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Page 5 of 6
Many Baptisms
- The world was once baptized in a cataclysmic flood that destroyed all life except those creatures and people that stayed in the ark. (Genesis 5-9, 1Peter 3:18-22)
- The nation of Israel was baptized in the Red Sea shortly after deliverance from Egypt. (Exodus 14,15 1 Corinthians 10:2)
- They were later baptized in the Jordan as they entered the Promised Land. (Joshua 3,4)
- John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance and preparation for the appearance of Jesus. (Matthew 3:5,6 Mark 1:4))
- John spoke of a greater baptism of fire that would be given by Jesus himself. (Luke 3:16; John 1:33-34)
- Jesus was baptized in water just before His public ministry of healing and preaching the Kingdom of God began. (Matthew 3:16)
- Jesus even referred to his death on the cross as a baptism. (Luke 12:49-52)
Baptism is not about doing something to attain favor; baptism is the form and method of transformation from living in one realm of life to living in a higher realm. It requires death to the former realm. The result is resurrection into the new.
Part of the problem is that we have turned baptism into ritual, rules, and fake righteousness which has resulted in division, confusion, and a degree of blindness in the Church today. This mentality leads to questions like: If I am not baptized (speaking of immersion in water) will I still be saved? Subsequent inquiries follow such as “Must I be baptized right away?” and “What if someone believed Jesus died for their sins and asked to be received into the Kingdom of God, but they died before they got to the baptism service, would they go to hell and not get ‘saved’ because they were not yet baptized? And so on……
The Miraculous Electron
The miraculous electron:
Baptisms resemble how electrons change their orbits. Electrons are one of the three “mass” components of every atom. They are the sub-atomic particles that spin around the nucleus of the atom which is composed of protons and neutrons. The electrons kind of resemble planets orbiting around in a solar system but their orbits are fixed. Electrons orbit only in these set orbit sizes and they are not found “between” the orbits at any time.
When a substance is heated and the electrons increase in energy, they “jump” from one fixed size orbit to the next. This is an instantaneous (and really miraculous) event. The electron “disappears” from its first orbit and at the exact same moment “appears” in the higher orbit. It does not just “spin out” from one to the next, and there can be absolutely no time delay between the positioning in the two orbits or there would be a violation of the law of conservation of matter and energy. The electron cannot “disappear” from one place and “reappear” even a nanosecond later somewhere else, it must exist at every single moment, so the best way to characterize it is that it “jumps” and yet there is no transitional position of the electron it is simply “here” in orbit one and then “there” in orbit two with no other places between and no portion of time where it is out of existence.
Pretty amazing considering that this happens constantly with every substance in the universe with a countless ka-zillion billion of billions of electrons. It is happening right now; perhaps we will notice it more in the future.
This I believe is a good picture of what happens in a baptism. “Baptism” means immersion” – to dip or to dunk. With water baptism - You go in and you come out again. You go in a regular son of Adam, or you go in a believer entangled by some form of carnal or other ungodly influences, but when you go into the water you are suddenly and instantaneously identified with the death of Christ – that is to say - you have a whole new identity, every part and speck of Adam’s weaknesses – everything that is still with you from “Egypt” with is gone. It is gone because you have been executed with Christ and suddenly, instantly, actually just a little quicker than instantly, you are found in Christ!
Pop! - Like the little electron you have been transformed – promoted in the Kingdom of Heaven. You never once ceased to exist, and yet it is no longer you that lives, but Christ in you the hope of glory (Galatians 2:20). Every new realm of living that is set before you in the Christian life is accomplished the same way.
The only way that we advance in the Kingdom of God is by Death and Resurrection. You can say Death and Re-birth if you like but it is the same principle and it has never changed.
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