One Baptism
Chapter 2 - In the midst of the sea
The event under consideration in this chapter is really an abstraction from
the story found in Exodus chapters 12-14. Chiefly it is that part which deals
with the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. The key to this second Old
Testament illustration of the One Baptism is to be found in I Corinthians 10:1
and 2: '...all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea'. Not the slightest
hint is to be found in Exodus that either the Lord or Israel then looked upon it
as a baptism. We should not have known had God not told us His heart about it,
and to this day we cannot say that Israel ever knew it was their baptism. This
fact, beside revealing unsuspected truth, points out the possibility that people
do not know what the Baptism is, or what it accomplishes, or when it takes
place. As with the Children of Israel in their day, many today know something
great has happened to them, but because it is not called Baptism in Spirit, they
do not know how to describe it.
The great historic event we study here is of quite a different character from
the one we considered in the previous chapter. From it we are to learn a new
lesson about the One Baptism we may share with our Lord Jesus Christ.
The first Corinthian letter is most valuable; it speaks very emphatically on a
variety of spiritual issues, and the verse quoted above is an unexpected
corroboration of the vital truth spoken of in chapter 12 verse 13 'by (Gk.
'in') one Spirit are we all baptized into one body'. This means that it is by
means or use of the Spirit that the Lord Jesus baptizes us into His Body.
Comparison of these scriptures concerning the fundamental Baptism leads us to
note first of all that the Baptism of the New Covenant is greatly superior to
that of the Old. The New Testament Baptism is an experience wherein the spirits
of men are immersed in the Spirit of God and thereby baptized into Christ's
body. The Old Testament baptism was an outward event; it took place in the
physical realm only; it was entirely inadequate, even if God had desired it, to
baptize the Children of Israel into Moses' body. Obviously such a thing was not
possible; God did not intend that it should be. Moses had neither died nor risen
again for Israel; furthermore, in the very nature of things, they could not
enter into him and have a share in his exact life, and even if that had been
possible, it would have been a quality of life no different from that which they
had already.
But God did intend that their baptism should give them a sense of oneness and of
belonging to a homogeneous body of people with a visible head. They were to be a
new national family, 'born again' to go into their inheritance and develop their
own culture in a new land. Therefore the Lord enforced baptism upon them by
causing them to go through the sea, baptizing them in the cloud in the process.
He did this to show all men that He cannot depart from basic principles of life.
Throughout the entire history of Redemption, God's provision of new life for His
people has always been through Baptism in the Spirit, and can be no other. Quite
unmistakably by this the Lord in type set the Baptism centrally and basically in
the history of the Old Covenant people. At the same time He did something else
of equal importance also; He set the Spirit and the water in their respective
positions in relationship to the Baptism. In God's ordering, each receives its
proper emphasis; this enables us to get things into true spiritual perspective.
The order as here stated is 'in the cloud and in the sea'.
There can be no doubting where the importance lies in God's eyes. The thing He
accomplished so simply at the Red Sea was the all-important baptism in the
cloud, the type of the Holy Ghost. The spiritual lessons derived from this event
gain in significance when it is realised that water was not used in this baptism
at all. It was staged upon the bed of the Sea; geographically the Red Sea was
the location where all was accomplished, but the water of the Sea was not used.
As a matter of fact, in each of the four typical instances of the One Baptism we
consider in this book, the watery element is comparatively negligible. It had a
part to play, but it was only of minor importance; in no case were the people
involved actually immersed in it. Each instance is designed to show that the
actual baptism is entirely in the Spirit, for every one of those being baptized
remained thoroughly dry throughout. Then as now, the water, being an outward
element of minimal importance, was only used by God to point and insist on the
Baptism in the Spirit.
When the people of old 'passed through the waters,' they did not get wet; the
water did not even touch them; it was no longer there. God took His people
through the sea, walking upon the sea bed in order that thereupon He might
baptize them in the Spirit. As plainly as possible the Lord is showing us that
only as we are baptized in the Spirit are we baptized into His death and
resurrection. As surely as the cloud typifies the Holy Spirit, so the Red Sea
typifies the Lord's death and burial from which He emerged in resurrection.
This is sincerely brought home to our hearts by the fact that Moses was told to
stretch out his rod over the Sea. How majestically he did so like a monarch
stretching forth his sceptre over his kingdom. That rod speaks of the cross,
Christ's sceptre, by which He took away the sting of death, which is sin. Death
was rendered harmless for us, and in the Spirit we are baptized into the now
harmless path which King Jesus has opened for us into fullness of life. When a
man is baptized in the Holy Spirit, he is baptized into the body of Jesus
Christ, and there is no other way into Him than through His own death and
resurrection. It is only when a man is prepared to share in that death and
resurrection, and thus make it his own, that he can be so baptized.
