
God has issued a command to Joshua—one that sounds dangerous. You don’t just wade into a flooding river with all your stuff, and hope for the best. But Joshua, who believed God’s promise to give his people the Land when 10 of the other 11 spies didn’t, believes him now, and he will obey. And, undoubtedly to everyone’s astonishment, the river will stop for them and, metaphorically speaking, motion them to cross.
But they don’t know that yet. God continues his speech to Joshua by telling him what lies ahead.
3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory.
Now, they do know this. God is simply repeating a past promise (Dt 11.24), the very one that Joshua (and Caleb) believed when the other spies didn’t.
And the people also know—or should know—that God keeps his promises. Back when he had appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he had introduced himself as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Why this description, and not another, such as “the Creator of heaven and earth,” or “the infinite, eternal, and unchanging God,” or “the God of wonders”?
I think the reason for his choice of words to Moses is clear. God had made promises to those patriarchs, promises that included a numerous people (already fulfilled in Egypt), a blessing on all peoples through a “seed” (a promise not then fulfilled), and most specifically in view here, a promise of the Land on which Abraham’s sandal had walked.
As Moses stands at the burning bush, that promise has not been fulfilled—but it’s next in line. God is effectively saying, “My people, Abraham’s descendants, are out of the Land, enslaved in Egypt. This must not stand. Go down there, and I will do what it takes for you to lead them Home.”
That’s promise number 2. And, as we all know from reading the rest of Scripture, promise number 3, the universal blessing through Abraham’s “seed,” will be fulfilled when David’s Greater Son, the incarnate God, pays the price for our sins at the cross and opens the gates of salvation to all who will come.
God remembers his promises—for centuries—and he keeps them without fail.
Decades after the burning bush God repeated that promise to Moses, with specifics:
24 Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be (Dt 11.24).
And now God, remembering those specifics, repeats them to Joshua as this newly appointed leader gazes east across the Jordan.
So God assures Joshua that the plan is in place, and the Land will belong to Jacob’s people. In modern parlance, it’s in the bag.
So what of our transitions? We typically don’t have circumstantial specifics as Joshua did, but we do have specific assurances about God’s character—he is faithful, gracious, merciful, good—and about his relationship with us—he loves and cares for us, providing all that we need for spiritual success (which is the most important kind of success) and providing our needs for all the days he has planned for us. And when those days are over, we will be “absent from the body, and … present with the Lord” (2Co 5.8). Further, “we shall be like [Christ], for we shall see him as he is” (1J 3.2).
So. What lies ahead? In this life, the assurance that God is working his good plan and keeping his promises; and in the next, eternity with him.
Sounds like it’s all good.
Now, we know by just looking around that this “all good” includes hard things, things that we would consider “bad.” What about that?
God’s not finished talking to Joshua yet. We’ll look at his further words next time.
Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash