Christians, when they first come to believe in Jesus, are instructed to be baptized. That’s because Jesus said (Matthew 28:19): “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.  

I have always known that the Greek word (the word used in the original language of the New Testament) for baptism had many meanings: to dip, to immerse, to sink (a ship or in the mud), to pickle, to drown, to perish. This is why adult believers are immersed in water instead of just having a bit of water sprinkled on them - because the word used indicates a sinking into or going under the water. 

For years, I have been satisfied with the fact that the word “baptizo” in ancient Greek indicates how baptism is to be done. And in church, we would have baptisms of new believers, with hymns sung, testimonies given, the baptismal candidates in white gowns - all very moving and polished and good - and the candidates would be immersed in water. 

But then I realized that “baptizo” is quite a violent word. It is used for shipwrecks and drowning victims. And being the visual person that I am, I imagine in my mind’s eye that scene from Titanic where the ship goes down, with people clinging to anything to stay alive, shouting and screaming, but finally being hurled into the cold Atlantic where they thrash and flail until they freeze. I envision a drowning victim, calling and treading, calling and treading, desperately trying to keep their head above water and their lungs clear - until fatigue sets in and the pull of the water drags them down to perish.  

Those scenes are moving, but neither polished nor good. Yet God chose this word “baptizo”, and the church has chosen to baptize people by putting them under water, as a demonstration of what new life in Christ is. Why? 

Televangelists used to be very popular on television. I don’t know if they still are, or what they might talk about these day. My memory of televangelists is that they talked about how much better life is in Christ. That’s true. Life with Christ is infinitely better than life without Him. But I don’t ever remember televangelists talking about “baptizo” - about the perishing, drowning, shipwreck side of being a believer. As a result, people would come to faith, but then wonder why the new resurrection life wasn’t automatically theirs in all its fullness. Sometimes life would become for them more of a struggle than it was before. Because they had never been told that always, before resurrection life, there is death. Just as there was for Jesus Himself. 

We step into one of the deepest and most extraordinary mysteries of the universe as we look at the simple act of baptism and understand all that God is telling us through it. 

Romans 6:3 says: “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Anyone brave enough to have seen The Passion knows what kind of death Christ died. It was violent in the extreme - a horrific demonstration of what lies at the heart of Satan’s kingdom of darkness - that kingdom into which all mankind has been born since the day Adam and Eve gave their authority over the earth to the evil one (see blogs for December 8, 2003 and following). Christ’s death horribly demonstates all that we need to be saved from - rulership by the one whose sole desire is to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).  

We are truly blind if we do not see that under our ordinary lives is a theme of being robbed, killed and destroyed. It all happens every day: 

- in our sicknesses and allergies, disabilities, physical pain and chronic health conditions
- in not being paid what we deserve
- in growing old and losing vitality
- in the hurts taken from other people’s insensitive words and actions
- in the near miss car accidents caused by other drivers’ rude behaviour
- in children picking on other children
- in SARS and West Nile and mad cow
- in floods and droughts
- and in death. 

We are deceived if we think of these things as normal to life. They are not. Life is the opposite of all this. Life is about vitality, growing, becoming, hope, goodness, health. The fact that we all experience the opposite tells us that we need a Saviour, someone who can reverse all the death, destruction and robbery that we currently experience. That is who Jesus is, and what He did. To do it, He had to die, and to die violently, Again, why? 

To understand why Jesus’ death had to be a violent death, we need to see things from a spiritual, as well as a natural, point of view.  

As North Americans, we tend to see only what happens in our physical world. We tend not to be concerned with the spiritual world. Westerners are alone in that. People in other parts of the globe are very conscious that they are part of both worlds.  

But consider what happened when Satan tricked the first man and woman into obeying him instead of God, with the result that he gained authority over the earth. Earth went from perfection to what we have today - because of what someone in the spirit realm did. Jesus came from God - from the spirit realm - to reverse that.  

To reverse all evil, Christ died. That is the natural act. In itself, it doesn’t look like any solution at all to our global dilemma. And it wasn’t. It was the natural act together with what happened in the spirit realm that provided mankind’s salvation. 

Gene Edwards has written a wonderful book called The Divine Romance.[1] It is an imagined behind-the-scenes look at the quest of God for His “counterpart”. As the story unfolds, Edwards describes the crucifixion of Christ this way (paraphrased for copyright reasons; the original is so much better): 

            “On with it. Crucify him!” someone in the crowd screamed.
            “You have no idea what shall be crucified today,” Jesus murmured.

. . . . .

            “Now!” he commanded, “all things to the cross!”

. . . . .

            It was the angel named Messenger who plunged backward through time, then back through eternity past - to the age before all things, save God! There he found a lamb - slain - upon a wooden cross. Lifting high this trophy of endless love, he bore the slain lamb forward into time, and finally to Golgotha, there to make that cross - and lamb - one with the cursed tree and the carpenter who lay outstretched upon it.

. . . . .

            Yet another angel went to that place where Eve and Seth once laid the body of Adam. The angel clutched into his arms the firstborn of our race, and bore him forward through time to Calvary.
            Within the bosom of Adam lay all the human race, for they were - after all - in him. Further, in the bosom of that first man lay the Adamic fall, the curse, and the self-nature that had invaded and twisted man’s soul.
            Adam and all mankind in him were carried to Golgotha, and there became one with the cross. Adam’s race was crucified!
            One of the archangels rose from earth’s plane and called to time past and time future, commanding all governments, rules, dominions, and principalities from all the ages to come forth. Capturing them in his mighty arms, he made flight toward Jerusalem. Standing before the cross, he waited … waited to see princes and principalities crucified upon the cross of our Lord.
            But one of the angels did not stir from his place. Golgotha itself was his appointment. On one side of the cross stood a crowd of Hebrews, on the other side, a garrison of Gentile soldiers. Between them, seen only by eyes that belonged to the unseen, was a wall. An insurmountable wall dividing Jew and Gentile, keeping them separated since the days of Abraham. Wrestling the wall into his powerful arms, the angel lifted it up, paused before the cross, and waited … waited to see crucified the dividing wall between the circumcised and the uncircumcised.
            He waited, as did others, for the tick of time to sound once more.

. . . . .

            The hammer smashed against the nail, and there were crucified in that instant 

The first man, Adam

Adam’s race

The fallen self

The wall of division between heathen and Jew

All governments

Principalities

Powers

Rule … and

Dominions

. . . . .

            Another nail was pressed deep into the other wrist. Once more the soldier drew his arm in a mighty upward swing, and once more the Lord froze time in its journey.
            At that very instant one of the angels arrived at Mount Sinai and began to sort furiously through the stones and rocks. There they lay - the stone tablets of the ten commandments. The angel clutched them to his bosom, turned, and darted again for Jerusalem’s holy temple.
            Arriving at the temple courtyard, this same angel went into the Holy of Holies. Terrified, yet obedient, he lifted the cover of the mercy seat, reached inside and brought forth the sacred copy of the law. He then gathered from within the temple every rule, every regulation, every ordinance that ever had been penned, proclaimed, or dreamed of. All law, all legalism, all bondage.
            The angel then called forth all ritual of all worship, and all observances of all holy days. Finally, he called forth even the Sabbath.

            “They are but pictures of my Lord. Today pictures, types and shadows … end!”

            Finally, the angel breathed hard, turned, and called forth even the temple!

            “You, too. For even you are but a picture of my Lord. Today the picture ends!”

            The angel rose high above the earth, and in a voice that reached the ends of all times, he commanded every rule, regulation, ritual, decree, and ordinance that had ever been observed by any religion ever practised … to come forth!
            The burdened angel plunged downward through the skies, into time. He arrived just in time to lay his burden into the bosom of his Lord. “All this … ends ... today!”
            The hammer smashed against the nail. And with it, 

All law

All rules

All ordinances

All holy days

and

All ritual 

were crucified upon the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord!

. . . . .

The angels were now on the darkest and most dreadful of their journeys. Across time and space they flew, into every minute of human history, into every place people could be found throughout all time. Rising, they brought back their dreadful cargo to Jerusalem, careful to stay in the invisibles lest they drown earth with the very stench of their black wares.

. . . . .

            With groans and agonized cries, the angels stepped into time, and rushed up Golgotha’s hill, carrying every sin of every man and woman who had ever lived, and they cast it  all into the Lamb of God - who now became sin. All sin was now in one place - in him. Divinity experienced that one thing it had never known. And the Lord of Glory, forsaken of all holiness, cried out in delirium, 

My God, my God,

Why hast thou forsaken me? 

            One of the archangels, blinded with rage, cried out savagely to his peers: 

Now, now

to that place which is

the last moment of time.

Go, to our enemy!

Vengeance, vengeance!

Bring him to the cross!

. . . . .

With swords raised and with eyes spewing fire, the angels stepped back into a time that was the last second of the existence - in creation - of the kingdom of darkness.

. . . . .

            Without pity, the elect angels whirled about the dark citizens of demondom - encircling them in blinding light - and drove them, screaming, back . . . toward Golgotha. The final moment of time was - at last - about to intersect with the centerpiece of the eternals. Demons of darkness looked up to see that cross, suspended outside creation, and knew by dark instinct they had a rendezvous with this instrument of destruction.
            The angels mercilessly drove their screaming, unholy prey, back toward the cross.
            Two archangels with flashing swords hurled the dark fiends into the bosom of the only begotten Son of God.
            Now went up a defiant cry from the angelic host. The whole host of angels and archangels swarmed again into that mysterious portal to find, in some future place, that fiend of all fiends, and to finish with him a battle that had begun long ago at the throne of God.

. . . . .

            It was Michael, inflamed with justice, who broke forth in that era that was the final moment of this age. There stood the prince of all principalities.

. . . . .

            Lucifer snarled! But in a fury that matched the wrath of God, Michael drove the infernal angel back through all the ages, stumbling and screaming in full retreat. They stopped at the base of a hill. The fire of Michael’s unrelenting sword drove the dark prince toward the dying Lord of all princes. There Lucifer found himself in a time and place he quickly recognized as Golgotha, which he had once believed to be the site of his greatest triumph! But now he saw the hill as God saw it. What he beheld now was a cross upon which he had been crucified before creation!
            By some unutterable means the fallen archangel was drawn inexorably into the very bosom of his enemy.
            And so was crucified 

The prince of darkness

and the

kingdom of darkness

upon the cross

of Jesus Christ, our Lord! 

            Then while angels watched in amazement, the entire world slipped out of time. That cross, now suspended in a vast realm of nothingness, drove time, space, matter, and eternity into its bosom. The entire creation began to melt into the bosom of the Crucified One, and disappeared into his bosom. Time, eternity and heavenly places soon vanished. The old creation had passed away.

. . . . .

            Hallelujah!
            But suddenly, a cold chill swept over the angels. They had forgotten the last and greatest enemy.
            Death now appeared out of nowhere - that one who boasted of having no enemy except God. There were now only two beings remaining. One had claimed himself to be eternal life, the other eternal death, and Death boasted that by his hand life would die. Defiant and fearless, Death approached the cross. 

We meet again,

and now

for the last time! 

Death stretched out his cloak and moved slowly toward his final prey.
            The highest drama in universal history had begun! 

Yes, Death,

for the last time.

Delay no longer. Come! 

            With that, the young carpenter once more moved his blood-soaked, iron-pierced hand. Creation suddenly reappeared. The scene returned to space and time. Earthly things once more came into view. Golgotha reappeared.
            The Lord Jesus was now breathing his last. The angel of death moved closer, covering the young carpenter with his seraphic wings. Death began squeezing the last breath of life from his final prey.
            And Mary’s son cried out, 

Father,

into

your hands

I commit

my Spirit. 