Here let us pause to recognize two simple facts of great importance: 1. That
which is but one event or experience in the New Covenant is perforce typified by
many events and experiences in the Old. 2. As a general rule, New Covenant truth
must never be conceived in limited Old Covenant ideas. It is a feature of the
Bible that exactly the reverse is intended by God. The Old Testament may be
thought of in some aspects as a gradual approach to the New.
Bearing these things in mind, we notice that God's work of salvation in bringing
Israel out of Egypt involved two distinct events:
- The Lord's passover in Egypt.
- The Children of Israel's passover of the Red Sea.
Now these two events are unavoidably divided by some three days of time. Because
of this, and because they are recorded as independent happenings, each complete
in itself, we are in danger of thinking that they are unconnected, whereas they
are but one. As surely as the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord are two
distinct events, each complete in itself yet but one, so also are these one. In
both cases the events are manifestly interdependent; one would have been quite
ineffective without the other. God passed over the Children of Israel that they
in turn might pass over the Sea; the latter was the completion of the former,
and was planned to be such. The correct interpretation of the type requires that
they both be regarded as one event, two halves of one whole. Only the compulsory
time factor divided them; this was simply due to the fact that it was physically
impossible for them to cross over the Red Sea the same night as the Lord passed
over them. The only thing that gave spiritual value to any of the physical acts
or events in which the Children of Israel participated, or made them of any
eternal worth to the persons involved in them, was faith. This is clearly shown
in the famous eleventh chapter of Hebrews.
In Egypt the Children of Israel sprinkled the blood of the slain lamb upon the
lintels and sideposts of the houses to indicate to God that they were inside
eating its flesh. There was no spiritual value in the lamb, nor in its blood,
nor in its roast flesh. The virtue and value of all lay in the fact that they
did exactly what God told them to do in the way He told them to do it. But
sadly, even so, their action in no way effected any change in their own inward
lives and personalities; everything was outward. It is obvious from the reading
that no deep spiritual change took place in them as a consequence of their act.
They still remained a nation of rebellious murmurers, full of fleshly lusts,
worldly, cowardly and disobedient. Yet for all that, the events we are studying
have much of spiritual value to teach those who walk not after the flesh but
after the Spirit.
Comparison at this point with the facts discovered in the type of Noah and the
Ark reveals that in the earlier event only the word of God was involved, but on
this occasion we see that other elements are involved in the transaction. These
are the blood, the Spirit and the water; in Egypt the Lamb and the blood, at the
Red Sea the Spirit and the water. In this we find an advance from the original
idea, resulting in an expansion of truth. Whereas in Genesis it was a simple
invitation, 'Come ... into the Ark', here it is, 'baptized into Moses in the
cloud and in the sea'. The Ark was yet on dry ground without a sign of the
imminent water-floods anywhere to be seen when the Lord gave the command to the
Noahic family. But the Holy Ghost introduces us to this Mosaic type at the point
of the nation's union with God in the cloud and in the Sea. The idea of
association in death is brought in here.
Earlier in the course of writing the first epistle to the Corinthians, in
chapter 5 verse 7, Paul speaks very briefly about God's passover in Egypt,
saying 'Christ our passover is sacrificed for us'. He only just touches on it
and leaves it, passing on to mention the historic event in chapter 10 as an
illustration to point the truth that in one Spirit we are all baptized into His
Body. By the fact that the cloud was in the Sea, that is in the place where the
water should have been, we learn that the Red Sea became for the Children of
Israel the water of the Spirit. Typically, when the Children of Israel came up
out of the Sea on the other side they were 'born of water and the Spirit'.
Typically also they underwent their first experience of 'the washing of water by
the word,' and by those two means illustrate that profound Baptism for which the
blood of Christ was shed. From a unique passage in John's first epistle, chapter
5 verses 7 and 8, we will abstract a few words 'for there are three that bear
record ... the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree in one.
There is not another statement like this in the whole of scripture, and as an
illustration of it the type we are at present examining could not be bettered.
John also says in verse 6, 'it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the
Spirit is truth', and in this account of the twin passovers he is surely bearing
witness to invariable and eternal truth. This epochal event makes it very clear,
for from this whole story we learn that the blood without the Spirit and the
water is quite insufficient for regeneration.
Reading in the psalms, we discover how often David insists that it was through
the miracle wrought at the crossing of the Red Sea that God gained a name and
fame among the nations; Rahab is a witness to this, as she says herself in
Joshua 2:10. The blood was shed in Egypt, but for all its immediate effect
there, it was quite useless for full deliverance apart from the Spirit and the
water. Quite obviously God did not intend that it should be anything other than
the first and most fundamental of three vital elements necessary to their
salvation. It was He who led the people to the Red Sea, carrying Joseph's bones,
following the pillar of cloud and fire; it was He who commanded them to encamp
there and wait for the way of salvation unto life to appear through the waters.
