The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 9 –20
So far, we’ve arrived at clear definitions for each of the milestones in your journey into the house of God. Circumcision cuts you out of an old house; baptism immerses you in a new house; and laying on of hands puts you under the immediate authority of the head of that house, making you one with him –thus, an elder over his house.
These definitions, no matter what the metaphor or symbolism involved, stay true. So if your heart is circumcised, it means your heart has committed to never look back to your old house. If hands are laid on you for healing, the healer is asking God to heal this person as if He were healing them.
And, to the point of this lesson, whether you are baptized by water, spirit, or fire, you are immersed in it; made a part of it; and whether you are baptized by Moses, John, or Jesus, you are immersed in a house. So the basic meaning of baptism doesn’t change, no matter what you are baptized in, or by whom.
But the SPECIFIC meaning changes a great deal; for if you are baptized by John, it means, literally, immersed by John. And if being immersed by Jesus means immersed in Jesus’ house, then being baptized by Moses means being immersed in Moses’ house! And this, as you’ll see, is quite a different thing.
WATER BAPTISM
Water baptism means immersion in water; but that begs the question, what IS water? I’ve said it pictured various things, such as a grave, Jesus’ body, the Father’s spirit, and so on… and it does picture all of these things. But what is the common thread tying everything together, one Truth from which all similar symbols are derived?
We find the clue to that meaning in Revelation 17:1, 15. So waters pictures many PEOPLE. Let’s see if we can tie that meaning into the others above and find a common answer. Jesus’ body, clearly, pictures the church; the church is, obviously, composed of many people.
So here, we have a commonality –each “cell” in the church pictures a “cup of water” (Matthew 10:40-42). Why a cup, and not a drop? Because each cell is a house, itself composed of a few, if not many, individuals!
So why, then, does water also picture a grave? Because Jesus died; thus, all in His body have died as well. So by joining that body, as far as the law is concerned, you are dead –thus, it is like falling into a grave. For in that body, you will have the rulers of your old self killed, and your soul restored to power over your tyrannical fractions.
And what about water picturing the Father’s spirit? Well, it is that spirit which makes you alive (Job 33:4). In Genesis 2:7, it seems to imply otherwise, that it was “the Lord God’s” spirit; but look again… that’s not what it says. It says the Lord God put the “spirit of LIFE” into Man; and that isn’t Jesus’ spirit! (1 Timothy 6:16, John 5:26).
Thus, everything that is alive, by definition, has the Father’s spirit (Genesis 6:17, Genesis 7:22). Which sheds light on Paul’s statement in Acts 17:24-28; we live and have our being in the Father. Because without specifically His breath, the breath of the Almighty, what happens? Job 34:12-15.
A BODY OF WATER
So then, water DOES picture many nations… because every living thing has some small measure of water in it (Matthew 5:45). But this allows us to carry the metaphor through, and conclude that when you are baptized in water, you are baptized in PEOPLE.
Because when Moses baptized you, you did not get whisked off to heaven; you were immersed in Moses’ house. When Peter baptized you, Jesus didn’t necessarily fill your heart; you simply became Peter’s disciple. You were surrounded by Peter and his other disciples; immersed in their way of life.
So being baptized in water by James meant, literally, that James was IMMERSING you in drops of water; as a symbol that you, from now on, would submit yourself to the water in which James immersed you; the water which pictured the body of Christ, of which James was head of a single cup!
Many, many things become easier to understand now that we know this. The simple fact is –and this should have been obvious to the world a long time ago –Jesus never once baptized a single person in water! John 4:1-2. Because that’s not what water baptism pictures!
People baptized in the name of Christ (Acts 8:16). But Jesus never baptized anyone in actual water. Because that’s not His job… that’s the job of the apostles who PREPARE disciples for HIS baptism! Which, again, is what John told us from the very beginning! (Luke 3:16)
So whether the apostle Peter or the apostle Paul baptized you, you’re baptized into the body of Christ. For by submitting to a man metaphorically killing your old person, and letting him metaphorically bring you back to life, you are committing to live your “newness of life” in his cell of Jesus’ house (Romans 6:4).
The whole reason the ekklesia exists as a group, and not as individuals being trained personally by Christ, is so that the ekklesia can make ready a people prepared for Jesus! Which, again, is what John had been doing all along (Luke 1:17).
So if you’re baptized by Moses, it means submitting to Moses so that he can lead you to Christ. Is that not, after all, exactly what was happening between Exodus 14 and 19? If you’re baptized by Paul, it means submitting to Paul so that he can lead you to Christ. Likewise for Peter, Apollos, Elijah, and so on.
The person who baptizes you, baptizes you into Jesus’ body; but the whole point of one man doing it, is for you to be part of his own house, within that larger house –at least until you grow up enough to found your own house.
