Joshua Chapter Two

Beautiful Grace

Last month we looked at Joshua chapter 1 and the importance of looking to the Book of the Law. This month I want to look at the narrative in Chapter 2. This chapter relates the encounter between the two spies and the harlot Rahab. I find it interesting because the Book of Joshua is mainly about the Lord’s commissioning of Joshua and the possession of the Promised Land by the Israelites. So why did the author of Joshua include this interlude about a pagan prostitute?

We want to recognize the reality of who Rahab was – the Hebrew word used in verse one is, zonah, which means harlot or prostitute. Whether she was a ‘sacred’ prostitute serving in one of the Canaanite fertility shrines or just a common harlot is not really important – according to the Commandments she was a sinner. Now it is easy to get distracted at this point – she also lies to the Jericho police when questioned about the spies. We can spend a whole lot of energy debating whether it is right, in some circumstances, to lie. But the writer is apparently not concerned about debating her status as a harlot or her lies.

As a side note, we need to remember the difference between what the Bible records and what the Bible approves. Here, as in many other places, the Bible neither approves nor disapproves of Rahab’s occupation or her lies to the authorities. The biblical writer ignores these ethical implications because there is a more important point to be made. As we read the Bible we need to remember to distinguish between what the Bible records and what the Bible requires. The Bible reports that Jacob had four wives; it is hardly encouraging us to do the same.

Chapter 2 is organized as a classic story – verse 1 sets up the story by telling us that the spies were sent by Joshua to get some intel about what might be the best way to attack the city. Verse 2 and 3 presents the antagonist who threatens the spies and Joshua’s plans. Verses 4 through 7 we are told of her deception in sending the police on a wild goose chase. This would make a great movie! All the elements of drama are brought into play and we are now sitting on the edge of our seats wondering how it will all work out! The divinely inspired author has brought us to the point of maximum interest and here he relates the main point – God’s beautiful grace to undeserving sinners.

First, Rahab tells us that she knows about the Lord. Isn’t it true that biblical faith comes by obtaining some measure of information? Verse 10 she says, “we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction.” This is the normal way of coming to faith – we must know at least something about the object of our faith. And we really cannot grow without learning more about the one who we trust. This is one of the ways we recognize genuine faith: believers need and want to know more about the one we are trusting in for salvation. Faith is not just some warm and fuzzy feeling about God: if it is a real faith it will result in a desire to know more about God. Rahab knew something about God and that was enough for her to see her desperate need.

Now the pagan harlot makes the great confession in verse 11: “for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.“ She acknowledges the ultimate sovereignty of God. This, by the way, was the same conclusion the Israelites were to confess as recorded in Deuteronomy 4:39.

Confessing her belief in God she then confesses her need for His mercy. In verses 12-13 she makes her plea for mercy. And this is the way of true, saving faith; she not only has an intellectual knowledge of God but also a realization of her dreadful predicament as an object of God’s wrath. She sees her desperate need to escape the coming wrath of God. Not merely trusting in the knowledge she gained about God, she recognized her desperate need. Saving faith is always like this – knowing some truth about God and recognizing that we need to run to Him for refuge. Today we have the Law, to tell us about God, and God’s grace, expressed in the marvelous gospel, to deliver us from the consequence of our breaking that same Law. What might cause her (and us) to expect mercy from such a God as this? Only the merciful work of grace in her heart caused her to turn to God in faith!

The result of Rahab’s faith is that she was saved. She was saved from destruction when the Israelites attacked the city and we learn from the New Testament that she was saved from eternal destruction. Furthermore, she was named in the Great Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11:31), and so honored as to be a direct ancestress of Jesus the Messiah (Matthew 1:5).