Whether in Old or New, the principles are unchanged and unchangeable; the blood
apart from the Spirit and the water was never envisaged or provided by God as
anything other than the prime, basic factor of redemption. For New Testament
salvation involving regeneration from sin to righteousness, self to Christ, and
death to life, the Spirit and the water are as vital and necessary as the blood.
It is clearly shown in the book of Genesis that originally, as the Spirit moved
upon the waters, the whole earth was generated out from them by the word of God.
In the same way we find this principle to be operative again at the Flood.
Before the renewed earth could come forth, the Spirit (the Dove) had to move
upon the face of the waters. This is a preview of the regeneration, for we note
that it came from Noah within the Ark, prefiguring the giving of the Spirit
through Christ. In this event also we have it exactly the same; the cloud,
typifying the Spirit, moves into and stands over the Sea, and eventually up out
of the waters came the nation. They entered through the way initially opened up
by Moses' rod, which represents the cross; it was God's word to them, 'the logos
of the cross', as Paul put it in I Corinthians 1:18. We see by these things that
the original idea, elements and method used by God in creation were later
adapted to and administered as baptism; they have always been present in all
God's ways of bringing to birth and life.
But here a striking contrast must be taken into account; in the two major Old
Testament crises of original Creation and the subsequent re-creation by the
Flood, baptism is shown as an outward experience or spectacle, but in the New
Testament both an inward and outward experience are alluded to 'in one Spirit
are we all baptized into one body ... and have been all made to drink into one
Spirit'. Although this is an entirely spiritual experience, needing no outward
element at all, its truth is set forth in language that brings to mind both an
outward and an inward experience. To be in Christ's Body we must have an
immersion into and in Spirit; to have the Spirit of that Body we must drink in
and into the Spirit. This is a simultaneous event, implying an outward and an
inward immersion Christ is baptized into me and I into Him it is
synchronous.
The Baptism of the New Testament, although it is always associated with an
inward experience, 'made to drink into', is explained to our minds by means of
language pertaining to an outward figure, 'baptized', which is almost invariably
associated in our thinking with immersion in water. It is worthy of note that on
the day of Pentecost, those who observed the 120 after that initial Baptism,
associated their condition with drinking (Acts 2.13). It is as we inwardly drink
of the Spirit that the inner man is, as it were, outwardly baptized, that is
plunged by the Lord into the larger divine manhood of His Body. The Baptism is
an inward baptism because the New Covenant is an inward covenant, and is
effected in us and Himself by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Baptizer. He
accomplishes this by baptizing the entire inward manhood into a shared spiritual
nature union with Himself, resulting in an individual soul-personality likeness
to Himself in the Holy Spirit.
Until the moment this takes place in a man the Holy Ghost is outside that
person, although for some time He may have been moving upon him. This is why, in
keeping with the original truth shown in Genesis and Exodus, the idea of an
outward baptism is always used; but in the comparable New Testament experience
this is only wrought in us as we 'drink in' the Holy Spirit. The in-drinking and
the Baptism are one; the drinking is effected in the Baptism, and the Baptism by
the drinking. It all takes place together, the initiative being with the Lord
and the initiation ours. In the one Spirit we are baptized into the one body
His.
Although this truth was not revealed to Noah who built the Ark, nor yet to Moses
who wrote the story, this One Baptism into one body was well typified by Noah's
action while still within the Ark. The dove that represents the Holy Spirit was
'sent forth' from Noah within the vessel as it rested upon the mountains of
Ararat. Of course, the dove had been with him there all the time, and in this
knowledge we have a faint intimation of a further thing that the Ark prefigures
to us. It is not Christ after the flesh Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary who
baptizes us in the Spirit, but Christ after the Spirit Jesus of the New
Jerusalem, the Son of God. It was as though the righteous family was baptized
into one body the Ark by Noah, the head of that Ark. This ancient event, so
scorned by the mockers, holds so much wealth of meaningful incident and detail
that we could linger on it to still greater profit. But we must return to the
later story, for the composite type is cumulative, gathering truth from all four
illustrations and finally presenting one complete picture. We see, then, that by
Noah God presents the simple truth of an open door, and by Moses the more
advanced truth of an open way. In process of doing this, He also showed
something of how that door was opened and what took place in Jesus' death and
what it accomplished in the spirit world.
The Children of Israel had to go through the waters for three reasons:
- That therein they might be baptized into (Gk.) Moses.
- In order that Pharaoh and his host should be destroyed.
- So that the people might be safe from destruction, or recapture and return to
slavery in Egypt.
