Then we're going to look at Joshua 5, 13 through 15, and we're going to talk about holy war in redemptive history, which is a super important subject. So let's pray. Father in heaven, we need your grace and help. We thank you that you are the holy God, the God who has created the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that's in them. And we thank you that you have revealed yourself in the scriptures. We thank you that you have revealed your will, that you have told us what you love and what you hate, and that you have revealed a way of salvation in your Son, Jesus Christ. And we thank you that justice and mercy met at the cross. We pray, Lord Jesus, that you would help us to understand more of the depths of what you accomplished for us. We pray that you would give us grace as we look at this very difficult subject, that you would give us understanding. We pray that your Spirit would be present and that we would be better equipped because of what we look at together. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, we are in Joshua chapter 5, and we're looking at verses 13 through 15. And this is as Israel is going into the promised land, having crossed over the Jordan, and now as they're about to possess the land, what we call the conquest, we've talked, and I'll pick up on this in a minute, we've talked about God's redemptive dealings from creation, through the flood, to the patriarchal period, the time in Egypt, the exodus, which was the big one, the wilderness types. We've talked about the law, the Mosaic Covenant, and now we're at that point when Israel's about to possess the land to the conquest. And usually when writers talk about this, In Redemptive History, they're going to talk about the exodus, the wilderness wandering, and the conquest, those three sections. And we are at that point of the conquest in our studies. And in Joshua 5, we read this, it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked and behold, a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said, are you for us or for our adversaries? So he said, no. But as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to him, What does my Lord say to his servant? Then the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so. It's interesting that when we move into this portion of the Old Testament, we ultimately come to this very difficult thing where we are faced with what we call harem warfare or genocide or holy war. And it's very common today on the internet to see all kinds of unbelievers try to debunk Christianity on the basis of how could you serve a God who commanded the eradication of all these nations, the wiping out of armies, and women, and children, and all these innocent people, and they'll pull on your heartstrings and say, oh, well, you don't like Islam. You don't like radical Islam. Well, your God's just as radical. No, our God's more radical because the God of Islam doesn't exist. And what God called Israel to do was more radical because God is holy. and God's holiness is radical, and man's sin is radical, and the judgment that we deserve is radical. But when we approach this subject, there's a lot of things that are very difficult that we have to first kind of grapple with before we end up saying, this is why Israel was called to wipe out the inhabitants of Canaan. One of those things we have to say at the very beginning is that it was only in the promised land Israel was called to wipe out the nations. They weren't called to wipe out all the nations of the earth. That's hugely significant. Because that distinction between the sphere in which they were called to eliminate the inhabitants and the rest of the earth were delineated and distinguished and God was telling them when you go into the land and he tells them all the way back to the beginning of Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 10, Moses says, when you go in, you're to wipe out all the nations. You're not to leave them. God says if you leave them, they're going to become a thorn in your side. They're going to become a curse to you. Their daughters are going to marry your sons and turn their hearts away after other gods. They're going to be a plague and a curse and a continual trial. And we know Israel is going to leave them. because God preemptively tells them they're going to leave some. And when you leave them, He says, I'm going to do this to test you, to see what's in your heart. And they're going to become like a thorn and like a hornet to you. And God's going to use them both to test and to judge Israel. And through Israel's whole history, what starts here is constantly at play through the whole Old Testament. You can't read through the Old Testament without seeing that some of these nations that didn't get destroyed become a stumbling block. And many, many, many hundred years later, these people become a stumbling block because Israel did not obey God. They did not purify the land. And essentially, and this is the big principle that we want to start with and the big redemptive historical principle, The land of Israel was the temple. It was the dwelling place. It was to be holy to God. The