AppNotes

April 5, 2021

In the Middle Ages, the kings of Europe demanded loyalty from their earls and dukes, usually on the battlefield; the earls and dukes in turn required loyalty from their serfs and peasants. Here is Joshua, preparing for a battle at Jericho, and a man he does not recognize appears. It isn’t an unusual question, to ask who this man is and where he comes from and whose side he is on. “Neither,” he says. The way Joshua responds to him, we can see Joshua knows this is God, in the form of the pre-incarnate Jesus. The king himself has come to fight this battle. But when Jesus came to earth to live as a man and die on a cross, He came to serve, and He was the one willing to die. He is the king who came to serve, to fight with His own life and defeat death itself, for you and for me, because of His fierce love for us.

Bible Reading

Joshua 5:13-15 NIV
Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” The commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.