A River Not to Be Despised

Do you love to see the New Testament in the Old? Consider the story of Naaman. He got cured of a terrible disease and became a believer in the God of Israel--all because he humbled himself in baptism.

Although Naaman was the highest-ranking general in the land of Aram, he was a leper. He would be healed of leprosy by obeying God’s command to dip himself seven times in the Jordan River. That healing experience is recorded for us in the Scriptures.

Now Naaman was commander of the army of the King of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy…

Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!”

So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy (2 Kings 5:1, 9-14).

Aram, Arameans, and Aramaic

Aram is the rough equivalent of today’s Syria and southern Türkiye. Aram is the land where Abraham sent his chief steward Eliezer to find a bride for Isaac. It was the same the land where Laban—the brother of Rebecca—dwelled. In fact, Laban was the son of an Aramean (Genesis 28:5).

Eliezer did find a wife for Isaac, Rebecca. He brought Rebecca from Aram to the Promised Land, and she became the mother of Isaac’s two children: Esau and Jacob. After they were grown men, Isaac urged his son Jacob to flee from Esau. When Isaac did this, he advised Jacob that he should go to Aram to find a wife.

‘Go at once to Paddan-Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.’

Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan-Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebecca, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau (Genesis 28:2-5)

Jacob made his way to what they called the Eastern people, specifically, those who were from the city of Haran (Genesis 29:1, 4). And he would arrive at the city of Paddan-Aram (Genesis 28:7). There he would father 33 children and raise them (Genesis 46:15) and there Jacob would work for his uncle Laban for more than 20 years. There Jacob contracted marriage with four Aramaic women—they were the mothers of the Twelve Patriarchs.

The influence of Aram's culture was so strong over Israel that Aramaic was the common language of the Jews in Jesus’ generation. Our Lord’s famous expressions Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani and talitha kum demonstrate that he used Aramaic in regular conversation. It was the language of the Jews of his day.

Elisha’s Humbling Order

The prophet Elisha refused to perform a headline-making healing in front of Naaman’s entourage. Instead, he directed Naaman to the unimpressive waters of the Jordan. For someone from a country such as Aram, which encompassed the northwest slopes of Mount Hermon to the northern regions of the mighty Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, a plunge in the tiny Jordan River was humiliating.

However, the Jordan’s flow would heal Naaman. Naaman needed faith to activate the healing power of God, and he eventually exercised that faith, but first he had to set aside his ego. First, he had to let go of his Aramean pride.

The power and grace of healing came to him through the current of the tiny Jordan River, a river on which boats cannot navigate because it's so small. What was God trying to teach Naaman with this healing?

The Promised Land

God demonstrated how important the Promised Land is to Naaman. Israel is not important because it’s particularly beautiful, or because its river is wide. The Promised land is not important because its mountains are so high. They’re not.

About 60% of the land of Israel is desert—unfit for agriculture. If you want to sow seed, you’d invest your efforts better in Yemen, Eritrea, Haiti, or Cuba which each have much more arable land than Israel. In 2021, the island nation of Cuba had 7.2 million acres of arable land compared to Israel’s less than 1 million acres.

Syria, which represents what would have been ancient Aram, has 11.5 million acres of arable land. Türkiye has 49 million!

The Promised Land is not important because of its topography. It doesn't have impressive geographical landmarks. It will eventually have a significant geopolitical place in the World, but it doesn't right now.

When Israel Will Become Great

Israel’s position in God’s Kingdom will be impressive, but it’s not impressive now. What makes the Promised Land important is God’s promise. God has promised greatness for Israel. That’s why it’s called the Promised Land—the promise of God is upon its future. This prophecy proves it:

In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s Temple will be established as the highest of the mountains. It will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the Temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’

The Law will go out from Zion, the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore (Isaiah 2:2-4).

Israel will eventually become the greatest country on the planet. From it will go forth religion, law, justice, and Truth to benefit the entire World. God’s Temple will be established in Israel and Jesus Christ will rule from there for 1000 years.

Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken. All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever (Micah 4:4-5).

The Promise of a Kingdom

Naaman did not know about the prophecies of Isaiah and Micah. He could only contemplate the cultural and geographic superiority of Aram over Israel. He was sure that the rivers of Aram were much more important than the Jordan.

You can’t blame him. Any geographer would agree that the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers have had a much larger impact on the development of civilizations than the gentle Jordan. But the Jordan has God's promise over it, and God’s promise of a Kingdom trumps all temporal greatness. God’s promise surpasses all political power and imperial glory.

A Kingdom to Destroy All Other Kingdoms

Daniel described a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar to the King, and gave the interpretation to him. The interpretation was that God's Kingdom would come and destroy all previous kingdoms the World has ever seen. It would then fill the Earth.

Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.

While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole Earth.

This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of Heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others.

Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

In the time of those kings, the God of Heaven will set up a Kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces (Daniel 2:39-45).

A Baptism Like Naaman’s

Naaman wised up and valued his own health enough to humble himself and be dip seven times in the meager Jordan River. That was a good choice because he got the healing he sought. But he got much more. He got a knowledge of the One True God--the God of Israel.

Nobody today needs get baptized in the Jordan to demonstrate our hope in the Kingdom. We need to get baptized in the name of Jesus. If we get baptized in Jesus' name, we're getting baptized for the Kingdom because the Kingdom was the message of Jesus. Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom!

If we are baptized, we do it according to the example of Naaman who was baptized in the Jordan River, having overcome his disdain for Israel. He gained an appreciation for the promise God has given Israel. But we mainly get baptized according to the example of Jesus--the Messiah whose life demonstrated faith in the glory of future Israel.

You can be baptized in water anywhere. It can be any body of water--any lake or any river. As long as you get baptized in the name of Jesus, you’re doing it in the Hope of the Kingdom.

Jesus is the King of that Kingdom, and he tethered the Hope of the Kingdom to baptism in his teaching. For example, he said nobody will enter the Kingdom unless they are born of water.

… no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5).

John the Baptist preached the Kingdom too. People’s reaction to his preaching was to get baptized. What motivated these people to be baptized? The nearness of the Kingdom of God. That's what should drive people to baptism today too.

… John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near…’ Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River (Matthew 3:1-6).

Baptism for an Inheritance

Jesus saves us through baptism—what Paul called the washing of rebirth, and Jesus saves us expressly so that we might become heirs. Heirs of what? What will we inherit? We’ll inherit the Earth.

If we are baptized, we’ll inherit the Kingdom according to the Hope Jesus preached!

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit… so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the Hope of eternal life (Titus 3:5-7).

… in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:26-29).

So, in conclusion, we learn from Naaman that we must be humble. Don’t pride yourself on any greatness you have in this life. Be humble and wash yourself.

With the Hope of the Kingdom in your heart, seek to be made an heir--and be baptized in the name of Jesus!

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth (Matthew 5:5).