The Ordinance Of Baptism

The Ordinance Of Baptism

By John G Lake

It has been a great joy to me in these last few years to realize that God is revealing once again, by the Holy Ghost, the real revelation of the purpose of the ordinances that Jesus Christ established, particularly the ordinance of baptism. 

This ordinance, in the beginning of the Church's history, was a great and blessed and dignified ordinance of God which caused men and women to come deliberately forward and commit themselves to the Lord as disciples of Jesus, notwithstanding that the mere fact of that deed meant that their names would be taken by a Roman officer. (I speak now of the time of the great and terrible persecution of the Christians after Christ, and which continued until the Third Century.)

A Roman officer would take the names of the Christians who were baptized, and these were forwarded to Rome. 

Instantly, they ceased to have any further right or protection of law under the Roman government. 

Their estates were confiscated, and they were counted as enemies of the State. 

They themselves were left as a prey to the avarice of the populace. It certainly meant something to be baptized, and certainly there was something, an inner something, that these Christians understood was vital and so necessary that it could not be avoided. 

Otherwise, no such public baptism would have taken place.

Baptismal Consecration

I am looking forward and rejoicing in the return of the old time Christianity and note that when the Holy Ghost began to move afresh in these latter days He brought back the old time spirit of real sacrifice, not only the giving up of that which a man possesses, but the giving up of himself and entire committing of himself, to the Lord his God. And this is the point that I want to speak to you about this afternoon. 

A real kingdom consecration of all you have and all you are — property and person; body and soul and spirit to Christ and the kingdom.

Presentation

The presentation of ourselves to God was the great original fundamental issue that underlaid the whole subject of baptism in the beginning, when Jesus gave the command that constituted Christian baptism; for there is only one command in the entire Word of God that constitutes Christian baptism and gives instructions as to its mode.

Command

Now you notice what I say, that there is only one command in the entire Word of God that gives instructions concerning Christian baptism and its mode. No other command deals with the mode of baptism — just that one command in Matthew 28:19, given by the Lord Himself.

Mode

Coming from the Lord, it is absolutely official and binding, not to be discussed or disputed, but obeyed. Indeed, this was His final command ere He was borne upward by the power of God as He stood on the Mount of Olives about to be separated from the disciples. He said to them:

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in (into) the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Meaning

One of the blessed things I feel the Lord is laying on our hearts today is a return to that ancient practice and mode of baptism instituted by Christ, practiced by the apostles and the Church officially for eight hundred years or until the official introduction of single immersion by the edict of Pope Gregory. Not only in the name of or by the authority of, but there is an inner meaning, a better one. Into the nature of, into the character of, into the life of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Baptism is not an act of obedience. 

It is ten-thousand times more. 

It is an induction into the nature and character and the life of God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. 

In other words, induct them into the life of the Father, induct them into the life of the Son, induct them into the life of the Holy Ghost.

Baptism Into The Father

Therefore, in the life of the individual who has been baptized into the nature of the Father of necessity there must come forth the characteristic of the Father-heart, the great Father-quality that loves its offspring; that gives itself for the children; that stands in strength and sacrifice, in dignity and power, to guard the interests of the household. "Into the name of the Father." Into the nature of the Father. 

That wonderful Fatherhood that reaches out and yearns to produce and reproduce itself in mankind. So God the Father is yearning to reproduce Himself in us, in you, in me.

Baptism Into The Son

The climax of salvation is the reproduction in the human family of the Christ of God, the real Christ of God reproduced in you, in me, as members of the great whole. 

Just as Jesus Himself was the reproduction of the Father, so the collective Body of Christ, the Church, is the reproduction of Christ in the world.

"Baptizing them into the nature of the Son," into the sacrifice of the Son, who gave Himself; the Son who died even that we might live. 

The Son who yielded Himself unto death in order that the life which He gave forth might be transplanted into the human nature and mind. 

That is the great purpose of the Gospel — the reproduction of the Christ, the Son of God, in the family, the Body, the saints, the bride of Christ.

Beloved, it is my conviction that the time has come when from the Body of Christ, or Church, from the bride of Christ, who is the chosen of Christ, there shall come forth that which the Scripture portrays, the man-child, or one born out of the bride, just as Jesus was born out of the virgin, filled with power and dignity and purity. 

Not an individual, but a company of the saints of God who are born to rule; to whom God has given by the Spirit ability to govern. 

Who will be partakers and rulers with the Lord Himself in His kingdom on earth.

Baptism Into The Holy Ghost

Once again, there is a phase of baptism that you and I have commonly not recognized. "Baptizing them into the Holy Ghost." 

As Jesus uttered that command as He stood on the Mount of Olives, He included a name, the Holy Ghost, into which no man had been baptized before. 

We see the Fatherhood of God, we recognize the Sonship of God, the Word speaks to us about the household of God, but we fail to recognize the characteristics of the Spirit of God.

They are the characteristics of motherhood. 

The Spirit that broods, the Spirit that yearns, the Spirit that endeavors to draw us back to God, the Spirit that reaches forth, that hovers over us, that sustains, that blesses, that comforts, that guides, that controls.

So we see the family of God: 

The fatherhood of God, the motherhood of God, the sonship of God, the household of God.

So in the life of the real Christian, there should, there must be apparent in our character, the characteristics of the triune God. 

There should be evidence that inborn in the Christian, are the God-qualities of construction, creation, character building, cementing together, and comforting crowned with sacrifice and obedience. 

It is the mind of God that every one, who by the blood of Jesus is admitted to membership in the Body of Christ, should reproduce in others the qualities that God has planted in them. 

Blessed be His precious name!

Following His Example

Beloved, you and I as sons of God by virtue of our sins having been washed away, after we have yielded ourselves to God, stand before mankind to present ourselves to the Lord, even as Jesus Himself presented Himself to God, a complete consecration "unto all righteousness."

The Great Blunder

Now may I call your attention to one thing? 

The question of baptism has usually been presented to the world from the sixth of Romans, which in itself is not a discussion of baptism at all. 

The subject of baptism in the sixth of Romans is only used as an illustration of the deeper death-life of the Christian. 

No mention is made whatever of baptism, either into the father, or the Spirit. 

Paul deals only with death of sin, the subject he was emphasizing, which is demonstrated in our one immersion, into the Son, while Jesus commanded an immersion into each separate name of the Trinity. 

Paul's teaching all the way through is filled with the subject of the death-life of the Christian.

For years and years, as I have gone into the Word of God and prayed over these questions and heard men teach on the subject of baptism, there was something in my spirit that always revolted against the cross-death being taught as the Christian's death. 

The cross-death is the death of the old man, and our sins are nailed to the cross and are done with.

Therefore, the man who comes to present himself for baptism ought to be considered, and should consider, and reckon himself as finished with sin. 

It is past and done and gone and now he stands before the world to present himself as one who is finished with sin in all its aspects. 

He presents himself as a saved man that he may come forth a new man in Christ Jesus, declaring himself forevermore committed unto God the Father, unto God the Son, unto God the Holy Ghost.