JOSHUA 10
This chapter is very interesting, because though the place the Gibeonites had taken in connection with Israel was taken deceitfully and through want of exercise and enquiry of God on the part of His people, yet God overrules it in order to bring all the force of the enemy into evidence so that they might be completely destroyed. It shows the wonderful way that God can overrule the introduction of unspiritual elements among His people in order to bring out the power of what is heavenly. The Gibeonites had no power; they were not able to defend themselves. They were among the people of God without liberty or power of sonship. They were like Lot, who had no power when the adversary came. He fell captive, and, if there had not been a spiritual man not far off with plenty of trained servants, he would have remained in captivity.
We have three lessons in these earlier chapters of Joshua which are most important in view of the conflict. First, the power of the ark at Jericho, the power of Christ as the ark of the covenant. Second, at Ai we have in type the work of God in the souls of His people which always answers to the javelin [p. 56] of Joshua; the work of God in His people always answers to any standard the Spirit raises at any particular moment. The third lesson is at Beth-horon in chapter 10, where we see the direct intervention of heaven. These are three great elements of spiritual victory.
The hailstones, and sun and moon standing still, look on to the future when God will actually crush the power of the enemy. Every spiritual power of wickedness will be annihilated by the direct intervention of heaven; and the saints are in the light of that now. It is striking that we see here the direct action of heaven, which we have not had before in the book. The hailstones make one think of the time when the angel will pour out the seventh bowl in Revelation, and the hailstones will come down weighing a hundredweight each. Who can stand against that? It is the power that operates from heaven and will bring everything down; every enemy will be laid low. The sun and moon will stand still. The hailstones speak of destructive power, but the sun and moon standing still, or literally being silent, speak of the wonderful place in which Christ is at present as the glorified One. He is standing still in the heavens, and is going to stand still there until every spiritual power which is hostile to God and His people is laid low. The sun and moon are both seen above the horizon at the same time. The moon is the church seen in conjunction with a glorified Christ, answering to Him and reflecting Him. If we had a sense in our souls of the present place of Christ as the sun in the heavens, it would deliver us from every suggestion of spiritual wickedness.
The hailstones represent the providential intervention of God in support of the truth. This is rather in contrast to the heavenly influence of the sun. The hailstones are forcible things, especially when they weigh a hundredweight. The influence of the sun is genial; it acts on the principle of attraction. Light and warmth and life-giving influence flow from the sun. If there is conflict, light comes from the Head. The sun is a glorious figure of the headship of Christ, rather than of His lordship. Just as the sun holds the whole solar system together by the power of attraction, so Christ as Head holds everything together by the power of attraction, and He gives light to His people for conflict. There is a spiritual light shining in Christ as the sun in the heavens, so that the saints may be able to pursue the conflict until every [p. 57] enemy is killed. Then there is also the providential side. At the Reformation there was a shining of the light of the sun, and precious truth was given from Christ as Head: justification by faith, and the authority of the Scriptures. Then there were hailstones: the world powers, the king of England and others, rose up and threw off the yoke of Rome — that was like the hailstones, providential happenings coming in to break the powers of evil.
We see Christ as the sun in the heavens at the end of Ephesians 1. The apostle is praying, and at the close of his prayer he stops when he thinks of the greatness of Christ: “the exceeding greatness of his power which he wrought in Christ in raising him from among the dead”. He stops praying and starts teaching: “and he set him down at his right hand in the heavenlies, above every principality, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name named, not only in this age, but also in that to come, and has put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the assembly which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”. That is the sun standing still in the heavens. The Son of God has been standing still in the midst of the heavens for nearly two thousand years. We are in the greatest day possible; it would be better to live one day now than a hundred years in the time of Methuselah.
The sun remained standing about a full day, and there was no day like it before or since. That is the spiritual and heavenly character of the present day. There is a glorified Christ in the heavens, and there is a company down here answering to it like the moon; and in the light of that there is power to overthrow every evil element that can possibly arise. Under the leading of the Spirit we can keep the sun and the moon in evidence as long as the day of conflict continues, until there is not another Amorite. I believe the whole incident is a rebuke from Jehovah, for I think the motive of the princes must have been that they wanted allies, and God rebukes them by showing that all the power of the heavens is with them and for them. What were a few Gibeonites who, after all, could not stand up for themselves, much less for Israel!
In Acts 16 Paul rebuked the girl with the spirit of Python; he would not have a Gibeonitish ally; and we find something that very much answers to the power from heaven in the earthquake [p. 58] It seems to suggest that the saints in their conflict with spiritual wickedness are in the full light of the day, the light of a glorified Christ sitting at the right hand of God until His foes are made His footstool — that is the light of the day and the church is seen corresponding with Him and answering to Him.
The completeness of the victory is seen in verses 22 - 27 when Joshua calls on the men of Israel to put their feet on the necks of the five kings. That answers to the last chapter of Romans: “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly”. There will be complete victory over all the power of evil, and the saints are called to have part in it.