Scriptural Baptism

Dr. Kenneth Wuest stated that “the Greek word for ‘baptism’ speaks of the introduction or placing of a person or thing into a new environment or into union with something else, so as to alter its condition or its relationship to its previous environment or condition.”

When we believed, the Holy Spirit baptized us into the Lord Jesus. “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.” “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (though the “old man” yet indwells believers, they are new and separated from it - Ro 8:9; 1Co 12:13; 2Co 5:17—NC).

By this spiritual act of baptism the Spirit place us in union with the Lord Jesus. We were taken out of our old environment and position in the first Adam, and positioned in the new environment of the Last Adam. By that means our position is changed from that of a lost sinner with a depraved nature (which still indwells but it can no longer cause us to desire sin like before—NC) to that of a righteous saint with the divine nature (not that this divine nature makes us divine, we are only “partakers” and not possessors: “not essentially, nor of the essence of God, so as to be deified, this is impossible, for the nature, perfections, and glory of God are incommunicable to creatures - John Gill - 2Pe 1:4—NC). Our relationship to the Law is changed from that of a guilty sinner to that of a justified saint.

This spiritual baptism occurs once, at the new birth, and is forever (most important spiritual growth doctrine from which all growth doctrines derive—NC). The act of water baptism is meant to be our practical public testimony to, and illustrative of our spiritual baptism into the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Positionally, judicially, each believer was positioned in, identified with the Lord Jesus on the Cross. From that point on, in that judicial oneness, what happened to Him happened to us. “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20). That crucifixion had to do with His and our death unto sin. “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” (Rom 6:3)

I. – As we are submerged in the waters of baptism we are testifying to the fact that the Spirit has baptized us into the Lord Jesus’ death unto sin. Our identification in His death includes a number of blessed factors:

a) In Christ we died to the penal consequences of sin. “For he who has died has been freed from sin” (Ro 6:7).

b) In Christ we died to the power and reign of sin. “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with (nullified but not eradicated—NC), that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Ro 6:6).

c) In Christ we died to the world. “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). Here, by the “world” is meant God is left out.

Hence, we are to “love not the world neither the things that are in the world (has to be in reference to worldly ways, because ‘all that is in the world’ defines the ways of worldliness. The earth cannot possess sin, thus it is not in reference to the earth. One can love the earth in the sense of it being God’s creation and provisions for mankind—NC). If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world” (1Jn 2:15, 16).

d) In Christ we died to the self-centered life. “He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2Co5:15).

e) In Christ the believer died to the claims of the Law, as well as the principle of law in general (the principle of law is “he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons” - Col 3:25—NC). “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the Law by the Body of Christ” (Rom 7:4 – by His physical suffering and death—NC). Our death with the Lord Jesus, as symbolized in our water baptism, has satisfied the demand of the Law. “For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.” “For I through the Law am dead to the Law, that I might live unto God” (Ro 10:4; Gal 2:19).

f) In Christ we died to the dominion of Satan. “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb 2:14, 15).

II. Our water baptism pictures our burial with the Lord Jesus in His death unto sin. “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death” (Rom 6:4). As we allow ourselves to be submerged beneath the surface of the baptismal waters, we are enables to appreciate what our Lord passed through in order to save us both from the penalty of our sins, and the power of our sin (“the power of sin is the Law” - 1Co 15:56—NC). We are henceforth better able to understand and comply with His statement to us, “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin” (saints are not dead to sin by reckoning, but reckon because they are dead to sin – Ro 6:11—NC).

Now we can know something more of His bitter anguish and cry on our behalf: “The waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Again He cried out, “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted me with all Thy waves” (Psa 69:1, 2, 20, 21; 88:6, 7).

III. Our Lord Jesus was not only delivered for our transgressions, but He was “raised again for our justification” (Rom 4:25). When we were brought up out of the waters of baptism we illustrated our resurrection from the dead, in Him. “That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Ro 6:4, 5).

Hence our baptism not only consists of immersion in water, submersion under water, but emergence from the water to complete the picture of our spiritual baptism in union with the Lord Jesus. As He arose from the dead, to live in the power of an endless life, so we are to reckon ourselves “alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (again, reckoning doesn’t establish what has already been established, but depends on it Ro 6:11).

In this new position of life from the dead, the Word says to us, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you” (Ro 6:12, 13, 14)

—Miles J Stanford







MJS daily devotional for November 16

“Everything you need in the Christian life, no matter what it may be, comes from the Father alone. You will see more and more the utter futility of trying to make yourself a keen Christian; that your best efforts are as futile as your worst failures; that your Christian life is to be a continual miracle that the Father must work every minute; that the only thing you have to do is to depend utterly, and altogether, and all the time on Him. You will see that what you need is not more effort or determination, but more of the Father; a deeper, more continual trust and dependence upon Him.” -D.T.

“For the discovery of our sinful condition and getting deliverance from the reign of sin, there is an experiential process in us. The doctrine is that we died unto sin with Christ: that is Romans Six. But the resting on the truth found there as a doctrine, is connected with the experience found in Romans Seven; the result being in Romans Eight.

“Now this experience is the painful learning that we have no strength to make good what we would and what is right. There is a point in the experience which often helped, but it is not deliverance; that is, hating the evil which yet works in me. But after this I find what I hate too strong for me, and I am brought to the consciousness of my being without strength—the point to which the Father was leading me all along.” -J.N.D.
http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/