HOUSES OF THE HOLY
Let’s say a man had a dozen sons. All had the same parents, the same home, and would have had more-or-less the same opportunities; yet were you to drop in on them 40 years later, when they have their own children, you would find that no two houses were quite alike (1 Corinthians 7:17).
No two of these men would be the same kind of father; nor would they all be equally fruitful, or equally good at raising their children. This doesn’t mean one is good, and another bad –is it wrong to have two children, while another brother has twelve? Is it wrong to teach them math instead of farming? Obviously not.
But it cannot be denied that every house would be different, and so it is with God’s children. Moses’ house was successful; it valued quantity over quality, but it worked (Ezekiel 20:11). Likewise, John’s house worked; for, at the very least, two of his disciples went straight to follow Jesus after he was done training them (John 1:35-37).
It doesn’t need saying that Peter’s house and Paul’s house worked, each in their own way (Galatians 2:7-9), and each with their own job (John 21:15-23). And each with widely varying results –what did the house of Thomas accomplish? Was it more or less than Paul’s house? Who are we to judge (Romans 14:4)… or care? (2 Corinthians 10:12-13).
God sent Moses to deliver people from the Egyptians; He sent John to baptize (John 1:33); He sent Peter to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles and John to His mother (John 19:26-27). The rest of the twelve apostles were probably sent to one or another of the lost tribes scattered abroad (James 1:1).
Different jobs, different sons, different abilities… which would obviously create different disciples! Grandsons who each, in their own way, reflect the glory of the Son, though slightly colored by their own human father-figure.
Excluding obvious sins of course, saying one father-figure’s house is right and another is wrong is like saying one star is “better” than another (1 Corinthians 15:38-41). It’s not better, it’s just different, because it was born to be a different part of the body, according to the will of God.
CHANGING HEADS
Every man God has ever sent to found a house was equal to every other; for anyone sent by God answers to God and no one else. All of these apostles were heads of houses, and each of them will stand alone at the end of the day before God’s throne to answer for their accomplishments and failures, and those of their house (1 Corinthians 3:10-15).
If these men then appoint elders within their houses, clearly, those men answer to the apostle who sent them, because it’s his name on the house, not theirs. Unless, of course, the apostle defies his own head, God, in which case the elder should obey God rather than man –because it’s truly HIS name on the house.
Likewise, if God sends a prophet to the man’s house –one who speaks as an elder, but whose authority came from God and not through the apostle –then that prophet answers to God, does the job God gave him to do… but the house remains the responsibility of the head of the apostle –the one sent to build it.
As always, go back to the family metaphor; if God is angry with a man, he might kill him or wipe out his name; but he wouldn’t change the fact that these children were still his children. Korah, for example (Numbers 27:1-4).
So if an apostle raises up a house, then falls away from the truth, God will punish him; kill him, his children, cut off his name (Psalms 9:5). But he can’t “take away his house” and give it to say, a prophet, because no matter how badly he may have done it, no matter how poorly he raised his children, they’re still his children. Sending a stranger to be the head of his house would be adultery – even if it would make the head of that house a more righteous man. So even though God certainly loved David more than Uriah, and David could make better seed with Bathsheba than Uriah could, it was still adultery.
It would be the same if God sent Apollos to replace Paul as head of the house. Because the head of the house is, and always will be, the head of the house; God can kill him and his house, you can leave his house, but unlike a Church, God can’t simply switch heads of houses at will, any more than you can in a human family.
APOLLOS WATERED
So like in any family, all those in the ekklesia are “planted” by the seed of the head of the house. And yet, even in the human family, that isn’t strictly true. For a grandfather doesn’t personally sire his grandchildren; just as everyone in an apostle’s house is not necessarily baptized by the apostle himself.
Because obviously the sons’ sons are part of his house, even if God had not sent him to baptize them (1 Corinthians 1:17). Because the few sons of Paul whom he did baptize (1 Corinthians 1:14), baptized others into his house, whether Paul touched them or not (Romans 11:13, Romans 15:16-20).
So obviously, anyone an elder of Paul baptized became Paul’s seed; just as anyone Paul baptized, became Jesus’ (1 Corinthians 1:15). But there’s a third category, those baptized neither by the apostle, nor by his appointed heirs… but by a prophet God sent!
If God sends a prophet to Paul’s house, and that prophet baptizes someone… then into whose house is that person baptized? Since planting his own seed in Paul’s house would be adultery, then if seed is planted by that prophet at all, it must be done in Paul’s name.
And is that not what Paul said of Apollos? 1 Corinthians 3:6. Notice what Apollos was doing… Watering! As always, in every sense of the word! Both with the spirit (Acts 18:24-25), and with… you know… WATER. Like… baptizing!
