Joshua chapter 2 has some interesting parallels with the Gospel. In Joshua chapter 2, after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites finally initiated their conquest of the promised land known as Canaan. They were there to exile and wipe out the corrupt Canaanite culture and live there as a culture that represents God. This was a key promise of the Old Covenant for Israel. Their goal was to take the land promised to them through their ancestor Abraham and live holy, following God’s commands until the Messiah comes. Since Jesus the Messiah had come, we are in the New Covenant, and the goal is to conquer the world for the Kingdom of God. In the new covenant, Earth functions as a spiritual Canaan, and the kingdom of God is like a spiritual Israel that will come and conquer this world when Jesus returns.
In Joshua chapter 2, Joshua sends two spies into Jericho, where they met Rahab. Rahab was a prostitute who had heard the story of how God delivered Israel from Egypt and gave them favor in the wilderness and victory over the Amorites and Amalekites. She decided to protect the Israelite spies when the authorities sought them. She hides them on her rooftop and lets them escape down a scarlet rope from her window. She has them make a promise that they will leave her and her family untouched when they come to conquer the city, and they agree. This is a practical application of God’s blessing in Gen 12:3, which says He will bless those who bless Abraham’s descendants and curse those who curse them; in them all nations will be blessed.
This is a template for Jesus sending out his disciples in the New Testament. When believers are hiding from the authorities of Rome and the Jewish Sanhedrin council as they go out and illegally share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they are hidden by people who want to know more about the Messiah (Acts 9:22-25). In Matthew 10:11-15, Jesus told his disciples that when they go into a town to minister, they must stay in one person’s house for the entire time. Anyone who welcomes them welcomes Jesus himself, and they are to pronounce and keep a blessing over that household, but if those people prove unworthy, they can take that blessing away. For those that reject them, they are to shake off the dust of their feet and walk away, and Jesus finishes by saying wicked Sodom and Gomorrah will be better off on Judgment Day than those people. Sounds similar to Genesis 12:3 with the Israelites, right?
In our present age, the Earth is our spiritual Canaan filled with cities like Jericho, and there are a bunch of Rahab-type people who are willing to come to the side of the Kingdom of Heaven, waiting to make contact. Believers represent Jesus on Earth as “citizens of heaven” and “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor 5:20, Phil 3:20-21), which makes them like the two spies. When God comes to judge the world, those who believe the message they’ve heard from heaven’s ambassadors will be saved. Those who reject the message will be condemned on Judgment Day. The conditional statement that governs who receives this covenant promise of eternal life versus condemnation was spoken by Jesus in John 3:16-21.
John 3:16 [NLT] “For this is how God loved the world: He gave[g] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20 All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21 But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.