One Baptism

Chapter 6 - To Fulfil All Righteosness

We now return to the only man spoken of in the Bible with whom water baptism is particularly connected, that is John Baptist. He was directly sent to Israel by God with the ministry of the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Unlike many prophets who preceded him, he never performed any miracles. This is very surprising indeed, for he came in the spirit and power of Elijah, who in his day did some amazing things, and wrought some outstanding miracles; but not so John. Each of Israel's long line of God-given prophets had his own powerful, and often sign-attested ministry, but none save John could claim the distinction of being sent by God with the ministry of baptism. True to his distinctive calling, John it was who first commanded repentance unto baptism as God's requirement of Israel at that time. His was a bold faith; he was a brave and outstanding man.

John's message was entirely new. It was not a paraphrase of the Mosaic law, nor was it couched in the same words, nor was it ministered in the tradition of any prophet before him. Jesus Himself said that a greater than John had not been born of woman, calling him a burning and a shining light. The truth of this testimony is amply borne out by the fact that for a season the remnant of Israel accepted his message and rejoiced in that light. The Baptist swiftly became a very popular and romantic figure among the people. He lived in the wilderness, dressed in camel-skins, was remarkably frugal in his eating habits, used great directness of speech and fired the imagination of all who flocked to hear him. They accepted the man, responded to his message and ministry, and were baptized of him in water.

But John's baptism was not that 'One Baptism' and he knew it. His insistent message was that he was merely preparing the way for One mightier than he, who was coming to administer a greater baptism. John administered baptism in the ordinary element of water, because it was entirely suited to his ministry. But John had been told by God that the prime reason for his baptism and service was to present Christ and His Baptism to the nation. Therefore his primary task was to relate all he said and preached to the baptism he administered. This he faithfully did, even though when baptizing Christ he did it under protest.

The introduction of his Superior to the nation by baptism was a most spectacular event. He had been specially instructed of God about Jesus on one particular point: 'Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost'. John had already announced Jesus as 'the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world', but apparently he had no direct commandment from God to announce that fact. Presumably it came out in the course of his prophetic ministry, (or was it a word of knowledge?) and it was true. But he was definitely briefed by Him that sent him to say of Jesus Christ, 'this is He which baptizeth in the Holy Ghost', so he said it.

John's ministry was admirably suited to foreshadow Jesus' ministry, for what better way to introduce and symbolize Baptism in Spirit than by this water baptism? Under John's ministry, baptism became the focal point in a man's experience; indisputably he made it obligatory to the salvation he preached. It was an entirely new move by God. Without doubt, if the prophet was to be believed, forgiveness was made dependent upon baptism. Not that the water had any power to wash away sins. Physical elements used in religious rites are always only symbolic. Then, as now, water had no innate properties or virtue to deal with the sins of mansoul. Water baptism was a foreshadowing rite enforced on the people through John by God simply because He chose to do it that way.

The virtue of water baptism to those men of the Old Covenant lay in the obedience of faith in a man's heart, which caused him to obey the command of God as proof that he believed the word preached to him. But by this ministry of baptism, God, by John, was seeking to shift the whole trend and emphasis of spiritual truth away from traditional religion. Judaism was bereft of power: since the captivity and dispersion of Israel, and the destruction of the Temple with its original furniture, there had been no value at all in the Jews' religion. There was no Ark, with its Mercy Seat and tables of Covenant, in Jerusalem. All ritual blood-offering and sacrifices after the Levitical order was useless for redemption and atonement — by it there was no forgiveness. What was enacted in daily, weekly and yearly ritual was entirely without saving strength. Beside this, centuries had passed since Malachi had added the final contribution to Israel's sacred canon; everything had gone dead. Then John appeared, sent from God with a revolutionary message and insisting upon a new ordinance. It was epochal.

The nation that had waited so long for the Messiah thought this must be He, for prior to this neither patriarch, prophet nor king had ever preached and practised these things. John's ministry was not traditional, for Moses had not commanded anything even remotely like this. Then was it additional? For it was certainly extra-Mosaic. They soon discovered that it was neither; it was utterly different. As an instance of this, when they responded to John's ministry, surprisingly enough he did not send his converts hastening from baptism to the Temple to offer sacrifice for their sins. Instead he taught them that to be baptized for remission of sins was enough. They also learned that John's ministry was only temporary and his baptism introductory. Listening to him further, it became obvious that all he did was unto a greater end. He said plainly that he and his baptism were only valuable to them as both he and it foreshadowed another and greater Person and Baptism. They must understand two things: (1) forgiveness was only being granted, and the rite enacted, because God was sending His Lamb into the world to take away sins, and (2) baptism was only being ministered to them as a kind of earnest of the fact that the Son of God would baptize them in the Holy Ghost and Fire. John's baptism was certainly not traditional, nor was it merely additional; it was transitional. His dynamic ministry was sent by God to the remnant of Israel, that by it a greater, more dynamic ministry should be introduced and applied to them, and by them given to the world.

Although perhaps few people of his generation had eyes to see it, the first glimmerings of a fuller truth began to flicker and shine in the darkness of the gross ignorance which enveloped them. John did not know, and so could not teach, any of the doctrine that we now associate with water baptism, but he was absolutely adamant about its administration. The complete revelation concerning baptism was held in abeyance in the person of the Lord Jesus, to be later defined in all its glory by Paul. Even Jesus could not make it fully known, for the typical value of water baptism lies in its representation of what He accomplished by the Cross. Most of the actual value of the One Baptism is only effective in us at, and following upon, our individual Pentecost.

To the discerning eye John's baptism, though meaning much, could have implied more than he plainly stated because the place and means he chose for his ministration was the river Jordan. Whether or not John recognized the full significance of his actions we do not know, but his ministry illustrated the wonderful promise God had made through the prophet Micah that He would 'cast all their sins into the depths of the sea'. Jordan rises high in the mountainous regions of Lebanon and flows southward on its tortuous course to the Dead Sea; it then formed the eastern border of Israel. John's converts joined him in the river, and confessing their sins were immersed by him in its flowing waters. The baptism was a token of God's faithfulness; it was a pictorial demonstration of the immediacy with which God acted to forgive and cleanse sins out of their souls. His mercy and grace washed them from the soul swifter than Jordan's flowing current, to be buried forever in the sea of death.

That was the first great meaning of the rite, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Yet more than this was revealed by it also. Pondering the deep significance of this baptism against the background of Israel's history, we may reach the conclusion that the Lord was seeking to jolt the people wide awake as to their true identity. They were the nation God redeemed from Egypt by the hand of Moses, and afterwards brought over this very Jordan into the land of their promised inheritance by the hand of Joshua. He took over leadership from Moses after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, and set the nation heading for Canaan across this same river into their possessions. Now, before the eyes of the people, as though taking the place of Joshua, John stands uncompromisingly firm in the midst of this same Jordan talking about the kingdom of heaven being at hand. As has been said, the place he chose to announce the fact has a most significant name — Bethabara, 'the place of passage or crossing'.

Somewhere in Jordan Joshua had built a cairn of twelve stones; it marked the exact spot where he stood with the Ark of God on dry land. It is hardly likely that John's feet stood firm in the identical spot where originally the Ark waited in Jordan, but there was no mistaking John's meaning. He bore no Ark and built no cairn, but commanded all to go to him in the river, and continued baptizing there until one day Jesus came. It was as if by this John was saying to the nation, 'Behold your Joshua, this is He; every one of you must come back to the beginning. God is giving you an opportunity to make a fresh start. As it was with your fathers, so also must it be with you; there is no other way, it is from here that you must enter your Promised Land'. It is a very striking parallel. Just as of old they had to 'pass through the waters' into Canaan, so in John's day the remnant of the Children of Israel must come up out of Jordan into their inheritance.

Shortly the land was going to flow with the real milk and honey — Jesus was the sincere milk of the word and the sweetest person that ever lived. Although they did not know it, the time was at hand; God was in process of fulfilling His promise to them.

In John's gospel, chapter 10 verses 39-41, we read that later in His ministry Jesus again resorted to Bethabara 'where John at first baptized.' He did so in order to re-emphasize the purpose of His former visit there, though at this time there was no John, no baptism, no voice or dove or anointing. It was a critically important time for Him; the miracles He had done as a testimony to His Christhood were under hostile examination. Worse still, He was being hounded to death by the authorities. But his retirement to Jordan was not a defeat; He was actually about to work His greatest miracle before men, so He carefully prepared the background. He intended to prove as conclusively and reasonably as reasonable men ought to demand, that He was indeed the Son of God. Short of His own death and resurrection, it was to be the greatest sign that could possibly be shown to men, and it was carefully arranged so that He should declare more fully who He was. Therefore, He was about to do two things: make the greatest claim He had ever made among men — 'I am the Resurrection and the Life' and raise Lazarus from the dead as the sign to prove it: so back He goes to Jordan to the 'place of passage' where John baptized Him. From there He set out again upon the greatest mission of His life. As though He had just died and been buried and had risen again from the dead, He went forth to perform His greatest miracle on earth that side of Calvary. Straight from Bethabara Jesus went to the home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus at Bethany to demonstrate that He is the Resurrection and the Life. Amen! It is Jesus who invests Jordan with its greatest meaning. As though fresh from His own baptism He raised Lazarus from his rock cavern. Can anyone or anything withstand Him, or anything be plainer to the honest heart? He is thus giving baptism its proper meaning and truest setting; death, resurrection and life, or new birth.

Although at the time none but the Lord Jesus could see the whole strategy of God, John's ministry in relation thereto was to enable people to discover who they themselves were and who Jesus was. This done, John must gradually retire from the scene. On the other hand, Jesus on His part, having commenced to reform and adapt the nature and purpose of baptism, went on to complete the plan. That is why, even before He was baptized, Jesus firmly established the fact that all righteousness must be fulfilled. Whatever John Baptist understood by these words of the Lord when He insisted upon baptism we do not know, but God had to be just even in this. If it was righteous that upon repentance men should be immediately forgiven, then it must be shown how and why. At Jordan men confessed their sins and were forgiven, so into the place 'where sin abounded' stepped God's sinless Son, God's Lamb which taketh away the sin of the world. This was a kind of prophetical identification; Jesus was identifying Himself with all those who, in humble confession, had previously stood there. God used water to introduce baptism as His new method and to manifest the Lamb by whom He would accomplish the true Baptism in Spirit. He was also showing that He would remove the already discounted sacrificial system and replace it finally with the new Baptism of which this was a picture. He was preparing them for the revelation of the 'One Baptism' which was to be administered in the future by Jesus Christ in the Spirit of God.

Hundreds of years earlier God had said through Jeremiah (31:31) that He would make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. From that moment His attitude towards the Mosaic covenant was public knowledge. God made that statement, He had fixed His will and given a verdict; He made the first covenant old. Predictably, from that moment it began to wax old in His eyes, and by the time John stood in Jordan it was ready to vanish away. This is why God sent John as a forerunner to Jesus.

By his ministry John accomplished four very important things in relationship to that old covenant he represented:
1. He served on the nation God's final notice of His impending official break with the things received by tradition from their fathers.
2. He pictorially displayed to them the exact moment and means by which God was going to do so; hence his revolutionary new message and ministry.
3. He presented the Person who was going to do it.
4. He revealed both an eternal principle and a divine order. The plan of God for winding up the age and the commencement of the new age was death, resurrection and the descent of the Spirit. Everything God does is according to unchanging principles and eternal order.

From that time forward Jesus gradually began the prearranged take-over from John. Commencing His ministry with the same message and baptism as His forerunner, He thereby ratified them, and before long superseded both. Bringing a far greater message and ministry than John's, He removed the lesser gospel of John Baptist and established His own as the Gospel for this age. In process of this His light speedily eclipsed that which had shone in Jordan; His works and preaching evoked from men such remarks as 'we never saw it on this wise' and 'never man spoke as this man'; so it was throughout His life, until by death and resurrection He wrought the one new, true Baptism. At the same time He completed the phasing out of the Old Covenant in preparation for the New to begin. His actual Baptism had taken the place of the lesser baptism that John had administered; substance had taken the place of shadow.

All this can best be summed up in the words of Hebrews 10:5-9. Jesus took away the first covenant in order to establish the new, second and eternal covenant. That is why, in common with His forerunner, the Lord did not direct men to practise the sacrificial system of the Mosaic law in order to obtain forgiveness. What John had commenced in a figure, Jesus continued and completed in reality at Calvary. Now and again however, the Lord did tell men to re-visit the old; His purpose in doing so was clearly that of two-fold testimony only: firstly to testify of Himself to the people involved in it, and secondly to testify to the divine origins of the Mosaic ritual.