            With that, the carpenter died, soon to carry with him into the grave all enemies except one. Death, eternally dead, was still alive!
            Death threw up his fist and shouted. 

I have ended

even Life!

I am

conqueror

of all things. 

            Death turned to go in triumph.
            But out from somewhere, an immeasurable power laid hold of him.
            The black creature turned and screamed, “The Eternal Spirit!” Marshalling all his strength, he brought to bear upon this unseen power a force that caused the angels to drop to their knees in fear. The angels watched as the two powers locked in final combat.
            For a moment it seemed they were equal and that Death might wrest himself free. But slowly, relentlessly, the death angel was drawn toward the breathless figure hanging upon that wondrous tree. At last, his strength drained, Death screamed in horror and disappeared into the bosom of the Nazarene.
            And so were crucified all things. And such was the death of the Son of God. 

Lest anyone think that Gene Edwards’ version of Christ’s crucifixion is a total flight into fancy, here are the Scriptures that tell us all the was crucified with Christ 2,000 years ago on a hill called Golgotha, as well as the eternal nature of Christ’s death. 

Revelation 13
8  . . . the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. 

Romans 6
6  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin –
7  because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. 

Galatians 3
10  All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”
11  Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.”
12  The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.”
13  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
14  He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. 

Colossians 2
15  And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. 

Ephesians 2
12  remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
13  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14  For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,
15  by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace,
16  and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 

Hebrews 2
14  Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil –
15  and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 

Colossians 2
13  When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,
14  having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 

Hebrews 10
1  The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.
2  If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins.
3  But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins,
4  because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5  Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me;
6  with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased.
7  Then I said, ‘Here I am – it is written about me in the scroll –  I have come to do your will, O God.’ ”
8  First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made).
9  Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second.
10  And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 

2 Corinthians 5
21  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

2 Timothy 1
8  So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God,
9  who has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
10  but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 

It is very clear from Scripture that when Jesus went to the cross, He took with Him, among other things, all sin: 

1 John 2:2 “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

He paid the price the law required for sin (Romans 6:23): “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Since justice has been served for all sin, all sin can now be pardoned. 

But only a dead person will never sin again. And so those who come to Christ for new life are made part of His death (Romans 6):

3  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

. . . . .

6  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--
7  because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. 

Christ’s death, looked at in the natural, was an act of violence done to Him. But looked at in the spiritual, it was an act of violence done to the kingdom of darkness. It was an ambush of that kingdom that caused its total downfall. When we are saved, we are taken by force from the kingdom of darkness (Colossians 1): 

13  For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
14  in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 

We are “rescued”. How is that rescue carried out? After all, Satan is our natural father and guiding spirit and ruler: 

John 8 (Jesus speaking):
43  Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.
44  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
45  Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!  

Ephesians 2
1  As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
2  in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
3  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 

We naturally belong to the evil one. What would cause him to yield us up to his divine Enemy? 

The Bible is very clear that we are part of Satan’s kingdom because of our sin. As long as that problem exists in us, we are Satan’s. Satan doesn’t issue emigration permits so we can leave his kingdom by mutual agreement, nor does he ever give over what is his. Jesus said it this way (Luke 11:21-22): 

21  “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.
22  But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.” 

We all start life as Satan’s “possessions”. He is strong and fully armed, and all of that strength and weaponry is used to keep anyone from rescuing us. To be rescued, we need someone stronger than Satan to attack and overpower him. Then we can be rescued. 

This is what Jesus did on the cross. By paying the penalty for all sin, He violently ended Satan’s right to hold us.  

