Next Door To Heaven (Chapter 10)
Ron Bailey
The Baptism
The death of Christ is spoken of in the Scriptures in many different pictures; each one bringing a new facet of the event into clearer view. Passages sometimes arrest our attention simply because they use symbols which come ‘out of the blue’; without warning or expectation. One of these must surely be the idea of Christ’s death as a baptism.
Chronologically, the first time He did this is recorded in Luke’s gospel; "I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished!” (1) It comes in the context of a passage where He has spoken of the need to be vigilant and prepared for His return, and His thoughts have turned to future judgments. It seems that His thoughts connected this picture of a fiery judgment with a future experience of His own. I often thought it a great pity that the translators did not use slightly different language here. The last phrase might well have been translated ‘it is finished’ and would have given us an immediate link with the moment of this ‘baptism’; So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. (2) This eliminates all possible of confusion; this baptism is the moment of His death. It is ‘the hour’ and the moment of ‘propitiation’.
He describes the experience as ‘a baptism to be baptized with’; which seems tautological to Western ears. The Hebrew language has a particular way of emphasizing something; it repeats the idea. This is the background of phrases like ‘The Holy of Holies’, ‘The King of Kings’, ‘The Song of Songs’, and many more. When James, in his letter, wanted to speak of intense prayer our English translations speak of ‘fervent prayer’, but James’ own language speaks of ‘praying with prayer’; Elijah was a man like affected as we, and with prayer he did pray--not to rain, and it did not rain upon the land three years and six months; (3) The phrase then, as used by Christ, is not a pointless repetition but a way of indicating the intensity of the event. This, we might say, is the ‘baptism of all baptisms’.
As we read the words of Christ it is clear that this ‘baptism of all baptisms’ is a event which must be achieved before other events can transpire. The New King James version says He was ‘distressed’, but the word really means ‘held fast’. He was unable to unlock the future until this work was finished. All that He has come to do lies on the other side of this ‘baptism’; there is no access to it without this ‘baptism’. It is the focus of all history.
The same picture is captured in the book of Revelation. Mankind’s history lies closed and sealed and John is overwhelmed with the distress of such an impasse. "So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. But one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals." And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne." (4) Not until the Lamb had taken His place in the Throne could the future be released, and the Lamb is a lamb that has passed through death; as though it had been slain. The ‘baptism’ has unlocked the future.
The second incident in which Christ referred to His death as a ‘baptism’ in recorded in both Matthew and Mark. (5) This time the context is dispute among the disciples as to who would get the highest status places in the coming Kingdom. Christ’s response is powerful rebuke but in surprising language. But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"(6) Again we see this intense expression; a baptism to be baptised with. This time however it is associated with another symbol; the Cup. It was His destiny to ‘take the cup’; to consciously embrace all that His Father’s will included. The Cup is uppermost in His mind in the sufferings of Gethsemane; And He said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will." (7) The imagery is very powerful. In our mind’s eye we see the Father offering the cup, and Christ’s phrase ‘this cup’; it is no longer distant but at hand.
We see too His instinctive expression of Sonship in the word ‘Abba’, used only here in the gospels. His mission was not forced upon Him, but offered by the Father’s outstretched hand. The word ‘Abba’ is an expression of nearest intimacy. Mark’s gospel records that en route to the journey to the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane Christ had quoted a piece of scripture from the prophet Zechariah; Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep will be scattered.’…”(8) It is an amazing piece pf scripture and one which explains the horror of Gethsemane. Its impact will be seen if we identify just who is speaking in the quotation; who is the ‘I’ of ‘I will strike the Shepherd?
The prophet Zechariah lived over 500 years before Christ. How could he have said something which struck such horror in the heart of Christ? It is a passage of scripture which sends a shiver down the spine. Without trying to explain the context let us just quote the words as we find them in Zechariah’s prophecy; And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. (9) The words appear suddenly in Zechariah’s prophecy without explanation; what are these wounds in thine hands? These words point to the nature of what awaits Him in the next few hours, but it is not the nature of the wounds that breaks His heart, but their source. The one who speaks is God Himself; Jehovah of Hosts. Their horror is to be seen in the words awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow… smite the shepherd.
