THE MECHANICS OF BAPTISM - SYMBOLS OF ENTRY INTO THE PROMISED LAND OR PARADISE

I was talking with a dear friend, and one of the few that enjoys an hour of just hashing over the mechanics and symbolism of the deep doctrines.  These are not questions of who the Holy Ghost is or whether or not He will get a body one day.  These are the working, deep dark mysteries.

One that we hashed over tonight and I began to put together is the symbolism of baptism - as it relates to the prophets and Christ.

I mentioned in an earlier post about my Jewish friend whose ancestors fled Jerusalem in Lehi's day, boarded two ships and were wrecked on the coast of India.  There, over 2500+ years, the seven survivors of that group bred into over 250,000 people.  The synagogue that is still there in Mumbai has a baptismal font in the front courtyard.  The font is waist deep and has one set of stairs near the entrance of the courtyard and one near the entrance to the synagogue.  Someone who wants to enter into the congregation enters the font on the one set of steps, is baptized by the Rabbi and then exits the font on the other set of steps and enters into the synagogue as a full member of the faith.  Folks - this is not post-Christian.  This is from nearly 600BC - a snapshot into what the people were doing in that day.  The Essenes and others (including John the Baptist) were just simply restoring what had been given to Adam and others from earlier dispensations and times.  Apostasy has always been alive and well in all epochs of time!

In seeing pre-Columbus examples of fonts in Peru and other places in the Americas, the same kind of font exists.  One where there are two sets of stairs with the applicant of the faith descending on one side with the one with authority descending from the other side (from the side of the body of Christ).  After baptism, they both leave up the stairs reserved for those who have made the covenant.  If ever put in charge of buiding design, I would make this one small change to our font designs so that both could leave the side of the adherents - and not necessarily to return to the male/female dressing rooms that are located on either side.

When Moses led the children of Israel across the waters of the deep, he left Egypt (sin) behind and headed towards the Promised Land (paradise).  Later, Joshua led the children of Israel across the River Jordan and entered the Promised Land (again on dry ground).  So here you have the symbolism of the people descending into the place of water, leaving a state of being (sin) on the one side and exiting the other side to embrace a new life under a new covenant.  So it is with baptism - as we leave our old life behind and enter the new life, or paradise with Christ.

All of the accounts of spirit world baptisms and those who have had the veil parted to see those who are simultaneously being baptized (symbolically) as we perform our labors here in the physical world, by proxy - they always describe a long line of people who are queued up on one side of the font with the names being called out, the person receiving the physical ordinance by proxy entering the font on the one side and then, after their ordinance is completed, exiting the font on the other side as the next person in line descends into the font for their turn.  Always separate entrances and exits in EVERY account. 

My wife and I both commented on this symbolism (as weakly as it was portrayed) in the new endowment film at the very end.  The connections and symbols are all there, woven like a beautiful tapestry in every thing we do in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Thus the consistent phrase in the scriptures calling for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear to shed the scales of darkness from their eyes and see the meaning around them.