Spiritual Water and Fire that Destroys the First Nature

Spiritual Water and Fire that Destroys the First Nature

Image generated by ChatGPT, author prompt

A friend of mine said that he was looking into the “types and shadows” of the Bible — in other words, allegories, or metaphors — physical things that point to spiritual realities. He asked me if any came to mind for me. I wrote:

The first thing that came to my mind was Peter’s talk of a certain “antitype” (his original Greek was ἀντίτυπον, pronounced antitypon, meaning antitype — the fulfillment of the type) rendered in the KJV as “like figure”:

“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism does also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:”

‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭3‬:‭18‬-‭21‬ ‭

This passage I think is very important for clarification of what Christ’s baptism really is because here we see that the waters of the floods of Noah were the type for a certain antitype — and I think it’s clear — that this antitype of the flood of Noah can’t be water baptism. The type is already water — and much more dramatic than water baptism — the watery destruction of the earth — and so the antitype must be a greater baptism than water baptism. I understand it to be that partaking of being born of “water and the Spirit” as Christ said, which, this passage in Peter helped me understand, is the same as John’s looking forward to Christ’s baptism of “the Holy Spirit and fire” which is greater than John’s water baptism, for it “burns up the chaff” — our sin nature “with unquenchable fire” — something mere water baptism can’t do.

Because just as fire destroys everything in its path, so did the Great Flood — so these are two ways of saying the same thing — the baptism that truly saves is neither literal water nor literal fire, but the destruction/crucifixion of the first nature (revealing a “new heaven and a new earth”)— so the person having experienced Christ’s baptism “no longer lives but Christ lives in him.”

And this destruction/crucifixion of the first nature will only come when we walk in faith (that is, the faith that can be found in our hearts, also found in the hearts of the saints of old, directing theit lives.)

Which daily crucifixion/destruction of the first nature corresponds to another one of Peter’s passages:

“Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.”

‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭4‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭

So while the apostles made use of water baptism for a time (see 1 Cor 1: 13–17), what they were really after was the “one baptism” — Christ’s baptism — which destroys the flesh of those who daily participate in it and therefore finally gives us “the answer of a good conscience towards God” because the consciences of folks who “no longer live the rest of their time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God” no longer accuse them.

I don’t know if I’m there yet but I’ve had glimpses, and I’m convinced that I can be sealed to God in this thorny way and “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” like Paul who was a “bondservant” [Romans 1:1, Galatians 1:10], or like Peter who was eventually “led where he (his flesh) didn’t want to go,” because unlike how he was before he experienced Christ’s baptism, after he learned to daily crucify his flesh, it no longer stood in the way of the Spirit.

And this is the baptism that puts all who experience it into true unity, because those whose flesh is “out of the way” can truly be in “one accord.” And this one Church is the antitype of all other churches, whose membership we don’t find written in books by men, but the members of this Church

“are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭12‬:‭22‬-‭23‬ ‭

I look forward to the day when many begin to be joined under this unbreakable bond as the Bride of Christ — unbreakable because “what God has joined together no man can separate.”

Which is another fabulous type in the New Testament:

“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5‬:‭31‬-‭32‬ ‭