When the Children of Israel passed through the sea together, they became Moses'
people in a special way. In every ordinary way they had always been his people.
Moses had been born a Hebrew; in the day he had returned to Egypt from his forty
years' exile he did so because he wished to go back to his brethren there. They
were his flesh and blood; but in the Cloud in the Sea Israel became his people
in a peculiar way, not formerly possible. So much so indeed, that God later
called them Moses' people, Exodus 32:7. We see by this to what great extent
Moses typified the Lord Jesus. But we also see the limitations of Moses; his
ordinary humanity prevented his people from being baptized into him;
nevertheless, whether or not he or they realized it, unto Moses they were
certainly a baptized nation as they stood together on the resurrection side of
the Red Sea following their passover.
In Egypt Moses had become their flesh and blood saviour. It was he who had
spoken of the lamb, and ordered its blood to be shed and sprinkled, and its
flesh roasted and eaten. By this he had become unto them something of a
redeemer. But they could no more be baptized into their saviour than they could
eat his flesh and drink his blood: they could not become part of him; the act
did not work any spiritual transformation in them. Even though the obedience of
faith gave their passover some spiritual value, they themselves were not thereby
and thereafter in (within) Moses, nor was he formed in them. But this is exactly
what is effected in us by the Baptism, because by it we are not only brought
immediately into all that took place at Calvary and Pentecost, but also into all
the results of that experience. Spiritually / historically God worked out in
Christ what before He had only physically / historically set forth by Moses. Now
in this lies a great lesson, for here before us is the reason for the vast
difference between the Old and New Covenants. Faith was the sole virtue in them
to which God imputed spiritual worth which they never actually had. But with us
it is entirely different. Not so much the faith, indispensable and praiseworthy
as it is, but the results of faith are the greater things, that is the actual
life of Christ in us.
God has never varied the basic principles of truth inwrought by Him in baptism;
they are forever fixed; He has no need to change them, and indeed cannot do so,
for the baptism is one of God's invariables. His ideas become principles of
working; His thoughts become words and works, and a world appears and takes
shape before our eyes. The truth remains the same, though its application may
vary considerably in different ages. The underlying order to be found in
historic truth as it was revealed in Moses' day remains unchanged to this day,
for all is based upon and exists in and sets forth one whole; first the
Passover, then the Baptism. That is the order we see in the person and work of
our Lord Jesus also, Calvary Pentecost; with an unavoidable lapse of time
separating the bloodshed from the baptism upon both occasions. As with the first
historic event, so also with the second; the bloodshed and the baptism are but
two parts of the one experience. The difference between them lies chiefly in the
fact that, better than Israel, we may now indeed be baptized into Jesus. He is
the eternal Lamb who laid down His life in order that the sheep may have it,
which latter is quite impossible apart from being so baptized. It was as though
at Calvary His flesh was removed in order that we may enter into that which was
within the flesh (spoken of as a veil in Tabernacle imagery), that is the
Spirit, thereby becoming members of His body, of His flesh and bones.
Here let us avail ourselves of yet another delightful insight into something
more of the eternal truth this figure holds for us. Perhaps surprisingly, we
find upon reading Exodus 12 that the main emphasis of Moses is the lamb and not
the blood. There are three times as many direct references to the lamb as to its
blood in this chapter. To the Israelites the blood was to be but a token, like
the bow was to Noah; God's real concern was that they stayed inside their houses
and ate the flesh of the lamb. Their charge, therefore, was to eat the roast
flesh from which the blood had been drained and sprinkled upon doorpost and
lintel. There in plain view, it was a token to God both of their faith and their
faithfulness; it indicated to Him that according to His desire they were inside,
eating the lamb. Thus in a figure they were made to set forth the present
necessity laid upon us to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Lamb. To this
we add the fact that the Children of Israel were also charged with the custody
and removal of Joseph's bones to the Promised Land. In this we see how the
phrase quoted above 'of His flesh and of His bones', is also beautifully
re-phrased in this foreshadowing of the spiritual substance of His Body.
Bearing in mind that all now is spiritual, and all then was physical, at their
baptism the Children of Israel were as nearly as the type can show 'of His flesh
and of His bones'. 'A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have', said
Jesus to His people after His resurrection. His Spirit must have flesh and bones
(that is a body) in which to live; so it is that we, being baptized in the
Spirit, are formed into the spiritual body of which He is the Head. It is a
great mystery, but it is nevertheless true that He is 're-housed' and re-formed
in us in the flesh in a way that was not possible with Moses and his people.
Still, for all that, God had them go through an experience whereby they were
typically baptized unto each other; Moses unto them and they unto him, because
at all times and in all peoples God speaks and shows one truth.
