Water Immersion

Responding in Faith to God’s Invitation of Life and Peace by Relating with Him through the Lord’s Feast of Unleavened Bread

Summary
The Feast of Unleavened Bread serves as a reminder of the old life of bondage, and value of leaving it behind.  The family was to engage in a process of thoroughly removing all the leaven from the home, and cleansing it. What is the issue with leaven? It is a fermenting substance; a turbulent form of bacterium that is permeating and pervasive in nature. It spreads like a cancer or virus, contaminating, polluting and corrupting what it touches. It therefore, is used as a metaphor for sin and falsehood. As it spreads, it compromises and destroys what is true, good and otherwise pure.

This feast, in essence, acts as a shadow pointing forward to the LORD’s ongoing process of cleansing by the Holy Spirit; from the effects of sin and the corrupting and contaminating influences of the world, and establishing in us a pure heart and cleansed life before God.

In another sense, it is a reflection of the outward practice of water immersion, or baptism, which expresses what God has already done in the heart by burying the “old nature of the flesh.”

The LORD fulfilled all righteousness by allowing John the Immerser, or Baptist, to baptize Him in the Jordan.  As He came up from the water, a dove descended upon Him.

This marked Him as the bearer of the Holy Spirit, and identified Him as the Servant Isaiah prophesied of.  “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him...”  (Isaiah 42:1 NKJV)  John declared the LORD would thereafter baptize believers, “with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11) 

Paul, therefore, affirmed that once immersed, or baptized, the believer should walk in the LORD’s grace, expressing this new nature. 

Through immersion into his death we were buried with him; so that just as, through the glory of the Father, the Messiah was raised from the dead, likewise we too might live a new life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will also be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:4-5 JNT)

Life Application Questions

Have you participated in an outward immersion, or baptism?

How does your life reflect the inward change of your “new nature” in the LORD?

Scripture References

Isaiah 42:1-4; Matthew 3:11; John 1:26-34; Romans 6

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Unless otherwise specified, all Scripture references are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scriptures marked JNT taken from the Jewish New Testament. Copyright © 1979 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. Scriptures marked NLT are taken from New Living Translation Holy Bible, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust.