Here is a list of themes in the Bible. Water in general and washing in particular plays a large thematic role in the Bible. In fact it is mentioned with meaning from the very beginning of the Bible to the very end. When it is mentioned, water brings both destruction/death and new creation/life. On the second day of creation, right after light, God made and separated the waters of the earth. These waters were then filled with life to sustain on the fifth day. The rivers in the Garden of Eden were specifically mentioned as well and brought life to both the plants and animals (including people).
However, shortly after that God destroys the whole world and most of the population in a great flood in Genesis 6. 1 Peter 3:20-22 explains how this foreshadowed baptism. Likewise, the Egyptians chasing the Israelites slaves whom Moses Led, were drowned in the Sea in Exodus 14. As the Israelites became a people, God in instituted many ritual washings (Numbers 19). 1 Corinthians 10:1-2 explains how their wanderings in the desert foreshadowed baptism as well. Water and the word, 7 times is referring to the Holy Spirit. Namaan was washed clean of his sin and believed as did the blind man that Jesus healed.
Judaism requires converts into Judaism to immerse themselves fully in water in a mikveh or body of "living water." It did not become customary, however, to immerse converts to Judaism until after the Babylonian Captivity. John describes this as a process of going from a Gentile to Jew ritual practice. In the New Testament, it brings unbelievers into the family of God and replaced circumcision. "The ancients talked of the baptized as fish. Water is the Word of God. Fish die out of water so believers die without the word." - Herald Senkbeil (Dying to Live).
Also, yes, baptism is a washing away of sins, but violently, not peacefully as we often think about it. Baptism is drown the Old Adam to death every single day (Romans 6).
Then there’s the story of Jonah. When this prophet fled from God by boarding a ship, “the LORD hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up,” (Jonah 1:4).
The songs and narratives that shape the thought of the Israelites do not speak of the sea the same way we often do, as a place of tranquility, postcard sunsets, and soothing waves lapping the beach. For them, the waters of the sea are a place of danger, judgement, confusion, evil, death. The psalms liken the threats of the enemy to the “roaring of the seas and the roaring of their waves,” (65:2). In another psalm, the souls of mariners melt within them as they rise up on stormy waves to the heavens and go down to the depths, reeling and staggering like drunken men, until the Lord finally causes the storm to be still (107:23-32).
In the New Testament Jesus talks about himself as the living water, that we can drink and never be thirsty (John 7). He compares himself to a well of fresh water, not the salty sea that we can't drink. Reading further in the New Testament we find that the waves of the sea bring impending death (Matthew 8:23-27); the sea is the place into which the herd of swine plummet to their death when the demons enter them (Matthew 8:32); and “the roaring of the sea and the waves” one of the signs of the second coming of Christ (Luke 21:25).
Sometimes, it is that way with us. We talk about people having a storms in life, being thrown about, swept to and fro, buffeted by waves of woe. During difficult times in life it is as if we are sucked out to sea, blown this way and that way by troubles. Finally, when life is over we talk of sinking beneath the dark waters of death.
For the most part, the Sea is a symbol in the Bible of a world gone wrong. As I mentioned earlier, water brings both destruction/death and new creation/life. However, there will be no sea in New Creation, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea." Revelation 21:1. There will be no more destruction and no more need for new life. We will already have a new and eternal life. But what about now, before the new creation is realized. What comfort do we have in this life?
Jesus was with His disciples in the boat when a great storm arose in the sea, covering the vessel with waves, so that these men thought they were perishing, but he calmed the storm and saved them. So He is with us, when we endure the storms of life and the waves of sorrow. He is not a God who stands on the shoreline shouting instructions. He is the Savior who never leaves our side, for He has washed you into His open side by the waters of a new creation. He doesn’t tell you what to do, He says, “It is done. It is finished.” Yes, there will be many times when you doubt it; when, like the disciples, you will be of little faith (Matthew 8:26). But even when you are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). When the time is right, He will rebuke the winds and the waves, and there will be a great calm.
There will be no sea in the new creation. Amen to that good news. But even better news is that, even while we endure storms at sea in this old creation, the God who baptizes us also abides with us in these tumultuous waters, holds us up, and will never leave us nor forsake us, for we are dearer to Him than life itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment