We can have this hope in our service to the Lord just like men and women of old because of the work of the greater Joshua, our Lord Jesus Christ. If there was ever a man of whom it can be said that he was a servant of the Lord, then it is not Moses, who murdered an Egyptian and disobeyed God in the wilderness, or Joshua, who made a treaty with the Gibeonites rather than inquiring from the Lord, or David, who committed adultery with Bathsheba. No, the true servant of the Lord was the King born to Mary and Joseph. He would receive the name Jesus, the Greek version of Joshua. But unlike Joshua, whose name means the Lord saves, Jesus himself will save his people from their sins because he is God with us, Immanuel.

True man and true God, he was fully obedient to God’s law, serving his Father with joy and wholehearted devotion. As the second Adam he came not to renew the covenant made with Moses, but to bring the old covenant to an end and fulfill the promises made to Abraham in a greater way than anyone anticipated. Tempted like us to turn from God and serve idols, he said, no in the strength of the Spirit and committed himself to suffering the agony of hell for the sake of all God’s children. On account of him—his life, his death, his resurrection—you and I can look forward to a future with God in glory if we trust in him: a future in a real physical land, a future in a new creation free from sin, not because we are sinless in and of ourselves, but because Christ has paid for our sins and secured our inheritance by his righteousness.