For centuries God had instructed the people of the Old Covenant that He was ‘One God’. That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting That there is none besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. (10) But in other parts of the scripture we have strange hints that the full story is more complex than this simple statement. It is not that the statement is not true, but that there is more truth to be added to it. In the book of the Proverbs, for example, the writer personifies Wisdom, and suddenly finds that Wisdom (11) speaks back to him. The word ‘Wisdom’ is very close to what John meant by ‘the Word’ in the first chapter of his gospel. Wisdom testifies to an existence that pre-dates the whole of creation, and to a wonderful intimacy with God; I was by Him. (12) It continues in a wonderful picture of an eternal fellowship of delight and laughter in ‘heaven’ before anything was made. This ‘perfect fellowship of eternal co-equals’ theologians have called Trinity. No shadow ever dimmed this fellowship; all was in perfect harmony… until the day God said ‘awake, o sword, against the man that is my fellow’.
There is a little Bible cameo of Father and Son in perfect accord in the story of Abraham and Isaac. On two occasions in that account there is a simple phrase ‘and they went both of them together’ (13) ; Father and Son journeying ‘together’ to the place of sacrifice. Abraham and Isaac went beyond the sight of those who travelled with them, and at Calvary Father and Son went beyond all human observation. Where no one could witness Abraham took the knife in his hand and began the downward strike, when an angel intervened and stopped him mid-strike. At Calvary there was no angel. It was not the wounded hands that broke Christ’s heart, but the knowledge that His Father held the sword. Another prophet had seen it even before Zechariah; He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. (14)
Gethsemane was Calvary seen in prospect. A great Victorian preacher once said “The debt is discharged to the utmost farthing; the account is cleared; the balance is struck; the scales of justice turn in our favor; God's sword is sheathed for ever, and the blood of Christ has sealed it in its scabbard." (15) It was as though the Father had unsheathed the sword of His righteous indignation against all sin, and sheathed it once and forever in the body of His Son. But the pain of separation in that ‘eternal moment’ is conveyed in just a few words when Christ cried ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me’. The eternal consciousness of ‘Abba, Father’ was gone, and in its place there remained the determination to drain the cup to its bitterest drops. When the Greeks described the utter overwhelming of stricken ship they would use the word ‘baptism’. This was His cup and His baptism.
There is an interesting question that Paul asked the disciples in Ephesus; And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" And they said, "Into John's baptism." (16) I wonder how we would answer the question if we asked it of Christ’s Baptism; ‘into what was He baptised?’ John Baptist baptised his converts in water, and later Christ would baptise His sons in Spirit and Fire, but what was the element into which He Himself was ‘baptized’? The term ‘baptize’ was used in many ways, including Greek cookery recipes. It had the idea of a thorough soaking through which the flavours of the marinade passed into the vegetables or meat. In that sense something which is baptised shares the nature of the element that it is baptised into. We can see this in the letter to the Romans where Paul speaks of a union which is produced by baptism; Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, (17) It was used to describe how a piece of white cloth ‘baptised’ into a purple die would become united with the dye to produce purple cloth.
So we repeat our question; into what was Christ baptised? There is another clue half-hidden in a language. In Hebrew one word for sin is ‘chataah’, however, the word for ‘sin-offering’ is also ‘chataah’. There is such an identity of the ‘sin’ with its ‘sin-offering’ that one word covers both. The consequence of this is that Bible translators have to look at the context to decide whether to translate the word as ‘sin’ or ‘sin offering’. In one sense, just making the decision, interrupts the identity. For the Hebrew mind-set it would have been impossible to consider the one without the other. The simple answer to our question is that He was thoroughly united with humanity, not just its outward appearance, but with all that it had become. He was born as man in order to be completely identified with man; one with him. But the identification was made complete in the overwhelming tide of Calvary when He became baptised into all that mankind had become. Is this an extreme statement? For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (18) Some Bible students have said ‘but this really means a sin-offering rather than sin’; in the heart of God and in the mind-set of the Hebrew there was complete identity between both. The judgment of the ‘sin offering’ was the judgment of the ‘sin’. This is representation, identification and substitution; He was made sin. When the priest placed his hands upon the goat he said ‘this for us, this is us, this is instead of us’.
