now I am thinking about Yahushua and His walking on water trick - I mean did He REALLY need to walk out to the boat? or was he making a point with Himself safe on top of the water(gentiles) - showing that Peter could do the same if He walked in His example

Water... yes I know it's quite a big picture of stuff - but out of all of the elements Yah could have used to destroy the people he chose water... why is that?

In the Torah, we find ourselves time and again faced with instructions concerning cleansing with water, ritually or otherwise. Standing immediately outside the tabernacle or temple was to be a bronze laver or basin. “Yahweh said to Moses, ‘You shall also make a basin of bronze, with its stand of bronze, for washing.” Bronze or brass is a metaphor for judgment, which in God’s mindset is not so much indicative of condemnation as it is separation—in this case, the clean from the defiled. “You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar.” Its location was strategic, placed between the altar (where sacrifice was made) and the tabernacle itself (where one would encounter Yahweh). The point is that Christ’s sacrifice would do you no good if you were not willing to be cleansed. “And you shall put water in it, with which Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet.” The priests are those who would intercede and minister before God—metaphorical in the end of all believers, led by our High Priest Yahshua. The washing of our hands and feet is symbolic of letting God’s Spirit purify our works and walk. “When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to Yahweh, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die.” This time, the water isn’t for drinking, but rather for cleansing. The result of using it, however, remains the same: life is preserved. “They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die. It shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his offspring throughout their generations.’” (Exodus 30:17-21)

Reconciliation with God, then, was a two-step process. Step one was sacrifice, performed at the altar—the shedding of innocent blood. Step two was cleansing—washing by water (as before, symbolic of the Word of God, conveyed by His Holy Spirit). Both steps had to be completed before one could come before Yahweh: before he could see by the light of the seven-branched lampstand, partake of the provision of God at the table of showbread, communicate with our Father through prayer at the altar of incense, and ultimately, step into the Most Holy Place, into the very presence of Yahweh. A study of the tabernacle’s layout and furnishings reveals that virtually everything was given specific dimensions and specifications. But the bronze laver is a notable exception. It is as if Yahweh is telling us, “There’s no limit to My capacity for cleansing you; there is no amount of filth I can’t wash away in the shadow of the Messiah’s perfect sacrifice.

A perusal of the Torah (especially the book of Leviticus) reveals that every time we turn around, God is instructing a ritual cleansing of one sort or another—usually achieved through washing with water. Priests, for example, were to be ritually bathed during their ordination ceremony. “Moses said to the congregation, ‘This is the thing that Yahweh has commanded to be done.’ And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water.” (Leviticus 8:5-6) Washing with water was also prescribed for all sorts of bodily functions that, while part of the ordinary course of life, were defined as “ritually defiling.” They could imply illness, but didn’t necessarily. For example, “When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean. And this is the law of his uncleanness for a discharge: whether his body runs with his discharge, or his body is blocked up by his discharge, it is his uncleanness.” (Leviticus 15:2-3) This could include anything from emissions of semen to the common cold to bubonic plague. For women, very specific instructions along similar lines were given concerning menses and childbirth. Israelites were to avoid physical contact with the one who had any of these “discharges,” and the remedy for having such contact was (as we read dozens of times) that the defiled person was to “wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening.”

Nobody could completely avoid becoming ceremonially “unclean,” of course. The state of ritual impurity was inevitable and unavoidable, though being clean and undefiled was clearly to be preferred. Priests, for example, could not perform certain of their duties while ceremonially defiled. But the human condition guaranteed ritual defilement from time to time. Sex, for instance, made both partners “ritually unclean,” and yet without it, the human race would disappear in one generation—clearly violating God’s command to “Be fruitful and multiply.” So it should come as no surprise that Yahweh never prohibited the things that caused defilement; He only insisted that we take pains to become clean again.

