A Covenant of Lies and Grace Text: Joshua 2:1-14
Introduction: The Faith of a Traitor
The Bible is not a book for the sentimental. It is not a collection of inspirational stories designed to make us feel better about our general niceness. It is a bloody book, a book of war, a book about a holy God who invades history to overthrow wicked empires and establish His own kingdom. And in the vanguard of this invasion, we often find the most unlikely people. Our passage today is one of the premier exhibits of this truth. The story of Rahab is offensive to two kinds of people: the self-righteous pietist and the self-righteous pagan. The pagan is offended that God would command the destruction of Jericho at all. The pietist is offended that the first hero of the conquest, after Joshua, is a Canaanite prostitute who tells a bare-faced lie.
But this is the glory of the gospel. God does not recruit His people from the honor roll of the world's academies. He goes to the gutter. He goes to the brothel. He finds a woman in a doomed city, a city ripe for judgment, a city whose sins have reached to the heavens, and He saves her. But He does not save her because she was a good person who just happened to be in a bad line of work. He saves her through a robust, intelligent, and working faith. A faith that heard, a faith that believed, a faith that feared, and a faith that acted.
The New Testament holds Rahab up to us in the highest possible terms. She is listed in the great hall of faith in Hebrews 11, right alongside Abraham and Moses. "By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace" (Heb. 11:31). And the apostle James, making the case that true faith is never lazy, uses her as his second exhibit, right after Abraham. "Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?" (James 2:25). Notice what work James highlights. He highlights her deception, her misdirection, her lie. This was not a sin her faith had to cover; this was a work her faith produced.
So as we come to this text, we must be prepared to have our categories rattled. We are about to witness the collision of two kingdoms: the crumbling, terrified kingdom of Jericho, and the advancing, inexorable kingdom of God. And the hinge of the entire affair is one woman who had the good sense to betray her own people, lie to her own king, and throw in her lot with the God of heaven and earth.
The Text
Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, “Go, see the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, saying, “Behold, men from the sons of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.” And the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.” But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. Now it happened when it was time to shut the gate at dark, that the men went out; I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them.” But she had brought them up to the roof and concealed them in the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued them on the road to the Jordan to the fords; and as soon as those who were pursuing them had gone out, they shut the gate. Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, “I know that Yahweh has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. Indeed we heard it, and our hearts melted, and a courageous spirit no longer rose up in any man because of you; for Yahweh your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. So now, please swear to me by Yahweh, since I have shown lovingkindness to you, that you also will show lovingkindness to my father’s household and give me a pledge of truth, and preserve my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters alive, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” So the men said to her, “Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it will be when Yahweh gives us the land that we will show lovingkindness and truth to you.”
(Joshua 2:1-14 LSB)
The Mission and the Crisis (v. 1-3)
We begin with the mission itself.
"Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, 'Go, see the land, especially Jericho.' So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab and lodged there." (Joshua 2:1)
Joshua, the new leader, acts with military prudence. Faith in God's promise to give them the land does not eliminate the need for practical wisdom. God promises the harvest, but the farmer still has to plow the field. So spies are sent. They go to the house of a harlot. Why? Not because they were looking for a good time. A harlot's house in the ancient world was something like a public house or an inn, a place where travelers could come and go with a degree of anonymity. It was on the wall of the city, which also made it a strategic location for entry and exit. But more than any of this, they went there because God's providence directed them there. God had an elect woman in that city, and He was sending these men on a rescue mission, though they did not know it yet.
The crisis develops immediately. Their cover is blown. The king of Jericho, the representative of the doomed world system, is alerted to the presence of God's agents. He knows exactly what they are there for: "to search out all the land." The world is not stupid. It knows that the kingdom of God is a threat to its autonomy and its sin. And so the king sends his Gestapo to Rahab's house with a simple command: "Bring out the men." This is the moment of decision. This is where Rahab must choose her allegiance. Will she obey the petty tyrant of a doomed city, or will she obey the King of the cosmos?
The Righteous Lie (v. 4-7)
Rahab's choice is immediate and decisive, and it takes the form of a magnificent lie.
"But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, 'Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from... the men went out; I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them.'" (Joshua 2:4-5)
Let us have no squeamishness here. Rahab lies through her teeth. And it is a glorious work of faith. We must understand the ethics of warfare. Deception is a tool of war, just as a sword is. The ninth commandment forbids bearing false witness against a neighbor, which is to say, lying in a way that destroys the peace and amity of a community under God. But Jericho was not a community at peace with God. It was a city at war with God, and God was at war with it. Rahab, by faith, had switched sides. She was no longer a citizen of Jericho; she was an agent of the kingdom of heaven. The king's men were the enemy, and she treated them as such. To have told them the truth would have been an act of high treason against her new King, Yahweh.
