Baptized into Moses?

Watch the complete sermon here: https://www.bridges.church/messages/deeper-than-right-versus-wrong-1-corinthians-8-10/

Hey. We’ve been continuing our series through the Letter to the Corinthians this last week. We covered chapters eight and chapters 10, which mainly dealt with the issue of food sacrificed to idols and how to interact with people we disagree with, especially if the people we disagree with are wrong.

How to treat them and love them and sacrifice for them and prioritize them over ourselves. But there was a section in chapter 10 that we didn’t discuss, and that might happen some throughout our series simply because we’re covering so much in such a short period of time.

But at the beginning of chapter 10, Paul uses this phrase, baptized into Moses. So the question is, what in the world is baptized into Moses? Was that happening back when Moses was walking around? Were people dunked in the water and baptized into the name of Moses? And so this question is helpful because it sheds light really on some of what baptism is and why we do it today.

Into the name Jesus. What Paul’s referring to there is really when the people of God were formed coming out of Egypt, they walk through the sea, under the cloud, it says, and they were baptized into Moses. Baptized is a symbol of kind of changing from one life to another life. Your identity has changed at this time.

The people of God coming out of Egypt, they were changing from slaves to free people. It’s when God said, you are my people, I am your God, as he had with Abraham and Jacob as well. But now they are being formed before he ever gives them any rules. He says, these, you are my people. I have brought you out.

And so this baptism was a changing in their identity to really become the people of God. We have, you know, John the Baptist. His baptism, we’re told, was a baptism of repentance in Acts. And so it’s assuming a new identity of walking away from your previous way of life and sin, seeing your heir being baptized into repentance.

So now you’re identifying in a new way.

You have humility and contrition before God, which maybe you didn’t have before. That’s John’s baptism, then baptized into Jesus, which we are commanded to do, is we are now identifying with Jesus. We are his people. We say this every time there’s a baptism. It’s your most fundamental identity has changed.

You say, the most important thing about me that you need to know is that I am someone who is with Jesus now. I am identifying with him. Jesus. Baptism has this added symbolism of death to the old self going down into the water, resurrection to the new self. As Jesus died and was resurrected, we similarly die to self and raised to the new life that he has given us.

So baptism, one of the key defining characteristics of baptism is it’s a new identity. And there in chapter 10, the new identity is these are now the people of God who were formerly slaves in Egypt. But Paul’s point on throughout that passage is it’s a warning. He says, even though these people had become the people of God, they sinned in these ways which he lists, and then they face consequences for that.

And so his warning is, now that even though you have identified with Jesus, you can’t run headlong into sin, there will be consequences for you.

You’re not spared from those consequences just because you have identified with Jesus. Just like the people in the Old Testament there when they came out of Egypt, even though they are now identifying as the people of God under Moses leadership, you know, they still couldn’t run headlong into sin. They ran into consequences.

And so Paul says the same thing will happen to us if we ignore God. What he says to do, even though we have identified with Jesus, there will still be repercussions for our actions.

And then he says there the famous verse that no temptation has seized you except which is common to man, and God will provide a way out and provide a way to lift you up under it. And so the bigger picture for us today is not so much the technicality of what does baptism of Moses mean, but the bigger question is how do we treat sin?

How do we process our disobedience? Do we continue in our humility and contrition asking for forgiveness when we sin? Or are we blatant in it?

Are we unrepentant? And if we are, then just like the people in the Old Testament, we will face consequences. The good news is, of course, he provides a way out and he provides forgiveness and restoration whenever we do sin. So thanks for the question. We hope it’s helpful and we’ll see you next time.