But the SEED had been planted in Corinth by Paul; whatever new disciples were baptized by prophets sent to Paul’s house, were, necessarily, Paul’s… else they would not be prophets at all, but adulterers! So when Apollos immersed people in Corinth in his teachings, they were teachings specifically put into Apollos by Paul’s own elders (Acts 18:26).
And when Apollos went to Paul’s houses and “watered them”, he did so with the blessing of Paul’s house (Acts 18:27-28), unlike, for comparison, the would-be adulterers in Acts 15:1-2, which were the still-uncircumcised spirits of Moses’ disciples in Acts 15:5!
Because that’s what the Pharisees were – Moses’ disciples (John 9:28). They were disciples of the house OF MOSES… And John was THE prophet of THAT house… for John was not the first of the new apostles, but the last of the old prophets! (Matthew 11:13).
And so John did not baptize into the house of Jesus; he couldn’t, for he himself did not belong to that house! In whose name, then, did John baptize? Quite obviously, into his own, for it was called the baptism of JOHN! His baptism then, symbolized joining the house of the prophet of the house of Moses.
John’s job was to restore Moses’ house to what it had been in the beginning (Matthew 17:11-13). To restore all the things Moses could have, and would have, told them had they not rejected God at Sinai… and it was possible to find salvation in that house alone, just as Elijah’s own sons of the prophets did. Possible, but not ideal.
For John was sent to do this, to bring Moses’ house back to its best luster, to prepare a people capable of recognizing that even with that restoration, even when compared at their best, side-by-side, Jesus’ own house was a better way to find salvation! (Matthew 17:5).
REBAPTISM
It’s widely believed that John’s baptism was different from Jesus’ baptism. And it was, but not for the reasons you think. There was no magical power associated with being baptized by Jesus’ disciples as opposed to being baptized by John; after all, they baptized in the same river, side-by-side!
It simply meant being baptized into John’s house… or into the house of one of Jesus’ apostles. And yet curiously, for all of the tens of thousands of people John must have baptized (Mark 1:5), there is only a single example of rebaptism in the entire Bible! (Acts 19:1-6).
We discussed this from a different angle in the last lesson, the laying-on-of-hands part, and concluded that this was when Paul made them his disciples, his elders. But now we need to ask: why were they rebaptized, when no one else had EVER been?
Disciples are built on the FOUNDATION of their elders (Ephesians 2:20, 1 Corinthians 3:9-13). And so before someone from a different house can make you their heir, they must legally make you part of their OTHER house.
Thus, Paul could not legally make them his elders while they were another man’s disciples! (Romans 15:20). Just as he couldn’t have laid hands on Peter’s disciples without first changing their house, and immersing them in a new one!
And yet unilaterally changing their house would, ordinarily, be a sin – theft, the sin of kidnapping, in fact. Which is why this was so rare, why there are no other examples of rebaptism in the whole of the New Testament!
And yet, even in the OT, there are exceptions to the laws about adultery in cases where a brother died without leaving heirs, which clearly applies to John; particularly since the head of the house appointed Jesus as his heir! (John 1:15, Deuteronomy 18:15); which both John THE prophet and Moses THE apostle of the OC had done! (Acts 3:22).
So these elders had been baptized by John, immersed in John’s house as John’s disciples. And John was capable of leading them to Christ; but John was dead! They had also been indirectly baptized by Moses in the Red Sea, and Moses, too, was capable of leading them to Christ; but Moses, likewise, was dead.
And while it was possible for these orphan sons of the prophets to find salvation on their own, they had been trying for 20 years without the success of receiving the holy spirit. Thus, to preserve the seed of John, Paul brought them into a house with a living head (Hebrews 7:25). Which, as the verses above proved, the absent heads of their houses would have wanted him to do!
That, necessarily, required rebaptism – for it meant a change in discipleship! A change in house!
JESUS VS. MOSES
You would think, if that indeed is true, that it would have happened all the time; when Paul’s discipleship was transferred from Ananias to Barnabas, for instance. But there was no need for that, because Ananias’, Barnabas’, and for that matter, Paul’s and Peter’s, disciples were all baptized into the same name: the name of Jesus.
Thus, as Jesus said to the twelve, all of you are brethren. All their houses, therefore, are effectively the same, and “have all things common”. So transferring say, one of Peter’s disciples to Paul would have simply required an agreement between brothers; for all of them were part of the same house, the house of Jesus.
But Moses, though an apostle, was of a different house – a very specifically competing house. Not merely different from the other apostles, but from Jesus Himself. Paul tells us very clearly in 1 Corinthians 10:1-2 that when Moses baptized Israel in the Red Sea they were baptized into Moses’ house!
