For God baptism is an eternal reality. He did not make it up a mere 2,000 years ago with John the Baptist. Jewish sects were not the first to perform baptisms. Even the flood. . . even creation itself is but a mirror of baptism in heaven.
A lot of people can’t get their mind wrapped around this, because they think of baptism as exclusively redemptive in nature. That is, baptism is for forgiveness of sins, it shows a movement from death to life, so how can it have some kind of eternal reality in heaven? But this is not the correct way to approach the question.
It is difficult to get at this in a blog, but let me give you an introduction. Water, which always has ritualistic significance in these instances, is always a part of a biblical temple. For example, there was a laver outside of the Tabernacle. But the Scripture says that the Tabernacle was patterned after the heavenly tent (Hebrews 8:2, 5; 9:11, 23-24). Therefore, whatever Moses was told to create in the earthly Tabernacle has some corresponding reality in heaven. There is much that could be said here, but I want to leave you with this idea. If this is true, then it seems to me that our theology of baptism needs to begin in the heavenly realm, and change or adapt accordingly to the implications this might have. For example, if we think that baptism is only redemptive in nature, but understand that it is somehow signified in a heavenly counterpart, then we will see clearly that baptism is not only redemptive in nature. One implication of this might be that for God baptism shows forth his purity. God, who needs no redeeming, is rather himself the source of Living Waters. Another might be that before the throne of God there is a calm glassy sea, showing that in heaven the chaotic waters of the flood are calm, and that the sea is not a place of evil in heaven.
