JOSHUA 4
It is good to memorialize the great acts of the Lord, provided that the memorials do not become idols. Each new generation must learn what God has done for His people so that they will obey His Word and trust Him for the future (Ps. 78:1–8). When you have living faith in a living God, the past is not “dead history.” It throbs with living reality.
“Crossing the Jordan” is not a picture of dying and going to heaven despite what some songs say. It illustrates the teaching of Romans 6: death to the old self-life and identification with Christ in resurrection power. Nobody but God can see the stones in the middle of the Jordan, but the record bears witness that they are there. So it is with the death and resurrection of Christ: we believe the record and thus experience the miracle.
The stones on the shore reminded the people that the old life was buried and they should “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4;