big reason God said to go in and Israel was to cleanse the land because the temple was to be cleansed. There was no temple. And remember the biblical theology of the temple. The temple is a stepping stone in the restoration of Eden. Eden was to be holy. Adam let sin and pollution into the temple. God exiled our first parents from the temple. The temple was defiled. God's image bearers were defiled. The world was defiled. There wasn't a more holy place. And so in redemptive history, God is essentially saying, I'm going to dwell with you again. I'm going to restore my presence. I will be your God. You will be my people. Emmanuel, God with us. That's the big plan of the Bible. And we've already seen God starts to restore that in what? The what? What's the first place God starts to restore his dwelling with man in to this point? The temple, the temple, the Ark of the Covenant in one sense, or the Ark that Noah is in is a type of the temple and it's a dwelling place of God with Noah and the new creation typically. But the tabernacle, the tabernacle is the big stepping stone to this point where God comes and he dwells in a tent. and he manifests his presence again in that the tabernacle had some of that ornate botanical imagery that pointed back to the garden and the cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat and the cherubim on the curtain just like the cherubim guarding the way back to the temple back to the presence of God God's presence again in the tabernacle and he's with his people they're outside the temple but he's or the tabernacle but he's with them remember we said when we looked at that In order for God to be with his people, he had to be like his people. They dwelt in tents, he's going to dwell in a tent. But ultimately, God's plan is not to dwell in the tabernacle, but in the temple, and then in Jesus, and then in the new covenant church, and then in the new heavens and the new earth with his people, from Eden to the New Jerusalem. And that's the plan of the Bible. And the temple stands in the Old Covenant as the supreme manifestation of God's restored presence with his people on the holy mountain, just like Eden had been on a mountain. Ezekiel says God's garden was on the mountain. The temple was on a mountain. Now, that mountain and that temple would be in Jerusalem, which would be the city he would limit his dwelling to. Where? Where's Jerusalem? in Israel. And so the first step for Israel in the restoration of a land dwelling of God, because the tabernacle was not a land dwelling. It was not a stable location. It was mobile. It moved around. Wherever Israel went, God went with them. But God was going to show that Zion was more established. The heavenly Jerusalem was a more established place. So in order for that to happen, there had to be land. That land was also promised to Abraham as a down payment for the inheritance of the world, right? Jesus said, the meek shall inherit the land of Israel. No, what did he say? The meek shall inherit the earth. And Romans 4.13 says the promise to Abraham that he would be heir of the land of Israel. No, the world. And the land of Israel was just a little tiny down payment, a place for the Redeemer to come. And it was going to be a place where the temple would be, where God would dwell with the covenant people in redemptive history until he came in the flesh And that temple was done away with, and all of God's preparations were done, but it was in the land. And so it's interesting, when Israel comes to the land, they come as, and it's interesting, God says this to them in Exodus 19, you are to be to me a holy priesthood. Israel, my son, is to be a holy priest. Now, Adam was a priest in the garden. There's a lot of textual evidence. The guard and the keep, when God says to Adam, guard and keep the temple, that's used in the priesthood with the Levites. They were to guard and tend the temple. It's the same Hebrew words. It's only used in those two contexts, with Adam in the garden, with the priest in the temple. is to be a priesthood. Corporately, collectively, they are God's Son, and they are the priests going into the temple. And what does the priest need to do? He needs to cleanse the temple. And the temple's polluted. When Israel comes to Canaan, who's dwelling there? Amorites, Amalekites, Hittites, Perizzites. And are they good Jebusites? Thank you. We don't want to forget the Jebusites. Are they good, upright, well-behaved, God-honoring, Jesus-loving, I know that's anachronistic to people that don't know the Bible, but are they good Yahweh-loving ancient Near Easterners? No, they are Molech worshipping, child sacrificing, barbarian, scare you off your rocker if you get near them. The Indians scalping you in North America would be nothing compared to what these nations would do to you. They were barbaric to the core. Have you ever wondered when Paul writes to the Romans, he's like, I'm a slave to Jews and Greeks, barbarians. We're like, we don't even have barbarians. We don't even have a category. Mean, that's that's whatever people say. How could they wipe out these people? Do you know what a barbarian is? No We