JORDAN
JORDAN
Jordan is a type of death as that into which Christ has entered that He might annul its power so that life and incorruptibility might be brought to light in Him as risen from among the dead. Life in the power of resurrection was in God’s thought for the saints of the assembly, and this can only be entered [p. 218] into through Christ setting aside the power of death and taking His place in risen life in which He becomes the life of those who are His own. There can be no question that Christ as risen is outside the life of this world, and we only live spiritually in what God has purposed for us as risen with Him. We have to learn the great power of Christ to hold death in abeyance for His own even at a time when publicly nothing is changed. So that His saints can enter now in the Spirit into what is beyond death; they can have life in that region even while they are still here in flesh-and-blood conditions. But to enjoy that life they must pass over Jordan, and the scripture shows how they can do so. “When ye see the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God” (verse 3).
The great thing is to see the ark and go after it. Our eyes must be fixed upon Christ and for this we must read the gospels; we must learn what he was before he went into death. The glory of His divine Person must be understood, and this I believe is signified by the words, “Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure” (verse 4). He was entirely of His own order, a divine Person in manhood, and yet here to bring all that God was in grace near to men. But if we do not apprehend His inscrutable greatness we shall have no right estimate of the grace in which He was here. We read in the same chapter of Him saying, “Before Abraham was, I am”, and of Him saying to a publicly convicted sinner, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8).