xvn. THE STONES BURIED IN THE JORDAN. 309 



water was baptised in the Jordan, and thus fulfilled 

 all righteousness, not after the manner of God, but 

 after the manner of man ; made sin for us who knew 

 no sin. In that baptism He passed from His obscure 

 life of preparation to His public life of service. The 

 rite was the gate through which He entered upon His 

 path of warfare and sorrow. And as He crossed this 

 boundary, or crisis of His life, there were experiences 

 in His case too that corresponded with the two memo- 

 rials connected with the passage of the Jordan by the 

 Israelites. There was the identification of Himself 

 with us as a sinner, who occupied our place and en- 

 dured our penalty, indicated by the flowing of the 

 waters of the Jordanic baptism over Him ; and there 

 was the personal consecration of Himself to His life of 

 sacrifice, and the approval of it given by the audible 

 voice of the Father, and the descent upon Him of the 

 Holy Ghost like a dove. 



All baptism is in a spiritual sense the crossing of 

 a boundary. When a child is baptised it crosses a 

 boundary between nature and grace between ignor- 

 ance and knowledge. And when in later life we 

 are baptised with a spiritual baptism, born again of 

 water and the Spirit, we cross the boundary between 

 spiritual death and life from the kingdom of Satan 

 to that kingdom which is not meat and drink, but 

 righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 

 Now the river of baptism is a river of death. In 

 crossing it we die to sin and live to righteousness. 

 In entering into the new life the old life perishes. 



