Previously, we have shown how God chose water as the dividing line between life and death for those in Noah’s day. We also considered how water - the Red Sea - was the dividing line between bondage and freedom for the Israelites fleeing from the Egyptians. The relationship between these two instances and baptism is easily seen in the New Testament. Peter wrote that baptism was the antitype of Noah and his family being saved by water (1 Peter 3:18-22) and Paul described the Israelite’s crossing the Red Sea as a baptism into Moses (1 Cor. 10:1-4). Paul further describes baptism as a release from the bondage of sin (Rom. 6:1-7). In this last article on God’s use of water, we will consider the account of Naaman as recorded in Second Kings 5.

Naaman was the commander of the army of the king of Syria. He was also a great and honorable man, but he was a leper. Through a series of events he came before Elisha, the prophet of God, in hopes of being cured of his leprosy. Elisha told Namaan to dip in the river Jordan seven times and he would be clean. Namaan, at first, refused to do so, but when he finally humbled himself and did as Elisha told him, he was cleansed (2 Kings 5:1-14). Once again, we see God using water as the dividing line - this time between clean and unclean.

It is interesting that Luke recorded the events of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who was later known as Paul, writing that God sent a man by the name of Ananias to Saul with the following message: "‘Brother Saul, receive your sight.’ And at that same hour I looked up at him. Then he said, 'The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth. For you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins [emp. rb], calling on the name of the Lord'" (Acts 22:13-16 NKJV). Thus we have a man with a message from God to Saul, "be baptized and wash away your sins." Just as Namaan’s dipping in the Jordan River was the dividing line God had chosen between uncleanness and cleanness from leprosy, for Saul baptism was the dividing between uncleanness and cleanness spiritually. The apostle Paul well remembered his conversion for he wrote to Titus some years later, "For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit [emp. rb], whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:3-7 NKJV). We only need to compare the previous passages to John 3:5, "...unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God [emp. rb]," to realized that baptism, as a necessity for salvation, harmonizes with the total teaching of the Gospel.

In these three articles dealing with God’s use of water, we have shown how God chose water to be the dividing line between death and life, bondage and freedom, uncleanness and cleanness. These instances prefigured God’s use of water as represented in baptism as His dividing line for those who would be New Testament Christians. Therefore, baptism is the dividing line God has chosen between spiritual death and life, bondage to or freedom from sin, and the uncleanness from the stain of sin or the washing away of that stain.