Joshua 5 Removing the Reproach of Egypt - Justin Wadel

All right, well, good morning to all of you, and a special welcome to the visitors. I see a few new faces out there. Good to have you here. And we are going to be digging back into the book of Joshua.

I think this is my fourth message in the series, and we are at Joshua chapter 5. You can go ahead and turn there a while.

And kind of the subtitle for this that I've chosen for this portion is "Removing the Reproach of Egypt." We will get into that a little more, a little later.

So just as a little bit of a review, Joshua is the first of the historical books and marks the end of the Exodus period. It's been a long 40 years in the wilderness, and now the children of Israel are poised to enter and conquer Canaan, the promised land, and receive their inheritance. And I don't think we probably understand the amount of looking forward to this event that these people have had as they wandered in the wilderness and went through all the experiences there. But we are finally at that point, and Joshua, the one who succeeded Moses, is the leader.

So like I said, the children of Israel are under the command of Joshua, a capable leader who typifies Jesus, the Christ, superseding Moses. I'm sorry, in superseding Moses, leading his people through the waters of baptism and distributing the inheritance to the faithful. And this book is so full of types and shadows.

We're going to be looking at a few of them again this morning. And I don't know if they continue on that way through the whole book, but at least at this point here in the beginning, there are a lot of types of present realities, types of Christ, and especially Joshua taking that position as typifying Jesus, our Messiah.

This is where we're at here at close to Jericho, just on the west side of the Jordan River.

So last time we looked at chapters 3 and 4, where we have the miraculous crossing of the Jordan River, which definitely seems to represent baptism, and also happens to be the same river in which Jesus himself was baptized.

And we also looked at the setting up of the 12 memorial stones in Gilgal.

And I don't know that we spoke on that a lot, but that seems to represent the 12 apostles who were given the authority to hand down the one true faith to the church. We talked about that a little bit this morning in Sunday school, how they set up those 12 memorial stones. And he said, "If there's ever any question, if your children come to you and say, 'What does this represent?' We have these stones to go back to and remind ourselves of what happened, how we crossed the Jordan, how God brought us to this point, how God has been faithful."

And it's good to have those memorial stones in our own lives that we can go back to and remind ourselves of God's faithfulness. So that being said, let's get into chapter 5 here.

And I'm going to be reading out of the Septuagint. "Then it came to pass when the kings of the Amorites on the other side of the Jordan and the kings of the Phoenicians near the sea heard that the Lord God had dried up the Jordan River before the children of Israel when they crossed over, their minds fainted. They were panic-stricken, and there was no more sense left in them because of the presence of the children of Israel.

At about that time, the Lord said to Joshua, 'Make stone knives for yourself from a sharp rock and sit down and circumcise the sons of Israel.' So Joshua made sharp stone knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at the place called the Hill of Foreskins.

In this manner, Joshua completely purified the sons of Israel, as many as were born at any time along the way and as many as were uncircumcised after they came out of Egypt. Joshua circumcised all these. For Israel lived in the mad bright desert for 42 years. Therefore, most of their fighting men who came out of Egypt and who disobeyed the commandment of God were uncircumcised. Concerning these, he also determined that they would not see the land which the Lord swore to give to their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

But in their place, he raised up their sons, whom Joshua circumcised because they were born during the journey and thus were uncircumcised. So when they were circumcised, they rested there and stayed in the camp until they were healed.

Then the Lord said to Joshua, the son of Nun, 'Today, I have removed the disgrace of Egypt from you.' Thus he called the name of that place, Gilgal."

And we'll get into a little more of Gilgal, the significance of Gilgal, and possibly in future messages as well, come back to that at different points. But Gilgal actually has a lot of significance beyond what just happened here at this event. All right, a minor confusion.

Now, if you're reading the Old Testament here this morning, if you were following along in any other translation other than the Septuagint, and you came to chapter 5, verse 2, you're going to read something like this.

"At that time, the Lord said to Joshua, 'Make flint knives for yourself and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.'" Wait, what?

Circumcision the second time? Isn't one time enough? Well, I did not go back and look at exactly why the Masoretic text includes these words or this extra little phrase here. Thankfully, the Septuagint does not include the words "again" or "a second time" because, in fact, this was not a second round of circumcision.

