Who Is The “Man” With the Drawn Sword? | Episode 15

Our podcast this week was more stuff about the strange encounter Joshua has with the “man” with the drawn sword.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I really try to allow these hyperlinks to just show up. You recognize the fingerprints of the Lord like all throughout the scriptures by the language that's used. All right, everybody, welcome back to the Year Through the Bible podcast. This is um episode number something. We've been doing this since January, and um here we are now in April. My name is Rodney Adams. I'm the executive director at Asbury Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You are?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I'm Andrew Forrest, and Rodney, I'm going to start with a question for you this week.

unknown 0:38

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Based on a passage in Joshua chapter five. When Joshua was by Jericho, this is before the war with Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went up to him and said to him, Are you for us or for our adversaries? And he said, No, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped, and said to him, What does my Lord say to his servant? And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so. And then chapter six begins about Jericho, and before that passage, there's nothing leading up to it. It's like a standalone thing, inter and uh an intercust show intercalation right there in the middle of the yeah, there. So I love to know what catches your attention from that passage. I think it's I love this passage. I think it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I do too. And for one, it's just cool. Yeah. If you're if you're like a little boy, like reading the Bible, it's so cool. There's just this guy with his sword out here. Uh-huh. A guy, yes. Just a guy. And and I mean that's what it says. There's a man. A man. A man standing before him. So a few things kind of catch my attention. I've said it before on this on this show or this podcast, but I really try to allow these hyperlinks to just show up. And by hyperlinks, I'm not even saying that what shows up for me is for sure linked to another thing. But um you recognize the fingerprints of the Lord like all throughout the scriptures by the language that's used. So a couple of things. Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy. We're reading through the entire Bible this year. We started in Genesis, we made our way through Exodus, and that is very clearly language used when Moses encounters the burning bush, and it's God. And also, Okay, so here we go.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Go ahead. Ready, here we go. Yeah. Exodus 3.5. So this is the this is now we're reading an English translation, but the language translation says this do not come near. Okay, then. You you Rodney, you look at uh Joshua 5, and I'll read Exodus 3. Got it. Take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. It's literal, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yep. So Joshua 5 15, take off your sandals from your feet for the place where you are standing is holy. Slight change.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah. I can look, I mean it's the same idea, obviously, but I'll we can look in the computer if it's the exact same Hebrew phrase. So absolutely. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

I mean you can't miss it. I was thinking about this because you you preached on this recently. So I've read through the entire Bible a handful of times in my life, and I th you can't help but notice throughout lots of other parts of the scriptures that when um when humans, and particularly I think I'm right about this, the people of God encounter these heavenly beings or these these supernatural beings, it's like they have this um reflex or this response to hit the ground. Like they they fall on their face. And that's not that's not necessarily trained, because we don't really see that as it's not like there was this liturgical practice, not like it's the most uncommon thing in the world, but it's just like this response. So I've been thinking about this, and actually my sixth grade boys small group, we this came up uh yesterday. It's kind of cool. In First Chronicles, David kind of gets in trouble because he bring his he brings about this census or whatever, and the Lord the Lord brings pestilence over the land. Um, but as he was about to destroy it, the Lord saw, this is in 1 Chronicles 21, uh, verses like first 15. But as he was about to destroy it, the Lord saw and he relented from the calamity, and he said to the angel who was working destruction, It is enough, now stay your hand. And the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. And David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and heaven, and in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. And David said to God, Was it not I who gave the command to the number of the people? He and then he repents. He kind of he kind of goes on. Okay, so right there you have a couple of things. David said, um, David lifts up his eyes. There's some weird language there. Kind of reminds you of Psalm 23, right? No. Psalm 121. Psalm 121. Um, so there's that. Um, and David falls on his face because there's this angel of the Lord that's there. Okay, last thing I want to say on this. I've been thinking about this for a while, and I don't know if I'm right about this. But if you look in Revelation, the picture that that that John is given of heaven, and particularly like the throne room, often the elders, when basically when Christ is seated at the right hand and sort of makes an appearance in the imagery that John gives, their response is to fall on their faces and worship. It's like it's almost like worship is like a like a natural response when things are the way that they're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

What is it called when the doctor hits your knee with the hammer? A reflex?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

