The Red Sea figures the death and resurrection of Jesus as deliverance by redemption. The Jordan adds our death with Christ, and as to our state subjectively, our resurrection with Him-analogous to the forty days He passed on earth. To this the teaching in Colossians answers: hence heaven is in hope. Rom. 3:2020Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)- chap. 7 gives Christ's death for sins, and resurrection for our justification; thence to the end of chap. 8 death to sin. Sin in the flesh is not forgiven but condemned (Rom. 8:33For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Romans 8:3)); but we as having died with Christ are not in the flesh but alive to God in Jesus Christ. This takes us no farther than the wilderness, though passing through it as alive to God in Christ. Hence we see that in Romans we are not risen with Christ: this involves as a consequence our being identified with Him where He is; and so union by the Holy Ghost whenever we are sealed. In Colossians we are risen with Him, but not seen in heavenly places. Colossians treats of life, with a hope laid up for us in heaven, not at all of the Holy Ghost.
In Eph. we are risen with Him and seated in heavenly places in Him: and then begins the conflict with spiritual wickedness in heavenly places, and testimony according to what is heavenly. So far this is Jordan, and Canaan; and here the gift and dealing of the Holy Ghost is fully spoken of; and our relationship with the Father as sons, and with Christ as body and bride. Only Eph. begins with our being dead in sins, so that it is a new creation, not death to sin. The blood-shedding however has a more glorious character in one respect: God is glorified in it, though by crossing Jordan we are experimentally placed higher. That too is the fruit of the blood-shedding, in which there is not only the bearing of sins but a glorifying of God, so as to bring us withal into God's glory with Him, which is beyond all questions of responsibility. It is sovereign grace.