Baptism

The Ten Words begin on a note of redemption. Yahweh saves all of Israel out of Egypt. In the battle of the gods Yahweh heralds He alone is God of gods. The God over the Egyptian gods, the one true and living God.

 “Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment.” (Ex. 12:12) By "great judgements" “the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord." Yahweh promises to vindicate His name by bruising the head of Pharaoh's host.

Hapi the Egyptian god of the Nile was a water bearer. Yahweh opposes him and turns his Nile blood red and lifeless.

Hecket the Egyptian goddess of water, fertility, and renewal was a frog-headed god. She subdued the frogs and ensured vivacious agriculture. Yahweh confronts Hecket by letting loose the frogs on the people of Egypt. Not a single Israelite harmed.

Similarly Yahweh bruises the heads of the other Egyptian gods, of Geb and Khepri, of Hathor and Isis, of Nut, Seth and Ra, and finally of Pharaoh - The God of Egyptian gods. Yahweh topples the egalitarian hierarchy of Egyptian principalities and powers proclaiming to Egypt and the whole world the He alone is the true God.

Yahweh triumphs over Pharaoh by slaying his firstborn. Blood is spilt as Pharaoh's power to protect his people is proved powerless before Yahweh's might.

The exodus out of Egypt signals the binding of the strong man. Pharaoh incapacitated by a show of Yahweh's strength, the God of Israel leads them by the hand out of the land of the oppressor. Through the waters of baptism they go...

It was by the staff of Moses that Yahweh worked His great judgements. Moses was the designated Word through whom Yahweh would communicate to Egypt and to Israel His great might as the only true God. The staff of Moses designating that it is not Moses man alone, but Moses as reliant on Yahweh whose strength is the staff, and by which Yahweh might work the work of redemption. 

The battle won, yet Pharaoh still pursues. In a final rouse Pharaoh rallies his hosts and sacrifices to his gods to make certain that Yahweh does not get the last word. 

Israel, in the wilderness of Egypt, before the Red Sea, with Pharaoh's legions on their tale begins to doubt. “Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”” (Ex. 14:12)

In the face of their doubt Yahweh, unhindered by their unbelief, manifests His might over the waters through Moses' staff. “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.‭‭" (Ex 14:21)

Chaos tamed, leviathan slayed, that Israel might pass through; the angel of Yahweh going before them through the waters of darkness, lighting their path as they cross by night. 

Yahweh works His power again and the chaos of the sea swallows up Pharaoh's host whole. The Leviathan protected the righteous but destroyed the wicked.

 “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea... For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”

Yahweh finally frees Israel from slavery to oppressive Pharaoh by the power of baptism. No longer are they bound to their old world, where their slave master was harsh. Now, by baptism, they are brought into a new world, where they can choose that day to serve a new Master. Yahweh redeems them, and secures it by baptism, so that they can serve him. Will they? In the wilderness before freedom they were plagued by unbelief, in the wilderness of freedom will they as well?

Baptism brings us into a wilderness of freedom from sin-slavery. We must by faith enjoy it lest by our unbelief we be swallowed whole into the chaos of baptismal Leviathan.

soli deo gloria