John 3:5 ...Except a man be born of water
and [of] the Spirit,
Roma 12:1-2 ...be ye transformed by the renewing
of your mind,
" TRANSFORMED "
metamorphoo {met-am-or-fo'-o} v AV - transfigure 2,
transform 1, change 1; 4
1) to change into another form, to transform, to transfigure
" RENEWING "
anakainosis {an-ak-ah'-ee-no-sis} n f
AV - renewing
1) a renewal, renovation, complete change for the better
Roma 8:29 ...did predestinate [to be]
conformed to
the image of his Son,
...
Gene 1:26 And God said, Let us make
man in our image, after our likeness
Jesus:...
Colo 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature:
The final work of God was making man in His image.
THERE ARE 6 PRINCIPLES OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST (Hebrews 6:1-3)
1) Repentance from dead works - CORRESPONDS TO
DAY ONE
2) Faith toward God - CORRESPONDS
TO DAY TWO
3) Doctrine of Baptisms - CORRESPONDS TO
DAY THREE
4) Doctrine of Laying on of Hands - CORRESPONDS
TO DAY FOUR
5) Doctrine of Resurrection from the dead - CORRESPONDS
TO DAY FIVE
6) Doctrine of Eternal Judgment - CORRESPONDS
TO DAY SIX
And the seventh day represent perfection, which is actually
completion or maturity. We learn to rest when we are mature believers
in Christ.
The reason God speaks of beginnings in the book of Genesis is, therefore, not to inform the curious mind as to how man came about in the first place. God is relaying a message to us about salvation. Oh, the accounts in Genesis must be taken literally, but God had something in mind in relating this actual history to us. The restoration of mankind to pre-fall existence, as Adam originally knew it, demanded the story of that original fall of mankind into sin.
The solution to man's sinful plight is involved in the account of the manner in which man first fell. We must know where and how man "got off track", so to speak, in order to understand the remedy.
And, as we will unmistakably see in this study, God decided to foreshadow the great plan of salvation by creating the world in a particular manner.
Why do we read of six days of God's working? Why did He choose to use six days? He could have easily snapped all into existence in an instant. Have you ever asked yourself this question? There is a reason.
One might ask, "By what authority do you have to say you know why God did choose to make the world in six days?" I have the authority given to me and you, true believers, from God's Word, itself, for the very same Bible contains passages that relate to Genesis which regard salvation which form so much of a parallel indicating a foreshadowing element that it is beyond coincidence.
Paul said we can have the mind of Christ. (I Cor. 2:16). This does not mean we can instruct God, as Paul's Old Testament reference in 1 Cor. 2:16 makes mention, but it does mean God's ways can be known by the "spiritual", as Paul puts it, believer.
The uncanny similarities between creation in Genesis and the plan of salvation in the New Testament make the picture too clear for it to be mere parallels of coincidence. No. God had Genesis written for the very purpose of teaching us, among other things, the true plan of salvation.
Let us begin our study:
Jesus stirred up Nicodemus' curiosity regarding the means made for man to see the Kingdom. Nicodemus asked how a man could be born again. Not realizing there is more to a man's being than flesh, Nicodemus could only link a second physical birth with Jesus' statement regarding new birth. Would a man have to enter the womb and be born a second time? He felt Jesus' words were ridiculous.
Nicodemus did not understand that a man consists of not a body but also of a soul and a spirit. (I Thess 5:23). Man is tripartite, or is made of three parts. Spirit, Soul and Body. (Some believe this to support a Trinitarian concept of God since God made man in His image, therefore if man be tripartite then God must consist of three persons. Please realize that man holds one name and is one person, not three persons with three names, though. Man's being does not support an idea that God is a Trinity).
We know that the common thought of a dichotomy of two parts, soul and body, is an incorrect view of man. Human philosophy sees only soul (which they say is equatable with the word spirit) and body because the aspect of man's spirit as apart from the soul is "inactive" in fallen humanity. Man is so unaware of the human spirit because it died, not the physical body, the day Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, as God forewarned Adam. And all Adam's descendants have inherited his sinful condition along with a dead human spirit. being inactive, the human spirit remains unrecognizable by those who seek to understand man's being.