The ultimate permutation of defilement or uncleanness was death. But Yahweh had a remedy for this as well: the ordinance of the “Red Heifer.” Basically, a young cow, red in color, was to be sacrificed and burned to ashes, which were to be mixed with water and sprinkled upon anyone who had come in contact with a dead body. The whole complicated ritual, fraught with prophetic significance, is recounted in Numbers 19. The bottom line: “If the man who is unclean [through contact with death] does not cleanse himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has defiled the sanctuary of Yahweh. Because the water for impurity has not been thrown on him, he is unclean. And it shall be a statute forever for them. The one who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and the one who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening. And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.” (Numbers 19:20-22) Everybody involved, the one who had come in contact with death and those who were tasked with administering his remedy, were defiled—made ritually impure—in the process. The whole thing is a microcosm of the human condition. Being mortal, we all “touch death.” Even those who are part of that solution—preparing and delivering the “water of purification”—are in need of cleansing. The question is: are we willing to accept Yahweh’s solution to our problem?

These purification rituals we find in the Torah are of little practical use. That is, although practicing good basic hygiene is no doubt a good first step in remaining healthy, the rites as described in the Torah would have minimal effect in actually warding off disease. The ordinance of the red heifer, in particular, would seem less than efficacious in physically ensuring that contact with dead bodies did not result in life threatening illnesses. No, we really need to examine the symbolic aspects of these things if we hope to discern God’s life-lessons. The oft-repeated formula, you’ll recall, was for the defiled person to “wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening.” Let us therefore examine what these three things mean.

First, what we’re wearing is a common scriptural metaphor for our status before God—our clothes represent how He sees us. Are we butt naked, or wearing fig leave aprons we’ve cobbled together to hide our shame, or have we donned the tunics of innocent-animal skins He made for us? Do we, with Daniel, put on sackcloth and ashes when appropriate? Do we, with David, strip down to our bare necessities and dance with passionate abandon before Yahweh when it’s time to celebrate His awesome love? Do we prefer the scratchy wool of works-based religion, or the brilliant white linen garments of imputed righteousness? We aren’t called to monastic isolation: we’re commanded, rather, to go into all the world as witnesses of God’s love. But as we walk through the world as mortal believers, it’s inevitable that we’ll brush up against things that render us unclean. It can’t be helped. We aren’t to stay that way, however. We are told to wash our garments.

Second, we are to bathe our bodies. These mortal shells we inhabit aren’t designed to last forever, but they are gifts from God—necessary tools we all need to employ in the course of our work here on earth. It seems to me, we ought to take care of our tools, keep them sharp and clean, use them as they were intended, and so forth. I fully realize, of course, that you can go nuts with this—manifesting mental illnesses ranging from hypochondria to narcissism. But my body is going to look pretty much the same in a hundred years whether I pamper it and take it to the gym six days a week or if I give up and stop taking care of it altogether. It only has to get me to the end of my mortal life. So what is God talking about? I believe He’s telling us not to let the world’s grime and filth accumulate on us—or in us. Our bodies are, after all, the temple of the Holy Spirit. You wouldn’t ask Yahweh to live in a pigsty, would you?

Third, we need to face the uncomfortable fact that in reality, we’re going to remain “unclean”—even after we’ve been washed—until the sun goes down. That, my friends, is a thinly veiled euphemism for physical death (or rapture, if you happen to be part of that generation). The fact is, we cannot stand before a holy God clothed in these mortal bodies. We were never intended to. Paul reminds us, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable…. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.” (I Corinthians 15:50, 53-55) Every believer in Yahshua will someday receive a body that’s built for eternal life with Him—a very different kind of body than the one in which we walk about in this present world. We’re going to ditch the defiled and put on the imperishable. Until then, our job is to keep these mortal vessels clean through frequent washing in the Word and immersion in the Spirit of God.

In reality, of course, it is not ourselves, but Yahweh who cleanses us. In what appears to be a reference to the ordinance of the Red Heifer, Yahweh promises this: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.” (Ezekiel 36:25-29)

1This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: 2That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: 3Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 8But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 10But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? 13Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 14Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.