The Daily Word of Righteousness

Passing Through the Waters, #7

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. (Matthew 3:11,12)

God's priesthood will be made holy, not by imputation (assigned righteousness) but by a fiery cleansing, a burning out of us of the wickedness of the flesh. It is God's eternal judgment on the evil spirits that dwell in our flesh. The Lord's priests are actually holy, not just holy by decree because they belong to Him.

The pathway to the first resurrection from the dead includes not only coming out from Egypt under the covering of the blood of the Lamb but also a fiery cleansing of us by the baptism of fire:

When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. (Isaiah 4:4)

And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. (Malachi 3:3)

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify [put to death] the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (Romans 8:13)

The waters to the ankles signifies our coming out of the world. Our feet no longer are planted in the world. The waters to the knees portrays our walking in the Spirit so we are not serving Satan—for all sin proceeds from Satan. He who commits sin is the slave of the devil. The Lord Jesus Christ came so the chains of slavery may be broken.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (Romans 6:12,13)

Sin is alien to man. An alien spirit entered the garden and brought man under bondage to itself. The Lord Jesus came so through His Virtue we may be able to break the chains of sin and death that are upon mankind and to drive even the memory of sin from the face of the earth.

Notice that each time we are judged we increase in eternal life. The waters become deeper. God's priesthood always rules by the power of endless, incorruptible resurrection life, as typified by the waters.

The first judgment is upon the world. We are to leave the world. The second judgment is on sin. We are to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He brings the moral bondages that are in us into judgment.

The third judgment is on our self-will.

To be continued.