Now all this, correctly enough, is set into the unfolding account of the
beginning of the national life of Israel. In the same chapter 12 that exalts the
lamb and its blood, God says 'this shall be unto you the beginning ... the
first', for He intended that by the events we have been examining, Israel should
have its birth as a nation. When Jacob went down to Joseph in Egypt, Israel was
a large family group or clan comprised of small families, numbering seventy
souls in all, with one paternal head. During their stay there, these families
had developed into tribes, and when those tribes left Egypt they had grown
sufficiently to become a nation, but they were not then recognized as such. They
were not accorded any distinctive recognition in Egypt as a nation in its own
right. They were the Egyptians' slaves, and at the time of the Exodus the males
were scattered among the nationals finding materials for brick-making.
We see then that the Children of Israel had their national beginning by means of
the Passover and the passage of the Sea. The nation was 'born in a day' as they
came out of Egypt. Again, it is the same invariable picture of the true
baptismal-regeneration. In Egypt only a comparatively small specified group was
saved from destruction. Each one of this group was someone's firstborn,
foreshadowing the eternal truth of 'the Church of the firstborn ones which are
written in heaven', of which we cannot here speak particularly. But at the Red
Sea they were all without exception baptized unto Moses. By this we understand
the importance of the position the One Baptism holds in the whole scheme of New
Testament salvation. Historically / spiritually it happened at the conclusion of
Christ's earthly life, that in the Spirit it may be established for the Church
as the means and time of its beginning.
During the earthly life of our Lord Jesus, the Baptism was still only possible
of typical illustration. When He was baptized in Jordan, it was as Israel's
Messiah. At that time He was presented to them by water only (1 John 5:6), and
quite rightly so, for water is an entirely insufficient medium for the spiritual
purpose of God to be fulfilled therein. He could only 'come' in flesh by water;
He could not thereby 'come' in Spirit. Though in Jordan the Lord remained true
to and moved consistently in line with eternal truth, so that again over the
water the dove appeared, He could not yet 'come' to His people as He wished.
Perhaps this appearance of the dove held for John a twofold significance: (1) to
mark out the Lord Jesus; (2) to emphasize that everything still was part of the
Old Testament where all is symbolic. Although he craved for it, he could have no
part in the greater Baptism he sought, saying to the Lord, 'I have need to be
baptized of thee'. The people at that time could not be baptized into Jesus
Christ, nor He into them, nor was it God's intention then. Not by water nor yet
by such a baptist could God's plan be put into effect. What took place then was
but a type of things not known as yet. The Lord, whose body was there dipped in
water, was looking forward to His personal Baptism in Spirit (perhaps praying
for it, who knows?) and His re-formation into a new Body of regenerate spirits,
each of whom, as He their Head, should be baptized with the same Baptism as He.
In that Baptism, by eternal ordination, He was to be the only Baptist, because
in the nature of things He is the only one who could possibly administer that
Baptism.
This is the uniqueness of Jesus' Baptism. He alone, of all who have been
associated either with the rite or the experience of baptism, both initiated it
by undergoing it and also administers it. The Lord Jesus is and always has been
the only true Baptizer; He even had to baptize Himself into His own death at
Calvary. He had to do it; it was absolutely necessary that He should, for until
then He had never been real Man as He found him to be on the earth when He came.
His special birth had prevented that from happening. He was God's second Man,
the Lord from heaven manifested on earth, heaven's Man, real Man as God had
intended Man to be; but spiritually Jesus was not the earth Man as He found him
when He came, for earth Man was spiritually fallen Adam.
Old, old Adam had been bad enough in the beginning, but on his unbroken passage
through millennia of sin and violence he had become worse in every successive
generation. Jesus was the second man directly made by God. We speak of His
coming as an advent, not a creation; differently from Adam who was made of dust,
He was made of a woman. He was a new kind of Man, and therefore could not be Man
as He found him, for all men born on the earth between the creation of the first
man and the advent of the second were not Man as God meant him to be. By
spiritual heredity all men are born children of fallen Adam, but He was the
direct child of God the Father, unfallen; He was and is 'the quickening Spirit'
'born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth' into His
heredity.
In its origin His manhood was not of the Earth, earthy, nor was He of satan,
satanic by spiritual heredity, He was the Lord of glory. Therefore, in order to
reach man as He found him to be, and remake him as He wanted him to be, He had
to become Adam and somehow end Adam's line; that is, He must become the last
Adam. But because He was God's second Man by supernatural birth, He could not be
a second Adam during His life. From the moment of his fall in Eden, down through
the ages, Adam had become more than a person, he had become a nature and way of
life, a prototype, a kind. This Adam Man, by normal procreation, immediately
became Cain and Abel, and in them is revealed to be a split, lustful, murderous
dual-personality, worsening in his progeny unto unpardonable sin and total
depravity, as the Flood and Babel and Sodom and Gomorrah heartbreakingly reveal.