He then specifically contrasts that to Jesus’ house in Hebrews 3:1-6. Therefore these two houses were not the same! Moses’ disciples, and by extension John’s disciples, were specifically not Jesus’. As the mediator of a competing covenant, Moses was Jesus’ brother, in a sense, as a fellow “senior” apostle.
I say “senior” apostle, because everyone who God sends answers to GOD. And everyone the LORD sends answers to the LORD. Just as everyone I send answers to ME. And since the Lord is not God, but an APOSTLE of God… It means He is of equal rank with all other apostles of God… Like MOSES!
For apostle means “one sent”… and who sent Moses? The Lord, or God? (Exodus 3:11-15). To be sure, the Lord is mentioned frequently in that chapter –He was definitely there to help Moses ( Exodus 3:7-10). But it was God’s apostleship which made Moses the counterpart of Jesus –in effect, the brother of Jesus.
Paul, on the other hand, was not an apostle of God. Who sent Paul? Ephesians 1:1, etc. Thus Paul, as an apostle of Moses’ brother-apostle Jesus, was effectively Moses’ nephew. John the Baptist, as Moses’ heir, was therefore Paul’s cousin.
But why aren’t the disciples of Moses’ and Jesus’ houses “brethren”, in the same way as Paul’s and Peter’s houses? Because Jesus’ house is not divided against itself (1 Corinthians 12:24-27, Luke 11:17). But the houses of Moses and Jesus are divided against one another; for Hagar and Sarah hated each other, and Ishmael and Isaac did not have all things common (Galatians 4:22-31).
To illustrate the difference, think of your own family; your brother and you might share toys, ideals, and inheritances; but your cousins are from a completely different house, and will probably not inherit anything from their uncles, nor do they owe them any particular obedience beyond what they owe any elder.
Now if one brother died, the children might well be raised by their uncle; but that would require them moving, being immersed in their uncle’s house and submitting to his authority! Because how else could he hope to raise them? Their father’s house is desolate!
Esau’s children, the Edomites, were the cousins of Israel’s children. But the Edomites still had to be circumcised out of their land and be baptized for three generations to become part of the house of Israel! (Deuteronomy 23:7-8).
Therefore John’s children, like the Edomites, had to be baptized into a new house before they could inherit the house of their cousin. Which, in retrospect, is obvious… for what was John the Baptist, if not… Jesus’ cousin!! (Luke 1:36)
THE DEATH OF MOSES
As I said, cousins have different houses and different inheritances. God sent Moses to lead them out of Egypt, and baptize them into his house, Moses’ house, in the Red Sea (Hebrews 3:1-3). And Moses’ house was a part of God’s house (Hebrews 3:4-5).
Even though, as God’s spirit, the Lord had been the one who actually helped Moses build it (Hebrews 3:3). And God had always intended to use the body of Jesus to save the faithful, even under Moses (Hebrews 4:1-3).
Thus God caused Moses to baptize the Israelites in the Red Sea, in the body of Jesus, indirectly. I say indirectly, because unlike the baptism of John, the Red Sea immersion never actually touched the Israelites (Exodus 14:22). The waters were a wall, to their right and left.
They were, in a sense, surrounded by the heavenly body of Christ, an “innumerable company of angels” (Hebrews 12:22-23), who were invisibly immersing them in Jesus’ house, even as they physically were immersed in Moses’ house.
The point is, the Red Sea baptism had to be the immersion into Moses’ house. And yet if that Red –get that, RED –Sea did not picture Jesus’ bloody body, then their sins couldn’t be washed away by it. But at that point, Jesus was working as God’s servant, and more than willing to let Moses’ house get the credit.
But Moses failed. The Pharisees were a testament to this; not that Moses himself had not been faithful, but that he had failed to build a lasting house with his words (John 5:45-46). And so God called Jesus to do the job Himself (Hebrews 3:6).
Jesus Himself said that we all had to begin at Moses, and the prophets –now the houses of the Apostles. And yet, as with Moses, after baptizing them into his house, he led them to Sinai; where both Jesus and the Father would baptize them with Their spirits, and finish their training.
For we are only PARTAKERS of Christ if we hold fast our confidence until the end ( Hebrews 3:14). Only IF you hear His voice today (Hebrews 3:7). Only if you don’t resist the spirit, and you actually MAKE it to Sinai. Which of course, Israel did not do.
COUSINS
Whereas they could have received the same covenant we have, their lack of faith caused them to choose to remain part of Moses’ body, having rejected being part of Jesus’ body (Hebrews 3:7-19). Note particularly verse 14 again –they were all baptized into Moses, and in a way, into Christ… but they were not faithful unto the end so they actually, not symbolically, died in Christ. They became “dead to Him”, and became part of Moses’ dead body that would not rise again.
