Seeing Christ as our Forerunner

In Joshua 3:11, we learn that the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is to go into the Jordan ahead of the people. When the feet of the priests entered the river, the water stopped. I think we can learn a couple of things here. First of all, by way of reminder, we’re looking at the crossing of the Jordan as a picture of the Christian taking hold of God’s promises and moving forward in the Christian life by faith. This is opposed to a Christian who wanders around in life full of doubts and fears and not living the victorious Christian life God has planned for us.

The first thing I notice here is that God, represented by the ark, goes ahead of His people. He has gone ahead and secured victory for us. Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.” When He is with us, there is no storm of life that can overwhelm us.

Think about this. There is a man in heaven, Jesus the God-man, who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses because He “was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15. He has gone before us. He successfully lived a human life and now calls us to follow Him.

Having gone ahead of us he has “disarmed principalities and powers and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” Colossians 2:15.

The point I’m trying to make is just as the ark went ahead of the people of Israel, Christ has gone ahead of us and secured for us the blessing and victory. Read through the following verses from Hebrews 6:15-20, “And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus, God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus.”

Here he is called our forerunner. And where is this forerunner? He is behind the veil in the real Holy of Holies. The writer of Hebrews call this a sure and steadfast anchor. If He, our forerunner and representative is there, then certainly we who are in Christ will also be there with Him.