Mark 7:20-23 : And He said, What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.
Everyone in this world is born with a sin in his/her heart. Because of these sins in our hearts we have no choice but to die and be judge for them. (The death of our flesh is the passageway to eternal life). Those who are without sin shall enter the eternal world of Heaven and everlastingly enjoy being the children of God, while sinners will be thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone (Revelation 20:10) and be tormented day and night for all eternity.
Therefore, all of humankind must be born again. We have to be born again through our faiths, be redeemed from all our sins and become righteous. For only then can we enter the eternal Kingdom of Heaven. The Bible says, Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5). To be born again of water and the Spirit is the only way we can enter the eternal Kingdom of God.
What, then, is this water and the Spirit that allows us to beborn again? The water in the Bible refers to the baptism of Jesus.
Why was Jesus, who is God, baptized by John the Baptist? Was it to show His humility? Was it to proclaim Himself the Messiah? No, it wasnt.
When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist by means of the laying on of hands (Leviticus 16:21), it was one Mans righteous act (Romans 5:18), which took away all the sins of humankind.
In the Old Testament, God gave Israel the merciful law of redemption. This was so that on the Day of Atonement, all the sins of Israel for that year could be expiated through the High Priest, Aaron, by laying his hands on the head of the scapegoat and passing all the sins onto that scapegoat.
These were the words of revelation, which foretold the sacrifice of eternal atonement. It revealed the truth that all the sins of humanity would be passed onto Jesus all at once, who came in the flesh of a man, according to the will of the Father. And He was baptized by John the Baptist who was the descendant of Aaron and the representative of all humankind.
When Jesus was baptized, He said to John, Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15).
Here, for thus means by the laying on of hands, in order topass all the sins of the world onto Jesus, so that all righteousness might be fulfilled for all of us. The word righteousness is dikaiosune in Greek, and its meaning is the fairest state or to be just in character or deeds with the implication of being righteous or fitting.
Jesus had fulfilled all righteousness for all people through His baptism in a just and fitting manner. Because Jesus took on all the sins of people through His baptism, the next day, John the Baptist testified, Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)
With all the sins of humankind on His shoulders, Jesus walked toward the Cross. He vicariously took the judgment for all the sins He had taken on Himself through His baptism. He died on the Cross, saying, It is finished (John 19:30). He took all our sins onto Himself and received the complete judgment for them in our place.
Therefore, without having the faith in the baptism of Jesus, we cannot be saved. That is why the Apostle Peter declared the water, which means the baptism of Jesus, to be an antitypewhich now saves us (1 Peter 3:21).
Today, most people who believe in Jesus do not believe in the baptism of Jesus, the water, but only believe in His death on the Cross. But will this kind of faith save sinners? Can we be redeemed from all our sins by believing only in the blood of Jesus? Can it give us salvation?
No. We cannot be redeemed before God just by believing in Jesus death on the Cross.
When the people of Israel offered the sacrifice of atonement at the time of the Old Testament, it would not have been correct to kill the sacrificial animal without first laying hands on the head of the animal and passing their sins onto it. Thus, it would be wrong and lawless to believe only in the Cross of Jesus without believing in His baptism.
Therefore, the Apostle Peter said, There is an antitype which now saves us, namely baptism, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21).
Just as the people who didnt believe in the great water (the flood) during the time of Noah were destroyed, those who do not believe in the water, the baptism of Jesus now will surely be ruined.
The complete faith that leads us to true salvation is the faith in Jesus Christ, who came by water and bloodJesus Christ (1John 5:6). We ought to believe in both the baptism and the Cross of Jesus Christ.
The Apostle John said that the correct faith is to believe in the witness of the Spirit, the water, and the blood (1 John 5:8).
What constitutes true faith is to believe like this. Jesus is God Himself and He came in the flesh of a man by the Spirit through the body of the Virgin Mary, and He took away all the sins of the world by being baptized at the Jordan by John the Baptist, the representative of all humankind. And Jesus went to the Cross bearing all the sins of the world, and received the vicarious judgment for all of us. Therefore, the gospel cannot be complete without the baptism of Jesus, the water, and no matter how well we believe in Jesus, we can never reach eternal salvation without believing in it.
Why is it that nowadays, the true gospel of the water and the Spirit has become so rare and the false gospels have instead spread widely throughout the world?
After Jesus was resurrected and ascended to Heaven, theApostles preached this gospel of the water and the blood. If we read the New Testament carefully, we can see that not only did the writers of the Bible, including Paul, Peter and John, but all the Apostles and the workers of the Early Church, had clearly preached the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Meanwhile, the devil had been contriving to alter the gospel incrementally and to take away the power of life from the Church. Thus, from the time of the Edict of Milan of 313 A.D., the Christian Church was caught up in a carefully laid trap of the devil. The political powers of the Roman Empire, in exchange for recognizing Christianity as the state religion, were able to attain political stability.
By specifying that Baptize anyone who entered the church, the Roman Empire maintained its unity over the diversity of its many colonies.
It was the result of these circumstances that caused the recitation of the Apostles Creed to be substituted as the basis of religious training. Because of that, the gospel in strict accordance with the Bible, in other words, the gospel of the water and the Spiritwhich gives us the Power, the Holy Spirit and much assurance (1 Thessalonians 1:5)came to be substituted by the false gospel. Just as Satan had planned, the false gospel, allowing no one to be born again, came to prosper throughout the world.
For over a thousand years after the Milan Edict, the Dark Ages of Christianity stifled the whole European world. Although a series of new reformation movements had arisen in many countries, urging people back to the Word, Grace and Faith, none of them had found the true gospel, the gospel of the water and the blood.
This true gospel has been kept alive in the hands of a few who followed the words since the age of the Apostles. Just like a stream that has disappeared into the ground, which springs up again in the lower plains, it surfaced again in the Last Days to be proclaimed throughout the world.
