Chapter2: The Three Changeless Factors
AFTER JOSHUA ACTED as the general against the Amalekites, “the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book” (Ex. 17:14). This book became the center of the life of the people of Israel from this point on. Over and over the Pentateuch tells how it came to be composed. In Numbers, for example, we find, “And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the LORD” (Num. 33:2). Just as Exodus 17 specifically refers to the writing of the book of Exodus, Numbers 33 specifically refers to the writing of the book of Numbers.
In the plain of Moab, with the forty-year wandering over, the writing still continued under the command of God. Deuteronomy 31 portrays the growth of the Pentateuch, emphasizing that Moses wrote in the book. Of course, one of the liberal theories is that the Pentateuch was carried down through the spoken word for a long period prior to the writing. But this theory directly contradicts what the Pentateuch itself claims, because in Deuteronomy 31:9 we read, “And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi.” So Moses not only spoke; he also wrote. He gave propositional, verbalized communication from God to man in written as well as spoken form. We are told about the production of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Something was written.
Deuteronomy 31 also makes clear that what was written was not to be a priestly book hidden away from the people, as if they could not understand it. Quite the contrary—from time to time it was to be read not only before the priests but also before the common people.
And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: and that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it. (Deut. 31:9-13)
The people, of course, could not have their own Bibles. This would not be possible until after Gutenberg. But this does not mean that the Pentateuch was an exotic book, a mere symbol. It was not like the ark of the Lord, never to be seen. While the ark of the Lord was hidden away from common eyes and covered when the people traveled, the book was brought out periodically and read. This was a reminder, therefore, that it was not a book too holy for common use. It was important because it was from God, but it was common because it was to be understood by all the people. The people were to know the content that God had given through Moses in the book.
In Deuteronomy 31:19 Moses speaks of “this song.” One of the liberal theories is that the Pentateuch was passed down by song and only written down much later, but again the book of Deuteronomy contradicts this. While it is true that the people were to learn the song and pass it on to their children, the text also says, “Write this song.”
We see then a sequential structure: God commanded something to be written in a book, and Moses wrote it over a period of forty years. As we get to the end of the book of Deuteronomy, the writing of Moses is finished. When Moses completed the Pentateuch, he commanded that it be kept in a sacred place, “in the side of the ark of the covenant” (Deut. 31:26). It was to be preserved and read regularly to all the people.
THE FIRST CHANGELESS FACTOR: THE WRITTEN BOOK
This brings us finally to Joshua 1:
Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, it came to pass that the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success [or, do wisely]. (Joshua 1:1-8)
As the Israelites stood ready to enter the land, God’s main emphasis was upon the book.
Joshua was to have special revelations from God through the priest: “And he [Joshua] shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the LORD” (Num. 27:21). We are not sure exactly what the Urim was, the way it functioned, or how God used it to reveal himself, but we do know it was one way God through the priest revealed propositional content to his people. But though Joshua was going to have this special leading from the Lord, this was not to detract from the central reference point and chief control: the written book. The Word of God written in the book set the limitations. Thus, Joshua was already functioning in the way Bible-believing Christians function.
Sometimes God does lead in other ways, but such leading must always be within the circle of his external, propositional commands in Scripture. Even if a person had a Urim and a Thummim as well as a priest to guide him, this would not change his basic authority. The primary leading would come from the written, propositional revelation of God, from the Bible.
So we see that the written book was the first of the three changeless factors that stood with Joshua as he assumed leadership. God commanded him, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.” Joshua had been walking beside Moses (the young man beside the older) for forty years; yet God’s command to Joshua was not just general. It was not, “Try to remember what Moses told you and follow it.” Rather, Joshua was to search out and constantly study the sharp and definite commands in the written book.
The Lord especially emphasized three things. First, the law was not to depart out of Joshua’s mouth; he was to talk about it. Second, he was to meditate on it day and night. Meditation is a cognitive activity; it takes place in the area of reason. God’s law is not something that should be mechanically reproduced; nor is it contentless (to express it in contemporary terms). Third, he was to practice the commands in his historic space-time situation. Talk about it; think about it; do it! Jesus’ teaching had the same emphasis: “Here are my words. Do them!”
Throughout his life, Joshua was obedient. Of all the factors that gave him such success, the most important was that he heeded God’s admonition about the book. For example, at Ebal and Gerizim Joshua carried out exactly Moses’ instruction to read the law before all the people. (See Joshua 8; we will study this in more detail in chapter 7.) Joshua lived out his life in a practical way within the circle of the written revelation.
This faithfulness continued to the end of his life. Joshua’s charge to the people when he was ready to die was simple and final: “Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left” (Josh. 23:6). Joshua kept the command of God all the days of his life, and before he died, he urged the people that followed him to do the same: “Live your life within the circle of the propositions given in the written book.”
