Paul makes an amazing point here, one that is all too easy not to take seriously. A lot of people came out Egypt. They experienced various physical blessings based on their spiritual relationship to God through His promises to their fathers. They were baptized, in a sense, when they walked through the Red Sea and when the pillar of cloud covered them to protect them from the Egyptians. Not a bad physical blessing! They essentially walked into and out of the jaws of death as they went through the Red Sea; they came through completely unharmed. After that, they all participated in a sort of Lord’s Supper experience in the desert. They ate “spiritual” food and drank “spiritual” drink – manna and water from a rock! Now, neither of these were actually spiritual. What I mean is that they were both physical; they could be picked up, scooped up, tasted, chewed, cooked, drunk. The manna and water took care of the peoples’ physical needs.
So how were they spiritual? They were spiritual because of their source. Paul says that they came from Christ. In fact, Paul says that the rock from which they got the water was Christ. Now what does that mean? Was Christ physically present there in the desert, appearing as a rock? No. But Christ was with the covenant community of Israel. Whether they knew it or not, they were depending on Him. When they found manna on the ground as God told Moses they would, this physical blessing appeared only because of God – only because of Christ. The manna wasn’t there naturally; it showed up because Christ was providing for those He had covenanted to take care of. When water flowed from the rock – enough water to satisfy the whole community flowing from a rock that had not been the source of water just moments before – this was not natural; the water came by the hand of Christ providing for His covenant children. So yes, both blessings were physical. Even the baptism in the cloud and in the sea were physical. But who received these physical blessings, and how did they receive them? The Israelites! Only those who were a part of the Israelite community! Only those who were a part of the group leaving Egypt specifically because God was setting them free to worship Him. And how did they receive these physical blessings? They received them the only way they could: by the gracious hand of God. The Egyptians tried to take for themselves some of the blessings that God had promised only to His children; they tried to pass through the Red Sea in opposition to God’s covenant community, defying death as God had given only His community the right to do – and the Egyptians died. Even though these were physical blessings, they were not for everyone. They were spiritual physical blessings – physical blessings for God’s community only.
Today, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are still spiritual physical blessings. Anyone can take a bath and clean off; only for God’s community does a dip represent sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection. Also, God provides the blessing of nourishment to believers and unbelievers alike so that anyone can eat food; only for God’s covenant community, though, does eating food and drinking wine/juice mean spiritual fellowship with God and other believers through (and only through) the death of Jesus Christ. As believers, we should be very thankful that God has given us these spiritual physical blessings. They are a provision only God could provide, not because water and food are in such short supply, but because they teach us about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only perfect sacrifice, whose righteousness only God could supply to us. As a community of believers, we are utterly dependent on Christ. We must remember this!
Because the fact that we have been baptized or that we eat the Lord’s Supper is completely unhelpful apart from complete dependence on Jesus Christ.
After describing the spiritual physical blessings the Israelites received, Paul points to the fate of those who rejected their spiritual relationship with God: they died. The fact that they were a part of this community was not enough to save them. The fact that they had experienced God’s physical blessings of protection by cloud, defying death through the sea, food for those willing to pick it up and water by the bucketful was not enough. When they forgot the spiritual meaning behind God’s provision, He killed them. When they rejected the spiritual relationship He had offered them by their idolatry, sexual immorality, grumbling and testing, God destroyed them.
Today among those who claim to be Christians it is the same. There are plenty (though I cannot tell who they are) who are glad to participate in the Christian covenant community and its blessings, but who will one day have people asking what went wrong. Perhaps they view the Christian community as a self-help plan. Perhaps they grew up in it, but don’t really understand it. Perhaps they do understand, at least intellectually, but don’t care anymore. Perhaps some of them have ulterior motives and think that they can manipulate the church for their own benefit. Who knows what all the options are? But these people get baptized and eat the Lord’s Supper without understanding that these physical blessings are worthless apart from Jesus Christ. It is only because of our relationship with the one who died for us and rose for us that there is any meaning in getting dunked or any significance in eating a tiny piece of bread and drinking a tiny cup of juice. Without that relationship, all the physical blessings are pointless! They cannot and will not save us. If we reject God by valuing what the world has to offer us more than what He has already given us, by being sexually immoral in blatant disobedience to Him, by questioning whether God is really with us, by complaining that He has not provided enough for us – if we do these things, God will destroy us whether we have been baptized in water or not. He will cast us away whether we have eaten the physical Lord’s Supper or not.
We must hold on to the spiritual side of our physical blessings. We must put our hope in Jesus Christ by faith.
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