This is not a "lesser of two evils" situation. This was not a regrettable necessity. This was a righteous act. James says she was justified by this work. She hid the spies, lied about their whereabouts, and sent the enemy on a wild goose chase. This is faith in action. Faith is not a delicate, ethereal feeling. It is a rugged, loyal commitment that gets its hands dirty. She did not wring her hands and wonder what a "nice" person would do. She acted to protect the servants of the living God, and she did so by deceiving His enemies. This is the logic of a world at war.
The Great Confession (v. 8-11)
After the danger has passed, Rahab goes up to the roof and unpacks the theological foundation for her treason. And what a foundation it is.
"I know that Yahweh has given you the land... For we have heard... for Yahweh your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath." (Joshua 2:9-11)
This is one of the great confessions of faith in all of Scripture, and it comes from the mouth of a Gentile prostitute. Notice the components of her faith. First, it is based on knowledge: "I know." This is not a blind leap. Second, her knowledge is based on revelation, on testimony: "we have heard." She had heard the gospel news of God's mighty acts: the parting of the Red Sea forty years prior, and the recent destruction of the Amorite kings, Sihon and Og. The gospel always comes to us as a report about what God has done in history.
Third, this report produced the proper effect. In the people of Jericho, it produced a paralyzing terror. Their hearts "melted." But in Rahab, this fear was sanctified. It became the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. She understood that the God who could do such things was not a God to be trifled with. He was a God to be joined.
And this leads to her magnificent conclusion, her systematic theology in a nutshell: "for Yahweh your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath." This is a full-throated rejection of polytheism. This is a declaration of the absolute sovereignty of God. The gods of Jericho were nothing. The king of Jericho was a nobody. Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, is the only God there is. This is the bedrock presupposition that fueled her treason, her lie, and her salvation. She believed the report, and it changed everything.
The Covenant Oath (v. 12-14)
Flowing directly from her confession of faith, Rahab now seeks covenantal security.
"So now, please swear to me by Yahweh, since I have shown lovingkindness to you, that you also will show lovingkindness to my father’s household..." (Joshua 2:12)
Faith is not content to remain an abstract belief; it seeks a binding promise. Rahab appeals to the principle of covenant reciprocity. She has shown them hesed, loyal covenant love, by saving their lives. She asks for the same hesed in return. And she wants it sealed with an oath, sworn in the name of the God she has just confessed: "swear to me by Yahweh." She is formally entering into a covenant relationship with the people of God.
And notice the scope of her faith. It is not a selfish, individualistic faith. She immediately thinks of her family: "my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters... and deliver our lives from death." True faith is federal. It is covenantal. It thinks in terms of households. She is acting as the head of her household, bringing them all under the protection of this new covenant she is making.
The spies agree. "Our life for yours," they say. They make a solemn, binding promise. They will show her lovingkindness and truth. This is the language of covenant. A Gentile woman, a prostitute from a doomed city, has just been formally grafted into the covenant people of God through a robust faith that worked.
The Gospel According to Rahab
This story is our story. Every Christian is a Rahab. We were all citizens of a city destined for destruction, the city of man. We were all by nature children of wrath, enslaved to sin, whether we were prostitutes in the literal sense or just respectable, church-going idolaters. We were part of a world system at war with God.
And then we heard the report. We heard the gospel of what God has done in history. We heard how He parted the ultimate Red Sea at the cross, drowning the Pharaoh of sin and death. We heard how, in the resurrection, He utterly destroyed the powers of darkness. We heard the report that Jesus Christ is God in heaven above and on earth beneath, and that every knee will bow to Him.
And by the grace of God, that report produced faith in our hearts. And that faith caused us to switch our allegiance. We committed high treason against the kingdom of darkness. We turned our backs on the world, the flesh, and the devil. And that faith began to work. It began to protect the things of God and to deceive the enemies of God. It began to value the people of God over the priorities of the world.
And that faith drove us to seek a covenant promise. We came to God, not on the basis of our own merit, but on the basis of His grace, and we asked Him to swear by His own name to save us. And He has. He has given us a pledge of truth, not a scarlet thread of flax, but the scarlet blood of His own Son. That is the sign that marks our houses. That is the promise that when the final judgment falls on this world, we and our households will be delivered from death. Rahab the harlot was brought into the line of David, and ultimately into the lineage of Jesus Christ Himself. And so are we. We, the harlot bride, are brought into the family of the King, all by a grace that finds us in our sin and a faith that goes to work.