THE GROWTH AND ACCEPTANCE OF THE CANON
Joshua’s relation to the book teaches us an important lesson about how the canon grew and was accepted. Joshua knew Moses, the writer of the Pentateuch, personally. Joshua knew his strengths and weaknesses as a man; he knew that Moses was a sinner, that Moses made mistakes, that Moses was just a man. Nonetheless, immediately after Moses’ death Joshua accepted the Pentateuch as more than the writing of Moses. He accepted it as the writing of God. Two or three hundred years were not required for the book to become sacred. As far as Joshua was concerned, the Pentateuch was the canon, and the canon was the Word of God. The biblical view of the growth and acceptance of the canon is as simple as this: When it was given, God’s people understood that it was his Word. Right away it had authority.
This is why I think the book of Joshua is so crucial. It stands as the bridge between the Pentateuch and the post-Pentateuchal period and provides the key for understanding some important relationships between various parts of the whole Scripture.
The fact that Joshua’s generation accepted the Pentateuch as authoritative is more than a mere breath of fresh air in the heavy smog surrounding present liberal scholarly discussion. To the Israelites, the canon was not just academic, not merely theological, but practical. Joshua and the people had a continuity of authority as they moved through history. The book was to be their environment, their mentality.
At the time of Moses, they had the authority of both Moses and the law God had commanded Moses to write. When they woke up the morning after Moses died, and when they entered the promised land, they were not left in a vacuum. To use another image, because of the continuity provided by the book, there was no fracture in the authority. In the practical problems of life, they had an objective standard of judgment that stood in an unbroken flow.
One practical problem, for instance, was how to judge prophecies. Moses had written that if a man made a prophecy, and it did not come to pass, it was not from God (Deut. 18:22). But this, of course, left an even more acute problem: What happens when people make strange prophecies that do come to pass? Then where do the prophecies come from? How can you tell? Moses had laid down these guidelines:
What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. (Deut. 12:32—13:5)
This passage from Deuteronomy reveals the standard that God himself gave: Judge the prophet whose prophecy comes to pass by comparing what he says with the objective written standard. Whether a prophecy comes to pass or not is not the final test. The final test is whether a prophet’s teaching stands in continuity with what is written in the book.
Because of the book, the first of the great changeless factors, God’s people had a way to make objective, not merely experiential, judgments. The whole man, with his reason, could consider what Moses’ writings said. In this time of change from the great lawgiver (Moses) to the post-Pentateuchal period, the Israelites had a standard, a very practical guide.
In the book of Joshua, we watch the canon grow even more. Joshua 5:1 contains the phrase “until we were passed over.” The person who wrote the narrative was there! (This reminds us of the “we” passages in Acts.) Joshua 5:6 has the words “which the LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey.” Again the writer was present at these events. When the Pentateuch was finished, the book of Joshua, a continuation of the canon, flowed on; and it was a first-person situation.
Joshua 24:26 tells us who this person was: “And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God.” How did the canon grow? Moses wrote, and Moses died. Joshua continued to write, and the canon continued to grow. Incidentally, as a quick parenthesis, it is quite clear that the Bible always accepts Joshua as a historic character. Nehemiah 8:17 illustrates this when it says that the children of Israel had not kept the Feast of Booths since the days of Joshua, the son of Nun.
As Joshua faced his task then, he had with him this first great changeless factor: the written book. It provided a continuity of authority, but it was growing and would continue to grow. It grew, but it was not discontinuous. Joshua, as he led the people, had an objective standard by which to judge everything else, and the standard was so clear that God expected the ordinary people to understand it when it was periodically read to them.
THE SECOND CHANGELESS FACTOR: THE POWER OF GOD
When the people were ready to enter the land, they left Shittim, an area near the east bank of the Jordan where they had been lodging, and moved up to the east bank of the Jordan River. Three days later occurred an incident that revealed the second changeless factor: the power of God.
And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the LORD your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the LORD of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.
And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people; and as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest), that the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city of Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan. . . .
And it came to pass, when the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all his banks, as they did before. (Josh. 3:7-17; 4:18)
The priests carried the ark into the Jordan, and, while they stood in the water, God rolled back the river. How God did this we are not told. Whether it was by direct command or through some material means, as when the east wind blew back the Red Sea, does not matter. What matters is that the waters were stopped even though it was the time of flood, and all the people passed over on dry land. Then the priests walked out, and the waters returned to their place.
God did a remarkable thing here, and the text expressly says that he did it for a purpose: “On that day the LORD magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life” (Josh. 4:14). God rolled back the waters for Joshua just as he had done for Moses forty years earlier. The exact sign he had given at the Exodus from Egypt, he now gave at their entrance into the promised land. The sign that had most conclusively shown the power of God upon Moses was now associated with Joshua. “As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee,” God had told Joshua (Josh. 3:7). Now he dramatically demonstrated that this was so.
