Getting Your Feet Wet: The Jordan River Baptism Text: Joshua 3:14-17
Introduction: A Tale of Two Crossings
The history of Israel is a history of God's mighty acts. It is a story punctuated by divine interventions, by miracles that are not just displays of raw power, but are acted parables, sermons in water and dirt and stone. And central to this history are two monumental water crossings. The first was the Red Sea, where God delivered a nation of slaves from the greatest military power on earth. That generation saw God split the sea, and they walked through on dry ground, with walls of water on their right and on their left. It was their baptism into Moses, a baptism of deliverance from bondage.
But that generation, with the exception of two men, fell in the wilderness. They saw the miracle, but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith. They died in their unbelief, their carcasses littering the desert. Now, forty years later, their children stand on the banks of another impassable body of water: the Jordan River at flood stage. They are poised to enter the land promised to their fathers, the land of milk and honey. And God, being a God who loves patterns and types and echoes, decides to give them their own water miracle. He is going to part the waters again.
This is not a mere repetition. This is an escalation. The Red Sea crossing was about deliverance from. The Jordan River crossing is about inheritance into. It is the difference between being rescued from Egypt and being brought into the Promised Land. It is a transition from wandering to warfare, from wilderness to conquest. And at the center of it all is not a prophet's staff, but the Ark of the Covenant, the very footstool of Yahweh. God Himself is leading the charge.
This event is a profound theological lesson for us. It teaches us about the nature of faith, the reality of God's presence, the meaning of covenant, and the way we are to enter into the promises of God. We are a people who have been delivered from our Egypt, the bondage of sin. But we are also a people called to cross our own Jordan, to take possession of the inheritance Christ has won for us. And we must learn the lesson of this passage: God goes first, and we enter our inheritance only by following Him through the waters of death and into new life.
The Text
So it happened that when the people set out from their tents to cross the Jordan with the priests carrying the ark of the covenant before the people, and when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest), the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap, a great distance away at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those which were flowing down toward the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. So the people crossed opposite Jericho. And the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground until all the nation had completed crossing the Jordan.
(Joshua 3:14-17 LSB)
God's Providential Timing (vv. 14-15)
We begin with the setting of the scene and the first act of faith.
"So it happened that when the people set out from their tents to cross the Jordan with the priests carrying the ark of the covenant before the people, and when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest)..." (Joshua 3:14-15)
The first thing to notice is the deliberate leadership of the Ark. The priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant go before the people. This is not a trivial detail. The Ark was the visible symbol of God's presence, His throne on earth. It contained the tablets of the law, the testimony. So what we are seeing is God Himself leading His people into the land. They are not following Joshua's clever battle plan; they are following Yahweh. This is the essence of the Christian life. We do not venture out on our own initiative. We follow the King. Christ has gone before us, through death and resurrection, and we follow in His train.
But look at the conditions. The text makes a point of telling us that "the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest." This was not an easy crossing. This was not the dry season when the Jordan might be a manageable stream. This was a raging, muddy, impassable torrent. God chose the moment of maximum difficulty to display His maximum power. He loves to do this. He brings us to our Red Seas and our flood-stage Jordans precisely so that no one can mistake His deliverance for our own cleverness. He is glorified in the impossibility of the situation.
The mention of "harvest" is also significant. This is a time of fullness, of reaping. And here, Israel is on the verge of reaping the promise that had been sown centuries before with Abraham. But to get to the harvest, they must go through the flood. This is a fixed principle. To get to the resurrection, you must go through the crucifixion. To get to the inheritance, you must pass through the waters. There is no crown without a cross. There is no promised land without a Jordan.
And notice the act of faith required. The waters do not part when the priests stand on the bank and pray. The waters part when their feet get wet. "The feet of the priests...were dipped in the edge of the water." This is covenantal faith in action. Faith is not a warm feeling in your stomach. Faith is obedience. It is stepping into the water because God said to, trusting that He will do what He promised. God told them to move, and they moved, and as they obeyed, God acted. This is how it always works. We act on the basis of God's promise, and God meets our obedience with His power.
A River Reversed (v. 16)
The consequence of this obedient step is a miracle that defies nature.