Like them, we are only partakers of Christ IF we stay faithful unto the end. Because in every body, physical or spiritual, dead or cancerous cells are cast out. Therefore Moses’ house was left unto him desolate! (Matthew 23:2, 38).
While Moses personally was more than happy to allow Jesus to mediate between his people and God, the people demanded that Moses REPLACE Jesus as mediator! (Galatians 3:19-20, as compared to 1 Timothy 2:5). Which God reluctantly agreed to… because the people would not hear the Lord, Jesus! (Deuteronomy 18:16-17). The one who had actually been baptizing them, the one who had actually made the water to flow and the bread to fall.
Because of these demands by the people, God had to make Moses’ house a unique covenant, with lower standards than Jesus’, and therefore Paul’s house. And so to transfer into a different covenant, you would have to be taken out of Moses’ house!
You would have to be circumcised in heart and spirit (Romans 2:29), and baptized anew into Christ, to be immersed into the ekklesia whom CHRIST called out of Egypt… not the ones MOSES called out of Egypt!
Just to be clear though, these men who knew only the baptism of John could have found salvation without this rebaptism, in the same way as Elijah’s and Joshua’s disciples could have (1 Corinthians 12:13).
But they would have to do so under the terms and limitations of their respective covenant, and they could not have taken advantage of the many benefits of Jesus’ covenant (Galatians 5:1-6). Jesus’ brother’s covenant was harder, and even his cousin’s covenant was harder, yet either one was quite sufficient to find salvation through faith in Jesus (Romans 3:30).
But since 20+ years had passed without the men in Acts 19, as sons of the prophets of Moses, acquiring the spirit that leads to salvation (Hebrews 3:7,14 one more time), it’s obvious things weren’t going well.
Thus, they gladly accepted a change of house, so that Paul could show them an easier, “more perfect way”, by baptizing them into their cousin’s house! He whose house preceded Moses, He who actually had been the one to BUILD Moses’ house!
WASHED IN A HOUSE
God sent Moses to wash people in the Lord at the Red Sea; God likewise sent John the Baptist to baptize in Jesus at the Jordan; and the Lord sent Paul and Peter, at God’s behest (Colossians 1:1, Galatians 1:1, etc.).
Each of these men were sent to wash sins off of people; in, as always, every sense of the word. The water itself, as I’ve said, could not wash away sins –far less so than the blood of bulls and goats did. But the drops of water in the ekklesia around them could!
Because those drops would constantly reflect the disciple’s true self back at him, help him to see his sins and scrub them off himself. So Moses’ washing could remove your sins just as much as Elijah’s or mine, because all any of these people do is surround you with people –or at least, a master –who can constantly nag you for your faults.
Yet to extend the metaphor, the water with which these houses wash you is not all equally clean. Moses’ water was salty and smelt of fish; John’s water, in the Jordan, was often muddy. So the house God places you in will be different from other houses; it will have strengths and weaknesses unique to it.
Which house that happens to be is God’s choice, just as it was when the egg that is you combined with the sperm that is you into a house you didn’t choose, might not have even wanted, but which was exactly what you needed to become who God wanted you to become (Isaiah 10:15).
So the house you are washed in will not be perfect; but given the choice of a bath in slightly brown water, or remaining sweaty and covered in dirt, who wouldn’t choose slightly less-than-pristine water? Because this house is not supposed to make you perfect. It couldn’t if it wanted to!
These houses of men, who save through the foolishness of their flawed preaching, are merely supposed to make you more-or-less clean, so that Jesus can come in with far cleaner water. In fact, it is precisely because these houses are not perfect, that you can safely grow up in them, and be prepared for Christ (Job 9:30-31).
God doesn’t want you to have a snow-water baptism, and if you managed to find one, He would just throw you in a ditch… because He needs to know if you can find the truth within the muddy water, not simply be clean because there is no dirt in your environment! (Jeremiah 9:23-24).
The ekklesia is, then, basically tasked with soaking the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher, so that the dishwasher can wash off the dried up, caked on sins. And yet, as far as the dishwasher is concerned, any old sink, with more or less any old water, will get the job done.
It doesn’t care whether the dishes were soaked in a bucket, in a plastic sack, or for that matter in a toilet; the steam and soap will clean them and sanitize them. All of which is just a long-winded way of saying that John’s baptism, or Moses’, Paul’s, or mine, all accomplish the same thing; they put you into a house that is capable of leading you to Christ.
Peter admitted this, in Acts 11:14-18, when he said –just before baptizing Cornelius with his own baptism, in Jesus’ name –that he remembered John’s baptism came before Jesus giving the spirit. Therefore, after Jesus gave the Gentiles the spirit, Peter turned around… and gave them a baptism that was in every way the same as John’s (Acts 10:44-48).
