What is the significance of the Jordan River in the Bible?

The River Jordan divided the people from the promised land. To be in the land Jordan had to be crossed. Jordan, overflowing all its banks at that time (verse 15), rolled its dark waters between them and their God-given possession. Only the power of God could bring them through those dark waters. It was a miracle which took place, when a way was opened and "the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap... and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt-sea, failed and were cut off" (verse 16). Unbelief has always branded this miracle as a legend. The destructive criticism has done the same. This is the second time the Lord made a way for His people through the waters. He made first a way for them through the Red Sea, by which Israel was separated from Egypt and from their enemies. The passage of Jordan separated them from the wilderness and brought them into the land.

Both, the Red Sea and Jordan, are types of the death of Christ in its blessed results for His people. The Red Sea experience typifies the fact that the believer, through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, is dead to sin and dead to the law. The passage through Jordan is the type of the fact, that the death and resurrection of Christ brings us into the heavenly places; we are seated together in Christ in heavenly places.

The river of Palestine is first referred to when Lot chose the plain of Jordan, because it was well watered, as the garden of the Lord. Gen. 13:10. The first great event at the river was when the waters from above were driven back, and those below failed and were cut off, and Israel marched over on dry land. They had previously passed through the Red Sea, but the details of the two passages are quite different. At the Red Sea Moses lifted up his rod and the waters divided; but at the Jordan it was when the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the water that it divided. The ark also remained in the river until all had passed over. Twelve stones were taken out of the river to form a cairn on the land, and twelve stones were placed in the bed of the river to be covered by the water. The waters were piled up at Adam, some twenty miles from where the Israelites crossed; but at the Red Sea the water was as a wall on each side. Joshua 3:8-17; Joshua 4:1-24. (The waters being piled up 'at Adam' [Joshua 3:16] is according to the Hebrew text [see also R.V. and Mr. Darby's Trans.]; the reading 'from Adam' is according to the Keri.)

All this was typical: the passage of the Red Sea typified Christ dying for the believer (by which the believer escapes death and judgement); the passage of the Jordan typified the believer dying with Christ, and being raised with Him (the path of death becomes the path of life), according to Col. 2:20; Col.3:1. The waters of the river overflowing its banks at that time typified that the full power of death was met, and overcome by the death and resurrection of Christ. The Jordan itself has often been taken as a type of death having to be passed in order to enter heaven; but it is rather a figure of the entrance, while on earth, through death with Christ to the heavenly position of the Christian, where he has to stand for the Lord in conflict with spiritual powers of wickedness (cf. Eph. 6:10-18), as Israel had to fight the Canaanites, and so make good the Lord's possession through them of the promised land.

The Jordan may further be regarded as the boundary of the promised land, so that the two and a half tribes who stayed on the east of the Jordan stopped short of their privileges. They are a type of many Christians who do not in faith accept the heavenly portion, through death and resurrection, that God intends for them. They are thus more exposed to the attacks of the enemy, as were the two and a half tribes who were the first to be carried into captivity.

Indeed the truth conveyed by the ark going through the Jordan never could be known till Christ came, nay, only by His going away through the path of death, and then making a way for us through the same waters, but His presence abiding that the power of it might keep back the overflowing waters of death. The ark going through the Jordan is neither suffering for sin nor intercession for a rebellious people; it is Christ in power, but a power which is the special result of having Himself gone under death's power when He made His soul an offering for sin, winning victory where it could be won in no other way than by the death of the Victor. The Jordan is not so much the Victor's death, as His power over death, though undoubtedly the way in which He won the victory is not indistinctly seen. But prominently we see the fruit of the work and cross of Christ, Who triumphantly leads His own people, as it were, in the very face of death, and through its domain, a way hitherto unknown, to the knowledge of the heavenly places in Him. This way is impossible to man, yea to saints save as He is there to keep back and stay the otherwise overwhelming flood. The ark in the Jordan is no part of atonement, but the presence of the power of Christ which alone can withstand the power of death, our only bulwark against it. Not their past mercies, nor the promises alone kept back the flood from destroying Israel, but the ark resting in the midst while the people passed before [in presence of] it. All the promises are made good in Christ; He accomplishes the purposes of God whether for Israel or for the church.