So it was that Jesus came into the world as the wonderful second Man, born by
the power of the Spirit direct from God in order that at Calvary He should
personalize old Adam, thereby becoming last Adam, destroying him in the act.
In Jesus God made a new start; it was and still is exactly as He says 'I am
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end'. In His
first, that is His natural birth (for only His conception was supernatural, not
His birth), the Spirit makes clear the truth written by John, 'this is He that
came by water and blood ... there are three that bear record ... the Spirit and
the water and the blood'. The first part of the quotation is true of us all;
every man born of flesh on the earth comes by water and blood, and every natural
birth is a kind of baptism; it is only through the waters that the babe, formed
of and from the blood, has its birth, as all known simple biological facts and
laws of nature demonstrate. Thus in procreation, as well as in the original
creation of the universe, all harmoniously extols the basic principle which may
be defined as 'baptismal generation'. Therefore in His natural birth Jesus, in
common with all men, had to come by water and blood. But Jesus' supernaturalness
lay in the fact that, although His birth was natural, His generation was not,
and herein lies the truth of the second part of the quotation above, 'there are
three that bear witness (or record), the Spirit and the water and the blood'.
The Babe of Bethlehem was generated by the Father, because the Spirit came on
Mary in order that Jesus may be both the Son of God and the true Son of Man, as
God intended men to be. All other men born of woman came by water and blood
only; they do not come into the world by the Spirit. In their birth is to be
found the dual witness, water and blood, but in His is the treble witness, the
Spirit and the water and the blood.
To be the second man as God intended (and so much more as the God-Man),
wonderful as that is, would of itself still have been insufficient qualification
for Jesus to have effected man's redemption. For if Jesus had only been that, He
would unavoidably have condemned all other men, because He immeasurably
outclassed them. Who could attain unto Him? He could not even be an example to
unregenerate man, for to be a true example one must also be a sample of the
whole, and this He certainly was not. There was not, nor ever had been another
like Him, so how could God expect of any man the same standards He expected of
His Son? Jesus knew He could not set the Adam-man an example, so He never
attempted it. During His earth life He could not even reach men in their basic
state, nor could they reach Him in His; they did not know Him, nor had they ever
really seen Him, as John 14:9 so plainly shows. He accomplished much by becoming
(a) man; He took his flesh, his humanity, his low estate, his environment and
much of his limitation; in His humility He took so much, but not all. He had to
take much, much more in order to become all Man as Man really is; to do that He
must take his sin and all his sinful Adam-nature-self. To reach and deal with
and enter and possess man, so that He could have him eternally, the second Man
had to become the last, literally the last Adam. He must head up and become that
loathsome, depraved, unredeemable, ultimate totality of all corruption and
iniquity, Man, the end-product of Adam's unholy alliance with satan; He must be
condemned and rejected and forsaken by God, absolutely deserving of the
extremist punishment that divine justice could give. But this He could never
become, for He did no sin. So God made Him to be sin. It was for this He became
both Man's and Jehovah's servant, that He should, as God, render the highest
service that had ever been rendered either to God or man.
As second man He was straitened all His life unto Calvary, the point where and
when He should become the last Adam. It was to be the supreme moment of His
life, so He moved to it with all the unparalleled majesty of God. It was to be
His baptism, the moment of utter dedication to the purpose of eternal life, the
reason for His first birth, superseding both that and His water baptism as the
heavens are higher than the earth. All that had gone before was only leading up
to this, and had held or could hold only symbolic or lesser meanings to Him as
He underwent in His heart what later He achieved in the flesh and Spirit in
utter reality. The Cross / death Baptism was His only possible hope and means of
becoming last Adam as he really was; dead, utterly dead death itself. Man is
not just dead, he is death; Jesus is life and Man is death. Physical death is a
representation to man of his historic spiritual state before God. It may be a
hard lesson to learn, but it is a true one. As is a corpse to man, so is man's
inward state to God.
Man in himself is either life or death according to whether or not he has been
baptized with Christ's Baptism. He was baptized, utterly plunged into spiritual
death by Adam in Eden, and since then has remained totally immersed in it. The
original sin of Adam has manifested itself increasingly in ever-worsening ways
as successive generations of men have worked out their own damnation. Satan is
working in them, willing and doing his own displeasure. To reach and regenerate
Man the Lord, having redeemed him on the cross, was baptized into Adam, the Old
Man. There was no other way for Jesus to become Adam to God for man.
He as deliberately chose to be baptized into death on the cross as Adam chose to
plunge the whole human race into death in the garden. The Man Christ Jesus was
His own baptizer; His God left Him on the cross to do it Himself, and He did it.
