Living on Resurrection Ground

It’s been a busy several weeks. With the coming of spring there is so much yard work to be done that it takes up a lot of time. I want to continue the study of Joshua that we’ve been working on. Part of my motivation for doing this is the personal discipline of putting the results of my study in writing. Hopefully you will find it helpful as you follow along.

The last time we were studying this we noted that the Israelites marked their crossing of the Jordan with stones. The priests with the ark stood in the middle of the river until all was finished. I pointed out that this is representative of the death of Christ and our death in Him.

Moving on with the story then, we see that the Israelites came up out of the river on the tenth day of the first month. This is the very same day 40 years later that the children of Israel had come out of Egypt. You see, they were “saved” from their bondage 40 years ago, but because they didn’t believe God at the time, they ended up wandering in the wilderness all of those years. And most of the people who escaped Egypt did not enter into the promised land. Sometimes we do the same thing. We have our salvation in hand, but we have trouble really believing the truth about who God says we are and what our position is in Christ.

This is what the author of Hebrews is getting at in 3:16 and following: “For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.”

It is important that we believe God regarding our position in Christ on resurrection ground. Ephesians 2:5 and 6 say, “even when we were dead in trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” We’re using the crossing of the Jordan as a picture of taking this truth by faith and putting behind us the purposeless wandering.

The difficulty as I see it is that even though we are positionally on resurrection ground, life has a way of hitting us with the reality of sin, disease, pain and temptation. Romans 8:23 puts it this way, “Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.”

We are presented as a church without spot or wrinkle, but now our practice and experience is less than that. So a point of tension arises. Am I going to accept God’s Word or am I going to go with my feelings? I need to ask myself who is going to be in control – my body or the spirit and the truth?

Through the next several articles we’ll look at the truth of our death with Christ and the importance of reckoning it true in our lives. Hebrews 4:1 says “let us fear lest any of you seem to have short of it” (God’s rest).