Entering the Promised Land was a significant part of Jewish history, and the phase has resonance in Christian thought. The Israelites had to face hard realities and they learned what it meant to be God's Chosen People. For us there is the experience of 'crossing Jordan' and there are comparisons we can make between their experience and ours, whether as 'types and shadows' or less precisely because they lived by faith just as we do. What are the moral implications in the lives of a people who God has chosen and are part of His purposes?

The long wilderness march was over and Israel stood on the banks of the Jordan looking across at the Promised Land. A generation before, they had escaped the fury of the Egyptian army and faced the hazards of the desert. Here they had learned to depend upon God for guidance and for their daily food and water. They went southward to avoid the recently settled 'Sea People' who we know from Scripture as the Philistines. Their way of life was efficient and they were good soldiers armed with iron weapons. Israel also went southward so that they could be established in their religion and covenant. It was at Sinai that they had learned about their Law and how obedience to it would mean prosperity and protection in the land to which God was leading them.

Israel discovered at Sinai, if they did not know it before, that they were a chosen people, God's own special people, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19.5,6) This was a particular relationship that God had offered to the descendants of Abraham not because they were specially good or in prospect were going to be any better than other nations, nor because they were a numerous people (Deut.7.6-9), but God in His love for the patriarchs and in His wisdom saw in this nation those qualities that would make them the most suitable people to bring salvation to the remainder of the world. During those years in the wilderness they discovered that they were the people of Yahweh and that their God was 'good', who loved righteousness and demanded the highest moral standard from His people. He punished as well as rewarded and He did this not for revenge or spite but because He loved them. By the time they arrived at the banks of the Jordan they had known rebellion and disobedience, idolatry and failure, and the national character was beginning to grow by experience. Already a large land area east of the River Jordan was in their hands and had been allocated to some of the tribes as their inheritance. But things were about to change and they were to have a new leader. The mighty influence of Moses had gone. He had been a very great man who had reached high moral-spiritual standards. He had also had much conflict with his fellow Israelites because of their failure to reach God's standards. Now at their head stood a man whose name meant 'God saves' ‑ the name of the 'Coming One', the Saviour of the world.

What lessons does Israel's entry into Canaan have for us? Can we learn from this momentous chapter in Israel's history. Traditionally, Israel's crossing of the River Jordan and their settlement in the Promised Land has been used as a picture of Christians transferring from Earth to Heaven. Hence the writing of such hymns as 'Guide me O thou great Jehovah' where spiritual Israel wanders through the desert in this life and at last enters heaven by passing over Jordan where all troubles cease. This experience inspired some negro spirituals. Joshua's life was viewed as one of victory followed by the 'rest'. It was a simple interpretation that gave comfort to the harrowed souls whose lives were so often miserable. Two things alter that way of looking at this history. One is that the Christian life has never been all victory and rest. The second is that a closer examination of the book of Joshua reveals a time of conflict and partial success and this aptly describe the Christian life that most of us know. It is easy to write and speak of the Christian life in glowing terms, where virtual perfection appears so easy and where joy and peace are enjoyed right from the start of the Christian life. Some authors and preachers give the impression that Christians should enjoy a life that is 'a bed of roses' and believers sit at the feet of Jesus and never do anything wrong. That is not the kind of life described in the New Testament ‑ (see Romans 7). The Christian life often has conflict, with a measure of victory and rest.

Old Testament characters were more than puppets whose lives were a special pattern for our learning. Israel's great men and women were really alive, flesh and blood like us, whose experiences had a personal meaning for themselves. They too had the God-given faculty of choice in how they behaved, yet they were willing clay in the Master Potter's hands. Their failures are recorded as honestly as their successes and reveal to us how God can use 'failures' but He doesn't deliberately make them. In the records of the lives of Joshua and men and women of old there are principles at work which also work in our lives and it is in this way that God has used them and uses us for His great purpose.

Israel believed that they were the Chosen People of God. They have held tenaciously to that belief for thirty-five centuries and in itself it has been a means of retaining their corporate national identity. No other people has undergone such efforts to destroy and disperse them. Their existence spells out the destruction of religions and philosophies that are false and defy the one true God. As Christians we share the 'election' of God. Just as Israel was told that its people were special to God, a people with a purpose, so are we, Christian followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus meant in His words at the Last Supper (John 14.23) "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him." In his first letter, Peter uses the very words of the Exodus covenant (Ex.19.6) to refer to the people of God in the present time. "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light"(1 Pet.2.9,10). It was this thought that enabled Israel to endure dark days in their conquest of Canaan when the foe seemed insurmountable and failure seemed to dog their steps. Do disappointment and failure cause us to stumble? Do we feel the problems against us are too great to bear? It is not arrogance or conceit to believe that we are the people of God. In later centuries when Israel believed that they could obtain victory in their own strength and wisdom, or that it was impossible to win, they not only failed but were severely punished by exile and suffering. Like Israel, we do not earn or deserve the progress we have made so far, but it is cause for comfort amid the fears and troubles. Our God knows our plight and what we suffer either because of our own sin or the sins of others, and permits it for our eternal good.

Before Israel crossed the River Jordan two of their number were sent across to the city of Jericho. They spied out the city and found lodging and hiding with a rather dubious character called Rahab. When her fellow citizens made enquiries about these strangers being in her house she deliberately lied and told them that she had seen them go out of the city before the gates had been closed at nightfall. She then went to the men who she had hidden under flax and made a bargain with them. It is apparent that she had some knowledge of who they were and how their God was giving them the land. Fear, wonderment or admiration may have caused her to betray her own people, but this she did trusting that the Israelites would save her when they took the city.

How should a Christian behave in such a situation? Is it right for Christians to take up the ancient and 'honourable' career in espionage? If we take up such work should we lie our way out of a difficult situation? Is not the very consideration impossibly abhorrent to us? Yet looking through history one wonders how many who have named the name of Christ have actually experienced this. In Israel their philosophy was based on simpler principles. Israel were in covenant relationship with God through the Law given through Moses. The people of Jericho were uncircumcised Gentiles and had no right to a place in the land ‑ God's land. They worshipped idols and did all kinds of evil that was connected with their false religion. With this perspective all Canaanites were to be destroyed. By the help she had given to Israel, Rahab was now under their covenant. Her trust was now in God and He could accept her as 'righteous'. Her treachery to the people of Jericho and her deception of the police were not moral problems for Rahab or the spies.

The story is all the more interesting because Rahab is mentioned in the list of heroes of faith in Hebrew 11.31 and James 2.25 and is referred to as one who was put right with God. She had shown kindness to two of God's people in their plight. But why was it necessary to send spies to Jericho? Was not its destruction a foregone conclusion? Whatever the answer to these questions Rahab had the supreme reward of marrying Salmon and thus was included in the ancestry of Jesus; one of the several foreign women used to bring the Saviour into the world.
DN