The accounts of the two miracles even share some words in common. Joshua 3:13 and 16 speak of the waters standing “upon an heap.” The song of Moses in Exodus 15 states in poetic form that “the floods stood upright as an heap” (Ex. 15:8). God told Joshua to command the priests, “Ye shall stand still in Jordan” (Josh. 3:8). On the edge of the Red Sea, Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD” (Ex. 14:13). These repetitions imply the parallel that the book of Joshua identifies explicitly: “For the LORD your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea” (Josh. 4:23).
To us, the parting of the Red Sea is ancient history, but to the people who watched the Jordan roll back, it was not. Joshua, Caleb, and all the older people had been at the Red Sea, because those who were under twenty when the Red Sea was rolled back were still living. Therefore, they were recalling something in their own personal history. We can picture these Israelites coming up to the river Jordan, the older ones remembering the Red Sea, and the younger ones recalling the accounts of their parents who over and over again had described to them the wonder of that event. Joshua and Caleb especially would have remembered. Then to have God suddenly give the same sign as they were entering the promised land—a symbol of the continuity of the authority and the power of God—must have given them a tremendous sense of wonder, awe, and certainty.
Even at the end of his life, Joshua reminded the people that some of them could remember all that had happened in the days of Moses: “He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes have seen what I [God] have done in Egypt. . . . [God] did those great signs in our sight” (Josh. 24:7, 17). He was calling upon the older men and women to remember their own history, a personal experience.
Joshua himself had also seen this power manifested in the battle against the Amalekites. When Moses had stood with his hands upheld, the Israelites had won; when his hands went down, the Amalekites had won. God certainly taught Joshua something to remember all the days of his life: “The power is mine! The power is mine!” As the people crossed over the Jordan, Joshua would have known again that the power was there and that it was a changeless power, not a power just for one period in history. The power was there, and the power was the Lord’s. The power is not in anything or anybody independent of God. It is the same power through the whole Bible, and God’s power is not diminished in our period of history. It is the same power—past, present, and future.
THE THIRD CHANGELESS FACTOR: THE SUPERNATURAL LEADER
The third changeless factor is the continuity of a Person:
And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay, but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? And the captain of the LORD’s host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. . . . And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. (Josh. 5:13-17; 6:2)
The power that continued in Joshua’s time was neither impersonal nor magical. The power was related to a Person— a Person who also has continuity in history.
The continuity of the supernatural leader was made explicit in the incident near Jericho. Here the one who confronted Joshua said, “As captain of the host of the LORD am I now come,” thus implying that he had been present before in a different capacity. Joshua had seen and known this Person in the past, but now he was coming in a specific capacity, as the captain of the host of the Lord.
This, too, paralleled Moses’ experience. Moses was in the desert when he received his special call at the burning bush. Suddenly he was confronted with a Person—the great “I AM”—who said to him, “Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Ex. 3:5). The captain of the Lord’s host gave Joshua the same instructions (Josh. 5:15). Joshua, filled with emotion, would have quickly undone his sandals and kicked them off, realizing he was now in Moses’ place.
When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, he constantly mentioned the past. In light of the insistence of the text, I can never understand how liberal theologians can try to maintain that this was a God new to the Israelites. This idea would seem impossible because in Exodus 3:6 we read, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face. . . .” He was hiding his face before the same God who had appeared to Abraham 500 years before. In Exodus 3:15 God reiterates, “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you.” So there was this strong emphasis: “I am not a new God; there is a continuity in who I am and in my leadership.” Verse 16 also speaks of “the LORD God of your fathers.”
When God turned Moses’ rod into a snake, it was a sign to Pharaoh. It was also a sign to the people of God that God would accomplish a purpose among them. What was this purpose? “That they [the children of Israel] may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee” (Ex. 4:5). The sign was to be a proof to the people that there was a continuity of supernatural leadership, back to the time of Abraham and before.
At the end of his life, on the plain of Moab, Moses spoke about this continuity:
I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: also the LORD hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan. The LORD thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them: and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the LORD hath said. And the LORD shall do unto them as he did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of them, whom he destroyed. And the LORD shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you. Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of good courage: for thou must go with this people unto the land which the LORD hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed. (Deut. 31:2-8)
We find here a double continuity. Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. The same God who dealt with Sihon and Og will deal with the men across the river.” Then, turning to Joshua, he exclaimed, “The same God who has been with me will go before you, Joshua. Don’t be afraid!” Joshua had seen the leading of the Lord in the cloud and the fire. He had been in the tabernacle when God had spoken to Moses. So he already knew this one who met him near Jericho. Joshua, looking back across Jordan, would have remembered all the wonders he had seen under the leadership of this same supernatural leader.