don't even have a category. I mean these would be like Scandinavian hunters Sacrificing their children to pagan gods that God will tell us demons were behind and demonic nations, the temple is polluted. The temple's polluted. And how do I know that? Because when the commander of the Lord's army comes to Joshua, as he's about to go in, and he's about to take Jericho, as he's about to take that first massive hold, stronghold, that fortress, And he's going to march around it, and God's going to show them how it falls down. As he goes in and he's met by this man, who I obviously think is Jesus, a pre-incarnate Christ. He's met by the Lord, the commander of the Lord's army. And when he's met by him, notice verse 15, the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take your sandal off your foot for the place where you stand is holy. So it's the same as Moses on the mountain. And the mountain in a very real sense was the holy place with the fire and the bush, very much like God's presence in the temple. It was holy ground. It was sacred space. There was nothing sacred about Jericho except it was part of God's inheritance. It was part of the land where God was going to dwell. And I think if people could get this principle, and that we didn't answer the question, why holy war? with the answer, well, they weren't innocent and they deserve judgment. Everybody deserves judgment. But these really wicked people were imposing on God's inheritance and his holy place, his dwelling place, for his people. It wasn't their land. Whose land is it? The earth is the Lord's. God gets to say about anything, that is mine. And if God says, this is going to be my special dwelling place with my people, it is entirely just for God to say, away with all the filthy inhabitants. God should have done that. They shouldn't have even had another breath. None of us deserve to live for a second. So when the God who owns the universe says, this is going to be my land, and you are infringing on my land, and you are rebelling, and I want to give by grace this land to my people, it is altogether right for God to say, go in and get rid of these nations. Because you're going to be holy, the land is holy, and you'll find this language. All through Deuteronomy, through Joshua, the land is holy. The land is to be holy. The land is to be holy. The people are to be holy. God is holy. Everything's to be holy. I think we've missed this in explaining Holy War. I think usually when we come to this, a lot of Christians fumble because they don't get the biblical theology that the land is the temple, it's the dwelling place, and that the temple is to be holy. And remember in Israel's history, every time the temple gets polluted, God sends somebody in to cleanse it. Nehemiah, Ezra sees the idols wall to wall in the temple. Nehemiah goes in when Samballot and Tobias have moved in, and God says, kick them out, kick the furniture out, give it a second cleansing. And then Jesus, Yahweh comes, and they're in the temple, and they're oppressing the people who are bringing their little lambs, and they're saying, no, that lamb has a blemish. You've got to buy our lamb. And they're extorting the people. And Jesus cleanses the temple twice, I believe. Cleanses the temple. And then the temple is cleansed at the cross. And ultimately, where Holy Word's moving is to the cross. Now, before we go there, note that in the little section we read, this little interesting, intriguing passage where Joshua, who's replaced Moses as the leader of the Old Covenant people, he has met this man with his sword drawn in his hand. He's ready for battle. And we're going to war. We are at the foot of our inheritance. And you can imagine, Joshua must have been shocked that I thought we were going to battle. And here's the commander of the lords of Yahweh's army. Maybe it's an angel. I tend to think it's a pre-incarnation of Christ. Yeah, I thought it was an angel until the point where they said, take off your shoes. Right, right. And I was like, wow, okay, I can't be an angel. And notice he says, what does my Lord say? Now that word, Adonai, can be used of others besides God, but it's often used of God. So you'd say it's the angel of the Lord. It's a theophany. Yeah, just like the Melech Yahweh. Do you ever think, why doesn't it say more? I think these little illusions are there for us, just like it doesn't tell us about the Trinity until the baptism, but we know he's always been the triune God. But you have these little illusions in the Old Testament. Part of that is God is hiding the truth from some, and he reveals the mystery that Paul speaks about, of the Father and the Son and Colossians. And so I think by faith, the people could have seen little things and said, this is probably more than an angel. This is God. It's almost like with less information they saw more of. Oh, the truth of that. I think with more information, we see less of it. Yeah, sometimes they can be looking more carefully and saying, this is a strange event. I mean, if anything, we should be looking at Joshua 5, 13 through 15 saying, this is important and this is strange. What's going on? Why