Please Notice by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 1, 1882

“Please Notice.”

By Editor

THIS is marked on the margin of a paper sent to us by a friend. The paper is printed in Kansas, by “holiness believers,” who ignore all ordinances as carnal, and interpret Scripture, according to their own claim, by the light of the inspiration within them. And, as is quite too usual with that class, they make sad havoc with the word of God, “following their own spirit and have seen nothing.” Eze. 13.

The article marked to be noticed is an effort to prove that Christ did not command baptism in water, but that, to the contrary, baptism was one of the carnal ordinances which Christ took out of the way. Now, really, we see very little use of noticing such vagaries. The careful and reverent reader of the Bible cannot be affected by them, and we fear their authors have too little regard for sober argument to be influenced by any reason drawn from the sacred pages. However, being requested, we will briefly notice the article.

The writer says that “water means Christ himself.” It might be satisfactory to him to read Acts 8, when the evangelist acted under the immediate direction of the Spirit of God, thus: “And the eunuch said: ‘See, here is Christ; what doth hinder me to be baptized.’” “And they both went down into Christ, . . . And when they were come up out of Christ.” And so in other places. But we are not prepared to accept such travesties of the word of the Lord. And this is but a specimen of the manner in which Scripture terms are wrested from their evident intent.

Quoting Mark 10:29, 30, the writer adds:—

“Christ here excludes all ceremonial rites. For when he says there is no man who has left all—wife, father, mother, children, etc., but who shall receive in the world to come eternal life, he certainly gives us to understand that it required no additional ceremonies to make us perfect.”

There is no method of exposition which more shamefully abuses the holy Scriptures than that here adopted. It is true that baptism would be excluded from the list of Christian duties, by such a construction of the text, and so would scores of other requirements found in the Scriptures, but not found in this text. Such a use of the words of Christ is worse than childish—it is irreverent. It would shut out the Lord’s supper, also, which Christ certainly instituted and commanded. To justify his expositions against the undeniable practice of the apostles, the writer says:—

“But I am told the Apostles baptized with water and commanded it.

“The apostles had very much to contend with ancient prejudices. It was very hard to believe that Christ’s kingdom should be an entirely spiritual kingdom, revealed by the Spirit [Eph. 3:3-6], and that the new dispensation should wipe away ‘the law of commandments contained in ordinances,’ and that Christ reconciled both Jew and Gentile ‘unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.’ [Eph. 2:15, 16.] It is therefore not to be wondered that the apostles sometimes, when in their opinion there could be no harm, gave way to the belief and weakness of the people, and even were sometimes themselves very stubborn to leave the ancient customs and commandments, and break the bonds that separated the Jew from the rest of the people.”

This is neither more nor less than to deny the inspiration of the apostles, and to discredit the direct leadings of the Holy Spirit. Philip was told by the Spirit to join himself to the chariot of the eunuch, and under the leading of the Spirit he preached unto him Jesus, and baptized him in water. An angel of God told Cornelius to send for Peter, saying he would tell him what he ought to do. By the direction of the Spirit, Peter went with the messengers, and commanded Cornelius to be baptized. Not baptized by the Spirit, as this writer says the commission given to the apostles means, for the Spirit was already fallen upon them; but he said: “Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?”

Cornelius was a Gentile by birth; and so far from Peter here conforming to Jewish prejudices, the Lord by a vision corrected or removed his prejudices that he might with a free mind discharge his duty to the household of Cornelius.

And so of Paul at Ephesus. To say that he was mistaken in his calling, or acted in conformity to his own prepossessions, and not in harmony with the gospel of Christ, is reproachful to his apostleship and his ministry, and so of other instances which might be cited.

When people become so very holy or spiritual-minded (in their own conceit) as to set themselves above or against the plain precepts of the Lord, or to assume positions which are subversive of those precepts, we then say to all, Beware of them. Be not deceived by their profession; they are Pharisees, and not disciples.