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BAPTIZED INTO HIS LIFE

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 22, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 38.

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BAPTIZED INTO HIS LIFE.

“BAPTIZING them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Baptized into the name of the Father is baptized into His character, having His righteousness as a garment, in the place of our own filthy rags of self-righteousness; His healing of holiness, instead of our wounds and bruises and putrefying sores of sin.
Baptized into the name of the Son is consecration of soul and body to God. It is the emptying of self, the giving up of all, even as the Son of God gave Himself. He kept back nothing. He poured out Himself, even to death, to vindicate the Father’s love, and for the sake of lost souls. These wonderful truths we have already considered.
What is it to be baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost?
We need not quibble about the terms used to denote the mighty Spirit of the blessed God. The Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, and the eternal Spirit, each and all mean one and the same, and are so used throughout the Word. For there is “one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.”
The Spirit of God everywhere stands for power, the power of God, manifested always in love; for “God is love.”
When the earth was brought from chaos to cosmos, from emptiness, desolation, and darkness, it was when the Spirit of God brooded—moved—over the dark waste. Light, arrangement, vegetation, order, and beauty in earth and sea and sky followed.
“For He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”
His word was Spirit and life (John 6:63) to the dark void. “By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens” in all the wondrous grandeur of circling orbs, blazing in many-hued beauty.
By His Spirit He creates again and renews the face of the earth, after it has been swept by the besom of destruction.
By His Spirit God is everywhere present, whether in sun or in satellite, in the darkness of night or the light of day, in the depths of the sea or in the open light of the public gaze. “Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?”
By His Spirit the Lord convinces, convicts, instructs, converts, regenerates, sanctifies.
By His Spirit the prophets and apostles spoke His Word.
By His Spirit Jesus preached good tidings, spoke liberty to the captives, sight to the blind, and wrought all His wondrous miracles. By the same Spirit was He brought from the embrace of death to the glorious triumph of life.
The Spirit is God in operation, the life force of the universe, the only power the Christian possesses by which he rises above the common mass of sinful humanity. It is life; it is growth; it is victory over sin; it is fruit-bearing—everything which makes for the upward life is the power of the Spirit of God.
The Spirit is that by which we know God and are fitted to witness for Him. The disciples were chosen and ordained that they might bear witness for Christ and bring forth fruit in His name, and yet before they were fitted to truly witness for Him, they must tarry in Jerusalem until they were “clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:49. “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Acts 1:8. This was the baptism of “the Holy Ghost not many days hence,” of verse 6.
This was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, preceded on the part of the disciples with ten days of the study of the will of God, confession and forsaking of sin, earnest seeking of God, and emptiness and consecration of self. Then when the antitype of the day of Pentecost came, God poured out His Spirit, baptizing them and filling them with His own fulness. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Acts 2:1–4. Then were they indeed witnesses for Christ.
The essential and important things about a witness are that he shall know, that he shall be able to tell what he knows, and that he shall tell the truth.
The baptism, the complete interfusion of the Spirit, made the disciples know Christ. His life was in them. The divine electric current, charged, filled, with a plenitude of power, flowed free from the “Fountain of Life” into the apostles. The life of God, the fruit-bearing life, the power of an endless life, possessed them. They knew God; they were known of God. There was complete vital union.
That Spirit is the Spirit of might and wisdom. It took the vessels of clay, emptied of self, and filled them with life, and fitted them to be witnesses for God. Their minds were enlarged. Their souls were unbound. Their tongues became as the pens of ready writers. They could tell what they knew of God, “not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth.” 1 Cor. 2:13.
That Spirit of might and wisdom, which fitted them for their work, which made them know God, is “the Spirit of truth,” the Spirit of “the faithful and true Witness.” They therefore testified to the truth.
They met all the requisites of witnesses for God; and if we, upon whom the ends of the world are come, are to be witnesses for God, we also must be baptized and filled with the Spirit.
If we do not witness for Christ, we witness for self, and, while professing His name, are false witnesses. Therefore, O church of God, “receive ye the Holy Ghost,” that ye may be true witnesses for Him!
Baptism into the name of the Holy Ghost is baptism for service. When Jesus entered upon His ministry, beginning with the fiercest temptations, the Spirit of God descended and came upon Him (Matt. 3:16), “and it abode upon Him” (John 1:32), and He was “full of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:1). So “God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him.” Acts 10:38.
There is no other fitting for the service of God, no other way by which we may do acceptable work for the Master. And, O beloved in Christ, by whatever name ye are known, if we wish to serve Him acceptably, and He freely fits us for His service, why not receive the Holy Ghost?