Last week we discussed how the Jordan River, which represents death, overflowed all of its banks all the days of the harvest. This was a prophetic sign that during the harvest (the end of the age), we can expect death to be overflowing all of its banks. However, when the Ark and the people of Israel entered into the Jordan, it says that its waters were rolled back all the way to Adam. This speaks about how when the church follows the Lord into the crucified life where we die daily, no longer living for ourselves but for Him, it will turn back death all the way to Adam, or all that was caused by the fall of man.
Both Jesus and John baptized in the Jordan River because it emptied into the Dead Sea, and therefore symbolically represented death. Baptism is a ritual performed to emphasize an important spiritual reality. The bane of Christianity since the third century has been to substitute rituals for the realities that they were intended to illuminate. The ritual was meant to convey the commitment on the part of the one baptized that they would die to themselves to live to Christ. After the third century, one could be baptized in place of living the crucified life, removing the life and power of the cross from the church.
I do not want to belittle the importance of the ritual. A wedding ceremony is a ritual and not the marriage itself, but because marriage is so important it is right to make a big deal out of the ritual. Likewise, it is right to make a big deal out of baptism, communion, and the other important rituals handed down to us, but they must not be allowed to supplant the truths that they were given to us to illuminate.
You can dunk someone in the water all day and not have them partake of the death or resurrection of Jesus. There is nothing magical about the water. The power is in the crucified life. The baptism is performed as a commitment to live the crucified life in order that we might also be resurrected with Christ as we read in Romans 6:4-5:
For we have become UNITED with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection (emphasis mine).
We must note here that in this text there is no mention of water! This is not speaking of water baptism, but of what water baptism represents—the crucified life. As Paul further conveyed in Romans 6:5: “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”
What did the Lord mean when He stated, "I have come to cast a fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!" (Luke 12:49-50)? Was the baptism that was distressing Him simply being immersed in water? Of course not. He was referring to His impending crucifixion. That crucifixion is also the meaning of our baptism.
Jesus was likewise referring to the baptism into His crucifixion when James and John asked to be seated on His right and left in the kingdom. He said, "You do not know what you are asking for. Are you able to drink of the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" (Mark 10:38)
It is a basic spiritual principle that death is the path to life in Christ. We are called to live now by the power and authority of the resurrected life of Christ, but by its very definition one cannot experience a resurrection without first experiencing a death. To be baptized with His baptism is to be conformed to the purpose of His death, the laying down of our own lives for the sake of others.
When the church reduced the truth of the crucified (and thereby resurrected) life to a mere ritual has robbed the Lord of our consecra tion, the church of its salvation, and has stolen from the world the power of the gospel. There are many Scriptures that make the meaning of this very clear. The following are just a few of them, which I encourage you to read carefully as their importance is literally life and death:
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, IF INDEED WE SUFFER WITH HIM IN ORDER THAT we may also be glorified with Him. (Romans 8:16-17 emphasis mine).
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS, being conformed to His death IN ORDER THAT I may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:10-11 emphasis mine).
For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake (Philippians 1:29).
We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is only fitting, because your faith is greatly enlarged, and the love of each one of you toward one another grows ever greater;
therefore, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure.
This is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment so that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering (II Thessalonians 1:3-5).
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
ALWAYS carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus may be also manifested in our mortal flesh (II Corinthians 4:8-11).
The Lord made it clear in His Word; if we are to partake of His life we must also partake of His death "that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him…" (II Corinthians 5:15). Any other teaching is a false gospel and an enemy of the cross. Death separates the things that are natural from the things that are spiritual. Again, to have a resurrection, there must first be a death. If we want to walk in the resurrection life of Jesus, we must be willing to lay down our lives for Him.
In the first century, some of the people thought that if they would circumcise their flesh they would be right with God, but He requires the circumcision of our hearts. There are those today that point to the day of their immersion as the day they died with Jesus and were resurrected. Every ritual of our faith is just that—a ritual that is meant to symbolize a com mitment to the spiritual reality of which it speaks. In Christ we must die in order to live. The Lord Jesus Himself testified:
For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it (Matthew 16:24-25).
There can be no question that the Lord intended our baptism to be the daily reality of a crucified life. However, as we discussed last week, such a life that dies to itself and its own selfish interests is the most free and powerful life of all. That is what the Lord will give to us in exchange for our life—the greatest freedom and the greatest power to do good that we could even know.