The Text
Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float (2 Kings 6:6).
A Review: Baptism Saves
At this point, if you’ve got sound doctrine, you know that ‘baptism now saves you’ (1 Peter 3:21). You also know that you must trust in Christ without reservation to qualify for baptism. Anybody who has any doubt that Jesus must take control of their life is not ready to enter the New Covenant.
‘We have been buried with Jesus through baptism’ (Romans 6:4). That means that only those who have been baptized have been ‘crucified with Christ’ (Galatians 2:20). The Scriptures say:
Through baptism we are ‘united with Jesus in the likeness of his death’ (Romans 6:5).
Christ died for you before you were baptized, but prior to your baptism you had not yet died with him. The instant you were baptized is when his death was applied to your life. In baptism, the death of Christ officially counted for you.
Bad Before Baptism
Prior to baptism, your sins had not yet been forgiven because baptism is specifically ‘for the forgiveness of your sins’ (Acts 2:38). Prior to your baptism, it’s as if you were naked because ‘all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ’ (Galatians 3:27).
And don’t forget that there was a decree of judgment against you, based upon the sins you had committed in your previous life (Colossians 2:14-15). Only when you were ‘buried with him in baptism’ (Colossians 2:12) was that decree nailed to the Cross! That’s why it says that in baptism God...
... canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us’ and he ‘nailed it to the Cross’ (Colossians 2:14).
Consider what a momentous event your baptism was!
Believe with All Your Heart
Your baptism was the moment your sins were cancelled. Of course, the remission of sins can only be obtained by someone who believes ‘with all their heart’ (Acts 8:37). So, we are saved by faith in Christ Jesus, but we are only saved when that faith is a full commitment. In other words, the expression faith in Christ must be defined as a covenant and devotion manifesting itself in baptism.
If a person does indeed trust Jesus without any reservations, they are welcome to be baptized to receive forgiveness—and that forgiveness will be for the sins they committed previously in their life (2 Peter 1:9). Those prior sins will be ‘washed away’ in baptism (Acts 26:16) because baptism is ‘the washing of regeneration’ (Titus 3:5).
The person who gets baptized will obtain a new clear conscience—a ‘good conscience’ (1 Peter 3:21). They will no longer call bad things “good” or good things “bad.” They will understand right and wrong like never before.
Makes Your Faith Complete
Baptism is indispensable for salvation. As Jesus said, ‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved’ (Mark 16:15). Baptism perfects your faith and completes it. As Jesus said again, if anyone is not ‘born of water… he cannot enter the Kingdom of God’ (John 3:5).
Faith alone is worth nothing. We cannot be only hearers of the Word who deceive themselves—we must be doers (James 2:2). The doers of the Law will be justified before God, not the hearers (Romans 2:13).
Baptism is an act which glorifies the righteousness of God. It’s the step of faith a sinner must take to be saved. It’s a work we must perform because ‘faith without works is dead’ (James 2:17, 26) and we are ‘saved by works and not by faith alone’ (James 2:24).
Saved Through Water
The point is that we are saved through water—and yes, that’s an expression the Bible uses to define baptism, ‘saved through water’ (1 Peter 3:20). We exercise our faith in the Cross of Jesus Christ by immersing in water. Our faith in Christ is made complete by the act of immersion.
You must have both faith and baptism to be saved from sin. Only people who have manifested their faith in Christ through baptism will be raised from the Dead. That’s why the Holy Spirit was very careful to use the conditional if when he tells us:
… if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection (Romans 6:5; NASB).
You unite with Jesus in his death first in baptism because you go under the water—a picture of burial. The old you is gone in baptism. The old you dies with Christ when you are immersed. That’s why Paul reminds us that ‘… we have been buried with him through baptism into death…’ (Romans 6:4) and that we are ‘…buried with him in baptism…’ (Colossians 2:12).
Wood and Water
The combination of wood and water is a recurring theme of the Bible. You’ll recall that we have Noah, who entered the wooden ark by faith. Immediately after he entered the wooden vessel, he passed through water. Through wood and water Noah and his family were saved.
Then we have Moses. Moses ministered with a staff. When he lifted up his wooden staff, God opened the Red Sea. All the Israelites who passed through the sea were saved. They were set free from Pharaoh’s slavery. After that victory of wood and water, they began their march to the Promised Land. We also begin our path to the Kingdom at baptism. It's the start of the Christian life, the narrow gate.
We also have Psalm 1. It speaks of a man who is like a tree. That man, compared to wood, is fruitful for one reason: he is planted by streams of water. That man is:
… a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither (Psalm 1:3).
The Rulebook on Evangelism
In addition, God has provided the best examples of evangelism from the supreme “rulebook” on evangelism: the Book of Acts. Every person we read about in Acts who manifested saving faith in Jesus was subsequently baptized in water. Let’s consider the examples:
the 3,000 converts present at Pentecost
the Samaritan multitudes
the Ethiopian eunuch (who brought the Gospel to Africa)
Cornelius and company (the first Gentile believers)
the greatest apostle of all time—Paul
Paul defines his conversion as having taken place in baptism.
Paul states that he repented, believed, and then ‘... got up and was baptized’ (Acts 9:18). Paul testified that the man who evangelized him told Paul ‘…be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name’ (Acts 22:16). With that statement we realize that the expression ‘… he who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Romans 10:13) is fulfilled in baptism.
Yes, in baptism, you invoke the name of the Lord. It doesn't happen in the so-called "prayer of faith." It's not "receiving Jesus in your heart to be your personal Lord and Savior" that saves you.
From the Book of Acts let’s also not forget the salvation testimony of the Philippian jailer, his family, Lydia, and her group of worshippers. All listened to the Word of God, trusted in it, and were immediately baptized. They only celebrated their faith after they had been baptized—never before. And they were just like the twelve believers Paul met in Ephesus in Acts 19.