But the process of extracting us from the enemy’s camp involves another act of violence. Romans 6:7 says that the only person who is completely free of sin is a dead person: “because anyone who has died has been freed from sin”. So when we call on Jesus to save us, He comes and unites His life with ours so that what He has done to defeat sin becomes ours. Put in different words, we die with Him on the cross and then rise again into our new life in the Kingdom of God: 

Romans 6:2-4
2  By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
3  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 

Colossians 3:3
3  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 

Salvation in the natural looks like a prayer: one person coming in repentance and faith to God to ask for forgiveness and new life with Him. In the spiritual, it is an act of extreme violence where we are placed on the cross with Jesus, die to our old life, and are resurrected to our new life in Christ. 

Which is why baptism is a picture of death, burial and resurrection. Baptism is a person’s funeral service - with one unique twist. The body doesn’t stay dead. The new believer comes out of the grave a new person. 

Just as there is no way out of Satan’s kingdom except by death, so there is no way into God’s kingdom except by birth: 

1 John 5:1 “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.”
1 John 3:1a “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 

This is why the Bible talks about being born again. Only this time, the birth is not a natural birth; it is a spiritual birth (John 3): 

1  Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council.
2  He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3  In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
4  “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
5  Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.
6  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
7  You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’
8  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 

In God’s eyes, although there may be many races of people in the natural, spiritually there are only two - Adam’s race and Jesus’ race. 

And just as family traits are passed on from generation to generation in the natural, so the people in these two groups inherit things from their respective ancestors:  

1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”
1 Corinthians 15:48-49 “As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.”
2 Corinthians 5:16-17 “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 

And so, in baptism, there is not only a going under the water, but there is also a coming out of the water - a rising to new life (Colossians 2:11-12): “In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.” 

The Bible gives two pictures of what baptism means to us. The first is the Exodus. 

1 Corinthians 10
1  For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea.
2  They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 

The Israelites were in cruel bondage - held as slaves by an uncaring, arrogant Pharaoh. Sounds a lot like people held captive by Satan, doesn’t it? But then the day of God’s deliverance came. The Israelites walked out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, who had prophesied plague after plague on the Egyptian people until their suffering was so great that Pharaoh relented and let his slaves go. But once they were gone, Pharaoh changed his mind and chased the Israelites with his army, trapping them against the Red Sea. The Israelites had no place turn. Then God made His final move (Exodus 14): 

19  Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them,
20  coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.
21  Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided,
22  and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
23  The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea.
24  During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion.
25  He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt.”
26  Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.”
27  Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea.
28  The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen--the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.
29  But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
30  That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.
31  And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant. 

The violence of this day is hard to miss. But the complete deliverance of God’s people from their bondage is just as dramatic. As Jesus said (John 8:36): “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” 

The second picture the Bible gives of baptism is the flood of Noah’s day: 

1 Peter 3
18  For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,
19  through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
20  who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,
21  and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22  who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand--with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him. 

Sunday School stories come nowhere near describing the magnitude of this global event. Even the Bible radically understates it (Genesis 7): 

11  In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
12  And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

. . . . .

17  For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.
18  The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water.
19  They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.
20  The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet.
21  Every living thing that moved on the earth perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.
22  Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
23  Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24  The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. 

But the result is hard to miss. Everything on the earth is gone. The people who are in the boat will step out into a world where everything they knew has died, and where everything they see is new. This is the Christian life: 

Galatians 4:14
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 

Baptism represents the dividing line that the new believer crossed when they gave their life to Christ. The new believer has crossed over from sin to righteousness, from death to new life, from the world to God. In baptism, we declare that Christ died for us and we died in Him, that just as He rose and is now seated with God in the heavenly realms, so we too are citizens of heaven. For now, we are pilgrims in a place that is not our home. We seek to give earth a taste of heaven while we are here. But our hearts are not fixed on what is here, but on what is coming. 
Baptism pictures violence, death, and new life. It pictures an armed rescuer taking hold of us and carrying us over enemy lines to safety, to healing, and eventually to home. It pictures a “no turning back” decision where we cross a dividing line from one life to another, from one kingdom to another, from one family to another. It pictures an experience so radical that Jesus called it being “born again” - starting over, with the old slate not just wiped clean, but totally gone - “behold, the old has gone, the new has come!”