A reflex. Yeah, yeah. It's almost like that, like a reflex. It's kind of like that, like you can't you can't not do that. Now, here's what I don't know. I would have to go back and look. Do the people who are not in Christ do that or do they not? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah, you know what's interesting. I I'm gonna undercut my theory. As you first started talking, I was wondering if when it's an angel, people always do that. But when it's the Lord, they don't always do that. So in Genesis 18, when the Lord shows up with to eat with Abraham and he makes food for him and that whole deal, they just entertain them. They're just hanging out. Here, Joshua does do it, but not at first. It's only after that's I find that interesting, right? Yeah. Moses doesn't do that in Mount Sinai when the um the burning bush is there and the Lord's there. But here's where I undercut my theory. So I'm I was thinking it's almost like God, what is it called when a lion velvets his claws? You know, a clap like the when God shows up, his claws are with tracted and people are comfortable, but the angels just are just pure, they're just there, pure glory, except that on the Mount of Transfiguration. Because on the Mount of Transfiguration in the New Testament, when Jesus is revealed as who he is, Peter and them fall on their faces. So my theory doesn't work. Yeah. But it's not a totally bad theory because there's a lot of times where God shows up. So I think this is this is Jesus. This is the second person of the Trinity for reasons we should get to. Um, I just think that that's interesting, that the angels are the ones that almost prompt that response more, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Right? They're like these great, terrible, not like in like a horror movie, terrible, but like these, these just completely awesome figures that you just and they're supernatural to us, so you just can't not, it's like you just can't not fall on your face. But where is it later in the scriptures? Doesn't one tell someone, like, don't worship me, like John, it's in Revelation.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah, yeah. John falls at the angel, and the angel's like, and the angels are like scandalized, get up, none, which is not what happens here. If you've ever seen like one of the like F-22s take off, and you're there and you're looking through the chain link fence, and you know, it kind of it's not like a regular airplane where it just sort of like that, it goes like this, and you feel in your chest there's like a power released, right? And you're like it almost makes you like catch your breath, you know? Yeah. And that's a human invention that people created in God's image are able to make, which is amazing. Yeah. So that's what an angel's probably like, but it's pure godly power, no mediate, and there's no fuel, no combustion. It's like pure power right there. And you probably go, yeah, you fall on your face. So, why do we say this is the second person of the Trinity? There is some weird stuff that's going on in the Old Testament where there is the angel of the Lord and there's the Lord, and they're separate from each other, but they're also kind of the same. We would use this as Trinitarian language. So famously, let's turn to uh Exodus 3, the burning bush. So there are some Jewish scholars who talked about the two powers in heaven. They kind of get from the Old Testament the idea that there's like there's like Yahweh and then there's like the angel of Yahweh or something. So look at this, it's really weird. Look at Exodus 3. Really strange. Uh Exodus 3:1. Moses was keeping the flock of his father. Did we talk about this last week on the podcast? I talked about this with somebody. Maybe we did it at chapel on Wednesday morning. I have no idea. If we talked about this on the podcast, you're welcome, everybody. Now you can go to sleep. Hyperlink. Hyperlink. Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Exodus 3, and he came to the mountain of God, verse 2. Here we go, watch. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire. And he looked, and behold, the bush is burning. It was not consumed. And Moses said, I'm going to turn aside. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside, God called to him out of the bush. It's really weird, right? The angel of the Lord, the Lord, and God. So maybe uh one way to think about it is the angel of the Lord is there. You know your iPhone can do that thing these days if you're on hold and you're listening. It picks up the hold music and then it says, Do you want to wait? Do you want to be on hold? You know?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

It's is that is this is like the God's on hold? So the angel's marking time there. I'm just gonna get Moses' attention and then, hey, Lord, come take my place now, right? Or is there something about God's presence? Now we would use Trinitarian language that describes both that that there are three persons of divine essence, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and they are three persons but one God. This is the deep mystery of God's identity. And I think you're seeing that in here. So there's a couple of places where that kind of thing happens.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

So what about what about when Jacob wrestles? Right. Perhaps. Because there was a it was a man, and then it kind of wasn't a man. Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

And he says, I've wrestled with God.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Or it was a man, but he but we knew it wasn't only a man. Right. It's totally weird.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