… Just into Jesus’ house, not Moses’. Both had baptized into Jesus’ body… but Moses had done so in his own name, as had John, for the glory of their own house (Galatians 4:17, 6:13). Now, finally, Jesus would be a son over His own house, in His own name! A name which all His apostle’s houses exalt above their own (Philippians 2:19-22).
THE FATHER’S BAPTISM
As I said above, no one has ever been baptized by Jesus; not even in symbol. Consider the baptizers; Moses, apostle of the Old Covenant, was the metaphorical father of Joshua –himself a type of Jesus. Thus, in effect, making Moses a symbol of the Father of Jesus. So when Moses baptized them in the Red Sea –in Jesus’ scourged body –it was the Father baptizing them, not Jesus.
Now I bet you’re thinking “Wait a minute! You just said Moses was Jesus’ brother!” and that’s true; he was the preincarnate Jesus’ brother, the spiritual brother of Melchizedek, who had no father, much like the foundling Moses.
So yes, that Moses and that Jesus were brothers…. But the human Jesus was born into Moses’ house, obedient to all of Moses’ words (Luke 2:21-39)… how could He not then, be a type of his son? Likewise, Jesus went to John to be baptized “to fulfill all righteousness”, which inducted Him into the house of Moses’ prophet!
John knew the baptism was unnecessary –Jesus didn’t need His sins washed away –but it clearly served a purpose. For it was through this baptism by John that Jesus, the illegitimate son of the divorcee Israel, became legitimate which is why John, in both Moses’ and the Father’s place, approved of Him publicly! (John 1:32-34).
John’s own baptism had been from God (Mark 11:30, by implication). Thus, John passed on that baptism in the place of the Father, inducting Jesus into the Father’s –the TRUE Father’s –house. Thus, the baptizer pictures the Father, not Jesus.
Paul’s job was to prepare people to marry Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2). Now since Paul was acting as their father figure (1 Thessalonians 2:11), this means that when the bride is married, Paul would, in a sense, become Jesus’ father-in-law –thus, Paul, too, was baptizing as THE Father, not Jesus.
Which makes sense, when you step back from the Christ-centric beliefs of Christianity and think about the symbolism itself; if the waters of baptism represent Jesus’ dead body, would it really make sense that Jesus Himself baptizes you into His own corpse?
I mean, He’s supposed to be pretending to be dead! In what symbol does Jesus raise you up from the grave? Romans 4:24, Acts 13:33, Acts 5:30, etc. The main point of baptism is not the immersion itself; the key is being pulled back out from those waters (otherwise it’s not baptism at all, but drowning). And that is done by the Father!
But John 6:44 Jesus says He will raise him up… didn’t we just read that it is the Father who raises up the saints? Absolutely! But they are raised up IN Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:16, Ephesians 2:4-6). So when God raises up JESUS’ body, all PARTS of that body will be raised up WITH Him!
And since it’s Jesus who is being raised, when Jesus gets out of the grave… He will bring you along with Him… along with all the other PARTS OF HIS BODY! (Romans 6:4-5). Because it is not in Jesus that our hope rests, but in the Father (1 Peter 1:21).
Reading that verse, you’ll notice that only happens after we’ve “purified our souls”… how was that done? 1 Peter 1:22. With the background of this lesson, you can see that “the brethren” and “one other”, is speaking of the very water into which we are baptized… the house whose job is to help you perfect your soul and purify your heart!
And that baptism is the start of your new life; the conception of your new Elohim-self (1 Peter 1:23). And what conception begins without… the Father? So how could the baptism, which represents that conception, be done by Jesus? Jesus can’t conceive you, or else you’d be JESUS’ son, not God’s!
So clearly, baptism could only be done by the Father… or a father-figure acting in His stead. Peter goes on to show how that Elohim-newborn should act (1 Peter 2:1-3). This milk comes from the Lord, which is the body of Christ, which is the ekklesia, which is the bride of Christ, which of course is symbolically female and thus… has the ability to create milk!
But the seed being “immersed” in the belly of that bride comes not from Jesus, but from the Father (John 6:44-45). And yet how is that possible when no one has seen the Father? John 6:46. And yet without the Father, it’s not possible to come to Jesus! (John 6:65).
We know enough, from places like Luke 9:51-52, Luke 10:1-3, to say nothing of verses like Luke 16:29-31, Luke 1:17, to be certain that before a person comes to Jesus, they must pass through a house of some kind –Moses, the prophets, Paul, etc. These people exist to PREPARE people for Jesus’ face!
