Bully's Blog

“…sprinkling or pouring conflates the Covenant head with the Covenant body.”

Doug Wilson writes:

“God, in baptizing the disciples with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, did so by pouring out His Spirit upon them. Pouring is therefore very clearly described as a biblical mode of baptism” (To a Thousand Generations, p. 102).

God poured out the Spirit, certainly. But can we then assume that the apostles poured water on new believers and their babies? Single words are clues, but they can be misleading. The effectiveness of word studies is limited because context is crucial. And the context of the Bible is most importantly structural. Structure is the answer.

The reason is that all of God’s new creations follow the structure of Genesis 1. It’s almost like, when God speaks, the Spirit will pick up anything available, anything lying around, and arrange it into the familiar pattern. This means that the Bible Matrix is crucial in identifying the meanings of many Bible symbols. Baptism and the Day of Atonement might not look anything like each other to us, but the Bible keeps tying them together, along with some other things, to tell us the same part of the Creation story. If we have eyes to see, this method also gives us hints as to the correct mode of baptism. It’s not about the motion of the water. It’s about the motion of the one being baptized. [1]

Although Days 1-6 have a 1-2-3 1-2-3 correspondence, the full pattern is also chiastic. There is a relationship between Day 2 and Day 6.

Day 2 and Day 6 both concern water, and it’s not immediately apparent. The rest of the Bible is a commentary, or the outworking, of the Creation.

On Day 2, God divides heaven and earth with a veil of water. On Day 6, the qualified mediator is to stand, with his redeemed/avenged bride, upon the waters. On Day 6 it was the spring of Eden, a foretaste of Christ and His bride on the crystal sea. [2]

The best examples are Joseph, and the feast structure.

Day 2 is Passover. Jacob “spreads out a garment” upon his favored son, like a veil separating him from his brothers (Covenant Hierarchy).

Day 6 is Pass-through, or Atonement. The robe is torn and bloodied with a substitutionary goat. The High Priest passes through the veil.

…..1 – Word

……….2 – Veil installed (nations divided – Circumcision)

……………3 – Old Israel lifted up

………………..4 – Pentecost

……………5 – New Israel gathered

……….6 – Veil torn (nations united – Baptism)

…..7 – Succession

Have you got that now? Passover installs the veil. Pass-through tears the veil. At Passover, God separates His people by installing a veil (darkness) and at Pass-through, it is the veil itself that is divided, to bring His people before Him, united.

We see this in Abram’s sacrifice. Abram is passed over in darkness (Day 2), then the Lord passes through the sacrifice as a fiery head and a smoky body, Ark and Incense. [3]

I hope you are still with me. The payoff for baptism is coming.

This passage actually prefigures the next stage in Israel’s history. The birds are not divided because they are the anointed head (as the dove descending upon Jesus), but the body is torn into Jew and Gentile (the animals that walk upon the Land). Priests were anointed with oil and the blood was applied to right ear, thumb and toe – a Jew was half a man, a priesthood yet to be given true kingdom. [4]

The passing through was Joshua and Israel, head and body, “walking on water” as dry land into Canaan.

So, sprinkling or pouring conflates the Covenant head with the Covenant body. Adam’s head was cursed (his brow, or literally his nose) and Eve’s body was cursed. The Head is anointed to carry out the mission, the Law, and that mission is to gather a new body.

So debating the meaning of baptizo isn’t the solution. The key is the context. All the baptism passages in Acts follow the same structure. The “passing through” of the golden High Priest, into the Most Holy Place, with a fragrant cloud of smoke, the Covenant body.

The High Priest made two approaches on the Day of Atonement: one for the priesthood (blood of a bull) and one for the people (blood of the first goat). After he presented His own blood as High Priest, Jesus would return “in like manner” for the firstfruits church for the second approach. You will see this all in Daniel 7. (See Jordan’s commentary, The Handwriting on the Wall.) [5]

Spirit baptism anoints the head. It puts us into the Head, into Jesus. You can pour all you like onto the head as long as it’s only the Spirit. Baptism is a “passing through” into government of the Land, as part of the body of Covenant elders, who stand before the throne with bowls of incense and advise God as Abraham did.

Also, concerning Paul’s mention of “all Israel” baptized in the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:1-4): Israel’s baptism was as a single body of flesh. But the New Israel’s baptism is a group noun. It was not a single passing through but many passings-through, one for each individual. They are markedly different. Individualism is not anti-Covenant, at least not as far as the New Covenant is concerned, because the individuals are united by the Spirit of God.

The structure mentioned above is also found in the acsencion rite. The holy fire is poured upon the sacrifice (the final seal in Revelation refers to Pentecost), but the clean head is burnt by the Spirit before the unclean body is washed and offered. [6]

So, totus Christus structures the entire Bible, and it’s against pouring or sprinkling upon the head. Baptism is the body passing through the waters with clean feet into priestly government from the Holy Place.

Circumcision installed a veil (Hierarchy) and baptism brings the Tested, Matured and Redeemed/Avenged qualified mediators before God for Succession. Babies cannot be mediatorial elders.

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[1] Jesus uses this structure ironically in the parable of the good Samaritan. The story has seven stanzas, and each stanza follows the Covenant/matrix pattern. I the first cycle, the robbers leave the man for dead at Atonement. But at this point in the priest’s and Levite’s stanzas, they “pass by on the other side” instead of “passing through” as mediators. Both of their stanzas are missing the last line: Succession/Sabbath/Booths. They not only fail to enter into rest, they fail to carry anyone else into it under their shelter/shade as a true Tabernacle. See Tavernacles.
[2] See Walking on Water.
[3] See Pass-over and Pass-through.
[4] See Half Man, Half Beast.
[5] Available here. See also One Taken, One Left Behind and The Last Trumpet.
[6] See High As the Horses’ Bridles.