Sanctify Yourselves
1Joshua got up early in the morning; and they moved from Shittim, and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel. They camped there before they crossed over. 2After three days, the officers went through the middle of the camp; 3and they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of Yahweh your God’s covenant, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then leave your place, and follow it. 4Yet there shall be a space between you and it of about two thousand cubits by measure—don’t come closer to it—that you may know the way by which you must go; for you have not passed this way before.” 5Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow Yahweh will do wonders among you.” 6Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, “Take up the ark of the covenant, and cross over before the people.” They took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people.
Joshua led the Israelites out of Shittim, came to the Jordan, and lodged there for three days. Then the people were told that when they saw the Levitical priests carrying the ark of Yahweh’s covenant, they were to follow behind it, keeping a distance of about two thousand cubits. Two thousand cubits is about 900 meters. One reason for walking so far behind was to teach the people reverence for God, but another was that they had never traveled this road before. They might well be afraid of entering Canaan, a land they had only heard about, so out of care for them it was arranged that they could keep their eyes on the ark as it went before them.
Joshua told the people to sanctify themselves, because tomorrow Yahweh would do wonders among them. If the people did not fear God, they could not receive his protection, so he told them to keep their bodies and hearts holy. Israel must always keep itself pure and live in readiness, because when God commands, his people must act at once. They were about to cross the Jordan into Canaan and fight wars in which their lives would be at stake. Their bodies and hearts must therefore be kept clean at all times. However truly they were God’s people, if Israel harbored sinful hearts, God could do nothing for them.
This war was something God had planned and prepared for a long time, and therefore the people had to obey his word without reservation. If they did not keep themselves pure as his word required, then even if God gave them the land of Canaan, it would be taken from them. That is why, if only for the sake of his people’s blessed life, purifying their hearts came before attacking Canaan.
We too, before we ask God for blessing, must first turn from sinful conduct and sanctify ourselves. However great the blessing we receive, without a sanctified heart we will not be born again, and even when we are blessed, we will not be able to use that blessing for God.
Take, for example, the sharp knife in a surgeon’s hand. Because it saves patients, it becomes an instrument that preserves life, which is why a surgeon needs a good knife. In the hands of a wicked person, though, a sharp knife can become an evil instrument that takes life, and it must be taken away before it is used. God longs to pour out without holding back the blessings his children desire. Yet if those children are not holy, he cannot give it, because the blessing would turn into a poison that harms their very lives. When we have sanctified hearts, as befits the children of a holy God, he will pour out the blessings of heaven and earth to the full.
Exodus 19:14-15
14Moses went down from the mountain to the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes. 15He said to the people, “Be ready by the third day. Don’t have sexual relations with a woman.”
As Exodus 19 tells us, the Israelites sanctified themselves, washing their clothes and keeping away from women, merely to watch from a distance as God came down. But the call to sanctify themselves now meant something more: the people were to purify spirit and body and hold the faith and conviction that God’s promise would surely be fulfilled. And God was saying that to such a people he would show his miracles.
Joshua 3:5
5Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow Yahweh will do wonders among you.”
By making the people holy, God made them ready in advance to see wonders. This shows that the miracle of the parting of the Jordan was already part of God’s plan. If only the priests would carry the ark of the covenant and show their obedience by stepping into the Jordan in faith, God wanted to give the people a gift: the flowing water stopping in its course.
Of course, the people could not know what these wonders would be, but they would have worked to sanctify themselves in obedience to God’s command. Until now they had grumbled and defied his word, yet God had made the promise himself and had gone on fulfilling it. Had God not been gracious to them all the way to the Jordan, they could not even have looked toward Canaan. Like Israel, we live by God’s grace, and yet we imagine that we are building our lives by our own ability. But God’s love is always flowing at the center of our lives, and that is how sinners are able to make their way toward heaven.
God is the Lord of life, and so there is not a shred of human merit in the road we walk. Still, we grow proud as though we had built it ourselves, and we grumble and lose heart. Israel could come out of Egypt, cross the Red Sea, and now arrive at the Jordan only because God loved them. So with us as well: even if we meet hardship while God is fulfilling his promise, if we hold firmly to our faith, he will carry his plan through.