There is a story which often comes to my mind when I think these thoughts. It is the story of the final conflict between an Otter, Tarka; and an Otterhound, Deadlock; in Devonshire. The Otterhound had been the curse of Tarka’s family for generations; father, mother, mate and children had all fallen victim to Deadlock cruel jaws. Finally Deadlock chases Tarka into the coastal waters…
The Baptism
The death of Christ is spoken of in the Scriptures in many different pictures; each one bringing a new facet of the event into clearer view. Passages sometimes arrest our attention simply because they use symbols which come ‘out of the blue’; without warning or expectation. One of these must surely be the idea of Christ’s death as a baptism.
Chronologically, the first time He did this is recorded in Luke’s gospel; "I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished!” (1) It comes in the context of a passage where He has spoken of the need to be vigilant and prepared for His return, and His thoughts have turned to future judgments. It seems that His thoughts connected this picture of a fiery judgment with a future experience of His own. I often thought it a great pity that the translators did not use slightly different language here. The last phrase might well have been translated ‘it is finished’ and would have given us an immediate link with the moment of this ‘baptism’; So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. (2) This eliminates all possible of confusion; this baptism is the moment of His death. It is ‘the hour’ and the moment of ‘propitiation’.
He describes the experience as ‘a baptism to be baptized with’; which seems tautological to Western ears. The Hebrew language has a particular way of emphasizing something; it repeats the idea. This is the background of phrases like ‘The Holy of Holies’, ‘The King of Kings’, ‘The Song of Songs’, and many more. When James, in his letter, wanted to speak of intense prayer our English translations speak of ‘fervent prayer’, but James’ own language speaks of ‘praying with prayer’; Elijah was a man like affected as we, and with prayer he did pray--not to rain, and it did not rain upon the land three years and six months; (3) The phrase then, as used by Christ, is not a pointless repetition but a way of indicating the intensity of the event. This, we might say, is the ‘baptism of all baptisms’.
As we read the words of Christ it is clear that this ‘baptism of all baptisms’ is a event which must be achieved before other events can transpire. The New King James version says He was ‘distressed’, but the word really means ‘held fast’. He was unable to unlock the future until this work was finished. All that He has come to do lies on the other side of this ‘baptism’; there is no access to it without this ‘baptism’. It is the focus of all history.
The same picture is captured in the book of Revelation. Mankind’s history lies closed and sealed and John is overwhelmed with the distress of such an impasse. "So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. But one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals." And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne." (4) Not until the Lamb had taken His place in the Throne could the future be released, and the Lamb is a lamb that has passed through death; as though it had been slain. The ‘baptism’ has unlocked the future.
The second incident in which Christ referred to His death as a ‘baptism’ in recorded in both Matthew and Mark. (5) This time the context is dispute among the disciples as to who would get the highest status places in the coming Kingdom. Christ’s response is powerful rebuke but in surprising language. But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"(6) Again we see this intense expression; a baptism to be baptised with. This time however it is associated with another symbol; the Cup. It was His destiny to ‘take the cup’; to consciously embrace all that His Father’s will included. The Cup is uppermost in His mind in the sufferings of Gethsemane; And He said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will." (7) The imagery is very powerful. In our mind’s eye we see the Father offering the cup, and Christ’s phrase ‘this cup’; it is no longer distant but at hand.
We see too His instinctive expression of Sonship in the word ‘Abba’, used only here in the gospels. His mission was not forced upon Him, but offered by the Father’s outstretched hand. The word ‘Abba’ is an expression of nearest intimacy. Mark’s gospel records that en route to the journey to the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane Christ had quoted a piece of scripture from the prophet Zechariah; Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep will be scattered.’…”(8) It is an amazing piece pf scripture and one which explains the horror of Gethsemane. Its impact will be seen if we identify just who is speaking in the quotation; who is the ‘I’ of ‘I will strike the Shepherd?
The prophet Zechariah lived over 500 years before Christ. How could he have said something which struck such horror in the heart of Christ? It is a passage of scripture which sends a shiver down the spine. Without trying to explain the context let us just quote the words as we find them in Zechariah’s prophecy; And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. (9) The words appear suddenly in Zechariah’s prophecy without explanation; what are these wounds in thine hands? These words point to the nature of what awaits Him in the next few hours, but it is not the nature of the wounds that breaks His heart, but their source. The one who speaks is God Himself; Jehovah of Hosts. Their horror is to be seen in the words awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow… smite the shepherd.
