Why were the baptisms required for Israel?

Why were the baptisms required for Israel?

Exodus 19:5 Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my Covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all the people, for all the Earth is mine. And you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

Exodus 19 is when Moses begins to give the Old Testament law to Israel, and he tells them right up front, God's intention with Israel is to make them a kingdom of priests.

Lev 21:16-21 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, (17) Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. (18) For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, (19) Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, (20) Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; (21) No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.

According to Leviticus 21, there were some obvious requirements placed upon the priests who were to approach to offer the offerings of the Lord. They had to be a perfect physical specimen.

Exodus 29:1 And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest's office.

Notice a procedure. There's a procedure to follow to put someone into the office of a priest. Let’s continue identifying more conditions and processes involved in this office.

Exodus 29:4 And Aaron and his sons, thou shalt bring unto the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water.

Now, to state the obvious, did the water wash away their sins? No! The water doesn't get rid of your sins. If that were true, a lost man could take a shower and then he'd be righteous. It doesn't work that way. That washing is obviously ceremonial, it's symbolic.

Exodus 29:7 Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him.

So, to put someone into the priest's office, there are various things that had to be done. They had to be without blemish, they had to be washed with water, and then they had to be anointed.

Now, as a reminder, in Exodus 19:6, God's intent with Old Testament Israel was to make them a kingdom of priests. So, when John the Baptist shows up preaching the gospel of the Kingdom, what is it about? Well, it's about the forming of the kingdom of priests.

Matthew 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

The way it is often thought in fundamentalism or evangelicalism is that Jesus Christ healed people because it was a clear miracle and a kind thing to do. Both of these things are true. It was miraculous what the Lord was doing when he was healing, and when the twelve were healing, they were given the power of signs to validate their apostolic ministry. So, it was miraculous and kind. However, it's primary purpose was to fulfill the requirements of a kingdom of priests. According to Leviticus 21, for someone to be put in the priesthood, they had to be a perfect physical specimen. Therefore, when the gospel of the kingdom is preached to Israel and there are people who are deaf, blind, and have various maladies, they need to be healed in order to become a kingdom of priests.

Additionally, in Exodus 29, to put someone in the priest's office, they also had to be washed with water. This is why the Gospel of the Kingdom is repeatedly associated with healing and water baptism. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit comes down on the day of Pentecost, which can be seen as an anointing for the kingdom church. Acts 22:16 states that baptism is symbolic of washing away sins. It is similar to the requirements for putting someone into the priesthood as mentioned in Exodus 29.

So, the short answer to the question of why baptism was required for Israel is that believing Israel was to be a kingdom of priests, and for them to properly fulfill this role, they needed to be washed with water, and anointed by oil (representing the Holy Spirit), just like Exodus 29 required, and they also needed to be healed of all their sicknesses and diseases, as indicated in Leviticus 21.

How interesting it is when one studies the Word of God and learns of the origin of these ordinances, that it puts it into a whole different perspective compared to what the modern denominational churches practice today. It is Israel who are called to be that kingdom of priests, and these ordinances are theirs to own and fulfil. Our doctrine today does not require these ordinances at all. The modern church today does not have a priestly role in God’s plan, yet they contend with others over these unnecessary practices, they embed them into their doctrines and traditions, and they judge each other on spirituality based on comparisons and performances in these things. These are all folly and vanity, simply feeding the cravings of the flesh. If the church today put as much time into studying the written Word of God as they do in practicing these unnecessary ordinances, how much wiser they would be to the things that actually belong to them, to the Body of Christ and to their spiritual vocation.