Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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We have already seen that, after Moses, no one in Israel’s history except John the Baptist was ever sent by God to ceremonially wash others. Moses washed Aaron and his sons as part of their ordination as God’s priests -Lev. 8, 9). John washed whoever in Israel repented of their sins, and for the very same reason that Moses washed Aaron and his four sons! This is something that John himself could not have understood about his own work. What John was doing was part of a process whereby those he baptized would become priests to God, just as Aaron and his sons did.
John’s baptism in water was a shadow of the baptism of the holy Ghost which Christ gives. It is by that holy Ghost baptism that we are made priests to God. John wrote in the first chapter of Revelation that through his own blood, Jesus “made of us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” -Rev. 1:6). In other words, John was a “prophet like unto Moses” only because he was a prophet like unto Christ, the one who truly fulfilled Moses’ words.
The reason Moses washed Aaron and his sons was to prepare them to be anointed to offer acceptable sacrifices to God. And as long as they obeyed His Law and kept themselves pure, the sacrifices they made were acceptable to God. The reason John the Baptist baptized people was to prepare them to be washed with the holy Ghost Jesus died for us to have, so that we might be able to make acceptable, spiritual sacrifices to God. And as long as we walk in the Spirit and keep ourselves pure, the sacrifices we offer to the Lord will be acceptable to our heavenly Father.