It's exactly that's actually a good analog. You know what I mean? Because it says a man.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

But then the behavior is not human. I think even Joshua's question is kind of a dumb question. If Josh, if the guy looks literally like a person, why would Joshua be like, oh, are you going to be on our side? He knows everyone who's on his side, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

So there's something weird about it from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Well, and now it's making me think of post-resurrection Jesus, where he's he's a man, but he's unrecognizable to his own followers, but then they know, then they know exactly who he is. Very strange. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

So there's only two other places in the Old Testament where it's just that language is with the sword, with the drawn sword in his hand. You just pull up one of them in uh Chronicles, and the other one right now I can't think of at the top of my mind. Uh, exact same language, and uh, it's a sort of like warrior personality. Now, when Jesus returns and and in Revelation 19, he's not walking around petting a lamb. He comes as a warrior on a horse. So I think what you have here is is the second person of the Trinity revealed before the incarnation. Which makes the incarnation that much more amazing because Christ comes and allows them to kill him. So he's making war against the powers by allowing them to kill him.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

And they wouldn't know. Well, they wouldn't, they wouldn't have the this wouldn't be in their mind in the in the Old Testament. Like if this is Jesus, Joshua wouldn't know that. No. No. Right. There's no like um I've just never really considered how so when when John says in um in his sort of prologue to his gospel that that he was with God in the beginning and he was God. And if if Jesus is fully man and fully God and was also with God in the beginning, it's so interesting to think that he's shown himself throughout history in some ways, prior to his birth, the whole thing prior to the incarnation.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

He's the pre-incarnate word, but he's not he's not um yeah, doesn't have skin yet. Yeah. Exactly. Well, here's another weird place. This is Exodus 23. This is another one of these really weird deals. Ready? Um, Exodus 2320. This is when they're at Mount Sinai and and and the Lord is telling Moses what's going to happen. Here we go. 2320. I send an angel before you to guard you on the way. Pay careful attention to him. Obey his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression. For my name is in him. And the name is like a representing of the Lord later on. Carefully obey his voice to all that I say. My angel goes before you, he'll bring you there. Well, later on it says, Well, the Lord brought them there. Well, which is it? Again, this weird interaction with the angel of the Lord, and the Lord, and I I I I think we're not reading into it to see it as the second person of the Trinity. So that's I just love this interaction with Joshua. And this, remember why the reason the father, one of the reasons why the father loves the son is because the son is obedient, Paul says, even unto death. So if you turn to Philippians 2, the famous hymn, and uh podcast listeners, Philippians 2 is one of those passages you have to know as a Christian. You must know this, you must keep it close to your heart. It's a really important, famous passage, justly famous. So Philippians is after Ephesians. Uh I'm reading in the ESV. In the ESV, the editors did not make it look like poetry, but in other versions it looks like a hymn. And one of the theories is this is a pre-Pauline hymn. Paul did not write this hymn. This is a hymn the early church was singing, and Paul writes it in here. Okay? Um, verse 5. Have the same mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2.6, who, though he was in the form of God, did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. The Greek word, uh, the noun is uh canosis, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by being obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord. So the Father loves the Son because he's obedient and gives up the privilege of being being the ruler to come and die on behalf of other people. Uh anyway, this is deep, deep waters, but I think you get all that from Joshua 5. It's so wild.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

It is really wild. It's awesome. Okay. So what's the average Bible reader who is reading along with us this year to make of all this? Why is it in there? Why now? Why Joshua? Do you do you have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

I do have some. So, first of all, I preached on this, and I do think the question is not is God on our side, but are we on God's side? So that's just a great question. I love Joshua. He ends really well. He's one of the few guys that ends well in the book. And that's sad, by the way, that not only do these guys screw up, but a lot of times they screw up at the end.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