The sons of Israel who Joshua was told to circumcise here were all being circumcised the first and last time. What I think the other translations possibly are trying to say is not that Joshua circumcised everyone again, but that Joshua reinstated circumcision or that he instituted a second law of circumcision, borrowing the quote from John of Damascus.

I think the only—I looked about at all the translations that I had available, and I think about the only one was the NLT, the New Living Translation, I think was the only one that excluded the words "again" or "the second time." Not a big deal, but it is a minor confusion if you're reading the Old Testament in a different translation than the Septuagint.

So I highly recommend the Septuagint.

Joshua goes on to say here in verse 4 that this circumcision was for as many as were born at any time along the way or along this journey from Egypt to the promised land and as many as were uncircumcised after they came out of Egypt. So he makes this very clear who was included in this.

So this was a second generation and the generation that were allowed into the promised land.

So we have this space of 40-plus years where circumcision had not been observed, as well as a lot of other institutions.

And Joshua was reinstituting this rite or ceremony. Why was this necessary? There may be a couple of reasons.

Number one, circumcision was a sign of the covenant, a sign of separation unto God. This rite or ceremony was first given to Abraham, and we know that it was given to him after God declared him righteous. It's interesting.

And he was an old man at the time that God gave this institution to him. And from that time, it became such a crucial part of the Jewish religion that by the time of the New Testament, you have the Jews referred to as the circumcision and the Gentiles referred to as the uncircumcised.

And Paul, writing in the New Testament, many times just talks about the circumcision, and he's referring to the Jews. It's interesting how this became like their identity. It became such a part of them that they were even referred to by that. And then the Gentiles and the opposite.

We had that time where after Peter met with Cornelius and baptized him and his family, and he comes back and they're like, "You went into the uncircumcised." And that was kind of the label for the Gentiles, which would have been us.

Number two, it removed the disgrace of Egypt. And I feel like personally this was probably the big picture here. This was probably the most important reason that God had Joshua do this at this point. The Lord told Joshua here in verse 9, "Today, I have removed the disgrace or the reproach or the shame of Egypt from you."

Depending on what translation you have, you might have seen one of those three words. What is the disgrace or the reproach of Egypt? What was it that this second generation was still carrying with them as they come into the promised land and they're getting ready to conquer? What was it that had to be removed from them? And I can only speculate on that. I don't know exactly for sure what all God had in mind. But I would say mainly it was the disgrace of slavery, the disgrace of being in bondage to a foreign nation and a taskmaster like Pharaoh.

If you think about what the Israelites endured in Egypt under the Egyptian rule, the slavery that they endured, that was a disgrace. That was a reproach. And they weren't necessarily there as punishment. They kind of ended up there because of Joseph in a lot of ways.

But there they were. Pharaoh sees this as an opportunity to use them to build his empire, and they become slaves. And we know that it was a very hard slavery. It was very much a bondage.

Part of it could also be the influence or stain that Egypt left on the Israelites, the ungodliness, the stain of what we would call the world. Whatever the case, God himself testified that through circumcision, that reproach was gone. He said, "I removed it. It's gone."

And I think that's very noteworthy, especially when we think of our own freedom or deliverance from Egypt, from Satan, from bondage, from sin. That was a disgrace. That was a reproach that was removed.

We'll look at that a little bit more.

And number three, we have a type. Circumcision was a type of baptism.

Just as Joshua circumcised the Jews at Gilgal, so too Jesus will circumcise his people with the sword of the Spirit through baptism, cutting off the works of the flesh and freeing us from the bondage of sin and the dominion of Satan, our taskmaster.

A very good past shadow of a present reality. So we already had a type of baptism coming through the Jordan. Now we have another type of baptism, of circumcision. Let's look at what Paul says in Colossians 2:11. "In him, you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross, having disarmed principalities and powers. He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it."

Again, just another picture of what happened to the children of Israel leaving Egypt, leaving that reproach, that slavery, that bondage. And Pharaoh was made an open spectacle of. If you think about what happened there after he came running after them, he gets to the Red Sea, it parts, he tries to come through, it drowns his whole army.