Occasionally the Lord sent men to show themselves to the priests, but never once did He direct men to its sacerdotal rites in order to obtain forgiveness or cleansing. He sent the lepers to 'offer for their cleansing', but not to make a sacrifice in order to obtain it; they offered the ritual gift because they had been cleansed already. By this means the priests learned that a greater than Annas or Caiaphas was among them and a greater than Aaron also. The lepers were already cleansed, but Jesus was teaching them that until the Old had vanished away entirely it must be honoured, even though in a man's individual experience its function was fulfilled.

Bearing all this in mind, perhaps one of the most remarkable features of the four Gospels is their unanimous witness about the public testimony of John Baptist. With one voice they testify that he said Jesus would baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire. More noticeably still perhaps, John made no direct reference at all to the Lord's redemptive work. Only once did he connect Jesus with sacrifice, saying 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world', John 1:29. More surprisingly than ever, three of the gospel writers do not even mention this last fact at all. Significantly enough, having said it, the apostle John goes on immediately to record John Baptist's words that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Ghost; that apparently was the reason why He bore away the sin. Obviously all the writers thought that if this was not the greatest reason for the Baptist's ministry, it was certainly the culminating point of it. Their unanimous testimony is as unmistakable as it is undeniable, they emphasize it as the terminal point and climacteric utterance of his ministry. If their evidence is to be believed this is the most important point.

Now we know that the Holy Ghost was given the responsibility to inspire and oversee the authorship of the Gospels: His intention was to draw attention to the Lord Jesus and not to Himself. He has come and ever works to glorify His predecessor on the earth. Yet He inspired each of the four writers of the Gospels to give this prominence to John's declarations about the Baptism in the Holy Ghost: Why? The simple fact emerges that the Baptism must be very important, for the purpose of the faithful Holy Ghost is to place emphasis exactly where it is needed.

The whole period covered by the earthly ministries of John Baptist and Jesus Christ was sandwiched between two baptisms. During the whole of that time God was moving to a new position in His saving purposes among men. It commenced with water baptism by John and ended with Spirit Baptism by Jesus: even so, neither of these is that 'One Baptism' spoken of in Ephesians 4. Each has a definite relationship to it though, and as an elementary illustration John's baptism introduced men and women into the truth of it. On the day of Pentecost, by being baptized in Spirit, men and women were baptized with Christ's personal baptism, and introduced to the ages of the ages of eternal life in Him.

Reading the opening chapters of each of the four Gospels, we discover that Mark and John virtually commence with the baptism of John, and Matthew and Luke with a genealogy of Jesus. The two latter give complementary accounts of His birth and associated events, and then also pass swiftly on to His baptism in water by John. Then according to his personal directive, each writes a Gospel of His life and work, and a full and detailed account of His trial and death and resurrection; three of them also speak of His ascension. Thus the way is left clear for the next book, the Acts of the Apostles, under the authorship and editorship of the Holy Ghost, to commence with the account of the birth of the Church. Significantly and inevitably it begins with the story of a baptism — Jesus' not John's; the new era had come. On the day of Pentecost men were being baptized in Holy Spirit instead of water. It was an epochal occasion. The ascended, enthroned Lord Jesus Christ was bestowing upon men the privilege of Sonship. Pentecost was an initiating and inclusive, as well as an inaugural occasion. On that day men were being baptized with the One Baptism of the new order. The risen, glorified Lord Jesus could now do this in all righteousness. He had completely removed the old order and clearly established the new, because on the cross He had made the one and only eternal sacrifice for sin.

The Bible says that Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world; exactly when we are not told. Whether it happened following the beginning of sin in heaven, or whether God did it beforehand in anticipation of that sin we do not know, but this information is certainly a revelation of the heart of God towards man. So when at last Jesus appeared and died on earth, it was all over. The sacrifice had already been made before the world was, and it only awaited the fulness of time to be offered on man's behalf on earth. After that happened, blood need never again be shed for sin, and about that God was entirely happy. Consequent upon that final act of total reconciliation, He could establish and bring to perfection His plan to regenerate mankind. It was because His method of effecting that regeneration was so entirely new that He introduced it first in parabolic form through John Baptist. Having done so, He retained water baptism as 'a visual aid', an outward picture of far less importance than the great Baptism it so inadequately portrays.