But would she be welcome in the church today? After all, isn’t the church for respectable, clean, middle class folks? Rahab’s past did not bother the writers of the New Testament and apparently she was welcomed into the Old Testament church in Israel – Joshua 6:25 tells us that, “Rahab the prostitute … Joshua saved alive. And she has lived in Israel to this day”. Though we may not approve of the actions of sinners we must remember that there is no distinction between sinners saved by the Grace of God in Christ Jesus - we are brothers and sisters with the same testimony - we are great sinners but Christ is a great Savior!

So truly, God’s grace is beautiful. We may wonder why Rahab was apparently the only one in the city of Jericho to be saved … we may wonder why so many in that city made such a dreadful choice to rebel and fight against the Lord … we do not know these things but we do know that today is the day of salvation and we all have to make a choice: shall we flee to the world for protection with its strong walls, or shall we flee to the God who is “in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” We see from this chapter that there are none too sinful or outcast to be saved. We look not to our selves but to only see our need for Him, and our need to trust in Christ. Flee to Christ!.

Robin

I want to credit the commentary by Dale R. Davis, No Falling Words, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, which I found helpful in writing this article.

I recommend this book to any who may wish to dive into the book of Joshua!

Joshua Chapter One

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.”

Let’s look at the book of Joshua. The book starts with the death of the great Moses. Moses was that faithful leader of the Israelites as they were delivered by God from slavery in Egypt. He led the people through the waters and through the desert. Moses delivered God’s law, the Ten Commandments, to the people and instructed them in all the ways of the Lord. Formerly slaves but now a nation with a legal system for judging disputes and leadership charged with leading them into the Promise Land; all this because of the man that God chose – the man Moses! With the death of Moses there must have been a great temptation to despair – who would lead them to that land of milk and honey?

Unless you have lost a parent you may not understand the empty, fearful feeling that comes when someone you trust is gone. Perhaps some have experienced the desertion of one you formerly called a trusted friend – a beloved pastor perhaps, or even the death or divorce of a spouse. The unthinkable had happened to the Israelites – Moses was the beloved leader a whole generation had looked to for leadership; and now he was gone. We know that Moses was a type of Christ and we also know that in those days after the crucifixion, when the Lord Jesus was in the grave, the disciples had a similar experience of loss and abandonment - but not for long! Like the disciples, we have a great shepherd that lives forever and is forever faithful.

Because the Lord works by means, He had prepared another to take Moses’ place -the man Joshua. My first point is that God will never leave his people without an under- shepherd. We may trust the LORD to provide this shepherd. It might come from an unlikely source, Joshua was best known as a man of warfare, but until Christ returns, the Lord will always provide a shepherd with the necessary gifts.

God will provide a shepherd but will we recognize the shepherd when the Lord brings him? The second point to be observed is that true shepherds, called by the Lord, will follow the same command that was given to Joshua – verse 8: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.” God’s shepherd will do all that is written in the Book of the Law. The shepherd that doesn’t do all that is written in the Book of the Law would be the false shepherds that the Scripture warns us about. Consider this: a flock that either doesn’t know the Book of the Law or doesn’t trust in the sufficiency of the Book of the Law will easily fall prey to false shepherds. And we see the people’s responsibility reflected in the contract that the Israelites made with Joshua in verse 17; “Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the LORD your God be with you, as he was with Moses!” They were faithful followers because they knew and trusted the word of the Lord and followed Joshua trusting that he would walk with God as Moses had walked with God. I don’t think this statement was unqualified: they were saying, ‘if you follow the Lord like Moses followed the Lord, we will follow you!’ The applications here are many: one application being, if you are a young woman hoping to married one day, your search for a partner will include the above question, that is, is this young man a suitable mate who will ‘do all that is written in the Book of the Law’? If you are an unmarried man, are you one who sincerely desires to ‘do all that is written in the Book of the Law’? Likewise, are you the man that a young lady might say, ‘the LORD your God is with you …’ because of your obedience to His law? Space won’t allow me to make more applications to this so I will leave you to ponder on your own ...