And Jesus single-handedly did that for us with Satan and the power of Satan.

I'm not going to expound on this a whole lot, but I see definitely in this circumcision a very big type of baptism. So because of the death and resurrection of Christ and through baptism, we receive a new kind of circumcision, a circumcision of the heart.

Quote by Justin Martyr, "Your first circumcision was and is performed by iron instruments, for you remain hard-hearted." He's speaking to the Jews here. "However, our circumcision is the second circumcision because it has been instituted after yours. It circumcises us from idolatry and from absolutely every form of wickedness."

Again, he was refuting the Jews here. Another quote by Justin, "We who have approached God through him have received not carnal, but spiritual circumcision, which Enoch and those like him observed. And we have received it through baptism by God's mercy since we were sinners and all men alike may obtain it."

And I like that thought that this is for all men. And I'm not saying that circumcision wasn't back in the old covenant, but we now, under the new covenant, we have the circumcision of baptism, which is available for everyone.

And then as Paul summed it up in Romans 2, "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God."

So I think it's very clear that not only is circumcision non-essential, but we have a new circumcision. We have, as Justin Martyr said, the second circumcision that supersedes the first. And through Jesus, that is available to each one of us. All right.

So moving on from circumcision, here's Gilgal.

Not a very clear map here. Israelites are camped at this point. They are just on the edge of Jericho, getting ready for that invasion.

Joshua called the name of that place Gilgal. Joshua named this. And Gilgal represents a turning point for the Israelites.

As they transform from wandering in the wilderness to entering the promised land, it also is a place of renewal where the Israelites renewed their covenant with God and were spiritually purified. And Gilgal also became a symbol of remembrance to the Israelites, reminding them of God's faithfulness and the miraculous crossing of the Jordan River. So Gilgal is a special place, like I said before. And there was a lot of, as we go through history, there's a lot of important events that happened back at Gilgal. This was an exciting time in Israel's history, these events here at Gilgal. But there was more. Let's continue on reading in verse 10. "Then the children of Israel kept Paschah on the 14th day of the month at evening to the west of Jericho across the Jordan in the plain.

They ate of the unleavened and new wheat of the land. On this day, the manna ceased after they ate from the wheat of the land. Thus, the children of Israel no longer had manna, for they enjoyed the fruits in the land of the Phoenicians in that year."

So we have two important things happening here. The Passover feast is kept in the promised land for the first time. And the manna that the Israelites have been eating for the last 40 years stops.

Again, more past shadows of present realities.

So we have the two important things I want you to remember. God said, "I've removed the reproach of Egypt. I've completely removed that. We're not going to think about Egypt anymore. Egypt is over. Egypt is gone. Egypt is done." And then this miraculous manna that he had been providing for them, it stopped coming.

You could imagine them one morning going out of their tents to gather up the manna, and it's not there. And they get to enjoy the fruits of the land. And I guess we have a whole generation that had to learn how to cultivate and how to plant and how to grow their own food because God had been providing for them for so long. I guess you can't grow food in the wilderness, in the desert.

The Paschah or the Passover looks forward to the death of Christ. The Passover feast celebrates the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt. It's a celebration of deliverance from bondage. It points directly to Christ, the Lamb of God, who gave his life willingly to free us from bondage to sin and to lead us out of the kingdom of darkness into his kingdom of light.

And we now celebrate this along with his resurrection every Sunday morning.

And very special event in the history of the Israelites, very noteworthy event that we in some ways still celebrate, but for a whole different reason.

Manna, the body of Christ, looks forward to the body of Christ. Joshua and the children of Israel didn't need the manna anymore because now they had food in abundance coming from the land. They weren't in the wilderness anymore.

They had a new source of food. Jesus also has provided for us a source of spiritual food and drink. He stated emphatically in John 6 that, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." That's in John 6:51. And Jesus goes on in this same passage in John to say that unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood, you have no life in you. "For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate the manna in our death." And the Jews had been making this argument. They were like, "What sign are you going to produce for us?"

You know, Moses gave the children of Israel manna. And Jesus said, "Well, no, Moses didn't. I did, basically. God did." And he says, "This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate the manna in our death.

