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BAPTIZED INTO HIS LIFE

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 15, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 37.

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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.” This is a part of the great commission to God’s ambassadors.
We learned last week what it is to be baptized into, or swallowed up by, the name of the Father; it is to possess God’s character; it is to have His righteousness, His goodness; and the only way we can have it is by faith, by confession and renunciation of sin, and by believing on Jesus Christ for forgiveness and cleansing.
The next step in experience is

Baptism into the Name of the Son.

And as with the Father, name means character. The name of the Son is the character of the Son as revealed in Jesus, the Son of God. What did Christ reveal of Himself? What character did He manifest while here upon the earth?
Jesus, the Son of God, revealed nothing, absolutely nothing, of Himself. But in this He did reveal His absolute self-effacement for the sake of God and humanity. Herein is presented the character of Christ: “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who being originally in the form of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, becoming in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” Phil. 2 : 5, 8, R.V., margin.
This was the mind, the character, the name, of Christ. Hear Him: “I can of Mine own self do nothing; as I hear, I judge. . . . I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” “The Son can do nothing of Himself.” “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” The sum of all this is that Jesus Christ did not put forth Himself, call attention to Himself, or manifest Himself. If any being in the universe had the right to aspire to an equality with the Father, He had. But He chose the opposite,—complete self-effacement. And therefore He could say, “No man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him.”
And all this we can see to be true in the very nature of the case. The agent who represents his own interests, does not properly represent his employer. The ambassador who represents himself is but a poor representative of a government. Jesus came to declare, not Himself, but God the Father. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.”
As He emptied Himself that He might do the Father’s will and represent the Father to the world, so the Father filled Him. “For it was the good-pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell.” “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
He was emptied that God might fill Him, so that He might reveal God to the world. And because of this He tells His disciples, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” He prays to the Father: “I have glorified Thee on the earth.” “I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me;” “I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me;” “I kept them in Thy name;” “I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it.”
The name of the Son, therefore, means the voluntary and absolute emptying of self, self-denial, self-effacement, self-abnegation, glorious, blessed unselfishness, for the Father’s sake, and to redeem a lost world. To be baptized into the name of the Son is to be immersed into that same mind, to be swallowed up in that same all-absorbing unselfishness.
That was consecration on His part that the Father might fill Him, so that He could be “the Faithful and True Witness” to the world of what the Father was. All that He did, from the miracle at Cana to relieve the ruler of the feast and to cheer the guests, till He died upon Calvary, was a revelation of the wisdom, power, and love of God.
To be baptized in His name is to be consecrated to God. It is to empty ourselves, to give up all for His sake, to do His service, to witness not for self but for Him. “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself.” “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel’s, the same shall save it.” “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh [renounceth] not all that he hath, he can not be My disciple.” There is no other way save the way of unselfishness, of self-emptiness.
Are you baptized into the Father’s name? Are you baptized into the name of the Son? Not, Did some one go through the formula over you as they buried you in the water, but, Does it mean in you what the words of Christ imply? Are you baptized into His name? It means everything in success.