His Name be for ever praised! There in the loneliness, having first finished
everything God gave Him to do as a man, assuming His Godhead, He dismissed His
own Spirit and passed away from His body. He did it voluntarily; there was
nothing else to do; He had reached the ultimate point and had concluded the
reason for living. In the Godhead He was the Resurrection and the Life; it was
always understood there; but among men it was not known He had to prove it to
them. Not even the thieves, so physically close on crosses either side of Him,
could see it, neither could John and His mother, Mary, who each had so loyally
stood by Him; it was dark. But angel eyes beheld Him, and Father received His
Spirit; so He moved into a new position. He became death and burial, God's new
death and burial into which we may be baptized by the power of God. As He was
then and there baptized into Adam-man, so, in successive order to Jesus Christ,
may we be baptized into that Manhood of which He was the second in line to
appear on earth. The new Man is not only who, but also what Jesus really is;
therefore, being baptized into Him, we become new Man as He is. John later takes
up these three simple words and makes them one of the wonderful recurring themes
of his first epistle 'as He is'.
Jesus lost His limitations in death. By death He was unstraitened, able to do
what He had lived for, so that if any man will be baptized with His Baptism,
that is die His death as God grants him the priceless precious privilege, he may
also enter into all the results of it according to God's promise. This then is
the one true Baptism. It results in, and immediately achieves, the free merging
and flowing of a man's spirit into, and within Christ. For by this Baptism God
incorporates the spirit of Man into, and in and with His own. 'We know that the
Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that
is true and that we are in Him that is true, even in His Son; this is the true
God and eternal life'. Amen. So it is.
Thinking of all this in terms of the type before us, on reading Ephesians 1:7
and 12-14, we find Paul setting forth the correct relationship of the truth
embraced within this Baptism. In the earlier verse Paul says, 'we have
redemption through His blood ... in Him', and then in the later verses tells us
that the seal of saving faith is the Holy Spirit. Thus the blood and the Baptism
are related in the context of being 'in Him', which is the theme of the chapter,
and indeed also of all the book. For this is precisely what the Baptism does; it
baptizes us into Christ, the Beloved, by the way He made for us through His
blood. Therefore we have the redemption, which in experience is nothing other
than full enjoyment of the total life of Jesus, the Beloved. Beside many other
things this means complete freedom from the bondage of having to exist in sin,
even though we live in a world of men under the power and dominion of the devil.
This is what God intends us to understand by the type.
It would have been utterly useless for Israel to have slain the lamb and eaten
its flesh within their blood-sprinkled hovels, if the baptism had not been
planned for them by the Lord. For that baptism was both the final way of escape
for the nation, and the sealing to them of the reason for the sprinkling of the
blood; beside which it was in fact the only logical thing to do. For God to have
slain Pharaoh's firstborn just in order to redeem His own firstborn, and not to
have done anything about Pharaoh himself, would have achieved little. Besides
which, God had not made promise to Abraham that He would slay Egypt's firstborn,
but He had promised him a land, and that land lay beyond the Red Sea. How
thorough God is; how true to basic principles and original promises, as well as
to unborn peoples. He was not only seeking firstborn sons by sprinkling, but
also a whole firstborn body of people by the baptism. In the fulness of the work
wrought by God and shown in the type, not only was Pharaoh's firstborn (that is,
old or first Adam) destroyed, but also Pharaoh himself and all his host and his
chosen captains (principalities and powers). Thus the interdependence of the
bloodshed and this Baptism is revealed. The one has no effective existence in
reality without the other, and each ought never to be conceived of or preached
about apart from the other, as being of itself sufficient to regenerate. Each by
itself would have been inefficient because insufficient, but being one they are
each perfectly suited to the end God had in view when instituting them.
The Hebrews letter brings out this truth to perfection in the second chapter.
Verse 3 reminds us that our salvation is so great that we must not in any way
neglect it. In verses 6-10 we find a prιcis on the theme of man, culminating
with Jesus bringing many sons to glory; here Jesus' suffering and death was
brought into view. Then the writer sweeps on to tell us that through that same
death the devil was destroyed and deliverance accomplished for all those who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. All this, we
observe, is accompanied with signs and wonders and miracles and gifts
(distributions) of the Holy Ghost according to His own will, by which God bore
witness to the preached word. Combining all this with the words in Colossians
2:8-3:3, especially 2:15, we are afforded a sight into what the Baptism
wherewith He was baptized really is, and what it accomplished for us.