I hate that for them. Yeah. You know? By the way, we'll get there. Samson's kind of the opposite. Samson is a complete disaster, but his ending is not terrible. Yeah. You know, okay. All right. So, first of all, I think this slaps Joshua's hand a little bit, and he's not going to be presumptuous about the Lord anymore. He's going to be really committed. So that's good. I think also the idea that this is actually a spiritual war is an important biblical idea that there's deep spiritual powers beyond the human evils that we see, which is why it's a heavenly army that's there. I think that's important. They have work to do when they go to Jericho, but it's actually the spiritual battle that matters. Paul says our fight is against spiritual realities more than human realities. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Maybe. Well, and and you've we've talked about this on another episode. You may have some additional thoughts at some point, but this is the whole, the whole conquest idea at all. Like this isn't just about taking over parts of a map. Like there's something larger going on with the conquest of Canaan, with entering the promised land, with all the war that's involved, with the pestilence, with all this stuff. It's it's all spiritual. Right. Right. Like the whole thing. It's this is this is these are not these are not um human endeavors. Right. Right. Or the yeah, the human is the little or exclusively human endeavors.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Yeah, the human is what you can see above the water, and then there's this deep iceberg below the water. And then maybe the other thing is why the average Bible reader should care, because it makes the it makes the incarnation that much more amazing. That if Jesus is is the reigning and he's going to come as a conquering king, but he gives up his life and he comes weak, it makes Christmas that much more astounding. I think that's why the average Bible reader should see. Because God's purposes are not realized through conquest in the normal human way, it's a different form of conquering when Jesus comes. He takes the powers a different way.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Well, we saw in Genesis um before the fall that that humanity was walking with God in the cool of the day. Like, and then we see throughout the entire rest of the scriptures that God is is um is he wants to be with his people. And so you see, you see the Lord in all these different forms kind of moving in and out of this these dimensional, to use a strange sort of sci-fi term, these dimensional realities and interacting with his creation. Like I think that's a key, that's a that's definitely a post-Enlightenment um sort of issue, is basically just is there a is there a God, but but is there a God that is an that is an agent? Is there a God that is an agent with his creation now? Like is there are we interacting with the Lord? Are we is all this the creator of all things also has a relationship with what he what and who he created, and you go back and you just see it constantly through the through the scriptures over and over again, including with Joshua and Joshua 5.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Um it's a great passage. I love it. I like Joshua. And by the way, nobody probably cares, but the name Jesus is the name Joshua, it's the same name, it's a you know, it changes a little bit over the years, but it's the word Joshua, which means the Lord saves. Yeah. So Jesus' name is Joshua.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

It's cool. It is cool. Yeah, Joshua's a cool guy. Um we have a lot of scripture to go, but it's fun as like a as a waypoint that we've made it to the promised land and now a new, it's like a new um era or a new chapter or something.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

In the Bible changes, Joshua, the latter part of the book has some pretty boring passages where it just lays out where the tribe settled. So you can look at a map, go look online, it's not that interesting. The action parts of Joshua, the narrative is interesting, that that part is not great, but then judges, when it comes, is just totally fascinating and totally indifferent. You no longer get long recitations of laws, it's just judges is thick and fast of wild stories.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yeah, just as a heads up, the Bible doesn't get less strange or less violent or less no yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

My wife thinks that the end of Judges, we're getting way ahead of ourselves, is a part that's some of the nastiest in the whole Bible where they cut up that lady and do bad stuff. Yeah. And but just to be very clear, and it's clearly condemned, and they're they're they have their moral depravity is overwhelming. That might be one of the very few places where you might want to be careful with what your kids are reading, because it's pretty terrifying. But we'll get there.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, we'll get there. I can't say for sure that we'll give you a week's heads up for all that stuff, but just so you know, if you're one of these folks like like I am sometimes, where if you're behind and you throw on the Bible app and you put it on your On your speaker in your car, d you're gonna want to start being more um discerning about that as we're moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

