Baptism: Its Introduction in the Gospel Dispensation
By O. Davis
1. WHAT constitutes the ordinance of baptism as determined by its relation to the faith of the gospel prior to the cross? 2. Of what is it the memorial after the death and resurrection of Christ? or of what is it continued in the church, as the sign? We will consider its first introduction into the gospel dispensation, and endeavor to show what it was there intended to teach, or what portion of the gospel faith it was to assist in developing. The beginning of the gospel is introduced by Mark in this way, Mark 1:2: “As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” John’s work, then, in introducing the gospel, was to prepare the way for Christ. This work of preparing the way for Christ is carried on by John’s preaching the “baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;” and they were to believe on him who was to come after him. And the people went out unto him and were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. This work John carries on until he sees Jesus coming unto him, when he saith, John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” We now have before us John preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, and yet pointing to Jesus as the Lamb of God which is to take away the sin of the world. If Jesus, then, the Lamb of God, was to take away the sins of the world, they were not taken away by John’s baptism, nor by the former system of worship through the blood of an animal. What then must have been the baptism of John but a figure or shadow of Christ, by whose sacrifice of himself the sins were to be remitted. John was sent to prepare the way for Christ to be received. The baptism of repentance for the remission of sins must then be the best figure that could be given to teach and shadow forth the work which Christ was to do to atone for our sins. Now what is the essential act of Christ in atoning for or taking away our sins? The wages of sin being death, that must be the price paid. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. The essential act, then, in the atonement, must be the death of the atoning sacrifice, the death of the provided offering or Lamb of God. This baptism of John for the remission of sins must necessarily then contain in it the figure of death. Death then being the essential feature in the atoning work, that one feature must be shadowed, if all others are left out. Does this baptism of John who was to prepare the way for Christ contain this figure of death? We will examine the different forms of baptism, and see in which we can find this essential idea shadowed forth. Sprinkling, pouring, and immersion, are those forms. Sprinkle a person with water, and can we get any figure of death from it? Is there anything in it that would indicate that it was designed to teach the idea of death? The answer is obvious. Next we pass to pouring for baptism, and are we any better off? The necessary figure of death is still wanting. We now pass to the last form, immersion, and do we find it here? We will take our candidate for baptism out into the water; we immerse him beneath its surface. He is gone from our sight. We have but to hold him but a short time where he is to accomplish his death; we need add nothing more; we have only to persist in what is already done. But having completed the figure, we raise him from the watery grave, and he still lives. How perfect the shadow! How calculated to prepare the way for Christ’s work. Here we have then just what the case calls for. But we will follow this institution still further, and we shall see why this particular figure was chosen to prepare the way for Christ. It not only figures death as many other things might do and as was done by the offering of an animal in the then existing system of worship, but was that peculiar figure that shadowed forth the resurrection from the dead, also; another portion of the gospel plan that was to be unfolded or brought to light by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Why not continue the figure of the blood of an animal, if remission of sins by death only was to be shown? Had not the time fully come for the resurrection to be shadowed also? And did not that create a necessity for a new figure, just such a one as baptism by immersion? How truly wonderful has been the unfolding of the plan of man’s redemption! Truly, who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath taught him? O. DAVIS.