Water baptism, even though it was only an outward institution in the physical realm, was real enough, and every time the prophet administered the rite he was insisting on the need for the more important baptism of which he repeatedly spoke. John, like the Holy Ghost who filled him, knew that his mission was to glorify Christ by baptizing Him in water. At first, recognizing the superiority of Christ's baptism, he refused to do so. He knew that the Christ was a baptizer too, and although he was a man full of the Holy Ghost, he knew and said that he himself needed to be baptized by Jesus in the Spirit. What he understood by that is difficult for us to know, but in heartfelt words he indicated most clearly how greatly superior to himself and his baptism he regarded Jesus and His Baptism to be. Nevertheless, upon the Lord's insistence, John co-operated with Him to fulfil all righteousness, and so the lesser baptized the greater in water. Whereupon he immediately knew that he had done the right thing, for he saw the blessed Spirit, like a dove, descend from heaven to alight and remain upon his Lord in the sacred anointing of Messiahship, and his ministry was fulfilled.

Months after this, when the Lord had been ministering to men under the power of that anointing for a long while, and as He was nearing the cross, He made some mysterious references to another baptism. That He was not speaking of His past baptism at the hands of John is as obvious as language can make it. He was unquestionably speaking of a future event — 'I have a baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitened until it be accomplished', He said. Many of those who followed Him must have been sorely puzzled by the remark. They had previously witnessed His baptism at the hands of John; they also knew by John's testimony that there was an experience called baptism connected with the Holy Ghost, and that Jesus would administer it. Indeed, it is almost certain that some of His disciples were following Him bearing this promise in mind and looking for its fulfilment. Now they heard Him speak of another baptism; and in such personal terms too, 'I have a baptism', He said; but He did not go on to say ... 'to administer'. Had He said that they could have understood Him, for was not that in essence the thing that John had said? But He said, 'to be baptized with'; it was another, a different baptism, and it was for Himself, but He did not say who was going to be the Baptist. He seemed to make it so distinctly personal. They had been baptized in water; they also were expecting to be baptized in the Spirit, but they had not been included in this Baptism; His speech was exclusive. More than that, He said that He was 'straitened until it be accomplished'. Apparently for Him it was either unavoidable and inescapable, or else He was determined to undergo it, or both.

His anointing had obviously been such an enlargement to Him. How greatly He had been magnified from Jordan onwards. How then could He speak of being 'straitened' as though He were narrowed down, kept within bounds, shut up? If, following His baptism in Jordan, He was so magnified and enlarged that all men knew of Him, and yet He spoke of being 'straitened', whatever would be the result of the next baptism? Could there be any limits to the results of such a baptism as that to which He now moved? He said that He was going to 'accomplish it'; strange words! But one thing was plain, this Baptism was not for the multitudes as was John's; it seemed to be for Him alone; His Baptism. Just His. One Man, it seemed, was going to accomplish One Baptism; how, no-one knew except Himself alone.

Upon the occasion when this subject was raised, the Lord asked two of the apostles He had chosen whether they were able to be baptized with this Baptism. They answered, 'we are able', and their hearts rejoiced. They had at the time been asking Him for privileges in His kingdom (in fact the highest positions it was possible for anybody to have) which were not His to give, and to their sorrow He had to refuse them; but to compensate them for their disappointment He asked them the question quoted above. They did not know that by so doing He was granting them the greatest opportunity and highest possible privilege a mortal man can know — His own Baptism.

It was the most wonderful and yet the most terrible experience He ever knew or accomplished as a man; it was the crowning glory of His life. To this end He had been born and for this purpose He came into the world; it both fulfilled and consummated Him, eclipsing in splendour everything else He had ever done. By its sheer overwhelming brilliance and wealth of love, His Baptism, and what He accomplished therein and thereby, outshines all creation, all His works, and all His other miracles. In offering them this, He offered them the opportunity of achieving the prize they sought and had requested of Him, for He Himself knew no way to His throne other than via His Baptism. He took them at their word; they were going to share His Baptism.

What a Baptism it was and still is! Unlike the one administered at Jordan, it was not to be of a visible nature in water. Nor was this Baptism to be a baptism in blood, though His own blood was much in evidence when it happened. Neither was it a baptism in the suffering He endured then, great and inevitable as that was; all these atrocities and horrors, terrible as they were, were but introductory to it. Jesus' Baptism was to be accomplished by Him by death; so to death He went, grieving, sweating and dripping with blood. Hanging on a cross He bore sin and expiated it, overcoming all the hosts of darkness in motionless battle as He swept majestically onward to the final act of baptism. He knew that neither His bloodshed nor His suffering would, of themselves, justify God in granting expiation for the past sins of mankind; there must be more than that — far, far more.