not just God come to Joshua and say, take him, march around and take him. He comes, whether an angel or him, the angel would have represented him. He comes with a sword drawn. He's ready for battle. Who is engaging in holy war, Joshua and Israel or God? That's the point. The point is that it wasn't Israel's idea. It's the Lord's idea. And God doesn't say, Israel, do my dirty work. Like so many wicked people who hate God would say, he just had Israel do his dirty work. No, he comes and he's ready for battle. And notice when Joshua says to him, are you for us? or for our adversaries. He's confused. Whose side are you on? It would be pretty scary to see this guy. Whose side are you on? And I love the response, no. Neither. I'm not on your side, and I'm not on your enemy's side. I'm on my side. This is my battle. The battle is the Lord's. The Lord is a warrior. It's a spiritual battle. That's what we can't miss. This is not a flesh and blood battle, even though it involved flesh and blood. This was a spiritual battle. This is spiritual warfare. This plays into God's plan of redemption. And notice what Joshua does. He fell to the earth and he worshiped. And he said, what does my Lord say to his servant? And notice God doesn't tell him, Joshua, go into battle, wipe out Jericho, wipe out the Amalekites, wipe out the Amorites. He says, take your sandals off your feet. This is the temple. I'm going to cleanse the temple. I am going to use you because you're going to dwell in this land, and I'm going to dwell with you, and it is redemptive. The whole thing is redemptive. Now, let me go back to what I said about this leading to the cross. How in the world do we get from this to the cross? How do we get from this to what Holy War was about in the Old Testament was the cross? That's what I was whispering. How does this get to the cross though? How does it get to the cross? So what God is doing here, God is executing the sort of justice against all unrighteousness and uncleanness and impurity and unholiness, because God is holy, and justice is the right response of His holiness against all sin, and it has to be, because He's the Holy God. And in order for God to dwell with his people, justice has to be executed. But, just like with the plagues on Egypt, just like Egypt deserved those plagues, Israel deserved those plagues. Remember in the 10th plague, God stops making a distinction between Egypt and Israel. Right? Remember all the plagues, God's making a distinction. There was no hail and Goshen. Israel didn't get touched by this. And then all of a sudden, God's like, if you don't have blood, your firstborn is going to die. Judgment for everybody. Egypt deserves it. Israel deserves it. Everybody, Jew and Gentile, deserve judgment. These people deserve judgment. When he says, no, I'm not on your side, he's saying, essentially, you deserve the same judgment they do. I'm here to exercise judgment. But he doesn't carry it out on Israel. He carries it out on those in the land because they're His people, the ones He's redeeming. Nevertheless, in order for us to be redeemed, judgment for our sin has to be executed. The sword of God's wrath has to fall or we don't get redemption. God just can't forgive our wickedness without His justice being carried out. And so the cross is holy war. Listen to this. This is really a remarkable way that Verne Poythress puts it. First he says, and let me read this about the land. He says, the land is God's own land. The people are only tenants. Because the land is particularly associated with God, it is in a broad sense holy and will be defiled by gross sin. The land is the land, quote, where I dwell, for I, the Lord, dwell among the Israelites. The land is the dwelling of God, is analogous to the tabernacle and the temple, which are the dwelling of God in a more intense sense. And then he says, the people as a whole who live on the land are analogous to the priests who offer special service in the tabernacle. But then listen to this, when Poitras starts to talk about the cross and how the cross is holy war, for believers, he says, in the crucifixion, Christ as penal substitute bore the penalty of destruction that should have come to us because we have rebelled and tried to pollute God's holiness. Christ is not only our substitute, but one through whom we experience spiritual death and resurrection, Romans 6. Romans 6 says, in him we died and we rose again. So when Jesus died on the cross, God made war against us. The death of Jesus and against our sin because we were united to him and that's how Paul can say you died You were destroyed the old you God made holy war against you and me at the cross and that old man was destroyed Eradicated just like the nations in the land of Israel. God made war against our old man. We died We were crucified Paul will say we were executed The sword of God's justice falling on Jesus fell on our old man in him. We died. We were raised. We were brought back to life. And this is what Poythras says, hence as Christians, we ourselves are victims of holy war. I think this is some of the most profound stuff in the whole Bible. Hence, as Christians, we