For centuries God had instructed the people of the Old Covenant that He was ‘One God’. That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting That there is none besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. (10) But in other parts of the scripture we have strange hints that the full story is more complex than this simple statement. It is not that the statement is not true, but that there is more truth to be added to it. In the book of the Proverbs, for example, the writer personifies Wisdom, and suddenly finds that Wisdom (11) speaks back to him. The word ‘Wisdom’ is very close to what John meant by ‘the Word’ in the first chapter of his gospel. Wisdom testifies to an existence that pre-dates the whole of creation, and to a wonderful intimacy with God; I was by Him. (12) It continues in a wonderful picture of an eternal fellowship of delight and laughter in ‘heaven’ before anything was made. This ‘perfect fellowship of eternal co-equals’ theologians have called Trinity. No shadow ever dimmed this fellowship; all was in perfect harmony… until the day God said ‘awake, o sword, against the man that is my fellow’.
There is a little Bible cameo of Father and Son in perfect accord in the story of Abraham and Isaac. On two occasions in that account there is a simple phrase ‘and they went both of them together’ (13) ; Father and Son journeying ‘together’ to the place of sacrifice. Abraham and Isaac went beyond the sight of those who travelled with them, and at Calvary Father and Son went beyond all human observation. Where no one could witness Abraham took the knife in his hand and began the downward strike, when an angel intervened and stopped him mid-strike. At Calvary there was no angel. It was not the wounded hands that broke Christ’s heart, but the knowledge that His Father held the sword. Another prophet had seen it even before Zechariah; He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. (14)
Gethsemane was Calvary seen in prospect. A great Victorian preacher once said “The debt is discharged to the utmost farthing; the account is cleared; the balance is struck; the scales of justice turn in our favor; God's sword is sheathed for ever, and the blood of Christ has sealed it in its scabbard." (15) It was as though the Father had unsheathed the sword of His righteous indignation against all sin, and sheathed it once and forever in the body of His Son. But the pain of separation in that ‘eternal moment’ is conveyed in just a few words when Christ cried ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me’. The eternal consciousness of ‘Abba, Father’ was gone, and in its place there remained the determination to drain the cup to its bitterest drops. When the Greeks described the utter overwhelming of stricken ship they would use the word ‘baptism’. This was His cup and His baptism.
There is an interesting question that Paul asked the disciples in Ephesus; And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" And they said, "Into John's baptism." (16) I wonder how we would answer the question if we asked it of Christ’s Baptism; ‘into what was He baptised?’ John Baptist baptised his converts in water, and later Christ would baptise His sons in Spirit and Fire, but what was the element into which He Himself was ‘baptized’? The term ‘baptize’ was used in many ways, including Greek cookery recipes. It had the idea of a thorough soaking through which the flavours of the marinade passed into the vegetables or meat. In that sense something which is baptised shares the nature of the element that it is baptised into. We can see this in the letter to the Romans where Paul speaks of a union which is produced by baptism; Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, (17) It was used to describe how a piece of white cloth ‘baptised’ into a purple die would become united with the dye to produce purple cloth.
So we repeat our question; into what was Christ baptised? There is another clue half-hidden in a language. In Hebrew one word for sin is ‘chataah’, however, the word for ‘sin-offering’ is also ‘chataah’. There is such an identity of the ‘sin’ with its ‘sin-offering’ that one word covers both. The consequence of this is that Bible translators have to look at the context to decide whether to translate the word as ‘sin’ or ‘sin offering’. In one sense, just making the decision, interrupts the identity. For the Hebrew mind-set it would have been impossible to consider the one without the other. The simple answer to our question is that He was thoroughly united with humanity, not just its outward appearance, but with all that it had become. He was born as man in order to be completely identified with man; one with him. But the identification was made complete in the overwhelming tide of Calvary when He became baptised into all that mankind had become. Is this an extreme statement? For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (18) Some Bible students have said ‘but this really means a sin-offering rather than sin’; in the heart of God and in the mind-set of the Hebrew there was complete identity between both. The judgment of the ‘sin offering’ was the judgment of the ‘sin’. This is representation, identification and substitution; He was made sin. When the priest placed his hands upon the goat he said ‘this for us, this is us, this is instead of us’.