The way we take part in God’s work is to lay down our own righteousness and follow with patience, seeking in every event to understand God’s will, to see by what plan and by what means he is leading us. Patience is never easy. Even so, patience is exactly this: believing that God will act, and obeying. A patient believer prepares a sanctified vessel so as not to spill a single drop of the blessing God pours out. Because such people have God’s attention, as Rahab did, he will change every circumstance to clear away their difficulties and will help them meet good people.
Wherever he leads you, whomever he brings across your path, whatever circumstances he places you in, if you follow, believing that God will in the end work it all for good, he will make you see with your own eyes the astonishing fruit of his promise, beyond anything you imagined. The Israelites never so much as imagined the miracle of the Jordan being cut off, but God prepared it beforehand, showed it to them, and worked so that they could rejoice and give thanks. It was when they obeyed the word that they saw so astonishing a miracle.
1 Peter 1:14-15
14as children of obedience, not conforming yourselves according to your former lusts as in your ignorance, 15but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior;
The apostle Peter tells us not to conform ourselves now to the lusts we followed before we met God, when we could not tell good from evil. We are not to live as we did when we did not know the gospel, when we lived by natural instinct, when we wanted the world more than God. Just as the holy God, who by grace called us when we were living as sinners, is holy, we are to be sanctified, becoming holy people who are transformed through steady perseverance. Being sanctified by the word of God does not happen in a day or two. Only when we strive never for a moment to forget with what heart the holy God called sinners, and with what heart God the Son bore the cross, can we be born again.
For the people of Israel, following the ark at a distance was likewise an act of obedience that only faith could make possible. Once the ark set out, impatient hearts would want to rush ahead of it, though they were to keep two thousand cubits behind.
We too often make this mistake. If we try to run ahead of the word instead of following it, we will commit many sins that display our own righteousness rather than holy conduct. When God leads, all we need to do is follow, trusting that his word will do its work. Yet because we do not believe the promise, we fall back on judging and acting by our own lights. When I feel secure only if I meet people and persuade them myself, or settle things myself with money, it may look for the moment as if the problem is solved, but it will end in failure with nothing gained.
What God wants to give you is not a quick answer to an earthly problem. He wants you to grow in spirit through that problem, because he desires to give you spiritual wisdom through the troubles of the flesh. So you must leave behind the years you have already walked and live the present with diligence. Even so, while we acknowledge that God has helped and led us, we cannot let go of the feeling that our own merit matters too, and that getting on well ourselves comes first.
God, however, is telling us to set our priorities in order. So live giving your utmost, with all your might, and as you do, think of it this way: all this effort of mine is preparation, so that I can leave at once when God tells me to go. Hold the attitude that you are training in your present circumstances so that when God tells you to run, you can run without delay. If you live with this mindset, you will not grow proud when good things happen, nor lose heart when hard things come. This is the wisdom of the believer, and the way to be sanctified.
Rather than understanding God’s will and striving to live by it, people try to offer him devotion of their own devising. They offer God devotion made of their own righteousness that has nothing to do with his will, and they pray that he will grant their wishes. But no devotion people offer can move God. As the Creator of the world, he possesses glory in himself and has no need to receive glory from human beings. In other words, it is not that God receives from people, but that people can live only by receiving from God.
What I want to say to you is not that you should never ask people for help or never live in plenty, but that you should love God. If you pray to God and live a sanctified life, the faith will grow in you that the word is guiding your life, and with that faith you will be able to live honestly. The world is dark, and no one can ever know how their life will end. However much you look around, you will not see the way. You must therefore have the wisdom to look to the light of Jesus Christ, who alone gives light to the world.
Israel must not get ahead of the ark, but neither must they lose sight of it as it goes before them. The priests are carrying the ark and leading the way, but if the people are held back by worldly troubles or their own feelings and do not follow, they will not be able to cross the Jordan into Canaan. Those who cling to their own righteousness or doubt the word cannot take a single step, even when the word lights up the way of salvation. Though they can do nothing in life without the word, they try to make their own way, only to fall in the end into eternal death. This is the law God has set. Whether people believe it or not, the word is the key that unlocks the problems of life.