All the truths normally associated with the work of Christ on the cross could only be, or be effective unto salvation, as all was done with a view to the death of God's Son. His precious blood, even the blood of His cross, is only effective and redemptive because He died there. It was not the blood of the whipping-post, nor of His shameful crowning, that bought our redemption and purged our sins. All of it was the precious blood of the precious Lamb, and it flowed generously from the Redeemer, but it was the dying Lamb who was the redeeming Lamb, not just the suffering Lamb, nor yet the bleeding Lamb; it had to be by the blood of His cross, sealed by His death.

In the aggregate of course all counts, for all was necessary as part of a great whole; His blood is most precious, every drop of it. Wheresoever it was shed, in whatsoever capacity, or whoever it was that exacted it, all was foreknown and planned by God. It was precious at the whipping-post as it fell from His torn flesh there; it was also very precious — as it dripped from the cruel spikes of His crown in Herod's palace; but it is most precious of all on the cross, where Jesus died for us. It is only because He died that everything else He was and did and endured has any relevance for us today. The fact that He suffered and bled, necessary and indispensable and savage as all was, is only valid in the redemptive aggregate as it was the suffering and bleeding of His dying. It was the sacrifice and offering and laying down of His life that saved us. The savaging of His body and the shedding of His blood and the suffering of His soul, though each contributed its special and necessary value to the whole as part of His expiatory work, could not of themselves, nor all together, have reached man.

All would have been in vain had He not died, for man is a dead spirit, existing in the body as a dead soul, totally uncomprehending and unimaginative of eternal life and utterly incapable of responding to it. So the Lord had to die, that by dying He might invade and enter the state of death where man was imprisoned. At the moment His physical body died by the expiry of its breath and the departure of His spirit, His Spiritual Life plunged into man's spiritual death. Everything He endured previously led up to this precise moment; for reasons far too numerous to mention He had to hang on the tree until all God's requirements were met. That done, He was ready to move unhindered unto His next and greatest task, the moment of triumphant death, the Baptism to which He had referred. By His death the Lord reached Man; at last He came to where he was, and to what He found him to be — Death. It required the act called Baptism in order for Him to accomplish it.

Gazing upon Calvary one could have witnessed a process of dying that could be counterparted among men in many and various ways, though happily for the most part less barbarous than His. But all physical death is not a process, as sudden accidents all too shockingly demonstrate to us. The sudden plunging from life into death is a sharp, and to some a painfully terrifying reminder that death really is a baptism. It is an unceremonious immersion into a completely new realm or world of existence, from which there is no return to the former mode of life. Death is not generally thought of as a baptism, but nevertheless that is exactly what it is, and it was towards this that the Lord Jesus was moving and to this that He was referring in Luke 12 verse 50. His birth and earthly life, as well as His physical dying, were all a straitening unto this end. He was born, and lived and hanged upon a tree as a necessary preparation for and prelude to His Baptism. He voluntarily, and God His Father deliberately, and the Holy Ghost comprehensively engineered it; together the blessed Trinity had moved to the point in time when God could retrieve His loss.

Perhaps we ought to pause here and seek to distinguish some things that differ. When speaking of Christ's death it is possible so to use the term that the most important truth of it is lost through generalization. Yet failure to apprehend truth is liable to cause us to be at peril in our understanding where, says Paul, we ought to be men. For instance in the accepted sense of the word Christ did not 'die' on the cross, for it was quite impossible for Him to die in the manner that we apprehend death. Unlike ordinary men, if He had not voluntarily dismissed His Spirit, He could never have died. When the Lord did that He did so with the mighty shout of a conqueror, and strictly speaking, until He dismissed His Spirit from the cross He lived on it. Therefore Jesus accomplished our redemption and reconciliation while hanging still alive on the cross; it was by His living blood, not by His dying blood that the ransom was paid. He never more truly and fully lived than when He was dying. He of all people had to be baptized into death, because He could not die as other men — it was quite impossible. Having borne sin and its penalty in His body on the tree, He arrived at the moment of full release unto which He had been straitened all His life. Plunging in spirit into the death wherein man was held prisoner, the Lord furthered His many conquests unto ultimate victory. Life entered death then. Until that moment He had been penetrating through the environs of man's death, but having done that the Lord stormed the stronghold of satan and reached His beloved Man.