It is more particularly this aspect of the Baptism that Israel's experience in
the Red Sea emphasizes. It sets forth the Baptism as God's means of destroying
Satan and his hosts as well as His way of bringing many sons unto glory (Exodus
15:1, 6, 11 and 16:7-10 and 24:16). More than that, we are redeemed from the
world (Egypt) also. People cannot really enjoy Egypt and desire to live there
when once the redemption has been truly manifest in them as regeneration. In the
last analysis there is no such person as a worldly Christian; a man is either a
worldling or a Christian. That Israel did indeed lust after 'leeks and garlic'
after their passover, and desired to go back to Egypt, is because they were not
regenerate. Their experiences were outward only. The goodness and blessing of
God were extended to them all the time, and He was constantly working on their
behalf with signs and miracles and wonders, but their evil hearts of unbelief
still remained. Theirs was an obedience of faith in response to signs and
wonders and divers miracles; God did not give the Holy Ghost to them, for at
that time it was not His will to do so. The age of the Spirit had not yet come.
God was dealing with them in respect of the Covenant He had made with Abraham
His friend; it was sheerest grace displayed in sovereignty of purpose. He had
spoken and was bringing it to pass. Which consideration begs a question, and
introduces us to the matter of sin.
We have touched on the subject of sin in this chapter, but this particular type
does not major on sin, nor redemption from it, for it is not in view here. As
their behaviour showed, sin was present, for since Adam it is in every man,
though not then defined as such. The reason for this is very simple, and for the
key to the answer we must as usual turn to the New Testament. In Romans 5:13,14,
Paul tells us that sin was in the world from Adam to Moses, and that death was
reigning during that time. Sin, though there, was not imputed to anyone because
the law had not been given, Romans 3:19,20. At the time of the actual Exodus,
the Children of Israel were entirely without God's law, as were the Egyptians.
Pharaoh (and indeed each of them) was tested by the word of God. He rejected the
spoken word and paid the penalty. Of course, sin was in the hearts and actions
of all men, but God was dealing with their naturalness rather than their sins.
Ephesians 2:1-3 speaks of the Gentiles being 'by nature the children of wrath'
as well as being 'dead in trespasses and sins'. Therefore, because He had not
given His law to Pharaoh, He did not, nor could He in all fairness, judge the
Egyptians upon whether or not they kept it. Instead He said to Pharaoh, 'Let my
people go', and because Pharaoh did not do it, he had to pay the penalty of
disobedience.
We find the same absence of any reference to sin even when we consider Israel
and the lamb. The lamb was not slain as an offering for sin, neither was its
blood given upon an altar, nor sprinkled upon a Mercy Seat for atonement. Sin
was not in view, for it had not been exposed by the Law, and therefore it could
not be dealt with even in the sense of being covered. Everything turned on the
acceptance or rejection of the word of God, as indeed it still does. But at
Sinai God added to all the words He had ever spoken, and also codified basic
spiritual and social principles into a written law for righteousness. From that
moment, because God's word had become written, man's responsibility became
twofold; he had to believe, receive and obey both the spoken and also the
written word. When the Law, with its long list of prohibitions, was given to the
nation, the era which may be called the era of imputation came of age.
It had always been of course. Commencing with Adam in the garden, it had been an
understood thing with God that righteousness should be imputed to everyone who
obeyed Him, and unrighteousness to all who refused to obey His word. This is
brought out quite clearly to us Hebrews chapter 11, but from the time of the
giving of the Law onwards, it became an established principle among men. To
break one of God's commandments in the realm of personal hygiene, or social
relationships, or religious rites, was to be a sinner in God's sight. The
incredible and detailed magnitude of the principle of sin that lay in the act of
disobedience in the Garden was extensively revealed by the giving of the law. It
was not fully revealed by the Law however; it required the death of Christ to
reveal fully what depths of iniquity lay undiscovered in sin. Even so, Paul says
it was by the Law that he discovered indwelling sin. It was by imputed sin that
his inherent sin was discovered. Inherent sin was never imputed to anyone, nor
can it be. To seek to impute sin which is already there, having been received by
inheritance from Adam through our forbears, would be the height of folly and
confusion. Sin was imputed to a man and revealed to his consciousness as guilt
whenever and wherever the legal code was broken by that person. Sin was by
commission or omission according to the commandments and ordinances of God.
Here let us see the wisdom of God in ordering the lamb to be slain and its blood
sprinkled and its flesh eaten in Egypt. It was all because in a not very distant
future He was going to take up the lamb and its blood and systematize its use
and function by law for His people in Canaan. But being wise after the event, we
must not impute to the slain lamb(s) in Egypt a function it never fulfilled, or
a virtue it never possessed, or a meaning God did not intend. God did not at
that time save His people from their sins but brought them 'out of the land of
Egypt out of the house of bondage', as He had said. At the same time and by the
same miracle, He also destroyed the master bondman and his hosts.
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3: To Possess
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