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After Israel’s thirty-eight years of wandering in the wilderness, all the men of their first generation, except Joshua and Caleb, fell dead in the wilderness. The remaining second generation, the new generation, arrived at the plain on the east of the Jordan, and after they received renewed training by Moses in the reiteration of the law (Deut. 1), they crossed the Jordan and entered into the good land. The Jordan River typifies the death and resurrection of Christ, and the crossing of the Jordan River typifies the believers’ baptism.
Joshua 3 and 4 cover Israel’s crossing of the Jordan. The Jordan River signifies the death and resurrection of Christ. The Ark of God and the priests who bore it took the lead to go into the waters of the Jordan and stood in the waters (3:3, 6, 8, 10-11, 14). The Ark is a type of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God. The Ark’s entering into and coming out of the Jordan indicates the death and resurrection of Christ.
The children of Israel passed through the death of Christ to bury their old man and to become a new man in Christ for fighting spiritual warfare. This shows that our natural man, our old man, is altogether unqualified to fight spiritual warfare for Christ. God’s intention is to join us to Christ that we may have an organic union with Him and become one with Him and that His history may become our history. In our union with Christ, His experiences become ours. He died on the cross, and we died with Him. He was buried, and we were buried with Him. He was resurrected from the dead, and we were resurrected with Him. Ephesians 2:5-6 says that we were dead in offenses, but God made us alive together with Christ and raised us up together with Him and seated us together with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
In the New Testament the first baptism of the believers took place in the Jordan (Matt. 3:6). According to the spiritual principle in the Scriptures, the first mention concerning a matter becomes the spiritual significance of that matter. The first mention of the believers’ baptism takes place in the Jordan. Hence, according to the meaning in typology, the Jordan River denotes the death of Christ into which the believers have been baptized. According to the fact, the believers have been baptized into the death of Christ.
Romans 6:3 says, “Are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” Baptism is not a form or a ritual; it signifies our identification with Christ. Christ and His death are one. Christ’s death has separated us from the world and the satanic power of darkness; it has terminated our natural life, our old man, our self, our flesh, and even our entire history. The former is signified by the crossing of the Red Sea and the latter by the crossing of the Jordan River. Through baptism we were buried with Christ into death. We did not die directly; we entered into Christ’s death through baptism.
The death of Christ leads us to His resurrection. The believers’ baptism into the death of Christ, as the crossing of the Jordan River, leads the believers into the resurrection of Christ. Colossians 2:12 says, “Buried together with Him in baptism, in which also you were raised together with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead.” In the aspect of burial, baptism is the termination of our flesh; in the aspect of resurrection, baptism is the germination of our spirit so that we are made alive in Christ with the divine life. In the new realm of resurrection we enjoy Christ as the all-inclusive good land in which we walk and even are being rooted and built up for the accomplishing of the economy of God (Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:7).
The first generation of the children of Israel was baptized in the Red Sea when they came out of Egypt, and the second generation was baptized in the Jordan River when they entered into Canaan, the good land.
When the first generation of the children of Israel was baptized in the Red Sea, they buried the power of Egypt, that is, the power of the world (Exo. 14:27). The baptism of the second generation of the children of Israel in the Jordan River buried their old man, signified by the twelve stones which were left in the Jordan.
According to Joshua 4:9, Joshua erected twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests who carried the Ark had stood. These twelve stones signify the twelve tribes of Israel in their old life and in their old nature. Joshua erected these twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan where the Ark was, signifying that the Lord buried Israel in their old nature under the death water of the Jordan. This typifies the old man of the believers being buried with Christ through baptism. Our old man was crucified in Christ’s crucifixion and buried with Him in baptism, signified by the crossing of the Jordan (4, Rom. 6:6a).
When the second generation of the children of Israel passed through the Jordan, twelve representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan and brought them over and laid them in the place where Israel lodged that night (Josh. 4:1-5, 8). When they passed through the death of the Jordan and came up out of the death river, they entered into resurrection to become a new people. This is signified by the twelve stones which they took from the Jordan. Hence, they entered into the good land in a new state of resurrection.
This signifies that the New Testament believers experience resurrection from death with Christ through baptism. Romans 6 shows that after our baptism, we have become the new man in resurrection to walk in newness of life (v. 4), that is, to grow together with Him in the likeness of His resurrection (v. 5).
After Israel’s thirty-eight years of wandering in the wilderness, all the men of their first generation, except Joshua and Caleb, fell dead in the wilderness. The remaining second generation, the new generation, arrived at the plain on the east of the Jordan, and after they received renewed training by Moses in the reiteration of the law, they crossed the Jordan and entered into the good land. The Jordan River signifies the death and resurrection of Christ. The Ark’s entering into and coming out of the Jordan indicates the death and resurrection of Christ. Through baptism the believers have been baptized into the death of Christ, and the death of Christ has led the believers to the resurrection of Christ. In the new realm of resurrection we enjoy Christ as the all-inclusive good land in which we walk and even are rooted and built up for the accomplishing of the economy of God.
The Jordan River typifies the death and resurrection of Christ, and the crossing of the Jordan River typifies the believers in baptism burying their old man and being ushered into resurrection to bring forth the new man. Joshua’s erecting of twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, where the Ark was, signifies that the Lord buried Israel in their old nature under the death water of the Jordan. The old man of the believers has been buried with Christ through baptism. Furthermore, the twelve representatives of the children of Israel took up twelve stones and brought them over the river and laid them in the place where Israel lodged that night. This signifies that when they came up out of the death river, they entered into resurrection to become a new people and entered into the good land in a new state of resurrection. This typifies that the New Testament believers experience resurrection from death with Christ to become the new man in resurrection, walking in newness of life.
