[11] We should ever bear in mind, that "the wisdom which is from above is _first pure_, then peaceable." (James iii. 17.) The wisdom which is from beneath would put "peaceable" first, and, therefore, it can never be pure.
[12] It is impossible to over-estimate the wisdom of the Holy Ghost, as seen in the way in which he treats the ordinance of baptism, in the above remarkable passage. We know the evil use which has been made of baptism; we know the false place it has gotten in the thoughts of many; we know how that the efficacy, which belongs only to the blood of Christ, has been attributed to the water of baptism; we know how the regenerating grace of the Holy Ghost has been transferred to water baptism; and, with the knowledge of all this, we cannot but be struck with the way in which the Spirit of God guards the subject, by stating, that it is not the mere washing away of the filth of the flesh, as by water, "but the answer of a good conscience toward God," which "answer" we get, not by baptism, how important soever it may be, as an ordinance of the kingdom, but "by the resurrection of Jesus Christ," "who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification."
Baptism, I need hardly say, as an ordinance of divine institution, and in its divinely-appointed place, is most important and deeply significant; but when we find men, in one way or another, putting the figure in place of the substance, we are bound to expose the work of Satan by the light of the word of God.
[13] I would here mention, for my reader's prayerful consideration, a thought very familiar to the minds of those who have specially given themselves to the study of what is called "dispensational truth." It has reference to Enoch and Noah. The former was taken away, as we have seen, before the judgment came; whereas the latter was carried through the judgment. Now, it is thought that Enoch is a figure of the Church, who shall be taken away before human evil reaches its climax, and before the divine judgment falls thereon. Noah, on the other hand, is a figure of the remnant of Israel, who shall be brought through the deep waters of affliction, and through the fire of judgment, and led into the full enjoyment of millennial bliss, in virtue of God's everlasting covenant. I may add, that I quite receive this thought in reference to those two Old-Testament fathers. I consider that it has the full support of the general scope and analogy of Holy Scripture.
[14] It is interesting to look at this entire subject of the ark and deluge, in connection with that most important and deeply significant ordinance of baptism. A truly baptized person, that is, one who, as the apostle says, "obeys from the heart that type of doctrine to which he is delivered," is one, who has passed from the old world into the new, in spirit and principle, and by faith. The water rolls over his person, signifying that his old man is buried, that his place in nature is ignored, that his old nature is entirely set aside; in short, that he is a dead man. When he is plunged beneath the water, expression is given to the fact that his name, place, and existence, in nature, are put out of sight; that the flesh, with all that pertained thereto, its sins, its iniquities, its liabilities, is buried in the grave of Christ, and never can come into God's sight again.
Again, when he rises up out of the water, expression is given to the truth, that he only comes up as the possessor of a new life, even the resurrection life of Christ. If Christ had not been raised from the dead, the believer could not come up out of the water, but should remain buried beneath its surface, as the simple expression of the place which righteously belongs to nature. But, inasmuch as Christ rose from the dead, in the power of a new life, having entirely put away our sins, we also come up out of the water; and, in so doing, set forth the fact, that we are put, by the grace of God, and through the death of Christ, in full possession of a new life, to which divine righteousness inseparably attaches. "We are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (See Rom. vi. and Col. ii. _passim_. Comp. also 1 Peter iii. 18-22.) All this makes the institution of baptism one of immense importance, and pregnant with meaning.