Although so much that was wrought out in the flesh at Calvary was visible to the eye, it was a Spirit Baptism. It is ever the things which the eye does not see, or the ear hear, or the mind understand that are the most vital things of all. It was what was wrought in the invisible world of Spirit that was most important. God is Spirit, so is satan, and so essentially is Man. Calvary was primarily to do with Spirit — God who is the Living Spirit and Man the dead spirit — a captive of satan who is the spirit of death. On the cross Jesus, the Living or Life-giving Spirit, overcame and thoroughly defeated satan, the death (or death-dealing) spirit, and consequently released the enslaved, dead spirit of Man. That is what the Baptism is all about. In the act of dismissing His Spirit He accomplished greater things than He did in the process of dying. It was the most glorious and intensely righteous thing He ever did, and is the deepest meaning behind the remark He made to John Baptist, 'Suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness'. Water baptism was a righteous act to Jesus at that time because the Life-into-death Baptism towards which He was then moving is righteousness eternal in the Spirit.

More than at any other moment since the creation of the world those last moments on the cross reveal righteousness superb and love supreme. Voluntarily accepting fullest responsibility and obligation, without pressure, knowing that it was the correct and only thing to do, Jesus did it. That is the final act of Righteousness from which Regeneration springs. It was through the death of His physical body, whereby so many other righteous things were accomplished, that He did it. The Baptism was not accomplished in the body but out of it — as His Spirit went from His body. Whilst in the flesh He could and did do so much, but in the moment and act of departure from it He accomplished more, much more, the most difficult thing of all.

Everything was in the realm of Spirit; even His blood was only valuable because of the spiritual life He lived in the flesh. So, because all is basically and virtually Spirit, it is in Spirit that the Baptism must take place. He was not a sinner, but became as the sinner; He was not sin, but was made sin; He was not death but was baptized into it in order that His death may be for us the only death there is. Therefore, His death is the new death, all the old forms and expressions of death being superseded by it. The death of sin for us was accomplished at Calvary. Death to sin for us took place also at Calvary. Spiritual Death is destroyed, so is Hell, so is satan (Hebrews 2:14), the spirit who had the power of death. Physical death is now also destroyed — that is, rendered powerless, or annulled — and renamed sleep. Jesus was laughed to scorn when He spoke of death as sleep, but He was right. Luke tells us that Stephen 'fell asleep' and he was right also. Life cannot die, but its physical frame can sleep. For us there is but one death. As He was made sin for us, so was He made death for us, that He may be both Righteousness and Life to us. In every way our precious Lord and the things He did, and what He accomplished as events took place in His life is absolutely all. Even His glorious claim to be Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, assumes fresh lustre as we see it outworking in such a dreadful realm as this.

In the beginning satan had made Adam to be sin and death to the race, so it was perfectly in order that the last Adam should be made sin and death to us by God. In all things He must have the pre-eminence, even in this. There was no other way but death for Jesus the Last Adam, for He had come to end the reign of sin and death. 'I am the Way', He said in the upper room, and within a few hours of making that statement He was baptized into death. There is no other means of access to death than baptism. Lucifer plunged himself into sin and death, thereby becoming satan; in turn by Adam he plunged the whole human race into sin and death also. Because of this, in His day the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, was made sin by God and plunged all living (that is, vitally righteous and holy) and loving into that death which is the result of sin. This is that wonderful, almighty and most mysterious experience which is only faintly pictured and hinted to us in the practice of water baptism.

Seeing that water baptism is not that One Baptism, but only a dim picture of it, we must understand clearly at this point that identity in name because of parallel symbolic ideas is not necessarily an equation of power or experience. Water baptism is basically the projection of an idea from the spiritual to the natural, a suggestion of an invisible experience. Were it not an ordination of God, it could only be regarded as a substitute, an imitation, a grotesque caricature of the real, an empty mocking charade. It would only be a dumb miming of a dim idea not fully known, a cruel cynical deception, for of itself it has no value at all. Like so many other 'things' of old, it has no intrinsic worth of its own, and can, of itself, bestow no merit upon those who engage in it, either as minister or recipient. If there is any spiritual danger attached to water baptism, it lies only in the superstition ingrained in the minds of men who religiously invest it with mystical, sinking almost to magical, powers never intended by God when He originally ordained it. Obviously then, if only for this reason, it could never be the one and only true Baptism.

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