The Bible, however, clearly reveals that there are two elements, not one, besides the human body which complete a man's/woman's being. These two are not one and the same element (spirit and soul) because Hebrews 4:12 tells us that a man's soul and spirit can be divided as much as bone and marrow can be separated.
Jesus explained the truth of His statement
to Nicodemus that one must be born not the flesh but of the water and the
Spirit. Should one be born of flesh in order to enter the Kingdom
of God then one would have to re-enter one's mother's womb and be physically
born a second time. Since, however, it is of the water and of the
Spirit that one must be born again, we understand that the element which
is born of the Spirit is the human spirit. Kind after its kind, as
Genesis reveals. And human spirit, not flesh, is born of God's Spirit.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
The parallel becomes strikingly more clear when we notice that man is intimately connected with the actual world since man was made from the dust of the earth, and man must one day return to the earth in death. In fact, rather than afflict man directly with a curse, God chose to curse the ground for man's sake due to his disobedience in the garden. (Ge. 3:17).
Thus it began. God's Spirit moved on the face of the waters. Here we have SPIRIT AND WATER. And the next immediate step taken by God to make the world parallel the initial steps of salvation as found in the New Testament.
First of all, God "Said." The Word of God came into action once the SPIRIT and WATER became involved.
Please understand that God's Word
can only accomplish a work upon us when His Spirit is also involved.
Otherwise, the Word is seemingly ineffective and almost incomprehensible.
Paul said that the Spirit of God is given to a person that we might "know
the things that are freely given" to us.
That is the reason God foreshadowed new birth by first having His Spirit move, and then by speaking His Word. Only when the Spirit is upon a person can that person comprehend the Word of God as it works. Only then can the Word do a work upon us as the world was worked and shaped into form by the spoken Word of God.
God must speak the Word. This is not simply reading black-inked letters in a Bible. It is when God's Spirit is upon your seeking, sincere heart that it is God breathing life to you through the written words. God must say. ...And God said.
Before salvation, we are as the world
was before Spirit, water and Word. We are void and without form.
And God's Spirit comes to us that He might form us.
God's Word first speaks forth light and
divides light from darkness. The first truth Peter told the sinners
what to do when they asked him of their responsibility after having known
of Jesus' death for them on the cross was to repent.
Repentance is giving God opportunity to separate light from darkness in our lives. He spoke truth to us when we learned of Christ's death for us, for Christ, after all, is the light of the world. He is the light we must think about when we read that the world first received light. Oh, it was actual light that came in Genesis 1, but Jesus took our minds back to that account when He told us that He was the light. All spiritual light regards Jesus. 2 Cor. 4:6 tells us that God gives the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus' face shone as the sun on the mount of transfiguration while God's Word spoke, saying, "This is my beloved Son; HEAR YE HIM." God symbolically showed us here that we must hear Christ as He showed Christ's face to shine with light. Peter was used of God to shine light upon the people a He preached in Acts 2.
Repentance moves God to forgive us of our sins
and to then separate these sins from our lives after giving us the
light of Jesus. He divides the darkness from the light. Sins
are removed.
The Lamb was slain in Egypt that the enslaved Israelites might be saved from the death God would inflict on that kingdom that He might force Pharaoh to free Israel from slavery.
Similarly, Peter preached about Jesus' death. The Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. Could the reference to the foundation of the world refer to the foreshadowing of the truth of the Genesis Light that allows us to see darkness removed from light in our lives?
From today's standpoint, the lamb has been slain. And people are now learning about this work of God today. They come to realize they must do something about it. Acts 2:37 shows sinners asking Peter what they must do.
In Acts 10, we see a similar element as we read of Cornelius' salvation. An angel told him to call for Peter who would in turn tell him what he must do. (Acts 10:6).
How do we respond to hearing about Jesus' death for humanity?
Again, Acts 2:38 answers this question by telling
that we must first REPENT.
After Israel left Egypt, they confronted the
Red Sea. This body of water seemingly stood as a discouraging barrier
to their escape. Pharaoh became angry at his own command to release
Israel and pursued them again. He sent out his armies after them.
This is not unlike a believer's experience
who first believes and determines to leave sin and a lifestyle without
God.
