Resurrection... Figurative and Literal

There are a couple events in the life of Jesus Christ (and how they are connected) that are very intriguing to me.

The first is Jesus' Baptism. Of course Jesus' immersion and arising out of the waters mimic and foreshadow his death, burial and resurrection.

Immediately after this figurative resurrection Jesus goes into the wilderness for forty days of fasting and temptation.

The second is Jesus’ actual death, burial and resurrection. In which he, immediately upon his resurrection, spends another (but different) 40 days demonstrating his power over death. Hooray!

Of course all of this is an example for us. Nothing happens by accident in the scriptures. Let me take a swing at this.

When Christians figuratively die and enter the waters of baptism it symbolizes our death to sin and our old way of life. We arise out of the waters brand new people… squeaky clean.

Immediately we become Satan’s number one enemy but as we learned from Jesus (during the 40 days in the wilderness) Satan has no power over us. We equip ourselves with the armor of God and go out to rescue as many people as we can from our great enemy... Satan. Also, we no longer rely on physical food but hunger for that true spiritual food that only God can provide.

When Christians literally die and are resurrected… like Christ... we are no longer tempted by Satan… he is out of our lives for eternity. Our fight is over. We gather with all the others of humanity who have conquered death and clothed with immortality we witness to “principalities and the powers in Heaven” the marvelous wisdom of God.

Here’s the thing… we can’t experience the good things associated with our literal death until we experience our figurative death… baptism. Don’t neglect or trivialize baptism.