The Resurrection Foreshadowed.--It was to prepare the way before a greater and higher principle, that Christ taught and exemplified the principle of baptism. That greater and higher principle was the resurrection, a doctrine difficult for even the apostles to comprehend, and one that he repeatedly impressed upon them, both before and after he arose from the dead. Hence he compared baptism to a birth--the entry, and the only one, into mortal life; and this pointed forward to the resurrection--the entry, and the only one, into immortal glory. Men should therefore be prepared for something suggestive of a birth, of a resurrection, in the ordinance prescribed by him as the means of admittance into his kingdom. That suggestion is fully realized in the true form of the baptismal ordinance--immersion. Why the Savior was Baptized.--Baptism was made universal, and became the doorway to the Church of Christ, the kingdom of God on earth, because it symbolizes the resurrection, which is also universal, and without which no man can enter into the heavenly Church and Kingdom. Here we touch, I think, the real reason, or at least one of the principal reasons, why Jesus was baptized. He was the Exemplar of the Resurrection--the first to rise from the grave: and as baptism represents the resurrection, it was fitting and appropriate that he should also undergo that sacred ordinance. Immersion.--"Born of water" means to come out of the water, and coming out of the water, presupposes going into the water. This is why we are baptized by immersion, which means sinking, dipping, burying, plunging. Immersion is the only mode of baptism that symbolizes a birth. Jesus was baptized by immersion. He must have gone down into the water, for when he was baptized he "went up straightway out of the water" (Matt. 3:16). When Philip baptized the Eunuch, "they went down both into the water." John baptized "in Anon, near to Salim, because there was much water there," a proof presumptive of baptism by immersion, that being the only mode requiring "much water" for its performance. Paul's Concept.--Paul compared baptism to burial and resurrection: "Buried with him [Christ] in baptism," wrote he to the Colossians (2:12), "wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." Again--this time to the Romans: "Know ye not that so many of us as are baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Rom. 6:3-5).