So reading John 6, we get the impression that it is THE Father’s job to do this. And indeed, it is… and yet it is a job He has delegated to all the father figures… for is it not by having HIS spirit, and not merely Jesus’, that they BECOME elders?? Fathers? Acts 20:28, Romans 8:14.
And isn’t that what “figure” means… acting in the place of someone else? For it is by having the spirit of someone, that you are capable of acting in their place (2 Kings 2:8-15). This is how John became the Elijah (Luke 1:17), how Joshua became Moses’ heir (Deuteronomy 34:9), and what gives the head of every house the right to conceive children in the Father’s place, by baptizing them in HIS name! (Matthew 28:19).
So the Father finds a potential child, and then brings that person to Jesus. Jesus then leads them to one of His houses… meanwhile a father-figure “finds” this potential child Jesus brought him, and then baptizes that person into his house, then prepares them for Jesus’ spirit which will, in turn, lead them back to the Father!
Thus John 6:45 is true in every sense; for those who have heard about Jesus, and learned from the father of their ekklesia house, comes to Jesus! After all… isn’t the whole point of having a human father-figure to have someone “according to thy wish in God’s stead”? (Job 33:6).
This father you can see leads you to Christ every day, every week; even when your own soul doesn’t always know the way. He talks to you of the things God shows him as you rise up, when you are by the way, and makes you more like he himself is, just as Jesus is doing for him, just as the Father did for Jesus (Hebrews 5:8-9).
A CUP OF COLD WATER
Reading Matthew 10:40-42, we are left with the disturbing impression that if a grievous sinner were, just before death, to hand a glass of tap water to a thirsty prophet, God will give him the same reward as a prophet.
Does that seem fair? That such a simple act entitles this ungodly man to the same reward as a prophet who was sawn in half for speaking the truth? So obviously, obviously, this is not what this means. First, start with the context; He uses the word disciple which, as you now know, has a very specific meaning of a follower of someone in the ekklesia.
Backing up to other places in the chapter, such as Matthew 10:11-14 Matthew 10:24-25 Matthew 10:34-36 we see that Jesus has the house and master-disciple relationship on His mind. Knowing more about circumcision and baptism, you can see that Jesus references them both in Matthew 10:37,38,39 respectively.
For if you love your father or mother more than Him, you won’t ever circumcise yourself out of your house. And if you don’t follow Him, and become a disciple, and lose your life in the Red Sea of baptism, you won’t find your life.
So with this as the immediate context –circumcision and baptism –Jesus tells the twelve apostles ( Matthew 10:5) that potential disciples who don’t receive them won’t receive Him; and if they won’t receive Him, they won’t find the Father –just like Abraham told the rich man in Jesus’ parable.
Now read the parallel story –which differs in several key points –in Mark 9:36-41. Notice that in Mark 9:37, the point is receiving a child –a disciple –in Jesus’ name. Raising up this child, whom God has called, is like raising up Jesus Himself, for by being baptized into Jesus, he becomes Jesus –as all of us do.
Once again underlining that the head of the house is acting in place of the Father, not as Jesus –for he is training this disciple as if the disciple were Jesus, which means the apostle is standing in for the Father.
John then mentions forbidding another house from doing miracles; now thinking about this other house, who could it have been? It can only have been a son of the prophets; which since John was THE prophet, meant in some way this was a disciple of John, and therefore of Moses.
And John, though not of Jesus’ house, was not against the promises of God! Galatians 3:21. The prophet John, and the apostle of his house, Moses, were not against Jesus, but in fact were HELPING Jesus’ house by PREPARING A PEOPLE for Him… and thus were “on our part”!
Jesus then gets back to the cold water verse; because John’s disciple didn’t necessarily need to baptize someone in water to prepare a people for Jesus; even a single glass of cold water –a small amount of the spirit, of the words of life, of Truth –was enough to earn John a reward from God! (Hebrews 6:10).
Back in Matthew 10:40, BBE translates it “He who gives honour to you gives honour to me; and he who gives honour to me gives honour to him who sent me. He who gives honour to a prophet, in the name of a prophet, will be given a prophet’s reward…” etc.
So Jesus is just telling those who receive the words of these twelve apostles and become their disciple, that those who take the name of the prophet who teaches them will receive the reward OF that prophet. Naturally… because through the eventual laying on of hands, they will become his heirs!
Likewise for a “righteous man”; who this is referencing is unclear; perhaps Jesus meant an Old-Covenant tutor like Paul’s Gamaliel (Acts 22:3, 5:34-39), who trained him in the law before God led him to NC governors like Paul’s Ananias or Barnabas; but no matter what the role they play, those who serve the fig tree will eat the fruits of the fig tree (Proverbs 27:18).
