What Happens in Baptism?

“Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that the events recorded in the Old Testament, the history of Israel, has a particularly powerful meaning to them as believers in Jesus Christ. This statement parallels what Paul told the Romans in Romans 15:4, in that “whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”

Even the weakest of Bible students finds that throughout the Old Testament there are illustrations in historical events that in fact are metaphors for the truths found in the Kingdom of Christ. The Hebrew writer called such premonitions “foreshadows”(Heb. 8:5), while Peter called them “antitypes” (I Pet. 3:21). Whether it was the temple being the image of the church (I Cor. 3:16), Moses lifting the bronze snake and the imagery of the death of Christ (Jno.3:14), or the sacrifices of the Law of Moses pointing to Christ (Heb. 9:9), these events occurred in order for us to more thoroughly understand the great and wonderful blessings in our Covenant with Christ.

Perhaps no single doctrine of the Covenant of Christ is so often revealed in the Old Testament than that of the doctrine of baptism (Heb. 6:2). It is found in the events of the great flood (I Peter 3:21), in Naaman’s healing (I Kings 5), and as Paul explained to the Corinthians, in the deliverance of Israel from bondage; “all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” 1Corinthians 10:2. If one considers the cloud as a representation of the Holy Spirit (Ex. 24:15), Moses as an image of Jesus Christ (Deut. 18:15), and the water as an obvious description of the sea, we find a perfect allegory to what John said testifies of our salvation in I John 5:8: “And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.”

These events in the story of Israel’s national origin have a great value to us in explaining to us what happens at the moment that an unbelieving sinner is baptized into Jesus Christ, and emerges from that act as a believing saint, a Christian. The “baptism of the Israelites” teaches us much about our own baptism.Let us consider briefly three simple ideas taught to us in the Israelite’s passage through the Red Sea, which is recorded in Exodus14.

Baptism marks the end of captivity and the destruction of death.

Exodus 14:10-12 records that Israel was in danger of recapture by the Egyptians from the time of their departure up to the moment they passed through the Red Sea. Truly, while their former masters lived, they were simply slaves escaped, and not in fact free. In John 8:4 Jesus said of sin “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” It was not until the Israelites passed through the water, and that same water swallowed there former masters, that they were free. Imagine if you would the Israelites looking back at the water, and seeing their former masters’ bodies left in that water. One might even say that death itself was taken up in the water they had passed through. The events in Exodus are a subtle teaching that while we may seek to flee from sin, we are still slaves to it until we are brought through the water of baptism. It is by that passage of water that death’s grip is taken from us; as John said pertaining to those who have partaken of this “first resurrection”, “Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years”,Revelation 20:6. The second death has no power over those who have passed through the waters of baptism; “Death is swallowed up in victory” (I Cor. 15:54) was the cheer of Israel, and is still the cheer of the one who has been baptized.

Baptism is not the end of righteousness, but the beginning of the Christian life.

As the Israelites emerged from that water, they saw their immediate needs for food and water. We know that God provided them water from the Rock, and Manna, the bread from heaven. Paul would tell the Corinthians that the Rock was Christ; “all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:3-4).Of course, Jesus had already revealed this to the woman at the well in John 4:14, and to the multitudes in John 6:51, by telling them that he was the “living water” and the “bread of life”; Jesus clarified this to us by explaining that it was His words, the Word of God, that is the bread of life to the partakers of the New Covenant, in John 6:56. The Bible tells us that from leaving the water until they crossed the Jordan, the children of Israel lived on this bread from heaven. So we too, from the moment of being born again, born of this water (John 3:5) until we cross the Jordon of our demise, do “not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

Baptism is a work of God, not of men.

Exodus 14:30-31 records the following: “So the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Thus Israel saw the great work which the LORD had done in Egypt; so the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD and His servant Moses.” It was not the work of Israel that saved them that day, but the intervention of God. They obediently entered the water by the path God had provided,and witnessed their salvation by the strength of God in that same water. In this we find one more powerful truth about baptism; it is not the work of men, but the strength of God, that is working in the event of our baptism. In Titus 3:5 Paul says that our salvation is “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit”. This “washing of regeneration”, which could also be accurately translated from the Greek as “baptism of being born again” is the result of the mercy and power of God. He created this deliverance, which comes not only by the water, but by the water and the blood and the spirit. There is of course great debate today about what works we must do to be saved, if any. The Bible tells us that faith is a work of man (Jno. 6:29), as well as repentance (Acts 26:20) and confession (Rom. 10:9). However, baptism is something done to us, not by us. And the effect of baptism is direct from God (Acts 2:38). Israel did not pass through the water, and then remark that they had saved themselves; they passed through the water, which was God’s path for them to be saved, and they knew that God Almighty had delivered them.

When the children of Israel saw the great victory over death given to them in this bapAbundant tism, Exodus 15 records the song of their praise: “I will sing to the LORD, For He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea! The LORD is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will praise Him; My father’s God, and I will exalt Him.” What a great song of joy we can sing, knowing that an even greater salvation has been brought to us, and that in our own individual “passage through water” we find that we are truly free from the captivity of sin and death.

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