The epistle to the Romans (5:12-8) supposes us to be in the wilderness. We have been saved in hope, and meanwhile we groan. The creature is under the bondage of corruption, only nothing will separate us from the love of God. In the epistle to the Ephesians we are as clearly in Canaan. This helps to make the matter plain.
In the Red Sea setting forth the death and resurrection of Christ, redemption by it is plain as a basis. We have really died in Him and gone out of Egypt. We are not in the flesh. We were baptized unto His death. We reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. We have our place thus; and it is deliverance. We know that the old man is crucified with Christ, and so are justified from sin (not sins); but it is never here raised together. When this is used, we are looked at as dead in sins (not as having died to sin), and Christ as being dead by reason of this in grace; and so the purpose and power of God comes in, and we are raised with and seated in Him in heavenly places. On passing the Jordan, we are risen and entered into heavenly places. Then Gilgal comes and conflict in Canaan.
Peter shows us redemption through the precious blood of Christ. And we are begotten again to a lively hope through the resurrection of Christ. Here it is simple, not death with Him.
In Rom. 6 it is “planted together in the likeness of his death,” and knowing this that our old man is crucified with Him: so that we reckon ourselves dead to sin, and we say (ch. 7), “when we were in the flesh.” Yet even this is comparatively vague, and reasoned out to be proved as a result: “in Christ” only occurs as an assumed fact in ch. 8:1, and only to have “no condemnation,” delivered from the law of sin and death. Then we are in the Spirit, not in the flesh. Christ is in us: if so, the body is dead and the Spirit life. It is an argued out result for one who is in the wilderness. Hence Christ lives to make intercession for us. It is dealing with man in flesh, delivered, no doubt, but showing him that he is.
In Ephesians it is God's work as to one dead, and must take the form He gives it (i.e., heavenly places in Christ); whereas we have a condition and state in the epistle to the Romans—life in Christ but life in the wilderness. There is no condemnation, but then the whole practical demonstration is proof by state—known by faith but state. I was living in sinful flesh; I have been planted in Christ's death; and as a dead man cannot have sin, I am justified from it. The apostle is not speaking of sins here, which we had before, but of sin. We are alive now, married to another. There is therefore no condemnation for those in Christ; but the thing must be proved, because I had been in that evil state. But in Ephesians I am in the place God put me into by a new creation, according to His purpose, which is Canaan.
Death was judgment in the Read Sea: only Christ underwent it, and so sin in the flesh was condemned. The Egyptians were destroyed and the bond broken, and hence deliverance and redemption. But in Jordan it is non-existence.
I do arrive at reckoning myself dead in Romans, that sin may not have dominion over me; for I am not under law but under grace. But it is reached by faith, sin being de facto known to be there to the last verse of ch. 7. But in Ephesians it is simply a new creation. I am in heavenly places where sin does not come: even my conflict as belonging to God is with Satan. In Jordan I have ceased to exist for the wilderness. It is not thus in Romans: only Christ is my life for the wilderness. In Ephesians we are not crucified with Christ: it begins with bringing out of death. That is, in Romans the old man is contemplated as alive and having to die—only as dead by Christ, who really died. We are not quickened together with Christ in the Read Sea. Baptized unto Christ, we may be said to enter in to His death, and so reckon ourselves dead, rising through Him.
But raised with Him is another thing. Then I do not get deliverance from my state and condition, but, according to the value of Christ's work and the place He enters into in His person, the purpose of God about us; we are introduced into a new place, Christ's place as gone into the presence of God; we are identified with Him—not merely live through Him. Hence in Romans we have experience, though a blessed one; in Ephesians we have not, save as a consequence—we are in heavenly places, instead of having experience of ourselves as in Romans.
The point at the Red Sea was what they got out of, though really brought to God for faith; the point in Jordan was what they got into (answering to Romans and Ephesians). At the Red Sea Canaan was hope; at Jordan they are entered in. So, in fact, we shall be raised in glory—going to heaven is a kind of necessary consequence. But we are raised up together with Christ and seated together in heavenly places in Him. I am dead to sin in Romans; I was dead in sins in Ephesians. I am clean taken out of the whole condition. The blood on the doorposts met the judgment of God against sins, besides being the foundation of all. At the Red Sea we get out of Egypt. We are baptized unto Christ's death. It is redemption. At Jordan we are in heavenly places.
There is another point to be remarked. Israel came up to the Red Sea, trembling, pressed by Pharoah, the prince of the world, shut in with death and judgment or destruction before them. God acts for them, and death and judgment are turned into deliverance, because Christ undergoes death and judgment, so securing us and letting us get out free on the other side.
At Jordan Israel are not thus contemplated. They do descend into Jordan, no doubt; but all is contemplated according to the power of God in Him. It is not assuredly their strength: Christ had to go first.
Man as man, even as a believer, had not passed this way heretofore. It was a divine person, the Lord, who had been in the midst of them and must go first. The feet of the priests who bore the ark touched the water. It was not the rod of God lifted over the sea. At Jordan it is as John's gospel—the Lord giving them a part with Him, preparing them a place that they may be with Him, not He with them in the wilderness, departing out of this world unto the Father—not as in Matthew, forsaken of God on the cross. He leads, goes on alone with a space between, destroys him that had the power of death, and delivers. That path into the heavenlies is open till all the people have passed over. It is the Lord going first; but the Lord is with, amongst, and at the head of, His people. It bears the heavenly character; it is a work which refers to Canaan, not to Egypt. Hence, when Israel is through, the Red Sea takes all its terror and power again, and the Egyptians are destroyed; whereas at Jordan a memorial is preserved, twelve stones are set up in the river, and twelve stones taken out of it. It is a blessed memorial of having done with the world. Death is gain, not judgment—death undoubtedly, but death to what?
And if we look at the matter as Christ's death, it was obedience unto death, love unto the end, His closing the scene of sorrow and the world, not simply drinking the cup of wrath. It is every way gain. Hence, too, here resurrection is no distinct state: pass Jordan, and we are in heaven. So we find in John always. Thus Mary Magdalene must not touch Him. He was going to His Father and ours. Yet John otherwise is all manifestation on earth; but when death comes in, it is going to heaven.