By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace. Hebrews 11:31
If you or I were to pick out somebody in Jericho to be rescued from the coming destruction of the city, who would we have chosen? Maybe we would chose a young shoemaker’s family, or maybe the family of an honest city councillor (if there could ever be such a person), or maybe anybody from one of the local trades or businesses in the city. It shouldn’t be too hard to find somebody who we would feel deserving of a break. But a prostitute, one of the city’s most immoral and disreputable people? Never! Getting rid of people like her would be one good reason for destroying the city, we might well feel. And even if we should somehow by accident select such a person, we would quickly change her designation so that nobody would know of her sordid past. And yet, there on the pages of Holy Writ for all time and for all to see, is the record of the great faith of a Jericho harlot. How wonderful is the grace of God to sinners like her, and like us!
We know that after the fall of Jericho, Rahab did not return to her lowly profession. After her rescue by the conquering Israelites, she married a good man named Salmon and raised at least one son named Boaz who grew up to be an honourable and wealthy man (Matthew 1:4,5). In fact, Rahab’s faith and conversion into a godly woman earns her a very special place, a place longed-for by every faithful Israelite woman, that of being in the lineage of the Messiah. And yet, it is not as the great-great grandmother of Israel’s greatest king that Rahab is known and identified in the Scriptures. No, she is forever designated as the former harlot of Jericho. And in that designation is the recognition of what God’s grace does for an undeserving sinner. Can we see ourselves in this picture?
Most of us were not engaged in the sex trade, or in any other illegal or immoral occupations before God saved us. As far as people around us knew, we were normal and regular people, no worse or better than anybody else. And yet, our hearts shudder to think of what undeserving wretches we really were. We broke God’s laws, blasphemed His Name, and spurned His gracious call to repentance and faith for years before we were rescued by the strivings of the Holy Spirit. Although we regret that we are not all that we could and should be for our Lord, we also rejoice that we are not what we once were. We consider the words of Isaiah 51:1: ‘look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged’, and we realize how far God has brought us.
Only by faith are we saved from what we could have been, because of the grace of a God Who reminds us of how far He has lifted us to make us His own. -Jim MacIntosh