Rahab’s Faith
Joshua 2:1–16
For the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. Joshua 2:11

Rahab’s experience is parallel to that of everyone who comes to God through faith in Jesus Christ today. Joshua tells us that after Rahab had helped the spies and they had agreed to spare her and her family when the city was taken, they said, “We will be guiltless with respect to this oath of yours that you have made us swear. Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household” (vv. 17–18). Rahab agreed and tied the scarlet cord in her window. We are Rahab if we truly understand her story. We were part of a corrupt, degenerate society in which we each had our own reprehensible sins. But God set his hand on us. He made his great saving acts in history known to us and then brought us into contact with his messengers and representatives. He called forth faith in us, faith by which through his grace we also laid our lives on the line. In a spiritual sense, we were called to repudiate our own people and identify with God’s people. As a sign of that, the blood of Christ, like a scarlet cord, was spread over our homes and lives.

And now? Now we live in an alien land between the moment of our commitment of faith and the moment of the final judgment, which will be the time of our full deliverance. In this important interim we are to stand alone for God as Rahab did: we are to be God’s people in opposition to the surrounding godless culture.

What if you have not done this? Then your state is the same as that of the citizens of Jericho. You look at the surrounding walls of your great secular city and say to yourself, Surely I am safe here. The walls are strong. This city has stood for many thousands of years. But inside, your heart is failing you for fear, and you know that a day of certain reckoning and judgment is approaching. Why shouldn’t you be like Rahab? She had nothing but a verbal report of the mighty acts of Jehovah, and even that was a selective, limited report. You have the law and the gospel, the law that condemns you for your sin and the gospel that shows you the solution to your sin through the death and outpoured blood of Jesus Christ. Why should you live any longer under God’s just wrath and condemnation? Why shouldn’t you believe on Christ, turn from your sinful past, and take your place with God’s people?