Our Lord on earth said “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished!”

If you remember it was John the Baptist who ceremonially baptized our Lord. So what does He mean “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished”?

Baptism is a crossover Jesus Christ had to face to retrieve the life for mankind that was lost when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and became dead to the things of God.

Christ’s first baptism was as a man and His union was with the Holy Spirit to retrieve the life Adam and Eve lost, for us to realize the same thing for ourselves. That through our confession at baptism, that we buried our old self to be raised newness of life (not to be mistaken for being raised to Heavenly places). Since the fall and departure from God happened in the spirit of the mind (as evidenced by no broken bones) so too with the resurrection. It took place in the spirit. It’s a reversal of that fall, and newness of life as a thing of the spirit, that our resurrection happens in our invisible part as well.

But this baptism that had Yeshua distressed, was more than ceremonial like ours is. He had to bare the brunt and the punishment for our sin, for all of us to share in His accomplish task of the cross, the life that Baptism symbolizes. It is because we now identify with Christ instead of Adam, that we are a new creation because it is then that we receive our do-over.

This baptism that had Jesus “distressed until it was accomplished”, was The baptism all others relied upon for the efficacy of our salvation (or salvage of the fall). That if He didn’t do it, meaning Him taking our sin and death with all its pain and consequences on to Himself  atthe cross, for every human that would ever live, then the salvation of Gods people from creation would not come to into fruition. But He also took on the sins of all mankind. (John 3.16)

Yeshua is that savior for all of mankind for all time, and the author and finisher of salvation as a result of this one act on behalf of all of mankind. Because this baptism, or crossover, was the payment and proof that when you acknowledge this payment (His work at the cross) was Him paying for and taking on your death (not so much the human death but the one of being dead to God) for you to live Eternally with the Father, to never need to discuss sin ever again. Wow! That is IF you can receive it.

This is why 1 John says “whoever sins has neither seen Him or known Him” because that’s who He is. His name is salvation.

If we trace the name Jesus back to His first callings, it was Yah-shua translated into Joshua then Jesus.

In truth, the Hebrew language has no equivalent letter or sound for the “J” like in the name Jesus. The phrase “Yah saves” from the Hebrew covenant comes from “Yah-shua”, so you can understand the confusion. Not that God doesn’t hear you when you use other names because His name is Emmanuel too. It is not so much a spelling or pronunciation, but the expression of the heart that God sees and smiles over.

And we know that Emmanuel means “God is with us” and that is Jesus, Yeshua and all the other variants. So let everyone who calls on the name of Christ depart from inequity. After all in the Revelation He was described as one on a white horse, “whose name no man can say” if you want to contend about this.

We see that Paul pleaded with those in Corinth saying “be ye reconciled to the Father. For He made Him (Christ) who knew no sin, to become our sin for us to be His righteousness (and perfect standing by being) in Him (as opposed to reckoning with Adam).

For this reason scripture also says that “even the Angels in Heaven behold the face of the Father in these little ones”. Meaning us, we become the protected species.

This is all as the result of that one time payment from Him who was fully man and fully God. He is the only one capable to arbitrate for both species because of this. Even as we’re told “for there is one mediator between God and man, the man (from God) Christ Jesus/Yeshua. Amen!

He was distressed because “it was Him who by the grace of God tasted death for everyone”, especially those who believe. Hence the cross. He took our death there so we wouldn’t have to. He did not deserve it, hence John 3.16

Oh the love God has for us. He took our sin and death and grounded it out st the cross, so that “to as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become His people”, who bore our pain and judgment in exchange for a new life free from the fear of death and all its threats and entanglements. Amen!

The entanglements are all the services, provisions and providers of the gods of this age that try to assay the fear of death for their financial gain, of Mammon the other God many work feverishly for.

So in correctly defining Christs bodily transition He was “distressed until it is accomplished”. This too was given to show us how to do it, not by dying like He did, but by reconning your old person hanging on the cross by faith.

As we vowed at our conversion, our crossover and baptism by water, where we ceremonially bury our old person symbolized by washing off our old person in the likeness of the first parents in Eden, to be brought back up out of the water and made new. New not in the sense of living a dead life waiting for another Jesus, but new in the sense that death was paved over for us to quit focusing on that and to live from here on out eternally awakening to more and more of this new life given to us of enjoying Gods life that’s exclusively His as different from the one you experience with your carnal features. We call this, life in the spirit.

You see baptism by water signifies the washing off of our old self, to be raised a new self, like His self. That’s what it means to be Christ-like or godly. Its not a form of religious piety, but a freedom from Satan sin and death. Let Satan accusations be a fading echo in the past. Recon it so.

Our baptism of washing off the old is when we started this journey as pilgrims and sojourners not on earth, but through the promises, our “promise land”. And our journey is complete when we are totally reconciled with the various aspects of the Godhead body. This is our transition and full transfiguration to be made one with the Father and all the assorted descriptions we’ve come to know. We are to realize and actualize them as becometh our own from our knowledge of scripture and the power of Gods Holy Spirit, while we sojourn in our human bodies. For this reason “in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead body, and you are complete in Him who is head over all powers and principalities” as are we too!!  If you’ve stayed the course through the various revelations and trials to see if you hold on to what God gives you, or if you accept the placebo called “the second coming”. A phrase xnot found once in scripture.

This is the gospel and the good news is that if you are participating you are saved already “having escaped the corruption that is in the world” (2 Peter 1).

We now follow the promptings of Gods Word and Holy Spirit and are no longer led around by fear. You see we now “know all things”. Not that we know all things all the time, but we know what we need to know when we need to know it because we have God inside us all along the way. This is our intell talking.

We will not be caught off guard or surprised. Because God is our shield, and He knows all things, and nothing can slip past Him as though He has a blind spot. He is the “Lo, I will never leave you or forsake you”. He’s got you covered.

He is the collection of coverages the world tries to sell you through multiple providers that offer you wealth, health, safety and such. Much like Josephs coat torn and dispersed by beasts. And again pictured by Christ’s ond piece coat ripped and distributed, and sown back together as a packaged deal through the gospel.

So as pilgrims and sojourners, we are always on the move in the Spirit. “Let us go up from here” said the Christ, in word and spirit.

We have the interesting account of Christ riding to the temple on the foal of a colt and the onlookers throwing their garments on and around him. Garment is a French word and means equipment. So we can understand the garments as a semblance of trade clothing. Like farmers, teachers, and sales persons. Those are vaneers. So we know these come off too, maybe only in the proverbial sense that whatever we do we serve Christ first, that part of God that became one of us to show us how to do it.

We think of Joshua who being instructed to take the people into the promises, but before the crossover and angel of God stood opposite him, in contrast “as the commander and chief I have come forth”. And much like Moses who was instructed to take off his sandals for “where you stand is holy ground”, so too Joshua encountered the one who remains invisible to the carnal senses. But this one took on a simultude of the Son of God to understand our plight and His purpose. To leed us into the charge of taking God’s promises by force, not really taking land on earth but our inheritance with the Almighty, laid out in scripture.

Like it’s said of you in the new, the Kingdom is preached and the violent take it by force”. So you must through many trials and testings, enter the Kingdom. So we hope you aren’t just watching on the side line for that is disgraceful. The exodus from this age is upon us.

The Kingdom of God is at hand in this way. But this too has a closing episode. For this one I’ll stay seated with the Father who saved from that too. Amen!