When the priests carrying the ark obeyed God’s word and set their feet in the flowing Jordan, the river parted as the Red Sea had. Because the priests obeyed what God and Joshua had told them, the Jordan parted, and the people could cross on dry ground. If you obey with a sanctified faith, God will work so that you too share in the miracles the Israelites enjoyed.
2 Corinthians 7:1
1Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
God’s children must not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, and they must strive not to let unrighteousness and lawlessness dwell in their hearts. It is the same principle by which light can have no fellowship with darkness. This does not mean we should have nothing to do with people who have not received the gospel, but that we should not follow their thinking and their ways. Because God is holy, his children must live as befits his children, keeping far from sin. God has said that he will make his people his temple. If we are to become a temple where the holy God dwells, we must live pure lives. Yet living in this harsh world is never easy, because the world is darkness, built on sin, and keeping ourselves pure in it takes an effort that is ready even to die.
Even though the priests were carrying the ark of the covenant, they had no power of their own to cut off the Jordan. But God works the miracle through them to show that for those who obey the word, the word becomes power.
Living honestly in the world is hard for us, but if we depend on God, he will help us. We must therefore grow strong in spirit so as not to be swept away by the world. A tiny living minnow swims upstream against the current, while a dead whale is carried off by the water. So too, those who have new life and live by faith will never be swept away, however swift the world’s current. Those who strive to live by faith will not lose sight of the ark going two thousand cubits ahead, nor will they run ahead of it.
Because human beings can strike no compromise with God, when he commands us to sanctify ourselves, we must cast off worldly thinking and our own righteousness without condition, and obey. For instance, the Canaanites built Jericho’s walls high to protect themselves, but when that city became a stumbling block to Israel, God brought it down in an instant. Many people had labored over many years to build that city, yet it fell because it was not God’s will.
If what you are building now does not agree with God’s will, I hope you will tear it down yourself. When you cast off the habits, the hot temper, the laziness, and the unbelief you have held until now, and through holy conduct and faith bring yourself into submission, you will become a true child of God. This is what it means to fear God, and to cleanse yourself from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness. Believers who trust God’s promise to lead them into Canaan can enter it, and children who obey and revere God can see the miracle of Jericho’s walls falling.
For forty years the Israelites had suffered hardship in the wilderness, wandering from place to place with nowhere to settle. It was a sorrowful life: Canaan lay before them, and yet they could not enter. During those wanderings they had seen their parents die, they had seen people grumble, and they had seen others step forward to proclaim God’s will. As if to cover over those human years, God led the people with the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud, and he built up their faith through signs and wonders. They were put through the fire, it is true, in countless trials, but those trials were shaping them into a people able to take solid food.
Having passed through so many years and so many events, the people must have thought a great deal as they followed the ark. After four hundred long years as slaves, they had believed their lives were forsaken, but as they came out of Egypt with Moses and saw miracle after miracle, they came to know that they were a people specially loved by God. And now, as they walked toward Canaan just as God had promised, they felt both fear and excitement. Simply to think that they were standing where God’s great plan was being fulfilled filled their hearts to overflowing. In this way, when we live sanctified lives according to God’s word, we can see the miracles he has prepared.
God’s plan is fulfilled little by little through the lives of believers who have grown well in spirit. Because the spirit cannot be seen, God blesses those who live by faith by granting them a life free of shame and by showing that he is with them. So we are to mature in a way that humbly reveals God’s glory, through a spiritual growth that serves him wholeheartedly. If God’s people lack wisdom, they will cause other souls to stumble, and if someone who has not matured in faith achieves worldly success, they will grow proud and abandon God. For this reason we must always grow in soul and body together.
As a father who gives a gift looks forward to his child’s delighted face, so God would have wanted to see his people rejoicing as he showed them the miracle of the parting Jordan. When he planned to establish Israel as a nation and to become this people’s King, all these miracles were already part of that plan. If we obey, God will make known to us what plans he has made for our lives and what miracles he will work to fulfill them.
God has given you, too, promises through his word. If you believe those promises and live according to his will, you will see the blessings of heaven come true in your life. The blessing God gives is a gift that can never be taken away. God, who called it faith when the Israelites followed behind the ark, will tell you who strive to live by faith that you are truly his children. May all of you look to God as you live, and may you receive and enjoy the blessings of heaven.
May you always live as God’s holy people and see great miracles. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.