We make the decision to leave. However, our sins, which tormented us so, as the soldiers of Egypt, are not removed by our mere decision to be free of them. They follow us. They are a part of us. Only God can remove them from us. God must work in our lives.
The pillar of fire and cloud, which led Israel from Egypt, was actually God's presence in manifested form. It was with Israel and it led Israel.
And the act of our repentance causes us to
ask God for forgiveness of our sins and deliverance from them. We
can only do so much, but when it comes to the actual removal of our sins,
only God can work. All we can do is choose to be saved, and to call
upon God to deliver us.
In Exodus 14:10 we find where Israel
cried out to God when Pharaoh pursued. This parallels repentance.
Moses instructed them to not fear after having seen them cry to God. Fear is a sign of unbelief in God's ability to deliver after we have asked Him for help. (When you are confident He will help, you will not fear after you request Him to indeed help you. You know He will do it!)
We must not doubt that God will deliver. He told them to stand still, for the Lord would fight for them. Their strength would not fight the enemy. God must do the work. God requires faith in His word in order to help us.
So, Israel relaxed and calmed their fears,
believing. Then the pillar moved and separated the Egyptians
from the Israelites. On the divided side where Egypt stood, representing
our sins, there was darkness. But on the side of Israel there
was light.
This is REPENTANCE.
Repentance moves God to divide our sins from our lives. He forgives us. He takes away our sins. He forgives us! We could not remove those sins. Only God can deliver us from them.
Without repentance, a person is yet in their
sins. No amount of fleshly ascetic treatment upon self will remove
sins. We must repent.
Peter CONTINUED telling the people what they must do to be saved.
Some argue that there is nothing we can do to be saved because we are not saved by works.
If their general statement is true, then Jesus preached salvation by works since He commanded His disciples to baptize people in Matthew 28:19.
If this is true, then Peter preached salvation by works when he told the Jews to Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins in Acts 2:38. And Peter COMMANDED Cornelius to be baptized in water in Jesus' name in Acts 10:48. And he wrote in his epistle that baptism saves us in 1 Peter 3:21.
Actually, baptism is not a work in the category of the subject of this verse, "not of works, lest any man should boast." Those words were spoken in reference to good deeds people believe will move God to PAY them the wages of salvation. Salvation, however, is not something we can earn as if we must WORK for it. It is a free gift to those who believe. BAPTISM is not a work of righteousness intended to move God to pay us with salvation. Rather, baptism is a recognition that we CANNOT save ourselves. It is a burial of "the old man" and all the old man's hopes of saving ourselves through works.
Romans 6:3-6 teaches us that water baptism is a burial of the old man with Christ. Repentance slays our old lives when we turn around from such a lifestyle without God. (Repent literally means an about-face). We ask God to forgive us of our lives of our lives lived without Him. And we let Him understand we are never going to live like that anymore. From then on, we will seek His will.
So, it slays our old lifestyles. And what do we do with a dead life? Why, we bury it, naturally. That is the reason Peter told us to be baptized after we have repented. To experience remission of sins we must both repent and then be baptized in Jesus' name according to ACTS 2:38.
Why both?
Picture the soldiers separated from Israel by God. Light is divided from darkness. What must be done with those soldiers? They must be removed from existence. They are already removed from us, but now they must be eradicated.
Therefore, God told Moses to extend his staff over the Red Sea and to lead the people through it, as God opened it up.
Similarly, a preacher baptizes a believer in water in the name of Jesus Christ. One passes through the watery grave of baptism.
As God had it so that Moses extended His rod while God's wind blew the waters open to divide them, a preacher is instructed to baptize people while God's Spirit moves to prepare an eradication of sins.
And then, God's Spirit lets Egypt pass into the water behind Israel. And when Israel is safely overshore, God drowned the armies of Egypt in the waters and killed them!
Had God not initially separated the Armies from Israel first, the Egyptians would have passed through danger with the Israelites and would have continued tormenting Israel after the Red Sea would return to its place closed.
Similarly, without repentance, water baptism alone will not remit sins. Unless we repent before we are baptized, our sins will remain as part of us after we are baptized.
It must be a COMBINATION OF REPENTANCE AND
WATER BAPTISM IN JESUS' NAME in order for that baptism to be of any effect.