When Joshua first saw the captain of the host of the Lord, he reacted as a real man. Sword in hand, Joshua rushed up and challenged him. When the Person spoke to Joshua, Joshua suddenly understood who this was, and back into his memory flowed all I have just mentioned plus much more, surely, that is not recorded. It must have been an overwhelming moment for Joshua as he was picking up the reins of the leadership of God’s people. This was now much more than a memory; it was a historical reality in the here and now. Here and now was the same supernatural leader, the same Person. Moses was dead, but the true leader would go on. Because this one said to Joshua, “I have given into thine hand Jericho” (Josh. 6:2), and because he knew this one kept his promises, Joshua was able to turn to his people before the walls of Jericho and say without any fear, “Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city” (Josh. 6:16). Why? Because the power was personal, and the Person was there.
THE THREE CHANGELESS FACTORS TODAY
As he passed from the Pentateuchal period into the post-Pentateuchal period, Joshua knew the book, the supernatural power, and the supernatural leader, who was the living God. We are not living in the time of Joshua, but the New Testament says that these three great changeless factors are true for us as the children of God today. These continuities flow from the Pentateuch through the rest of the Old Testament into the New Testament and down through history to us.
Listen to Paul: “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:37). Does that sound familiar? Of course! It is exactly what Moses said. If somebody comes to us, how are we to judge what he says? Judge, says Paul, on the basis of what God has written in the book. There is no difference whatsoever in the objective standard. We have the same high possibility of objectivity, but now in a book that is enlarged. The continuity that Joshua had in his time of need, we have in our own needy generation.
Paul wrote something similar to the Thessalonians: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” (2 Thess. 2:15). Here again is a parallel to Moses.
Perhaps the clearest New Testament statement of the continuity of authority was made by Peter. He reminded his readers that he had stood on the Mount of Transfiguration. What a great certainty—to have heard the voice from heaven and seen Jesus glorified! Nevertheless, Peter said, “Yes, but that was mine, and you won’t have that because you weren’t there. But there’s something greater that we share in common.” To quote directly from his letter: “We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet. 1:19-21). Peter was saying the same things as Paul. We have a written revelation; we can judge by it, and its authority is final.
Peter also brought the Old Testament and New Testament together: “that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour” (2 Pet. 3:2). He specifically included the writings of Paul in the continuity of authority: “And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Pet. 3:15, 16).
We today have the first of the three changeless factors—a written, objective, propositional authority. As God said to Israel, “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deut. 12:32), John affirmed at the end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation: “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Rev. 22:18-19). It is as though God is saying, “How can you miss this? There is continuity of written objective authority all the way from the Pentateuch through the New Testament.”
Concerning the second changeless factor, consider a statement of the resurrected Jesus: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18). The same power that was exhibited at the time of Moses and Joshua, Jesus claimed was now given to Him. Jesus connected this statement to the coming of the Holy Spirit: “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). As God said to Joshua, “Remember the power? The Red Sea and Jordan rolled back!” Jesus declared to his disciples, “Don’t be afraid, for this entire age will receive power from the indwelling Holy Spirit.”
The power that parted the Red Sea and the Jordan flows on constantly. Facing a lost world—Jerusalem, Samaria, the ends of the earth—until Jesus comes, the church of God has that power. The same power is available to the people of God—in the past, present, and future.
The continuity of the third changeless factor, the supernatural, divine leader, comes to us with special force. In 1 Corinthians 10:4, Paul discusses the time when Moses struck the rock: “And [our fathers] did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” The one who was in the wilderness and the one who stood before Joshua and said, “As captain of the host of the LORD am I now come,” is the same Person we know after the Incarnation as Jesus Christ.
This Person spoke about the continuity of his leadership. He told his followers, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:20). The one who was with Moses at the rock and with Joshua at the beginning of the campaign against Jericho has promised, “Till I come again, I will be with you.”
It is wonderful that the same leader is with us. Was the captain who went before Joshua in his battles some human leader? No. Must we struggle today in our own wisdom and puny strength? No—the power is there. The same leader is present, and the same leader will lead.
When Joshua saw this leader, he “fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? And the captain of the LORD’s hosts said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.” Are we to know the power of the leader who is there? Well, then let us get our shoes off! Let us never forget the words of Paul: “I am the slave of Jesus Christ.” If our shoes are not off before this leader, we will not know his power. But when we take off our shoes, then, circled by the objective, written authority of the book, we will experience the continuity of both the power of God and the leadership of the great one. For the Person at the burning bush, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the captain of the Lord’s host, Jesus Christ—this one is still with us.
Each of the three great changeless factors that stood at such a crucial time as Joshua’s, at the change from the Pentateuchal to the post-Pentateuchal period, continues unbroken. There are changes in history, but these three things go on without changing. We in our battles in this century have the same book, the same power, and the same leader.