<p>10:1<em>&nbsp;Brothers, I would not have you ignorant- </em>Paul told the Corinthians that he didn&rsquo;t want them to be &ldquo;ignorant&rdquo; of the powerful implications of the fact that they had been baptized into the Son of God, and were on their way to His Kingdom, being in an exactly analogous situation to Israel as they walked through the wilderness. He uses a word which is the Greek word &lsquo;agnostic&rsquo;. He didn&rsquo;t want them to be agnostic, to be indifferent, to shrug their shoulders, at the bitingly insistent relevance of the type to them. And that type of Israel in the wilderness is most applicable to us, &ldquo;upon whom the ends of the ages are come&rdquo; (:11) than to any other generation. Indifference seems to have been a problem in Corinth as it is for us. By contrast, God is provoked to jealousy by our indifference to Him (1 Cor. 10:22), seeing every self-reliant act as an implicit statement that we are &ldquo;stronger than he&rdquo;. He would not have us &ldquo;ignorant&rdquo; or agnostic about the implications of the basic doctrines we believe (1 Thess. 4:13; Rom. 1:13; 2:4; 7:1; 11:25; 1 Cor. 12:1; 2 Cor. 1:8; 1 Thess. 4:13), nor &lsquo;agnostic&rsquo; to the fact we have been baptized and risen with Christ (Rom. 6:3). These are all things that we are almost too familiar with; and yet he urges us, down through the centuries, to never be indifferent and agnostic to these things.</p><p><em>That our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea- </em>Israel left Egypt, passed through the baptism of the Red Sea, and then walked through the wilderness- all in enacted parable of our spiritual experience. They then passed through the Jordan, and set foot in the land of promise (cp. our entry to the Kingdom at the judgment seat). But they had not been circumcised in the wilderness- possibly suggesting that the new Israel will not have cut off the flesh as they should have done in their wilderness walk. It is stressed at least five times in Joshua 5 that Joshua himself personally circumcised each of them, and then they kept the Passover. This would seem to tellingly point forward to our coming to the end of the wilderness walk of this life, and then entering into the Kingdom; to have a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus (cp. Joshua), who performs the intensely personal operation of rolling back and cutting off the flesh, and then we sit down together and keep the Passover, as the Lord clearly intimated we would (Mt. 26:29). &nbsp; This is how personal relationships in the Kingdom of God will be.</p><p>Israel crossing the Red Sea is one of the most well-known types of baptism / the new creation. They were being chased by the Egyptians, and were trapped against the sea. The only way of escape was for that water to open and allow them to go through it. If any Israelite had refused to go through, there would have been no salvation. Going further, it is evident that the people of Israel as a body were going through the death and resurrection experience of the Lord Jesus, through the process of the Passover and Exodus through the Red Sea:</p><div align=center><table border=0 cellspacing=5 cellpadding=0 width=90%>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td width=15%>            <p>            <strong>Israel</strong></p>            </td>            <td width=15%>            <div align=center><strong>Abib</strong></p>            </td>            <td width=14%>            <div align=center><strong>Jesus</strong></p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=15%>            <p>Ate Passover (Ex. 12:6)</p>            </td>            <td width=15%>            <div align=center>14th</p>            </td>            <td width=14%>            <p>Died on the cross as Passover lambs slain</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=15%>            <p>Left Egypt the next day (Num. 33:3)</p>            </td>            <td width=15%>            <div align=center>15th&nbsp;</p>            </td>            <td width=14%>                        </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=15%>            <p>Journeyed three days (Ex. 8:27)</p>            </td>            <td width=15%>            <div align=center>15th-17th</p>            </td>            <td width=14%>            <p>Jesus three days in the tomb</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=15%>            <p>Came through the Red Sea&nbsp;</p>            </td>            <td width=15%>            <div align=center>17th&nbsp;</p>            </td>            <td width=14%>            <p>Resurrected</p>            </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table></div><p>As we come out of the baptismal water, we really are united with the resurrected Lord- a new creation. His newness of life, His deliverance and successful exodus from the world- all this becomes ours. Israel were slaves in Egypt, and then after the Red Sea baptism became slaves of God. Ps. 68:18 pictures them as a train of captives being led out of Egypt, merging into the image of a train of a captivity led into a different captivity. Romans 6 powerfully brings home the point: we were slaves of sin, but now are become slaves of righteousness.</p><p>The cloud above them was water, and the water of the Red Sea on each side of them, giving them as it were a complete immersion without getting wet. But there&rsquo;s a sense in which baptism is ongoing, and it was for them. They are described as being &ldquo;under the cloud&rdquo; throughout the journey to the promised land (Ps. 105:39; Num. 14:14). We are to die for and in Christ and experience His resurrection life breaking through into our mortal lives as an ongoing process (2 Cor. 4:10,11).</p><p>Try to see the historical events which occurred to Israel as relevant to you personally. They were &quot;types of us&quot;. Note how 1 Cor. 10:1 speaks of &quot;<em>our</em> fathers&quot;- even when Paul is writing to Gentiles. He intended them to see in the Jewish fathers a type of themselves. Israel's keeping of the Passover implied that each subsequent Israelite had personally been redeemed that night. All down the years, they were to treat the stranger fairly: &quot;for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt&quot; (Ex. 23:9). The body of believers, the body of Christ, is not only world-wide geographically at this point in time; it stretches back over time as well as distance, to include all those who have truly believed. This is why David found such inspiration from the history of Israel in his own crises (e.g. Ps. 77).</p>