For the last two weeks we have discussed how the Jordan River, which represents death, overflowed all of its banks all of the days of the harvest. We also discussed how we are going to have to learn to deal with much death in our times, but keep on functioning and pursuing our purpose.
Israel had to cross the Jordan River to enter their Promised Land, which speaks of how we must enter into the baptism of the death of the cross before we can attain the promises. This is where the church has now come. We are at a crossing. If we will enter into the true baptism, the crucified life, which means that we live each day for Him and not just ourselves, we will start to possess all of the promises of God for His people.
We must also keep in mind that death is the greatest liberation that we can ever know. The devil uses fear to bind just as the Lord uses faith in the truth to set people free. What does a dead man fear? If we are dead to this world, there is nothing that the world can do to us. It is impossible for a dead man to have fears of failure, fears of rejection, or even fear of the dark. To the degree that any fear still has its grip on us, is to the degree that we have failed to go to the cross. The cross will set us free from all fear!
A dead man will not lust, covet, feel anger, seek revenge, or even feel lonely. There is no greater freedom than that which comes from dying to this world so as to be alive in Christ. This is what Israel learned from their first baptism—the crossing of the Red Sea, as we read in I Corinthians 10:1-2:
and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea....”
When Israel entered into this baptism in the Red Sea, it resulted in the destruction of the enemies that had kept them in bondage for so long. Pharaoh and his army were a biblical model of Satan and his hordes, seeking to keep God’s people in bondage. We see that baptism is the one place where they cannot follow us, which will result in their destruction. When Israel entered into that baptism, they were to never see those enemies again. Many of the things that have bound us for so long will likewise be destroyed when we enter the true baptism—the crucified life.
Does the Jordan River represent a second baptism? In a sense it does. Just as Deuteronomy means “a second law” and the book of Deuteronomy resulted from Moses reviewing everything that was required of Israel before they crossed over and possessed their Promised Land, there is a baptism that we must go through when we first begin to follow the Lord. A second commitment is usually required before we enter into our Promised Land because many drift away from their commitment to the crucified life during their wilderness years. That we are being drawn back to the cross in these times is a sign that we are about to cross over and start possessing all that we have been called to do.
There is a baptism when we leave Egypt and a baptism when we enter the Promised Land. This is a message that the cross is both the beginning and the end of our journey. The cross sets us free from the world (Egypt) and is the door to entering into our inheritance in Christ.
The wise are forever mindful that the cross is everything. However, the cross does not just represent death, but the door to resurrection life, which is represented by the Promised Land. We will cover this in much more depth in the coming studies. For now let us be reminded and keep in mind the degree to which we have died to this world is the degree to which we are free to really live. That is the point of dying to this world and to ourselves—so that we can walk in resurrection life and impart true life to others.
