Jordan - A Change of Situation
(c) The Loneliness of Christ in Death
Alone. Look at the loneliness of that figure - forgetting for the moment that there were Levites bearing the ark on their shoulders: the description is intended not to bring them into view at all, but to have this ark only in view - to behold it, as it were, afar off. It is a great space. If it were only one thousand feet, that is quite a distance from which to look on a little object like that, a lonely little object right out there. How alone He was in death. "All the disciples left him, and fled" (Matthew 26:56). He said, "Ye ... shall leave me alone" (John 16:32), and they did. And then the deepest pang of all - "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 26:46). His aloneness in death is portrayed by the ark out there. Behold Him: "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).
Why this aloneness? Well, you see, 'there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin': there was no other great enough, big enough, to bear the sin of the world. He being the only one who could do it, it involved Him in this utterness of loneliness. Who could bear to know in full consciousness their utter abandonment by God? Thank God, we need never know that. We need never for a moment have the consciousness that God has forsaken us. That is not necessary, and indeed we could not survive it. But He knew it. It took Him, the Son of God, to come through that. It is the price He paid as the Pioneer - the Pioneer of our salvation, the Pioneer of our inheritance, the Pioneer of our possession of all that unto which God has called us by union with Christ. The Pioneer had to pay the price of this utter and final aloneness. Is that not something of the sigh, the cry, in Isaiah liii? Yes, He is the alone One there, wounded for our transgressions, smitten of God and stricken, His soul made by God an offering for sin; but "He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days", and out of that loneliness shall come, in a mighty multitude, the children of His bereavement (Isaiah xlix: 20).
Identification with Christ By Faith and Testimony
The next thing, and the final word for the moment, is identification with Him by faith and testimony. No, we cannot literally and actually come into this. Thank God, it is not necessary. I mean that we are not called to go through all that He went through, but we are called to take a faith position, to give attestation to it in a very practical way. Not just walk in and through and take it as ours, but to recognize that it is only ours because of Him, only ours in Him. There is identification of life with Him.
And so this identification by faith and testimony is seen in the commandment of God as to what was to be done. Out of the bed of the Jordan, out of the place where all this was transacted by the great Pioneer of redemption, stones were to be taken, and - notice - by twelve men: "out of every tribe a man (Joshua 4:2). In effect, every man of every tribe is here represented. It is a personal matter for every one. "Every man ... a stone". It has to be a personal transaction, a personal testimony, a personal appropriation of it all, a taking of it upon our shoulders as bringing us under all that it means; our committal to it, our committal to the death of the Lord Jesus, to the fact that in Him we died; our committal to His burial. "We were buried ... with him" (Romans 6:4). Then our committal to His resurrection. The stones in the Jordan signify our union with Him in death and burial; the stones taken out of the Jordan and built up for a memorial on the other side, our union with Him in resurrection.
But there has to be a practical, personal, individual transaction. "Every man ... a stone." Have you taken the stone on your shoulder personally? Have you definitely done this? You know how the Apostle Paul tells you that the testimony is born, it is so familiar. "We were buried ... with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life" (Romans 5:4). That is this story quite clearly, so simply. Yes, by baptism we declare that we have taken the stone on our shoulders, we have made this our responsibility, we have definitely committed ourselves to all this.
Let me say again - it is not just to be saved from judgment, death and hell, but to be saved unto - not only from, but unto - all that which is in the heart of God; that it is no longer what we are going to get, how it is going to affect us: that is the old tyranny; no longer personal circumstances at all. It is what the Lord wants; it is what will satisfy and glorify Him. That is the passion of the heart hat is so committed; and when He gets us through on that matter, gets us over the fence of self-interest, worldly interest, fleshly government, on to the ground where it is all the Lord and what He wants, we shall have found the land flowing with milk and honey, we shall have found the riches of Christ, we shall have come into an opened heaven. So much of our Christian life and work is self-ward. Until it is changed from self to the Lord, fully and utterly, we shall know nothing of the heavenly life of spiritual fullness. But that is what is here represented.
May the Lord find us all making this great transition, this declaration - "Every man ... a stone": that Jordan, with all that it means, has got to rest upon our shoulders. Amen.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 20 - "The Way to God's End")
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