"And the priests, that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan," Jordan's bed was dry for all Israel. The power which arrested the waters was effectual for the least as well as for the chief of the host. Israel and the ark were identical in their position in the bed of the river. Great and small, all the people went over in the strength of the ark. Blessed consideration for ourselves! for it is not by our strength, nor by our degree of faith, but of God, through whom in Christ we enter the heavenly places. Every single believer in Christ is blessed alike with heavenly privileges. Canaan belongs to each, and all "in Christ" are there, and solely on account of what Christ has done, and what He is. Christ stood firm for His people, and His people are secure in His strength. These things are not too good, or too great, to be true for the least and the weakest believer; they are the common inheritance of all saints, even as Canaan was the legitimate home of all Israel. And as Israel came up out of Jordan, and into Canaan, by the ark, so are believers now quickened together with Christ; they have life together with Him, who went into death for them and who has come up out of death.

In John 18, when Judas and the band of men and officers came to take Jesus, He said, "Whom seek ye? They answered, Jesus of Nazareth;" and as soon as He said unto them "I am He," they went backward and fell to the ground, thus manifesting the superiority of divine life in a man over the whole power of evil. Therefore we do not get the scene in Gethsemane in this gospel, because it is the Son of God passing onward in divine energy; consequently the waters even do not touch His feet, and the whole power of evil falls down before Him. When we find our feet touching the waters of death, it is the power of the divine life of Christ over the waters of Jordan exhibited in us; for the priests were to "stand still in Jordan." To the people Joshua said, "Hereby shall ye know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out before you the Canaanites … from the land." It was but enumerating the catalogue of things which were to be the occasion of manifesting the divine power. "The priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan until all the people were passed clean over Jordan;" so the power of Christ is there until every one is gone over. If our souls are occupied about going through Jordan, we shall never be able to venture into it; but if we see Christ there, and follow Him without thinking about Jordan, but only about Him, we shall pass right through, and find no Jordan at all.

In order to get a clear understanding of the instruction of Israel's crossing the Jordan, we must endeavour to divest ourselves of the commonly received idea, that it is a type of the Christian's experience in the article of death. The mistake has most likely arisen from not seeing that the gospel brings to us a present salvation, and that each believer is spoken of in the Scriptures as one who "HATH everlasting life," and "is passed from death unto life." From not seeing this, some think of death as before them instead of behind them, and that which they have "passed from." Hence some speak of daily "dipping their foot in Jordan," that is, being daily exercised about death. A friend of mine once visited a sick Christian, who was much distressed about how she could "cross the Jordan;" and we have heard of others who commonly speak of death as "crossing the Jordan." The fact is, that we who believe are in Christ delivered from death, and made partakers of a risen life, by the death and resurrection of Christ; the blood of Jesus has removed the sting of death, and though we may fall asleep in Jesus, it is not death, strictly speaking; for Jesus said, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." That Israel crossing the Jordan cannot refer to this is clear, because when they crossed the river they began to fight; whereas, when we "sleep in Jesus," all our fighting is over; we put off our battle garments for ever; we exchange an helmet for a crown, and our conflict for rest.

On this occasion Jordan was running in flood, yet the waters failed before the ark, and the bed of the river was dry until all the people passed over. But the people were identified with the ark, since, where it had stood, twelve stones were placed, representing the tribes just as twelve stones, taken from the spot where the ark had stood, were erected as a memorial in the promised land. In after days a God-fearing Israelite might stand at the spot and say: There, immersed in the waters our twelve tribes lie while at the same time we stand, as risen from the waters, in the land that was promised to us from God.

Now the Jordan gives us a similar thought. It suggests the death and resurrection, not from Egypt but into the land. If we are going to enter into our inheritance, we need to enter through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. But remember, the people went through dry shod; it did not cost them anything to go through the Red Sea, to get out of the land of Egypt, nor did it cost them anything to go through Jordan, to get into their inheritance.

Now the Jordan gives us a similar thought. It suggests the death and resurrection, not from Egypt but into the land. If we are going to enter into our inheritance, we need to enter through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. But remember, the people went through dry shod; it did not cost them anything to go through the Red Sea, to get out of the land of Egypt, nor did it cost them anything to go through Jordan, to get into their inheritance.

Thus, neither Joshua nor the people were taken by surprise when this astounding miracle took place. The priests' feet barely dipped in the water at the edge of Jordan when the waters were cut off. It must have been a tremendous heap of waters that accumulated far upstream, especially since at that time the river was at flood stage (vv. 15-16). Typically, Jordan is the river of death (running into the Dead Sea), and the heaping up of the waters speaks of the death of the Lord Jesus, who bore the overflowing judgment of God for us at Calvary, taking all that judgment into His own bosom in order that we might have none whatever to bear. For the people passed over on dry ground, while the priests with the ark remained in the middle of Jordan until all the people had crossed over (v. 17). Thus all the power of death was defeated. So, in the cross of Christ we see death's power annulled and believers now identified with Christ in resurrection, though this is particularly seen in the stones taken from the Jordan in Chapter 4:5.