The following chapters contain the substance of a series of expositions of the Book of Joshua, designed to unfold the deeper spiritual teachings of this book as a revelation of Christ in His fulness, and as a type of the higher inheritance of faith and peace into which our divine Joshua waits to introduce His faithful people. They do not claim to be so much an exegetical commentary on words and phrases, as a more comprehensive analysis of the general plan and spiritual teachings of the volume, and an exposition of the mind of the Spirit, as He, through these ancient types, unfolds to us our privileges under the Gospel and our full inheritance in Christ. Other volumes sufficiently expound the questions of history, geography, textual criticism, skeptical objections and allusions to manners and customs, and other matters connected with Biblical illustration. Our object, in harmony with the general purpose of these volumes, namely, to unfold "Christ in the Bible," is, to bring the hearts of our readers into touch, at all points, with the Lord Himself, and the lessons which He designs for their own spiritual life.
There is in all things, a good, a better and a best. That is especially true in our spiritual life. The story of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers is the good, unfolding Israel's redemption from Egypt, and foreshadowing our salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Deuteronomy and the earlier chapters of Joshua introduce us to the better, Israel's entrance upon the Land of Promise, the type of our sanctification through the Lord Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Ghost. But there is something more than even this, and the later chapters of the Book of Joshua unfold the highest and the best possibilities of our spiritual life.
There were choice possessions in the Land of Promise. There were victories to be won, even after all the land was subdued and the thirty-one kings were conquered. Hebron, Kirjath-Sepher, and Timnath-Serah represented something more than ordinary victory, and point us forward to the prizes of Christian life and the special inheritance of glory awaiting the few, even in the sanctified host of God who are willing to be more than conquerors through Him that loved them.
If this volume shall be used of God to inspire any of God's wandering children to turn from the good to the better, we shall feel deeply thankful. But if we shall have the joy of finding, in the day of harvest, that it has stimulated some of God's consecrated children to press on from the better to the best, and to win some Hebron of love, or Timnath-Serah of cloudless light and incorruptible joy, in the heavenly places which await us even here, we shall feel that the highest purpose of this beautiful, inspired volume which we have sought to unfold has been in some measure accomplished, and that we have not been disappointed in our own humble and most earnest hope and prayer.
AB SIMPSON
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