It's at the end of judges. We just gotta be real careful. Where is the end of judges here? All right. Yeah, this is really around April 30th, May 1st. That's where you gotta be real careful. Yeah, May 1st. It's terrible, terrible, terrible stuff. Uh, there's some stuff with Samson. He was just wild. That's the thing I never got as a kid. The first week of May is where there's some stuff in there you might want to read before you put it on. I never thought, I always thought Samson was like a cool guy because you learned that in Sunday school. And he's like one of the worst guys in the whole Bible. He's a complete. Yeah, yeah. We'll get there. Anyway, okay, we have some questions.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah, we have one question that I think I do want to get to. Um, we don't get to spend as much time in the New Testament as we would like. I think part of it we've talked about on this on this podcast, you know, reading through the Bible in a year, you got to move pretty quickly. And having an old and new testament reading, a psalm and a proverb every day, it's just hard to shift your mind. And when you're studying one thing, it's hard to study the other thing. And but there are things that come up in the New Testament that are that our folks want to know about. And so this is from Luke 10. So Diane uh asks about Luke 10, 38 through 42. Jesus visits Mary and Martha at home. Mary is sitting and listening, and Martha is doing the work of much serving. Is Jesus telling Martha that the way she is serving him is wrong? Or is he telling Martha that what Mary is doing isn't wrong? Does Martha not get a good portion? Asking for a friend who is a quote unquote server, not a sit-down and listener.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, I I I think um we want to be really careful that we don't by the way, this is a good this is a good principle in general. Don't take you it is wrong to take one verse or one story and make it uh definitive for everything. That's why the the Bible is the that's why it's so long, because each story plays off each other. So so the wrong idea would be to say, what you're you should never do any work, you should just sit around. That would be wrong, and Jesus himself contradicts that with other things he says. So I don't want to push it too far. To me, I think what I would say to Diane is verse 40 is the key verse. This is Luke 10, 40. Martha was distracted with much serving. So it's like Martha is missing the point of what's really happening. Jesus is there, Mary gets to visit with him, and Martha is too distracted by making sure the dinner is perfect or whatever she's doing. So everyone can identify with this, parents can definitely identify with this, but we we all do it. It's really easy to miss the life that God has given you by being focused on tasks and getting all that done. It's not that tasks don't matter, but you can be you could miss you could be so concerned with getting the wrapping paper picked up on Christmas Day that you miss the experience of being with Christmas with your family. That's a little example, but we've all done that. So I think that's what it's going after. Don't miss, don't miss the presence of God right with you by making sure you got to get your tasks done for the day.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah, that is a challenge, particularly with the New Testament, and particularly the way that our New Testament English Bibles are broken up because often the the translators will have carved up these, they'll take like each individual parable or each individual story or each anecdote and give it its own sort of title or subheading or something like that. And it can give the illusion that these things are individual vignettes. When often the the biblical writer, the gospel writer, is telling them all in a particular order just for some reason. I don't know if that's happening here, but my point is it's almost like we have to work against how our Bibles are written sometimes, otherwise, it conditions us to take these as like little fortune cookie.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Well, in this particular case, Rodney, the literal immediate, um, preceding uh story is the story of the Good Samaritan. So if the if the story of Mary Martha is um don't do anything, sit around. Well, that's contradicted by the parable of the Good Samaritan, who actually does stuff. He's walking on the road, he finds the guy, he binds his wounds, he takes him to the innkeeper, he pays money, and he says, I'll come back and check on him. So I think you don't want to push it too far. I think maybe the other thing I'd say to Diane is verse 41. Jesus says, Martha, you're anxious and troubled. So I know, Rodney, this is a big thing for you. Um, like a like a like a rubric or or um a test to see how things are going is if you are feeling a lot of anxiety or you're really troubled, then there's something probably off somewhere. So again, it's not that Martha is getting things done. That's not the problem. It's that she's missing the point. She's anxious, she's hurried and harassed. And Jesus is like, Martha, don't miss the, don't, don't forget to consider the lilies. You know, that's that's what's going on there.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah. Yeah, very good. So Diane and anybody else that's listening, I hope that's helpful. Just like everything, um, not everything is completely black and white, right? Particularly when it comes to just pastoral responses to people who are who are trying to live out the gospel, but life is hard. All right. I think that does it for today. Great. Once again, this has been the Year Through the Bible podcast. Do us a favor, go online at year through the Bible.com and you can submit questions. The questions are helpful because we want to know what it is that strikes you when you're going through the readings, things that are confusing or mysterious. And uh, as we pick up patterns and themes, we'll try to hit some of those. If we find something that we think could be quick and easy just to answer, like this Mary and Martha thing, we'll do that as well. But year through the Bible.com. Ask your questions, and then uh until then, we'll see you next time. My name is Rodney. I'm Andrew. Let's go keep reading.