A LOVE STORY: THE BOOK OF RUTH

Chapter 42

BLOOD AND WATER

03-30-08

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(John 4:1-3)  When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees [separatists, i.e. exclusively religious] had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee.

1.       baptized = Gk: to make whelmed (i.e. fully wet) [immersed]; used only (in the N.T.) of ceremonial ablution, espec. of the ordinance of Chr. baptism:--baptist, baptize, wash.

2.       (John 3:22)  After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized [exactly who baptized? ref: John 4:2].

3.       Commentary: John 4:2 occurs 16 verses after John 3:22, and serves as the Gospel author’s parenthetical clarification of the previously written John 3:22. John the Baptist (or John the Immerser) was sent “to baptize with water” (John 1:33), and himself testified in Matthew 3:11 that Jesus baptized “with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:” However, Jesus Christ did no baptisms until His death and the Holy Ghost was shed symbolically from Him in John 19:34 as “blood and water” and applied to the earth. Thereafter, the Holy Ghost baptism of eternal salvation was applied by Christ Jesus to His disciples through His first baptism in John 20:22 when He “breathed on them,” that is, Christ Jesus immersed them with the wind of His breathe which is the Holy Spirit. At that same moment, “the earnest” (2 Cor 1:22;5:5; Eph 1:13,14) of the Spirit baptism of “fire” was wonderfully ignited within those disciples as an actively burning continuing living fire, which correlates nicely with “living water” in John 7:38. In effect, the baptism “with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” are two aspects of the same one baptism of salvation.

a.       (Mat 3:11) I [John the Baptist] indeed baptize you with water unto repentance [reversal /// to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider]: 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:

b.       (John 19:32-34)  Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear [the Hebrew meaning of Cain’s name] pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water [i.e. two aspects of the Spirit].

c.    (Eph 5:25-27)  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word [rhema = the Holy Spirit, whereas Jesus is identified with the logos: John 1:14], That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Amen

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