Granted, no man will perfectly do all that is written in the Book of the Law. It is the essence of the gospel - Christ is the only one who perfectly obeyed all that is written in the Book of the Law – indeed, that is what saves us; Christ’s obedience to all that the Father commanded and Christ’s sacrificial death dealing with His people’s sins, once for all. Joshua and Moses were saved also by faith in the perfect life and atoning death of the Christ to come – they were not saved by perfect obedience to the Law! But we also say that holy living is important – we ought to obey all of God’s law and we can see evidence of true regeneration by the quality of the lives that we live. On the other hand, the false shepherd will deny the importance of the Book of the Law in our personal holiness. False shepherds will teach a legalistic view of the Law or may teach that the Law is not relevant. Legalism teaches that we obey the Law to be ‘saved’ and the opposite view teaches that obedience to the Law of God is unimportant.

A third point to be made in this chapter is the question of where did Joshua come from? Did he just appear from nowhere? We see in Numbers 11:28 that he was Moses assistant from ‘his youth.’ Joshua was a faithful man for many years before being called into the position of assistant. We first hear from Joshua in Exodus 17:8 when Moses chooses him to lead a war party against the Amalekites at Rephidim. Do you suppose Moses first task for Joshua was this extremely important and difficult task of leading a war party? Probably not. Indeed, we see from the wisdom books that the one who is trusted with little may be trusted with much. Even Jesus implies this in the parable of the talents; the one who invests the little he has been given and makes it greater will be entrusted with even more. But the one who has little and miserly keeps it will lose what he has. Undoubtedly Joshua was given a series of ‘small’ tasks and faithfully performed those tasks prior to the larger tasks to come.

Many hope for greatness but are unwilling to labor at the ‘small’ tasks. We know that one of those things recovered in the Reformation was the value of work. The medieval church believed that only the clergy did work that was ‘holy’ or truly valuable in God’s sight. The reformers taught rightly that all work was holy work and ought to be done, ‘to the Lord.’ Not only was the preacher doing meaningful work but also the farmer and the maid. Our hope is that a reformational (biblical) view of work will cause Christians to be the best of workers even when the task may be ‘small’ or tedious, or even a task that the world might call insignificant. And if God calls you to faithfully spend your whole life doing nothing but those ‘small’ things, at the end of your days, can you really say that you are a failure?

The application here is clear: are you a person who is willing to do the ‘small’ things to the Glory of God? Or are you too busy dreaming of those ‘great’ things that you might do if given the chance. We believe that the church is the one who chooses its own leadership – men recognized for their faithfulness in seeing what needs to be done and doing it in obedience to the revealed will (the scriptures) of God. True, understanding and agreeing with the doctrines taught in the Bible is essential, but knowledge without holiness, which includes a holy ‘busyness’, is the proper consequence of holding right doctrine. I say ‘holy busyness’ because I am not sure there is such a thing as holiness exhibited in passivity where one does nothing but sit in a corner! I know, on the other hand, that there is an un-holy busyness where lots of bad things happen. What I am trying to say is that if you believe and profess all the right doctrine but live with no concern for your obedience to the Lord’s commands, your faith is counterfeit.

The fourth and final point I want to make is that when the Lord called Joshua to this great task of leading the Israelites into the Promise land he did not find it necessary to give, ‘new revelation.’ The Lord did speak to Joshua but he merely re-stated the promises previously given. The same promise that he gave to Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph - the promise that they would inherit ‘the land.’ The great tragedy of our times is to live in a culture where the modern church vainly searches for ‘new revelations’ of God’s promises. Has He not graciously made those promises clear in the scriptures? The new covenant is not a national promise about inheriting ‘the land’ but about that much greater inheritance: life eternal in fellowship with Christ! And with the promise of salvation we also have God’s self-revelation about how we ought to live and worship in obedience. Yet we seem driven to find new and different ways to ‘obey’ according to our imaginations. Pray that we might always find satisfaction in living life in obedience to that great, ‘Book of the Law.’