Bible Studies

---

By Horace & Marilyn Ellsworth
Looking Unto Jesus Ministries, Unincorporated
Gulfport, FL 33707 USA

© 1980 [footnotes did not convert in this text]

All of the Old Testament and most of the New is symbolic of the Christian’s relationship to God: today and in the future. The rest of the scriptures are factual teachings. It is the Christian’s responsibility to discern which of these categories every scripture comes under. That is why we must study the scriptures “to show ourselves approved unto God.”

Human beings can not see spiritual things in the natural , so it is super important to understand this symbolism when we take the steps of faith of water baptism to become Christians.
It is also very important to understand that we are not the only spirit beings around. The Bible mentions various types of spirit beings with a vast and sundry variety of duties. Every Holy Angel operates directly from Heaven.

The Bible speaks of two basic kinds of angels: Elect and Evil. The good angels are messengers of God for the good of men and also of angels who are evil and work against God to the destruction of men. There are good ministering angels and good warring angels. There is a personal Devil, who is mankind’s worst enemy, and he rules a horde of evil angels and all demonic spirits . There are also Cheribim and Serephim and other spirit beings which never leave heaven, but minister unto God there.
And then there is Man, the species. Man is relegated to the earth to serve the purposes of God in preparing us to rule in Heaven. His Word, that we learn here, also applies in heaven.

Man was created as a spirit being, who has a soul, to live in a body. Our mind is the conduit through which spirit and body communicate. When we become Christians, we finally have access, through the mind of Christ , to dictate to our bodies that we (in Christ) are now in control!

Everything we do is watched by and interacted with by other spirit beings . What we do and say tells these beings who we are and which side we are on, whether we serve good or evil .

When we are born as babies to our parents, automatically our nature is sinful . This has nothing to do with our choice between being good or evil, for it is made by our ancient forbearers, Adam and Eve. They were created holy and sinless, but chose to walk in deception, and in rebellion to God’s desires and direct instructions . In doing that, they “sinned” and willing, but unaware of the magnitude of the consequences, removed themselves from the unmerited favor (grace) of God. Therefore, this is our natural lineage.

The Bible shows that God’s wisdom knew this would happen, and He had already planned to send a special someone to ransom mankind back from the devil. His plan is called “the plan of salvation.” We know that God planned it before He formed man from the dust of the ground, because from the beginning man was to carry the promise of this plan in his own body! He was to pass it down from generation to generation.

This precious promise is found in the pure and unadulterated infertile egg of a woman’s ovum . It was the woman, Eve, who was deceived by Satan, so God made her the carrier of the Promise, and made her and Satan enemies forever .

When the fullness of time came for this Promise to be fulfilled, God supernaturally impregnated the ovum of a clean and holy virgin girl who willed to be used by Him to accomplish things she did not understand . It is nothing extraordinary for God to begin cell division with the ovum of the very structure He, Himself, created from absolutely not one physical thing to begin with! It was the lesser of these two miracles. It was the original creation that is so awesome!

Now, everything that this Person (Jesus) did was supernatural, for God was His natural Father . Only His mother was human and of the “flesh.” From the beginning, the blood of this child’s veins was pure and holy, untainted by Man’s sin nature. Today, we know by scientific fact that this is true. The father of a child, and only the father, distinguishes the type of blood a child has .

From that point on, Jesus taught and spoke in allegories, knowing that the sinful spirit of men was not yet free to understand the spiritual significance of His words. And so, He gave us symbols to represent our mistakes and our way of escaping what nature had done to us by the sins of men we had not known and were not responsible for. He said, in essence, that if we would believe Him, that the symbols alone would be enough to satisfy His demands of proof of our love and dedication to Him. He spoke of mysteries of the spirit world He came from .

One symbol that is essential to our position in that spirit world is the symbol of Water Baptism. Biblical symbols indicate there must be TOTAL SUBMERSION IN WATER for the baptismal symbols to show us dying with Christ, going with Him into Death, and being raised again from Death with Him, into newness of Life .

Baptisms (in water & in Spirit) are primary doctrines of Christ . These can occur simultaneously, but often, they occur at different times during the spiritual growth process. Many Christians never experience both water and Spirit baptisms, but they are never-the-less Children of God.

