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In Matthew's Gospel chapter three there is another baptism mentioned. Here the Baptist is saying "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:" or literally "baptized in Holy Spirit and with fire". The fiery Holy Spirit is referred to in the second chapter of Acts verses two and three, it is linked with the promise of the Father in Acts 1:4 : "And, being assembled together with them, (the Lord) commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of Me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized (literally, in) Holy Spirit not many days hence". This is explained for us in the last chapter of Luke's Gospel, the Lord again speaking to the eleven. In verse forty nine we read "I send the promise of My Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high". So power from on high is conned with this fiery Holy Spirit. What was this? it was the powerful equipment of the twelve for the proclamation of the gospel and the earthly kingdom ministry accompanied with the miraculous gifts. In Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth he refers to the Holy Spirit giving these gifts and baptizing them (uniting them) together. So I Corinthians 12:13 refers to being baptized in one spirit and although our version says "by one Spirit", the Greek reads "in one Spirit", and so sharing these gifts together as the Holy Spirit chose to distribute them. Thus we have a baptism that was yet to come after John the Baptist's ministry. It was linked with the powerful enduement of the twelve for this earthly kingdom testimony by the Holy Spirit and we find it going all through the Acts of the Apostles accompanied by evidential miracles.
There is also Peter's baptism. As Peter was divinely appointed and sent to the Jew, to the circumcision, we shall expect this to be in keeping, and so it is. Acts chapter two describes the day of Pentecost, and here is this man energized and guided by the Holy Spirit, so he is not making any mistakes. We read in Acts 2:38 "Then Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Nine of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins". So his ministry was similar to John the Baptist's. John preached baptism for the forgiveness of sins and so did the apostle Peter. This is in harmony with the Lord's great statement in Mark 16 "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved". We have no right to read this as "he that believeth shall be saved and ought to be baptized". This may raise problems in our minds, but we must first of all adjust our conceptions arid our thoughts to what God has said, otherwise, we can never get truth.
We come now to another aspect of baptism quite different from the foregoing. In Luke 12:49 we read "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindle.? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straightened (narrowed, held in, literally) till it be accomplished". What was this baptism? Obviously it was nothing to do with water. This was the death baptism of Calvary. The mother of Zebedee's children has asked that her sons should sit on the Lord's right hand in the Kingdom (Matt,20:21) but Jesus answered and said "Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that 1 am baptized with? They say unto Him, we are able. And He saith unto them Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized wide the baptism that I am baptized with". This was a baptism of suffering and death. Little did they know what they were asking, and with one exception (namely John), all had to follow the Lord in martyrdom. Peter and Paul followed Him in this respect and so did the twelve apostles.
Let us sum up again; we have the washings, the baptisms of the Old Testament, contained in the ceremonial law of Moses. We have the water baptism of Israel, unto repentance linked with John the Baptizer. We have the Spirit baptism of power and miraculous gifts, Pest anal onwards, and the death baptism of Calvary of the Saviour with its suffering and shame. Now let us take another aspect of this subject. Let us turn to 1 Corinthians 10:1 "Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea", and most of us who face this carefully, notice this is a most unique baptism because, although they went through the water, they were not touched by it. They went through on dry land and there are at least four Scriptures which emphasize this. You will find them in Exodus 14:22; 15:19 and Psalm 66:6 and Hebrews 11:29, where each context tells us that Israel went through dry shod. Here is a dry baptism; the only ones that were immersed in water then were Pharaoh and his hosts. That was Divine judgment; they were drowned. For Israel it was a dry baptism. All were baptized unto Moses so one can have, as we have seen, quite a number of aspects of baptism that have nothing to do with water at all. What did this baptism do? It united them with all that Moses stood for in Divine law and ceremonial and that is the first great underlying teaching of baptism. It is so easy to go through some external rite and never understand what that rite is really meaning. Here the whole nation of Israel, redeemed and brought out of Egypt, is linked with all that Moses stood for in law and ceremony. Mark you, this is the first baptism in point of time in Scripture. The first occurrence of the word is in the book of Job. But the first baptism was Israel coming through tire Red Sea miraculously, and they had a similar experience of passing through Jordan on dry ground as they entered the promised land at the end of the wilderness wanderings (see Josh. 3:13-17; 4:22). This is also rich in typical teaching.
