“And it came to pass a long time after that the Lord had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua waxed old and stricken in age.” Josh. xxiii. 1.
1 The Law came by Moses, and grace and truth came by Jesus Christ; but as if to presage what was in prospect, as if to give an omen and token of the good things to come, immediately upon Moses’ death, a sort of momentary fulfilment, or at least a momentary vision of fulfilment, of the promise took place. For who succeeded Moses but Joshua? and as Moses led the people to and from Mount Sinai, and disciplined them in the barren wilderness of the Law, so Joshua, who succeeded him, led them into the rich and happy land, and prefigured the future Saviour, who was to be gracious and true. I say, on Moses’ death, a sudden gleam of heaven, as it were, came over the elder Church; the Law seemed for a while suspended, as regards its threats and punishments; all was privilege on the one side, all was obedience on the other. Joshua led the people forward, conquering and to conquer; he led them into rest and prosperity. His history is made up of these two parts, triumph and peace. First, he fought, when in his own words in the chapter which has formed part of the Service, “one man of them chased a thousand;” and no man was able to stand before them. And then he rested, and Israel with him,—“the Lord gave them rest from all their enemies round about.” This morning we read of his victories, this evening of the fruit of them. This was what God did for them;—and on their side there was obedience. “Israel served the Lord,” we read in the twenty-fourth chapter, “all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua.” It was indeed a wonderful time; dutifulness and security; it had an end when Joshua and his generation went the way of all flesh; but while they lived, the gleam of sunshine still rested on the Israelites, and was the promise of the New Covenant, and of the times of the Gospel. Such a blessed season never returned to the Church of Israel, till that Church was made glorious by the coming of the Sun of Righteousness, and was brought forth out of the shadows and dreariness of the Law into the fulness of grace and truth.
It will be appropriate then to this day, when the history of Joshua is brought before us in our Services, to consider it in its relation to the life and office of our Lord Jesus Christ; nay, I will add, to that of His servants and followers also; for in them in their degree, as well as in Him in its fulness, is accomplished the type which is contained in Joshua the successor of Moses.
1. Now, first, as is very obvious, Joshua is a type of our Lord Jesus Christ, as regards his name; for Joshua is in Hebrew what Jesus is in Greek. When we think what high things are told us in the New Testament concerning the Name of Jesus, what reverence towards it is enjoined us, and what virtue is ascribed to it, who can doubt that it is a very significant circumstance indeed, that the successor of Moses should bear it? This circumstance leads us from the first to expect that the history of Joshua will contain much in it bearing upon the blessed times of the Gospel. If that name is put upon him, which in due season the Angel was to announce as the earthly name of the Son of God—that Name which was to be above every name, at which every knee was to bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; that Name which was to cast out devils, to restore the crippled, and to do many wonderful works; that Name, which is like ointment poured out, and which shall endure for ever among the posterities—how should not some large bountifulness in act accompany such grace in word? Let it be observed, that his name was originally Oshea, and was changed into Joshua by Moses. Surely the change was not made for nothing. We see the meaning of it; it is as if a silent sign, made to us by the All-merciful God, that even then He had before Him the thought of redemption, and of us, and of the reign of grace and truth.
2. And again, this too should be observed: that whereas the successor of Moses was called Joshua, or Jesus, so did he singularly typify the Saviour of men by an act of grace which he exercised, and that in the case of an enemy. Up to his time, many instances as there were of the faith of saints, there is no instance recorded of the faith of a sinner. St. Paul says, that by “faith the elders obtained a good report.” He mentions the faith of righteous Abel; of Enoch, who walked with God; of Noah, that preacher of righteousness, whose name was worthy to be associated with the names of Daniel and Job, in exemplifying the holiness which might save guilty cities; of Abraham, the friend of God, whose sanctity so availed with God, that He hid not from him what He was about to do; of blameless Isaac; of Jacob, righteous and holy himself, even if his history form a typical anticipation of Gospel grace; of Joseph, tried and tempted, yet without transgressing, from his youth up; of Moses, the meekest man upon earth. Of him the Apostle speaks, the immediate predecessor of Joshua; nay, he speaks perchance of Joshua himself, when he says, “By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days.” Down to Joshua’s day, no instance appears but of the faith of saints; but in the next verse, and in Joshua’s history, we have a different specimen. “By faith, the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.” Now, why this change? why have we at once a sinful woman spared and admitted into covenant on her faith—nay, privileged in the event to be the ancestress of our Lord; except that in Joshua the reign of that Saviour is typified, and that the pardon of a sinner is its most appropriate attendant? The word “Jesus” means the Saviour; it has reference then to sinners. He came, “not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” “Scarcely for a righteous man will one die;” but “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” [Rom. v. 7, 8.] As then Joshua had the Name, so did he exercise the Office also of our Lord; and his first act is one of mercy. Before he enters the land, while he and she are yet a great way apart, she does an act of faith, and he, by his representatives, an act of grace. And so, when he comes to the city of evil, and encompasses it with trumpets, and takes and destroys it utterly; in that day of doom she has bound the scarlet line across her window, and her house becomes a Church, and she and all who take refuge in it are saved. Such is the history of Rahab, recalling to our minds that favoured and blessed penitent, “the woman which was a sinner,” who came and stood at our Lord’s feet behind Him, in silence and in tears; and to whom He uttered the gracious words, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. [Luke vii. 37-50.]