Joshua Chapter 6
One of the themes of the book of Joshua is conquest – this theme makes us uncomfortable and on its face seems to contradict the modern notion of a loving God. Remember the WWJD bracelets back a few years? What would Jesus Do? That is the problem with an imaginary Jesus – the kind of savior we want rather than the Son of God who is revealed in the Bible. Now I know that I cannot give a totally satisfactory answer to all those questions and I have no illusions to convincing unbelievers of the rightness of what is recorded here, however if we interpret the difficult passages of the Bible from other, more clear passages, I think we can begin to see things from God’s perspective.
As we do this we will keep in mind the Apostle Paul’s argument in his letter to the Romans that no –one has an excuse for not knowing and worshipping the one, true God. We also make the point that we, as converted followers of Christ, ought to view ourselves with appropriate humility seeing that we ourselves, posses no greater merit than the pagan who rejects God.
Look at Genesis 15:12-20. The Amorites are the predominant peoples of Canaan … Gen 15 is the Lord’s promise to Abram for a son and for a land for his descendants. And we see clearly that the Lord is telling Abram that though his family will leave Canaan for a while they will return to claim the land. The Lord also reveals to Abram the when and the why! When: in four hundred years. Why: to accumulate many riches and for the purpose of executing the Lord’s judgment. Lord’s judgment on Egypt (for oppressing the sons on Israel) and also the Lord’s judgment on the Canaanites (for their wickedness -“… the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete” verse 16). In other words, God will judge the wicked – in the days of Noah the Lord used nature to judge the wicked (a Great Flood) but in this case it appears that He will use human ‘means’ – the descendants of Abraham – to accomplish that judgment. In Leviticus 18:24-25 and Deut 18:12 we are reminded, by way of warning to the sons of Israel, that the Canaanites are doing all that their hearts desire: very wicked things - and the Lord is just.
So we see that the Bible views the Canaanites as not some nice folk with quaint social customs – and the sons of Israel were not some land-grabbing murderers who were following a vicious God. No, this is another example of God using some not-so-nice people, the sons of Israel, to be the instrument of His just judgment on a people who had persistently rejected God. The sons of Israel had no grounds to be self-righteous because they frequently demonstrated their own unfaithfulness. Because of God’s sovereign choices they were His instruments of His judgment. Now you may ask, how did the Canaanites reject a God they did not know? I think they did know! They had the witness of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when they resided in Canaan before Joseph and his brothers moved to Egypt. They had the same witness as the harlot Rahab, their own neighbor! She lived in the city and she heard the same rumors they heard – she so feared the judgment of God that she fled to His mercy, believed and was saved, they did not fear God; rejected Him; and were judged. She received mercy, they received judgment. And as I have already said, the Apostle Paul makes the argument that no-one has any excuse because the light of nature and conscience testifies to the existence and the righteousness of God.
The lesson here is that there will come a day of judgment – the writer of Hebrews says, “it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” Many will hear the gospel and say, ‘I will repent and believe later in life’ – perhaps the Canaanites said that very thing when they listened to Abraham preach, ‘oh, we see your point and your God is certainly impressive, but our family has always worshipped Baal’ or, ‘your God makes too many demands and will make our lives less ‘fulfilling’ but we respect your beliefs and if it works for you we are happy for you.’ I think the inclusion of the narrative about Rahab indicated that anyone of the residents of Canaan might have repented and been saved up to the day of judgment. But the constant rejection of the gospel call has a consequence – we know that as time passes cold hearts become colder and repentance becomes harder … the Bible also says, today is “THE DAY OF SALVATION”—(2 Cor 6:2), emphasis on the ‘today.’ We dare not wait on tomorrow – there is no assurance that tomorrow will come for any of us.
The residents of Jericho were faced with the possibility of death by this strange invading army – yet even in the face of death they were unwilling to look the Lord for salvation. Are you so arrogant as to think that later, or even on your death bed, you will come to Christ? After a life of rejecting Christ I wonder if that really likely.
Again, were the sons of Israel better folk than the Canaanites who perished? No! but God, in His covenant love, preserved them and used them in accordance with His promise and not because of their ‘better choices,’ or ‘future good behavior’ or any merit in themselves.
As a parenthesis, the sons of Israel were chosen to execute judgment on the unrighteous Canaanites; we have no warrant to perform capital punishment on our unrighteous neighbors. The testimony is clear, the civil government is charged with that responsibility. God was specific with Joshua and the sons of Israel – He is equally clear that we are to leave this kind of judgment to the civil authorities.
So to review – people have no excuse for unbelief and there is coming a day of God’s Righteous Judgment. Those of us who have been called and have trusted Christ have no cause for pride – all we have is by the grace of God.
Robin