are victims of holy war. We have been crucified with Christ. We have died with Christ. Our flesh has been subjected to destruction, Galatians 5.24. But since Christ was raised from the dead, we enjoy newness of life too. The work of Christ represents a dramatic advance in the accomplishment of salvation, not only because reality supersedes symbol, but because the Old Testament symbols typically did not prominently include the note of resurrection. There was no resurrection for the Canaanite inhabitants, but there is for us, Jew and Gentile, because of the death of Jesus. The holy war at the cross was worse than the holy war of Canaan, and it was better than the holy war of Canaan, because there was death and resurrection. There was destruction and redemption through that judgment. Now, there's a lot more I could say here. I'll say just two more things. One place I would go to prove this is in Zechariah, I think it's chapter 13, where Jehovah says, a Waco sword against my shepherd, against the one who is my companion, strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. And what you see is that imagery of the sword that's there in the hand of the commander of the Lord's army in Joshua 5. Yahweh says, awake against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, that's Jesus Christ. Strike the shepherd. We know from Matthew's gospel, that's about Jesus. Strike the shepherd. In the death of Jesus, in a sense, the sword that's in his hand here with Joshua is then taken up by his father and he is struck with it at the cross. And holy war is carried out on Jesus. And this is amazing. What did Jesus say about his body in John 2? What did he say? Destroy this temple. He was the holy place. Why was the holy place destroyed at the cross? Because it was polluted through the imputation of our sin. Jesus, though not actually being a sinner, the Bible says was made sin for us. The temple was polluted. In the death of Jesus, it was as if the temple was completely filthy, and so God had to destroy it. He couldn't just cleanse it with a mere cleansing. It had to be destroyed. And that's why he said, destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it back up. And that means the temples of our souls and bodies, the Bible says our bodies are the temple, that they were purified in the cleansing of the temple in the holy war that happened at Calvary. Now, I'm going to say that's the link between the holy war in Israel and the holy war we're called to engage in today. Now, some people could say, wow, wait a minute. We're to be engaged in holy war? Yes, we are. How are we to be engaged in holy war according to the Scriptures in the New Testament? And where is that? Where would we go? Well, certainly Romans 8 would talk about putting sin to death. How about Ephesians 6? Ephesians 6 is really the very clear passage where where the Apostle Paul is going to tell us, we are engaged in holy war still. Holy war never ceases. It wasn't just a one-time thing with Israel. We are not called to go out into the world and carry the sword. That's what Peter wanted to do. Remember, Peter wanted to take up the sword. We are called to engage in holy war on the spiritual plane that lay behind the nations in Canaan. It was always the same enemies behind the Canaanite inhabitants that we are now in hand-to-hand combat with. And notice this. Jeff, would you read for us, would you read there in verse, starting in verse 10 to 13 of Ephesians 6. If only my brethren be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand the evil day, and having done all to stand." So this is a call to holy war. Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God. Verse 12, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. which is why we don't put our hope ultimately in political causes, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual host of wickedness in heavenly places. Those are the same principalities and powers, the same rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual host of wickedness that were behind the Canaanite inhabitants, but we wrestle directly with them. In the new covenant everything's been spiritualized. That's the big principle we've seen in redemptive history that when you pass through the cross and you're brought out into the new covenant and the new age and Jesus and his resurrection issues in the end times and his death and resurrection. Everything is eternalized and spiritualized. The church now transcends a single nation. And the battle that we're engaged in is directly with those spiritual forces that were behind the nations and the false gods and all of those things in the Old Covenant. But we're the nations. We're Canaan. We're the Amorites and the Amalekites and the Jebusites by nature. That's us. We're not Israel by nature. We become Israel in Christ. we are redeemed, we are ransomed through holy war at the cross. And I want to read to you just briefly here as we close this, what Poitras says, because I think this is so magnificent. Notice then he says, We have established, then, that Israelites were subject to holy war through substitution, just as Christians are. But