James Jordan points out in an essay on the Ascension offering that the early chapter of Genesis follow a sacrificial sequence: Sacrifice outside the garden, then Enoch ascends to the Lord, then the world is washed in the flood, and finally Noah joins his forefather on a high place. This sequence helps to fill out Peter’s claim that the flood is a baptism: It would seem that Noah is saved from the water, rather than saved by water. But in the flood, Noah moves upward as a result of the flood. Because the waters buoy him up, he ends up on a mountain as a new Adam. Baptism “saves” in the same way, by elevating us to the garden on the mountain that is the highest of the mountains of the earth.
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