There is a story which often comes to my mind when I think these thoughts. It is the story of the final conflict between an Otter, Tarka; and an Otterhound, Deadlock; in Devonshire. The Otterhound had been the curse of Tarka’s family for generations; father, mother, mate and children had all fallen victim to Deadlock cruel jaws. Finally Deadlock chases Tarka into the coastal waters…
Deadlock saw the small brown head, and bayed in triumph as he jumped down the bank. He bit into the head, lifted the otter high, flung him about and fell into the water with him. They saw the broken head look up beside Deadlock, heard the cry of "Ic-yang" as Tarka bit into his throat, and the hound was sinking; with the otter into the deep water.
Oak-leaves black and rotting in the mud of the unseen bed, arose and swirled and sank again. And the tide slowed still. and began to move back, and they waited and watched, until the body of Deadlock arose, drowned and heavy, and floated away amidst the froth on the waters.
They pulled the body out of the river and carried it to the bank, laying it on the grass, and looking down at the dead hound is sad wonder. And while they stood there silently, a great bubble rose out of the depths. and broke, and as they watched, another bubble shook to the surface, and broke; and there was a third bubble in the sea going waters, and nothing more. (19)
Tarka had taken his ancient enemy down into death with himself. So our wonderful Saviour took down into death, with Himself, all that mankind had become. Our old man was co-crucified with Him. (20) By death He rendered powerless him that had the power of death. (21) His great, bloody, baptism had brought all the consequences of Sin and Death in the human race to an end, in Himself. It was… all …finished.
Notes:
1. Luke 12:49, 50 NKJV
2. John 19:30 NKJV
3. Jam 5:17 Young’s Literal Translation
4. Revelation 5:4-7 NKJV
5. Matt 20:2-28; Mark 10:35-40
6. Matt 20:22; Mark 10:38
7. Mark 14:36 NKJV
8. Zechariah 13:7
9. Zechariah 13:6,7 KJV
10. Isaiah 45:6 NKJV
11. Proverbs 8
12. Proverbs 8:30
13 Genesis 22:6, 8.
14. Isaiah 53:3,4
15. Charles Spurgeon: “Death and Life in Christ” preached on Sunday Morning, April 5th, 1863
16 Act 19:3 NASB
17. Romans 6:4,5.
18. 2 Corinthians 5:21
19. Tarka the Otter: Henry Williamson
20. Romans 6:6
21. Hebrews 2:14
Oak-leaves black and rotting in the mud of the unseen bed, arose and swirled and sank again. And the tide slowed still. and began to move back, and they waited and watched, until the body of Deadlock arose, drowned and heavy, and floated away amidst the froth on the waters.
They pulled the body out of the river and carried it to the bank, laying it on the grass, and looking down at the dead hound is sad wonder. And while they stood there silently, a great bubble rose out of the depths. and broke, and as they watched, another bubble shook to the surface, and broke; and there was a third bubble in the sea going waters, and nothing more. (19)
Tarka had taken his ancient enemy down into death with himself. So our wonderful Saviour took down into death, with Himself, all that mankind had become. Our old man was co-crucified with Him. (20) By death He rendered powerless him that had the power of death. (21) His great, bloody, baptism had brought all the consequences of Sin and Death in the human race to an end, in Himself. It was… all …finished.
Notes:
1. Luke 12:49, 50 NKJV
2. John 19:30 NKJV
3. Jam 5:17 Young’s Literal Translation
4. Revelation 5:4-7 NKJV
5. Matt 20:2-28; Mark 10:35-40
6. Matt 20:22; Mark 10:38
7. Mark 14:36 NKJV
8. Zechariah 13:7
9. Zechariah 13:6,7 KJV
10. Isaiah 45:6 NKJV
11. Proverbs 8
12. Proverbs 8:30
13 Genesis 22:6, 8.
14. Isaiah 53:3,4
15. Charles Spurgeon: “Death and Life in Christ” preached on Sunday Morning, April 5th, 1863
16 Act 19:3 NASB
17. Romans 6:4,5.
18. 2 Corinthians 5:21
19. Tarka the Otter: Henry Williamson
20. Romans 6:6
21. Hebrews 2:14