What are we going to do with the Ministry of the apostle Paul on the subject of water baptism? He made a very definite statement when he wrote to the church of Corinth and said "Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel" (I Cor. 1:17). We wonder what our Baptist friends would do with him today if he were alive. He would possibly be called a disobedient child of God, yet he insisted that Christ sent him rot to baptize, so water baptism is not an essential part of the apostle Paul's ministry. Some would tell us that what they call "the great commission" of Matthew 28, discipling all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Trinity, is what we ought to be doing now. But the apostle Paul could not have come under this ministry, otherwise he could never have said "Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel". There are three great portions in his Epistles which deal with this subject. One is in Galatians, chapter five, which teaches the Galatian churches that baptism has united them ail together in Christ, so there is no more Jew or Gentile, they are all one in Christ Jesus. This is the unity which we have seen before that baptism symbolises. Then there is a very important one in the Epistle to the Romans in chapter six. Here we come to a very controversial passage of Scripture as to whether water baptism or Spirit baptism is meant. It needs weighing over very carefully. The more we do this the mare we are convinced that the teaching of this passage could never be true of merely going through some external rite. Extraordinary things are said in this sixth chapter verse three, "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?"
Does immersing anybody in water automatically baptize them into Christ? Assuredly not. Would an unbeliever who was being baptized in water be baptized into Christ? Certainly not. But these believers were baptized into His death. There is a great stress in this context of being linked with the Lord's death. Look at verse four "we are buried with Him by baptism unto death". The figure changes in verse five, "we have been planted together in the likeness of His death", and then it changes again in verse six, "we have been crucified". Our old man was, (not is crucified as in our English version) it was crucified with Him. That is to say, when the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, our old nature, the old man, was crucified then in God's plan and purpose. Now there is not the slightest doubt that this verse is taking us back to Calvary. Nobody could possibly teach with truth that when someone is immersed in water, at that moment their old nature was crucified with Christ. But when we take the whole of the context we see the great stress of the link of the believer with Christ in His death, in His burial, in His quickening, in His raising. Here you have something Cod has done, not what men drowse to do. We cannot believe for one moment that when someone decides an a certain day, at a certain time, they will be baptized by a minister, at that moment when they close to do it, ail these things suddenly become true. These truths are only effectual when a sinner cornea to the Lord Jesus Christ and accepts Him as his Saviour. Then what happens? He learns from Scripture that God has linked him with the Lord Jesus Christ in His death, His burial, His quickening and His raising. That is truth. Whether he goes through some rite to make it evident or not externally is quite another matter.
Coming along further, let us turn to the Epistle to the Ephesians chapter four. Some of us are rejoicing in the glories of this Ephesian Epistle and we know in chapter four, three great unities are stressed. Each of them is seven-fold; the unity of the Spirit; the unity of the faith; the unity of the Body. First of all unity of the Spirit which God has made. No believer is asked to make it or could make it. God has made it, and all we are asked to do is to guard it faithfully, and it is described for us in verse four. There is one Body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is above all and through all and in you all". You see "one" is the important word stressed all the way through. These is one baptism. Now is this God's baptism or man's baptism? If you accept what God has said you cannot make it two baptisms. I know that some people try to do so, but if they do that why not have two bodies, or two Holy Spirits or two Lords or two Gods and Fathers? We have one God and Father, one Saviour, one Spirit and we have only one baptism. Now then which is it going to be of all we have already considered? The reality of the Spirit linking us with the Saviour, or the external type of water? Is it going to be the shadow or will it be the substance? This is what people who are exercised about what they call "believers baptism" have got to face. Ephesians stresses one baptism. This cannot be made into two, so we must close which it is going to be out of all that we have seen in this study. Will it be the reality which God Himself accomplishes with each of His redeemed children, or is it going to be the external type of water immersion? Let us now turn to Colossians 2;12, "Buried with Him in baptism". This verse is often quoted by those who are trying to prove that a believer should be immersed in water. But consider the context. First of all please note the tremendous statement which ought to be the Joy and rejoicing of every believer who belongs to the Body, the Fullness of Christ "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and ye are complete in Him" (verse 9). How many of God's children apprehend this for themselves? How many know that in Christ they are complete they are as the Greek says filled full; not partially filled so that something else can or should be added! One cannot have degrees of completeness. We are either complete in Christ or we are not. Now if we are complete in Him, nothing can be added to that completeness without spoiling it. If one rite or one type or shadow, or even all of them are added, then the glorious fact is being ignored that we are all sufficient in everything in Him. That is point number one. The next fact is this; in verse eleven we have a circumcision made without hands. So it is not literal circumcision that is meant, but the spiritual equivalent. When the Apostle wrote to the Church at Philippi he said, "we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh". (Literal circumcision can add nothing to a member of Christ's Body
We have now the reality of what immersion stood for, whether a believer has submitted to it or not, if we belong to this company redeemed by His Grace neither water baptism adds anything to the Church which is His Body, or any other type or shadow.
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