Part 3 of Viewpoint Brief Bible Study #095. |
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JESUS calls US to be |
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The Christian religion is the worship and service of Jesus Christ. It’s not Mary we worship, but her Son. We worship neither saints, angels, a law code, nor even God’s Spirit. It’s JESUS who is to be honored. The Bible is our guide. |
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More About Baptism (Part 3)
An exchange with a Christian brother, Gerry Parker"Gerry Parker" <GT1PARKER@aol.com>
Date sent: Sun, 14 Feb 1999
To: Modern-RM@BIBLE.ACU.EDU> Ray, I know that my understanding goes against most Restoration interpretations of this passage. But let us just look at what scripture says.
> 1. Paul says in 1 Cor. 12:13, " For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body..."
> 2. John says in regard to Jesus in Matt. 3:11, " I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, ... he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." John then explains his illustration by telling us that the wheat are the saved, and the chaff are the lost. The lost are baptized with fire and the saved are baptized with the Spirit. These passages are very plain. The problem exists when we try to say that this is refering to tongues which we do know were not for everyone 1 Cor. 12:30.
> 3. Jn. 3:5 Makes it clear you must be born of the water and the Spirit. The water and the Spirit = Christian baptism. I make no claims for myself as a scholar. So I suggest that you find a copy of Dr. Bruce Terry's ( I think Dr. Terry is at ACU now?) article from the Restoration Quarterly, Moses Lard's article in Lard's Quarterly (1866), and get some Tapes by Dr. Richard Oster of Harding Grad. Also look at Beasley - Murray's work on baptism. he has probably done the most exhaustive work on the subject of baptism. These men are scholars.
> But I would add that Paul makes it clear, "...by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body." I think that is pretty simple.
Gerry Parker
What do YOU think?
And a response from Ray to Gerry --
Gerry, I'm not certain why you're determined to be wrong, but you do have that right. Thanks for repeating your error so I'd be sure to know what you mean.
By one stroke you have Paul making Jesus and Paul himself liars. That is surely simple. Simple-minded. I prefer to find what Paul meant, which surely will HARMONIZE with the rest of the scripture rather than contradict it as your "simple" explanation obviously does.
You believe that John's prophecy concerning the fact that JESUS would baptize some in fire and some others in the Spirit implies that all the saved (all who are not to experience the baptism in fire) will receive baptism in the Spirit. I think this understanding is wrong, particularly since whatever baptism is Paul's reference in 1 Corinthians 12:13 is not said to be done by JESUS, but as you understand it is to be performed BY the Holy Spirit.
Why would anyone by such an interpretation be so eager to make absurd the great commission of Christ? And to negate Paul's simple appeal for unity, including the very verse here quoted as if it proved two baptisms for each Christian.
What do we gain by doing so? Surely we all have at some time in our lives read John 14-17 and have noted what accompanied the baptism in the Holy Spirit Jesus there promises to His apostles. As a result of that baptism they would be reminded of all He had taught them during His public ministry and would be led into all truth.
By calling on Paul to mean in 1 Corinthians 12:13 that every Christian, instead of baptism INTO Christ administered in water by men, had received a baptism administered by the Holy Spirit, you're affirming that every Christian then and now was to become empowered as were the original apostles of Christ. What a peculiar idea! And clearly without foundation. And you think that *I* need to study the subject more so I could agree with your folly. No thanks.
When Jesus commanded MEN to perform baptism upon every convert to the gospel, that settled fully whether baptism was to be done for all Christians by men or by God through His Spirit. And it's done by men.
Baptism IN the Spirit was performed by Christ and limited to the apostles. Paul's teaching to the Corinthians here has to do with unity, not the nature of baptism. He mentions that ALL shared in the baptism which brought them (and now us) into the Lord's church. And that baptism was performed by MEN upon other men (people of either sex) who because of the witness of God through His Spirit had come to believe in Jesus. And even this work by the Spirit was often through the words of men repeating truth from God.
There was a baptism IN the Spirit which took place on Pentecost (Acts 2) and which WAS NOT the same thing which every Christian experienced upon being immersed in water into Christ. Our ignoring it won't make it go away. And the baptism which fell upon the apostles on Pentecost is baptism IN the Spirit (IN the Spirit but BY Jesus Christ). In Acts 2:38 we read that those who accept Christian baptism (in water) will receive both remission of sins and the "gift of the Holy Spirit," which we see is His indwelling presence within each born-again saint. (But this gift of the Holy Spirit is not being baptized BY the Spirit).
Speaking of this same event in 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul puts it that our decisions to accept baptism were influenced by God's spirit, and that after we WERE baptized we "were all made to drink of the same Spirit." Note the correlations -- influenced by the Spirit to accept baptism in water, then receive the "gift" of the Holy Spirit. This is what Peter invited believers to do at Pentecost. This is what we see repeatedly happening as the church grew. And this is what Paul is speaking of to Corinthian believers in a later year.
Which makes his use of "by/in the Spirit" in verses 3 and 13 harmonize with all we know about confessing faith in Jesus and being baptized into Him in water by human hands. Your theory conflicts with everything we know about how people were being saved in those early days.
Your theory makes Paul either mistaken or a liar when he affirms in Ephesians that there is ONE baptism which unites us in Christ. You want to believe for some reason that there are TWO baptisms involved in each case of conversion -- one that everyone knows about and a second one that's a secret except to the ultra-wise who find out about it by a wrong interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12:13.
