Introduction
I listened to Tim Mackie and Jon Collins of the Bible Project talk about four major metaphors used in the Scriptures. In the episode, The Mountain Garden and Human Ideal, Tim spoke of the Creator being a Rock in the dry land where people live. He also said that the waters of chaos were gathered and separated from the dry land on Day 3 of Creation (Genesis 1:9). I connected that with the Jewish idea of mikveh, a place where waters gathered. People went to places like these to regularly wash away impurities picked up in life in order to be cleansed enough to approach the throne of God in the Temple or the assembly in the synagogue. These Jews periodically practiced passing through chaos waters in baptism.
Chaos Waters
Genesis 1 depicted the land as covered by the waters of chaos and darkness with Ruach, God’s breath/ wind/ Spirit hovering like a brood hen over the waters. These chaos waters were an image in many Middle Eastern cultures of a place of danger and death, a place where people cannot live. The creation stories of other cultures told how their chief god battled some monster from the sea and brought about humans to serve the gods as slaves.
The Hebrew writers told a different story. The Creator, Yahweh El Shaddai, made fish and sea creatures to live in the chaos waters of the sea. He created sea monsters to play in this same sea.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
Dry Land and its inhabitants
On Day 3 of Creation, God Almighty said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear (Genesis 1:9).” On Day 6, the dry land brought forth the land animals, creepy crawlies, and Humanity. The Creator commissioned the humans to rule on the Earth as His viceroys. He rested them in a garden in the mountain land of Delight, Eden (Genesis 2:8). The Creator walked with the humans in Ruach every evening and likely discussed how they should continue His work of bringing order to the rest of creation (Genesis 3:8).
Need for Cleansing
The humans disobeyed the Creator and sought to make decisions according to their own moral standards (Genesis 3). This brought them into the uncleanness of sickness, blood, and death. When Yahweh offered the Israelites a treaty to be their King, He told Moses to instruct them to wash their garments before approaching Him on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19:10-11).
He also instructed them to wash themselves with water whenever someone touched a dead body, blood or reproductive fluids, or any other unclean thing. Though they had not sinned, they had become unclean and were not to bring pollution to the holy place where Yahweh lived among them.
This began the practice among the Jews of periodically going to a place where water gathered together (mikveh). They immersed/ baptized themselves to rid themselves of any uncleanness picked up during their daily lives. They could then approach Yahweh in His Tabernacle or Temple or an assembly of His people (synagogues).
Cleansed by the River of Eden
Genesis 2 says that a river flowed from Eden to water the garden then split into the four major world rivers known to Middle Easterners. I imagine the mountain of Eden piercing the dome of the waters above the Earth, which caused the river to flow down through the garden.
When people wanted to approach the heavens to obtain provision, protection, and fruitful life from the gods, they went up mountains to high places to the sources of rivers. I imagine they washed themselves in those streams. Instead of braving the chaos waters of the sea, the Israelites went to the gathering places of water – mikveh – to cleanse themselves. They baptized/ immersed themselves to wash away any uncleanness. Then they could approach the throne of God Almighty.
Application
Believers in Jesus allow spiritual leaders to immerse them – bury them – in water and raise them up into resurrection life. This brings the believers into oneness with those in the Body of King Jesus.
Most Christian traditions consider this a once- in-a- lifetime prophetic action, binding each person to that group of believers. To be baptized again is to denounce that person’s original burial in water.
But what about those believers who act like the Wastrel Son of Luke 15:11-24? Certainly, he picked up pollutants from the nations where he squandered his wealth. The unclean women he bedded, the unclean entertainments he enjoyed, the unclean pigs he had to feed.
When he returned to the Father, he was not forced to wash his unclean garments before the Father clad him in a robe of family prosperity, gave him a ring of authority, and killed the sacrificial calf to celebrate his return. However, I believe the son would have immersed himself in order to be cleansed and able to approach the throne of Yahweh again.
Just so for believers who, for whatever reasons, fall away from consecrated living to follow the unclean practices of the world. When they see the unproductive, ruinous results of these actions, they change their thinking (repent) and return to trust in and obedience to the Father. They return to the loving, accepting embrace of God’s people. And they have a need for another immersion in the river of God, another burial of that ungodly life and raising up in renewed resurrection life.
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