We have seen that in their deliverance from Egypt, God’s people under the Old Testament shared in two experiences common to them all: They all passed under the cloud and through the sea, and they were all baptised in the cloud and in the sea. Let us now consider briefly the place that these two experiences occupied in God’s total plan of salvation for His people.
God delivered His people where they were, in Egypt, through their faith in the blood of the Passover sacrifice. However, once God had saved His people in Egypt, He no longer allowed them to remain there. On the contrary, He called them to march out the very same night of their deliverance, in haste, with their loins girded, no longer a mere rabble of slaves but now an army of men prepared for war.
When the Egyptians marched after the Israelites, intent upon bringing them back into bondage again, God’s next two stages of deliverance for His people consisted in making them pass under the cloud and through the sea. By these two experiences God achieved two main purposes for His people:
- He completed their deliverance out of Egypt’s bondage
- He made the necessary provision for the new life into which He was leading them.
All these things are patterns of God’s plan of deliverance or salvation for His people in this present dispensation. Immediately after the initial experience of salvation, God still today calls the sinner out from his old life, his old habits and his old associations. This call to come out and be separate is just as clear as God’s call to Israel to come out of Egypt, for Paul says to Christians:
“Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Cor. 6:17-18)
Still today also, Satan, the god of this world, seeks to do as Pharaoh did – pursue God’s people as they move out from his dominion and bring them back under his bondage. Because of this God has made for His believing people today a double provision corresponding to the double baptism of Israel in the cloud and in the sea. God has ordained that, after salvation, all His believing people should be baptised both in water and in the Holy Spirit.
By this double baptism it is God’s intention that His people should finally be delivered from the association and dominion of this world and that the way back into the old life should forever be closed behind them. At the same time, God also makes the provision necessary for the new life into which He intends to lead His people.
Heavenly Father, thank You for making available to me that double provision: baptism in water and baptism in the Holy Spirit. Please help me and make me aware every day of that constant Counsellor at my, Your Spirit. Amen.
