THE NEW PLACE
THE NEW PLACE
In Exodus and Joshua we find the two great parts of the work of Christ typified; the one, by the Red Sea; the other, by the Jordan. In the one, we have Christ’s dying for us; and in the other, we have our dying with Him.
Where does the crossing of Jordan bring us? Exodus 15: 17 tells us. “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, the place that thou, Jehovah, hast made thy dwelling, the Sanctuary, Lord, that thy hands have prepared”. In the epistle to the Colossians the Red Sea and the Jordan coalesce. We are brought to God, but there is another thing, and one which we have practically to learn, even that we have died with Him In Colossians 2:20, we have “died with Christ from the elements of the world”. We have ended our history, and practically we have a new place. His death puts us outside everything. His death for us removes all between God and us; our death with Him removes all between us and God. At the Red Sea the enemy’s power was completely broken. In Jordan I have died with Him, I am free of Satan and the flesh where they both are, and I am introduced into a new scene.
There is not a thing against me; all was ended in the cross of Christ. I am clear of every single thing that barred me from the presence of God. A person says, ‘I do not feel it’; I am not asking you to feel it, but to believe it. The thief on the cross, a man who was a scandal to the Jew, an offscouring to society, was taken from the very lowest depths of shame and misery, and put into the brightest and most blessed place in company with Christ that day; he was in the new place that ‘day’.
There is no question about there being a beautiful new place for the christian, but people limit it to its being theirs when they die. Scripture shows that it is ours now! People say, ‘You get heaven when you die’. No such thing. You have it now. It is not your death that entitles you to it, but Christ’s death. There is not a single shade that was between us and God, but Christ has removed it in His death. No person can be truly happy until he knows that he has a new place now, and that is where Christ is.