And yet even if these righteous men, prophets, apostles, elders and so on don’t become your master; if they only give you a cup of cold water, and you later become some other man’s disciple, or take that water and find God on your own, or fail altogether and die in your sins… I still get paid for the water. (2 Corinthians 2:14-16).
RESTORE ALL THINGS
The point of circumcision was to remove people from the world, and make their flesh part of Abraham’s house. The point of baptism then, was to make their spirit a part of the house of Moses, itself part of the house of the God.
To enter Moses’ house, circumcision and baptism were both necessary; but having once baptized the whole nation into Moses’ house, it was not necessary to rebaptize them for them to join an offshoot within that house, such as Elijah’s sons of the prophets.
Moses’ house, as I’ve said often, could have been a NC house. But by downgrading the house to the custom-made OC, the people made necessary the creation of NC houses inside of Moses’ house –houses of the prophets.
Thus Moses’ house became lesser; and a son within that house –Elijah –had to become greater than his own head. Not unlike Jesus and David, or Abraham and Terah, or David and Judah. So Elijah’s house was not truly a separate house from Moses’, but rather what Moses’ original house should have been (Exodus 19:5-6).
Elijah, and the other prophets, became what Moses’ children would not allow him to be; leaving Moses to be the head of the lesser, external covenant, while directing his children to obey his own descendant “THE prophet”.
Thus Elijah and Moses each deserved mention on the mount of transfiguration as separate heads, even though technically both were of the same house. Because Elijah was just taking a select few up on the mountain to meet God, like Moses had always wanted to do.
This is why there was no baptism necessary to become a son of the prophets; for Elijah wasn’t really changing their house, he was just teaching the spiritual truth to Moses’ sons in Moses’ name, just as Apollos was doing for Paul’s sons in Paul’s name.
But by the time of Christ, Moses’ sons had drifted so far from the truth that they were as much Babylon’s sons as anyone’s (John 8:31-44, Mark 7:8-13, etc.). Despite what they claimed, these were not Abraham’s seed; not Moses’ disciples –for they didn’t act like Abraham nor listen to Moses (John 5:45, 7:19, etc.).
Which is why John the Baptist was sent to restore all the things of Moses… including the baptism in the Red Sea that Moses had once given them! Because to be taken out of Moses’ house, and put into Jesus’ house… they had to first be IN Moses’ house, not Satan’s!
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Why did circumcision disappear so abruptly, just as baptism reappeared? It’s not, as you might think, that baptism replaced circumcision –not precisely, anyway. Reading Colossians 2:11-13, the one verse for this lesson, you’ll see this “circumcision without hands” works because Jesus was circumcised for us.
When you are baptized into Christ’s body, then anything that happens to that body happens to you. If it dies, you die; if it lives again, you live again; if it was circumcised, then you are circumcised. (2 Corinthians 5:14, 17-21).
Which means if you come to an apostle’s house, there is no need to circumcise you after the manner of Moses, have a three-generation waiting period, and only then let you into the holy place; for by baptism you immediately become part of the body of Christ making you instantly circumcised in the flesh.
Moses’ body never rose from the dead; John’s body never rose from the dead. Therefore being baptized into their houses could not, by itself, save you; sooner or later, both of them had to lead you on to Jesus’s body to be saved.
By being inside that body, you are freed from the external things of that body, for externally, that body did every ritual and act of Moses perfectly, then took the penalty of Moses’ law though He didn’t deserve it; creating a massive overpayment which means that the law owes HIM now.
Every external work of the law, every letter of the law of Moses, Jesus fulfilled for you, if you are part of His body. Everything that worked death, every curse you could earn, He became for us (Galatians 3:13, Romans 8:1-7).
So that body acts as a shield for sin –which was precisely what the Lord told Abraham when he joined the body (Genesis 15:1). So circumcision and all external rituals no longer apply to you, for you are now an internal part of Jesus’ body.
And yet that very fact means that the internal things still very much apply to you, since you ARE now the internal part of Jesus’ body! So anything that HE must still do internally, YOU are now bound to do along with Him because you ARE one of His internal parts!
For the only reason He IS our shield is so we can learn to keep the law INTERNALLY! He made us part of His body so that the other cells of His body could surround us, pressure us, and teach us to work for the good of the whole body. To baptize us… in every sense of the word.
This has always been true, in one way or another, for every person who ever found salvation; even the flood of Noah was a type of baptism (1 Peter 3:18-21). A flood which saved souls and spirits who were imprisoned in their flesh… slaves to their beast! (Genesis 6:3, 5). And it did so by circumcising Noah’s HOUSE out of that old world, baptizing them into a new world, washed clean!
So it isn’t that circumcision of the flesh was abolished; nor, as you might expect, is it that circumcision of the flesh moved internally; rather, it is YOU who move internally, into the body of Christ which has already been circumcised.