Repentance separates sins from our lives and
then water baptism moves God to eliminate them. God had baptism in
mind when He inspired Micah to write 7:19 of the prophet's book.
A "Red" Sea foreshadows the blood of
Jesus. The Bible teaches that the blood of Jesus remits our sins.
Therefore, if repentance and water baptism remits our sins, then the blood of Jesus must be tied into these steps of salvation. That is the reason that the foreshadowing elements of Acts 2:38, as seen in the division of Egypt from Israel and the subsequent destruction of those soldiers, occurred around the body of water called the Red Sea. The thought of blood and water come together in Acts 2:38 and Exodus 14:23-28.
Aptly enough, the Second Day of Genesis
speaks of the "waters" being "divided" (Gen. 1:6).
The very same terms, "waters" and "divided" are used in both instances
of Genesis' creation and Exodus' account of the Red Sea. "And the
waters were divided".
Exod 14:21 And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go [back] by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry [land], and the waters were divided.
God foreshadowed the beginning steps of salvation by writing about the beginning steps of making this world, because salvation is indeed a wonderful, brand new world!
After dividing the light from darkness (compare
Gen 1:4 with Exodus 14:20), God divided the waters! We must be baptized
after we have repented. It's God's plan!
Exod 14:20 And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness [to them], but it gave light by night [to these]: so that the one came not near the other all the night.
The dividing factor of baptism, as indicated in the foreshadowing division of waters in Day Two is also seen in Colossians 2:11-12.
Speaking of baptism, Paul compares it to circumcision. Circumcision "put off" the shroud of flesh in Hebrew males. Likewise does repentance and baptism remove the death shroud of the old man and our sins. We take off the "old robe" and put on the "new man" - Christ Jesus. And the aspect of burial with Christ is again mentioned in Col. 2:12 as it is mentioned in Romans 6:3-6 and is foreshadowed by the burial of the soldiers in the Red Sea. Also, there is the burial of Noah's former world in which he lived, where Peter refers to baptism saving us as water saved Noah.
2 Peter 3:5-6 makes note of the earth STANDING OUT OF THE WATER AND IN THE WATER. by that water, the WORLD THAT THEN WAS, BEING OVERFLOWED WITH WATER, PERISHED.
Our old worlds, lifestyles, are washed away and we enter a Genesis of a new world!
One may experience this before water baptism, as in Cornelius' experience, but when you think of the aspect of "guiding us into all truth" in conjunction of the thought why God gives us the Holy Ghost baptism (John 16:13), you can see that the pillar of fire, God's Spirit, led Israel before and after they passed through the Red Sea (Ex. 13:21).
One's sins may be divided from one's life, but not yet obliterated in baptism, enabling in baptism, enabling one to receive the Holy Ghost. One may have only repented. Yet, one must later be baptized should one receive God's Spirit first, as Peter commanded Cornelius family after they received the Spirit.
Either way, one must repent first order to receive the Holy Ghost.
So, the Spirit comes to lead into all truth as it had let Israel to Canaan.
After separating the spoken light from darkness, and then dividing the waters, God spoke and divided the waters from the land. On the third day, land arose from under the waters!
What a glorious foreshadow of our resurrection with Christ, who arose from the grave the third day!
If repentance slays our old man, and baptism buries the old man, then the third element found in Acts 2:38 (Holy Ghost baptism) is a resurrection! Jesus died, taking our sins with Him into the death, and was buried in a grave and rose again. He left our sins in the grave.
We die with Christ by repenting and being buried with Christ by baptism. And we resurrect with Christ when we receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost..
Paul said that the same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead would quicken our mortal bodies if it dwell in us. The SPIRIT was associated with RESURRECTION.
And, as Adam received the breath of life from God and became alive, the wind of God's Spirit filled the 120 in the Upper Room (Acts 2) with the Holy Ghost. The Church was born!
At long last, a BRIDE was made with the same breath of life that the groom received that He might live. Eve was not inbreathed with that breath as Adam was. (Perhaps that is the reason Eve so easily fell into sin.)
The world was finally ready for life after
land rose from under the waters. And on the third day of Genesis,
the first life came forth.
You may have only experienced one or two of these elements of salvation. You are on your way! Don't stop there! Go all the way until Life can have its way in you!
Will you obey Acts 2:38?