He who eats this bread will live forever." Jesus then instituted the ordinance that we call communion at the Last Supper before his death when he took bread and wine, saying that this is his body and blood. Do this in remembrance of me.

And again, here in this congregation, we celebrate this feast every Sunday morning.

It's hard sayings. And you know, even at this point, when the disciples heard this, it says many of them left. They couldn't understand or comprehend. It was too hard for them, and many of them walked away. But the 12 stayed with him.

This past shadow of the manna of a present reality, I think, is very important for us to realize.

God provides for his people. God had provided for the Israelites in the wilderness, and now in the promised land, he was still providing. Here they were facing a whole host of enemies, nations, and yet God had, in a sense, prepared a table for them. And I don't think at this point Joshua and the people had any doubt that they could go on from here and conquer the land.

The fear was on the part of their enemies looking on and seeing what was happening, what was about to happen. That's who was fearing. We had this they were paralyzed as they saw what was about to happen.

What about us? Is there any reason for us to fear or to doubt God's provision? We have so much more than what these people had because of Jesus, our Messiah. They had the shadows, and they were big deals. They were miracles, but they were shadows. We have the reality.

I want to close by reading an article by Ambrose, and this is, I think, around 370 AD, so somewhere in the 4th century. And he talks about this idea of God preparing a table for us and of Jesus giving himself for us as heavenly food, as heavenly manna.

And he just does so much of a better job at this than I ever could. So I'm going to go ahead and read this short article in closing.

Okay. And the context is he's speaking to some newly baptized converts, I guess. I don't know, young or old, but just some he's kind of giving a speech to some people who were just newly baptized. "Fresh from the baptismal waters and resplendent in these garments, God's holy people hasten to the altar of Christ, saying, 'I will go into the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth.'" That's in Psalm 43. "They have cast off the old skin of error. Their youth renewed like an eagles, and they make haste to approach that heavenly banquet.

They come and see in the sacred altar prepared, cry out, 'You have prepared a table in my sight.'" David puts these words into their mouths. "The Lord is my shepherd, and nothing will be lacking to me. He has set me down there in a place of pasture. He has brought me beside refreshing water."

Further on, we read, "For though I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I shall not be afraid of evils, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff have given me comfort. You have prepared in my sight a table against those who afflict me. You have made my head rich in oil and your cup which exhilarates. How excellent it is."

It is wonderful that God rained manna on our fathers, and they were fed with daily food from heaven. And so it is written, "Man ate the bread of angels, yet those who ate that bread all died in the desert.

But the food that you receive" again, he's talking to these people who were just baptized. "But the food that you receive, that living bread which came down from heaven, supplies the very substance of eternal life, and whoever will eat it will never die, for it is the body of Christ.

Consider now, which is the more excellent, the bread of angels or the flesh of Christ, which is indeed the body that gives life? The first was manna from heaven. The other is of the Lord of the heavens. One subject to corruption if it was kept till tomorrow.

The other free from all corruption. For if anyone tastes of it with reverence, he will be incapable of corruption. For our fathers, water flowed from the rock. For you, blood flows from Christ. Water satisfied their thirst for a time. Blood cleanses you forever. The Jews drink, the Jew drinks and still thirst. But when you drink, you will be incapable of thirst.

What happened in symbol is now fulfilled in reality. If what you marvel at is a shadow, how great is the reality whose very shadow you marvel at? Listen to this, which shows that what happened in the time of our fathers was but a shadow. They drank, it is written, from the rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

All this took place as a symbol for us. You now know what is more excellent. Light is preferable to its shadow, reality to its symbol, the body of the giver to the man from heaven."

And that's all I have. This thing's still growing on me, but we look back at the Old Testament and about these things that happened like the manna or the parting of the Red Sea, the Jordan River. We're all struck by that. It's like, "Man, I wish I could have been there. That must have been so amazing." And yet, like Ambrose is trying to say, we have something so much better. We have the reality.

Jesus fulfilled all that and gives us so much more, but we tend to lose that wonder. When you look at everything as symbols, number one, it's just not really powerful. It's just a symbol. We're doing all these things and to realize that there's a reality in it all.