xvn. THE STONES BURIED IN THE JORDAN. 311 



rection, salvation through destruction. The sinner 

 through grace passes into the kingdom of God ; but 

 his old sinful life dies in the passage. He reckons 

 himself as indeed dead unto sin, but alive unto God 

 through faith; just as the representative stones lay 

 overwhelmed in the bed of the Jordan while the 

 Israelites were safe on the other side. And hence 

 the profound meaning of the words of the Apostle, 

 " Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are 

 risen with Him through the faith by the operation of 

 God, who hath raised Him from the dead." Wash- 

 ing and burial are thus combined; for God's method 

 of washing the sinner is through death the death of 

 His own Son, by whose grace, as typified by the 

 waters of baptism, the believer has been raised 

 quickened into new life, purified, and consecrated to 

 the service of God. 



How comforting and reassuring is the thought that 

 when, through faith in Christ, we have crossed from a 

 state of nature to a state of grace all our sins are cast 

 into the sea of God's mercy. They are as completely 

 buried out of sight as the stones in the ooze of the 

 Jordan. The peace that is like a river and the right- 

 eousness that is like the waves of the sea flow over them. 

 The Israelites indeed knew that the stones which were 

 the memorials of their sinful, rebellious life in the wilder- 

 ness lay in the bed of the river which they had crossed 

 and left behind, although no trace of them was visible, 

 and they had been carried by the swift current down to 

 an unfathomable grave in the Dead Sea. And so with 