The same pattern is always belief and baptism.
Church Start
The Christian Church was born through baptism. On the Day of Pentecost Peter ended his sermon by saying ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins’ (Acts 2:38).
Is there any argument against baptism? No, there simply is no argument against it. Jesus himself launched his global evangelistic campaign with these words: ‘Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…’ (Matthew 28:19). Argue with Jesus if you don’t like baptism.
And if you don’t think that baptism is what we need to do to evangelize, then argue with the only man in the Bible called an evangelist, Philip (Acts 21:8). He preached the Gospel by committing people through baptism.
Philip… told him the Good News about Jesus. As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?’ And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him (Acts 8:35-38).
… when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized (Acts 8:12-13).
Interpretation Made Easy
With the entire Bible as our context, we are ready to read and interpret Elisha’s floating axe head miracle. Interpretation is made easy once the principles of salvation are laid out: You must put your faith in the Cross and be baptized to be saved. We trust that you’re clear on these principles now.
Notice how similar Elisha’s story is to the other stories of the Old Testament: wood combines with water with salvation as a result. But the funny thing about Elisha’s story is that an iron axe head was saved, not a human soul.
As one of them [the prophets] was cutting down a tree, the iron axe head fell into the water. ‘Oh no, my lord!’ he cried out. ‘It was borrowed!’
The man of God asked, ‘Where did it fall?’
When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float. ‘Lift it out,’ he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it (2 Kings 6:5-7).
The Interpretation
Your soul is the axe head. The axe head separated from the wooden handle—and the handle represents your body. Your soul slips away from your body when you die. The two disconnect in death. That’s when your soul plunges into the depths of the Earth.
Yes, once you die, your soul descends to the Realm of the Dead, Hades.
The axe head that fell into the Jordan sank into the mud. The mud was on the bottom of the river. The axe head was “stuck in the muck.” It would have been impossible to recover but for a miracle.
So it is with your soul. You need a miracle to get out of Hades. It’s impossible to recover a person’s soul unless they get a resurrection—and resurrecting the Dead is something only God can do.
God could have done any miracle he wanted. He could have sent a lightning bolt from Heaven, and have rescued the axe head with lighting. He could have sent a tornado to dry up the river bed and toss the axe head into the sky, plopping it down at Elisha’s feet.
God also could have invented the submarine right there on the spot. He could have advanced technology 2000 years and created a submarine for Elisha to sit in it and pluck the axe head out of the mud with robotic arms. I'm sure people would have been impressed!
But no. The miracle God chose to save the axe head was wood with water. It was the wood-water combination that made the axe head float. The wood represents the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The water is baptism. That’s the formula for rescuing a soul from Hades.
It’s also God’s solution for saving an iron axe head from a muddy riverbed.
Exhortations
Peter told the people who heard him at Pentecost: ‘Be saved from this perverse generation’ (Acts 2:40). Your salvation—the rescue of your soul—consists of two phases: 1) reuniting your soul and body, and 2) returning your soul and body to the hands of your owner, God. Those two things must take place for you to be saved. Anything less than these is not salvation.
More than 90% of the time, the term salvation is used in the future tense in the New Testament. Make sure your future salvation is secured now. Get the wood and the water.
Remember how the prophet cried out ‘It was borrowed’? Well, you’re on loan to yourself. ‘You are not your own. You were bought with a price’ (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
So you don’t belong to yourself. You belong to God. Therefore, you must be returned to him. And he expects you to be returned complete—body and soul!
Do yourself a favor and don’t close your eyes to baptism in the Old Testament. On the contrary, you need to deal with the Scriptures according to Augustine’s axiom “The New Testament in the Old concealed. The Old Testament in the New revealed.”
Jesus Prayed / God Heard
In conclusion, if you’re not taken up in the Rapture, your only other option is to die and go to Hades. If that is your fate, you most certainly will cry out to be rescued from that place. It’s not a place designed for us to spend eternity. Hell, which is a section of Hades, was created for the Devil and his angels.
Jesus was in Hades for three days (the Paradise and the Hell sides), but he didn’t enjoy it enough to want to stay. You wouldn't want to stay there either.
… [Jesus] descended to the Lower Regions of the Earth (Ephesians 4:9; LEB).
He [Jesus] was put to death in the body but made alive in the spirit. After being made alive [in the spirit], he went [to Hell] and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah… (1 Peter 3:18-20)
And there, in Hades, didn’t Jesus cry out to God to save him? Yes. Here’s Jesus’ prayer, a prayer he borrowed from a psalm:
… you will not abandon me to the Realm of the Dead, you will not let your Holy One see decay (Acts 2:27; Psalm 16:10).
And here’s what God did in response to Jesus’ prayer:
God raised him [Jesus] from the Dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for Death to keep its hold on him (Acts 2:24).
You, LORD, brought me up from the Realm of the Dead; you spared me from going down to the Pit (Psalm 30:3).
Like Jesus, you too will seek to escape from Hades.
Prepare Your Escape
Prepare now for the experience of Hades. Prepare your escape now. The handful of men who ever attempted to escape Alcatraz Island (an infamous prison near San Francisco, USA) only had two things that could get them freedom: wood and water.
A group of three escaped Alcatraz in 1962 and nobody knows what became of them. But the two things that would have made their escape a success were wood and water.
Be prepared to free your soul from Hades with wood and water. You must believe in the Cross and be baptized. Make sure that you’ve done that! Make sure you own the wood and the water. If you do, Christ owns you, and his victory will be yours as well!
… the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his [Jesus’] voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the Resurrection of Life... (John 5:28-29; NKJV)
I [Jesus] was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of Death and Hades (Revelation 1:18).
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