living Lord there, but they were there too. And that would be a difficult concept for some of them to get, wouldn't it? You see, four generations up, four generations on, the people would say, yes, well, our fathers came through the river, you know, but what's that got to do with us? Yes. Our blessed Lord died on Calvary two thousand years ago, but what's that got to do with me?
For us, in a deeper sense than Israel, but it was even true for them, was it not, if they were a member of the true Israel, then being a member of that corporate body, when Israel came through Jordan, every descendant of Israel came through Jordan. Know this, how did you get into your inheritance? Not being saved merely from dying and death. You were saved through death, weren't you? Dead with Christ, buried with Christ, raised with Christ. Marvelous. And what the implications?
Well, if you died with Christ, why do you carry on behaving as though you were living in the world, says Paul? And if you are risen with Christ, goodness, come up and set your mind on things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Oh, I know you've got a lot more fighting to do, we grant you that. But my brother, my sister, the inheritance that God has given you is actually beyond the reach of death already, isn't it? That gift of forgiveness, that gift of eternal life, these are the gifts of eternity.
Your inheritance is already beyond the wasting effects of death. Then set your mind on things above, not on things in the earth, for you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ appears, who is your life, then shall you appear with him also in glory.