Israelites, after their consecration, were also active participants in holy war on God's side. The same is true of Christians. The book of Revelation depicts a holy war of cosmic proportion in which Christians are involved. In this war, they must maintain their confession and their purity in the face of every kind of opposition springing from Satan. Revelation even presents us with specific parallels between Christ's holy war and the holy war in the Old Testament. Then he says the process of holy war is described in less imagistic language in Ephesians 6. Satan and his agents undertake to pollute and destroy the holiness of Christians because we're the temple in the new covenant. The pollution is predominantly in us that God is interested in purging. Listen to this, it's magnificent. Christians in turn engage in war leading to the destruction of Satan. What are we to conclude about these New Testament passages? And then he says, We are not importing something alien to the Old Testament, rather the Old Testament all along pointed forward to Christ and spoke in symbolic form of just this holy war that we are called to wage. Now he'll go on and what Poitras will basically say is that this war is fought in two ways in the New Covenant. And it's very important. One way is in the battle for personal holiness. Since we've died with Christ, since we've been redeemed, the battle is to purify our souls. You know where Peter says sexual immorality wars against the soul. It's the language of holy war. So we're in a battle for purity. We're in a battle for truth and for perseverance and not to deny the faith and to follow Christ and not to fear man, fear God who can kill the body, not man. So we're in a battle for our own holiness and for the holiness of God's people, and we're in a battle for the souls of others. And what Poitras is going to say is every time we witness, and this is amazing, every time we witness and we see someone converted, we have just been a participant in holy war. Because every time we witness and someone is converted, they have undergone the judgment of the cross in their old man dying and then being raised spiritually. I don't think this is jumping through spiritual hoops at all. I think this is solidly biblical progression from Israel to the cross to the battle that we're engaged in spiritually today. It's the same battle, same war, same plan of redemption, same grace that brings us into the fellowship and dwelling of God through the death of Jesus. Now, go ahead. I think of the most Jewish word I could think of. What's the most Jewish word you can think of? For me it's shalom. And the cross brings us peace. So Romans 5. It makes peace through war. So I mean the opposite of war is obviously peace. So this kind of ties it back in with obviously Romans 5, therefore now that we have Peace with God. Yeah, to declare righteous we have peace, so therefore act in that accordance. So, kind of interesting, I think that's all over the theme of the Bible as well, the peace that God brings us. Will say just in closing. There's one other aspect of Israel in the land Destroying their enemies at that period and why why not? Continue that all through history because that's the big question if we don't take the approach we took tonight If we say yeah, I don't know then the burden of proof is on you and every other Christian to tell me why it was only to occur at that point in redemptive history, and Israel was not called to wipe out the rest of the nations, and it doesn't continue in the New Covenant. We have no hint of it. And here's another big principle, I think. God's final kingdom is going to be a kingdom of holiness and righteousness. That kingdom is going to be perfect. There's not going to be any wickedness. It's going to be all perfect righteousness. And what God is doing in redemptive history is His perfect kingdom is intruding into time and space in redemptive history for a moment in Israel's history until Christ comes to reflect something of what his theocratic rule should be in the new heavens and the new earth. Had Israel obeyed, had they fulfilled their commission, which they didn't and Jesus does, Jesus fulfills what Israel doesn't, Had they fulfilled it, had they obeyed, had they wiped out all the nations, had they obeyed God, had they reflected His perfect rule, had His kingdom come at that moment, it would have been a picture of heaven, of what it's going to be. And so even the holy war that we see on Israel there at that time was just an intrusion of God reflecting His righteous rule on top of pointing us to the cross and the holy war. The cross is holy war. God the Father makes war against us in His Son when He pours His wrath out on His Son. Now, a lot of people are going to say, I don't see that language in the Bible. I don't know how we can't agree at this point with Poythoros. I don't know how we can't say that. For me, that makes the whole Bible come together perfectly on this. when you see that progression from the typical temple to the temple of Jesus to the dwelling of God and his people to the principle of justice and how that falls ultimately on Jesus.