"...the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap, a great distance away at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those which were flowing down toward the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. So the people crossed opposite Jericho." (Joshua 3:16 LSB)
The description is precise. The water flowing down from the north "rose up in one heap." This is the same language used to describe the walls of water at the Red Sea (Exodus 15:8). God is deliberately echoing that first deliverance to bolster the faith of this new generation. He is reminding them that He is the same God who delivered their fathers. He is the Lord of creation. A river is nothing to Him. He made it, and He can command it.
The text even tells us where this happened: "a great distance away at Adam." There is a beautiful theological poetry here. The river of death and judgment is stopped up all the way back at a city named Adam. It is because of the first Adam that death entered the world, that we were barred from paradise. And here, as Israel is about to enter their earthly paradise, the waters of judgment are stopped at Adam. This is a picture, a type, of what the second Adam, Jesus Christ, would do. He goes down into the waters of death for us, and by His work, the flood of God's wrath that should have swept us away is stopped up, dammed up, and cut off completely.
The waters flowing down to the Salt Sea, or the Dead Sea, were cut off. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, a picture of the grave, of final death. By this miracle, God is demonstrating that He has cut off the power of death for His people. He is leading them through the place of death on dry ground. The people cross over "opposite Jericho," the first great obstacle in the land. God brings them right to the doorstep of their enemy, but He does so by first demonstrating that the far greater enemy, the chaos of the flood and the power of death, is entirely under His feet.
Standing Firm in the Midst (v. 17)
The final verse gives us one of the most powerful images in the entire Old Testament.
"And the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground until all the nation had completed crossing the Jordan." (Joshua 3:17 LSB)
The priests do not just dip their feet in and run to the other side. They take their stand in the very middle of the riverbed, on dry ground. They stand there, holding up the presence of God, for as long as it takes for the entire nation, millions of people, to cross over. This is a picture of our great High Priest, Jesus Christ. He did not just dip His toes in death. He went to the very bottom, to the heart of it. And He stands there now, having conquered it completely. The reason we can cross from death to life is because He is standing in the gap for us. His finished work holds back the judgment we deserve.
The Ark is the "ark of the covenant of Yahweh." This is a covenantal act. God is fulfilling His promise to Abraham, and He is doing it by means of His own presence. The priests stood "firm." The ground was not muddy or slick; it was dry. God's salvation is secure. It is a firm foundation. While they stood there, "all Israel crossed on dry ground." No one got left behind. No one had to swim for it. The deliverance was total, for the whole nation, "until all the nation had completed crossing."
This is the security of God's covenant people. Our safe passage is not dependent on our strength or our ability to tread water. Our safe passage is dependent entirely on the one who stands in the middle of the river for us. As long as Christ our High Priest stands in the place of death, having conquered it, the waters of judgment cannot touch us. He waits until the very last of His people is brought safely across.
The Typology of Our Baptism
This entire event is a living, breathing sermon about our salvation in Jesus Christ. We, like Israel, were born in bondage, in Egypt. We, like them, have been delivered by a mighty act of God. And we, like them, are called to cross a river to take possession of our inheritance. That river is a type of baptism.
Baptism is our Jordan crossing. In baptism, we are identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:3-4). We go down into the water, which is a symbol of death and judgment, the flood that our sins deserved. But we find that the waters have been parted for us. Why? Because our great High Priest, Jesus, carrying the reality of God's presence, has gone before us. He stood in the bottom of the Jordan of God's wrath at Calvary. He absorbed the flood so that we could walk through on dry ground.
When the priests stepped into the water, the river of death was stopped at Adam. When Christ stepped into His baptism in the Jordan, and later into the baptism of the cross, He reversed the curse of Adam. He cut off the flow of death that began in the garden and opened up a pathway into the promised land of new creation.
This is why we must get our feet wet. Faith is not passive. We are called to step out, to be baptized, to identify with Christ publicly. We are called to enter the Christian life, which is a life of conquest. The Christian life is not about sitting on the banks of the river, reminiscing about Egypt. It is about crossing over to fight giants, to tear down high walls, and to take possession of every promise God has made to us in Christ.
The priests stood firm until the last person was across. And our Lord Jesus has promised, "I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). He is our firm foundation in the midst of the chaos of this world. He holds back the judgment we deserve, and He guarantees our safe passage into the eternal inheritance, the New Jerusalem. Follow Him. Get your feet wet. The harvest awaits.