Water baptism is a symbol of the grave . When we have spoken our acceptance of Jesus as the Christ, the Savior of our souls by faith, our very words demand a corresponding action to prove to the spirit world (where elect and evil angels, and demons abide) that we mean what we say! Many things take place in the spirit at our baptism.

First, all spirit beings witness our obedience to the dictates of Christ as our King and Lord. They heard us confess it with our mouths and now they can see us act on that confession from our hearts. Since Christ set up the symbols He was to use to redeem us from our sinful nature of first birth, and from the ruler-ship of the world system, all spirits recognize the value of water baptism.

Secondly, as we step into the water (sprinkling is insufficient to accomplish all that baptism symbolizes) we symbolically die on the cross with Christ, whom the Bible says “died as us” on the cross. In essence, we willingly identify with His sacrifice and atonement.

Thirdly, before we submerge our head under water, we have acknowledge our reason, with our mouth and our heart, by confessing the sinfulness of our natural (first) birth order, and renouncing it for our second (new) birth order: hence the term “born again” of “Water and The Word.”

Fourth, our baptism closes the water completely around us, saturating every particle of our natural man in wetness. As it does so, it, harmlessly, allows the symbol of Death to encompass our natural body, as if we were dead in His grave with Him.

But that is not the end, either of the baptism, or of the Life within us. Suddenly, we raise out of the water, as we shall someday raise out of Death from the grave, and this signifies that we are (NOW) already risen into newness of Life Everlasting with Christ in His resurrection.

In that instant (usually unbeknownst to us at the time) a transformation takes place in our spirit… we are born again! This is why it is written: “Joh 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And “Joh 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

Every spirit in heaven and hell witnesses baptism ! From the heavenlies, ministering angels come to us on assignment, first giving unto us a name that is written in our forehead and our right hand, seen only by disembodied spirits. This shows our Sonship to God Almighty . This name can only be erased by committing The Unpardonable Sin: blasphemy against the Holy Ghost .

While we are yet wet from Baptism, we are assigned Holy guardian angels, who shall never leave us, and who are there to perform the Word of God which we speak by Faith, both to the positive and to the negative .

Few of us ever know the true raw power of our baptism, in that we are at that time risen with Christ in His resurrection and seated with Him in the heavenlies at the right hand of God, our Heavenly Father. In this symbol alone, we have already received, and been made partakers of, the Victory which Jesus Christ secured for us on the cross.

BIBLE REFERENCES TO BAPTISM:
Baptism: John's
Mat_3:5-8; Mat_3:11; Mat_3:13-16; Mar_1:8-10; Luk_3:7-8; Joh_10:40; Mat_21:25; Mar_11:30; Luk_20:4; Mar_1:4-5; Luk_3:12; Luk_3:21; Luk_7:29-30; Joh_1:25-26; Joh_1:28; Joh_1:31; Joh_1:33; Joh_3:23; Act_1:5; Act_1:22; Act_10:37; Act_11:16; Act_19:3-4

Baptism: Christian
Mat_28:19; Mar_16:16; Joh_3:5; Joh_3:22; Joh_4:1-2; Act_1:5; Act_1:22; Act_2:38; Act_2:41; Act_8:12-13; Act_8:16; Act_8:36-38; Act_9:18; Act_10:46-48; Act_16:14-15; Act_16:33; Act_18:8; Act_18:25; Act_19:4-5; Act_22:16; Rom_6:3-4; 1Co_1:13-17; 1Co_10:1-2; 1Co_12:13; 1Co_15:29; Gal_3:27; Eph_4:5; Eph_5:26; Col_2:12; Heb_6:2; 1Pe_3:18; 1Pe_3:21

Baptism: Of the Holy Ghost
General references
Isa_44:3; Joe_2:28-29; Zec_12:10; Mat_3:11; Mar_1:8; Luk_3:16; Mat_3:16; Luk_3:22; Joh_1:32-33; Luk_24:49; Joh_3:5; Act_1:5; Act_2:1-4; Act_2:38; Act_2:41; Act_8:15-17; Act_10:38; Act_10:44-45; Act_10:47; Act_11:15-16; Act_19:2; 1Co_12:13; Tit_3:5-6; 1Pe_3:20-21

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE