BAPTISM AND THE FLOOD
By
D. M. PANTON, M. A.
Baptism
is enshrined for ever in the gigantic catastrophe of the Flood, incomparably
the greatest physical disaster the world has ever seen. The Holy Spirit
selects this startlingly vivid and enormous setting - a drowned world - in
which to plant God’s ritual for ever. "Few, that
is, eight souls were saved through water,
which also after a true likeness doth
now save you, EVEN BAPTISM,"(1
Pet. 3: 20, 21).
THE DELAY
A
pregnant sentence illuminates the whole background of the ritual. "The
long-suffering of God WAITED" - in a hundred and twenty
years’ postponement of judgment - "in the days of
Noah" (1 Pet. 3: 20). God
had made a private communication to the Patriarch:-"The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is
filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the
earth" (Gen. 6: 13). The
parallel to-day is appalling. The whole world is now under sentence of
death: entire humanity is to be engulfed: the saved are to be ‘few’ - in figure,
eight souls against the untold millions of the pre-Flood world; for it is a ‘true likeness,’
that is, an exact type. Meanwhile God waits. As
before the Flood, so now, He waits for a repentance which never comes. Longsuffering withholds judgment up to the
point where further longsuffering would itself be sin; and if the Ark is not
entered, the delay is only measuring, with omniscient accuracy, a world’s guilt
to which every day adds its damming quota. But the awful truth is
balanced by another: it is a matter of unutterable thankfulness that the
blue heavens cannot over-arch for ever such a mass of wickedness, nor the sun shine on such crimes; beyond lies the glorious [Millennial]
SALVATION
Something
almost equally sobering now opens on our view. Only the few
are saved. The salvation which God offered then and which He
offers now is embodied, in picture, in one of His great rituals. "Wherein" - the ark - "few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water: which
after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism." The
Christian baptistry thus pictures the Flood; and so
vivid is the picture that, had the saved not come through the Flood, they would
have been drowned; exactly as, in baptism, if the baptized were kept under the
water, and did not merely pass through it, they would be drowned also.
For the water is the judgment of God;
descending and ascending floods involved the world in a total immersion; and
all flesh was buried as incurable. "ALL
FLESH DIED" (Gen. 7: 19): so the
baptized man is laid under the water as a corpse; and he survives only because
he is lifted: he lives solely because other hands come between him and
death. Those eight souls speak to us forty-five centuries later. Since
the few are saved, let us never fear being among the few: few even of
the few - our Saviour says one in ten (Luke 19: 16)
- reach the highest: isolation, ostracism can be hall-marks of Heaven.*
"Prefer, if you please," says an old
Father of the Church, "the multitude drowned by
the Flood; but allow me to enter the
[* Better to have said, ‘isolation,
ostracism can be hall-marks of those who are judged ‘worthy’ to inherit the Millennial kingdom: for “many are
called, but few are chosen.”]
THE
So
now we behold the
[* Anything short of a flawless
holiness gives eternal salvation to all believers; but the scriptures
speak also of a future salvation which is dependant upon the regenerate believer’s
works of righteousness. James 1: 21, 22;
1 Pet. 1: 9, 10.]
ILLUSTRATION
The
Apostle next carefully defines what baptism is not, and the type fulfils the
definition exquisitely. Baptism, he says, "is
not the putting away of the filth of the flesh." Baptism, it
is true, is a pictured bath: "arise, and be
baptized, and wash away thy sins,
calling on the name of the Lord" (Acts
22: 16). But, since it is a pictured washing away of sins, it is
no ordinary bath; nor is it a ceremonial washing, such as the lustrations under
the Law, which are called ‘baptisms’ (Mark 7: 4); nor is it an ablution from the ‘filth of the flesh’ in a higher sense - a baptismal
regeneration of the ‘old man.’ Why? Because the type is decisive. The deadliest enemy of
those saved in the
[* Dean Alford’s contention that "the waters saved them,* becoming to them a means of floating the
ark," is overthrown as explicitly by the Scripture as by the type;
for it was the ark, and not the lifting billows, which was "the saving of his house" (Heb. 11: 7). No one can get into the
[* ”The waters,” says the author, “ were the judgment of God.”. Therefore the waters saved them in this sense,
for only those judged worthy of entrance into the kingdom, will inherit it. Matt. 5: 20.]
OUR CATECHISM
So
the Apostle now discloses the only definition of baptism ever given by
inspiration. Baptism, he says, is "the
answer" - the question and reply, the catechism, the successful
examination - "of a good conscience toward God":
a good conscience God-ward, not man-ward; a conscious which God sees to be
good, and not only the examiner for baptism.* The Scripture leaves
us in no shadow of doubt what ‘a good conscience’
is. "How much more shall the blood of Christ
purge your conscience" (Heb. 9: 13):
"let us draw near, having our hearts sprinkled"
- blood-sprinkled- "from an evil conscience"
(Heb. 10: 22). If there be no purged conscience, there is no baptism; for this is
baptism, the [Holy]
Spirit says - "Baptism is the answer of a good
conscience toward God." Baptism is the combination of an
inner fact and an outward act, and of the two the inner fact is the one vital: baptism
saves, because it is the saved who are baptized, and it is a completion, by
outward confession (Rom. 10: 10), of an
inward reality. Those to be baptized are thus sharply defined. As
Noah’s household had to be within the Ark before they could pass through the
waters, and committal to the water alone would have been almost instant death;
so the conscience of the person to be baptized must first be blood-cleansed;
first the Blood, then the water: "Shall be saved"
(Mark 16: 16). **
[* The ‘answer,’ the asking
or questioning of conscience, which comprises likewise its answer; for the word
intends the whole correspondence of the conscience with God. It probably alludes to the
questions and answers used in baptism; but it further expresses the inward questioning
and answering which is transacted within, betwixt the soul and itself, and the
soul and God. - Archbishop Leighton, The
First Epistle of Peter, p. 251.
**
Christian life properly began with baptism, for baptism was the convert’s
confession before men, the soldier’s oath which enlisted him in the service
of Christ. The rite was very simple,
as described by Justin in the second century. After more or less instruction, the candidate
declared ‘his belief in our teachings, and his
willingness to live accordingly.’ Here he made his formal
confession, and here he was baptized by immersion in the name of the
Trinity. After this he was taken to the
meeting and received by the brethren. We have decisive evidence that
infant baptism is no direct institution either of the Lord Himself or of His
apostles. There is no trace of it in the
New Testament. Immersion was the
rule. - H. M. GWATKIN, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Cambridge,
Early Church History, vol. I., pp. 246-250.]
BURIAL
So
the type reveals that baptism is a burial in the flood of wrath: the
proportions of the
[* Not every regenerate believer
does walk in newness of life; many fall into sin and never recover, (Acts 5: 1-10); others become apostates and lose
the kingdom, (Rev. 2: 14).]
Thus
baptism, even apart from its being commanded, becomes binding on all the saved;
for in both its Divine types, salvation and baptism are pictured as one: the
Ark passing through the Flood to Ararat, and Israel, blood-cleansed before
stepping into the Red Sea, "all baptized in the
cloud and in the sea" (1 Cor. 10: 2).* The
entire people of God, in both cases, are assumed as passing through the waters;
and both waters are explicitly stated, by the Holy Spirit, to picture baptism;
and both are a total immersion in
dangerous death-dealing floods.
[*
That they were baptized in the cloud as well as in the Sea - the cloud spanning
from wall to wall of water - reveals baptism once again as a gigantic coffin
for the whole people of God.]
Experience
exquisitely confirms baptism, so administered, as of God. Here are some testimonies the writer has
himself received. "Last night I was smitten
to the dust. Of course I shall obey Him in baptism! There is
nothing else to do. I do so gladly, humbly, thankfully, gratefully."
- "Sunday night was far more beautiful even than
I had thought: I saw no one - the Master was there." - "I shall never forget how I realized the preciousness of
Christ after I obeyed Him." - "It
has brought greater joy into my life, and it has given me a stronger passion
for service. ‘To obey is better than sacrifice.’
The blessedness
that has been mine since my baptism is more than words can express."
- "I was just trembling in every limb - but when
the time came to step into the water, it was just as if He held my hand, and
led me. Never in my whole life has He been so dear: I cannot tell you all
that it meant to me, as I laid my whole life at His feet." - "Each moment of this evening last week comes to my mind
tonight; so overpoweringly, that I was forced to my knees in the ecstasy of
joy. What hath God wrought!"
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BAPTISM AND THE KINGDOM
By
ROBERT GOVETT, M.A.
The
Lord has been pleased to testify to us both concerning eternal life
and the millennial kingdom. Baptism is in close connection
with both; but it is my intention now especially to treat of its connection
with ‘the
God,
who had spoken oft in the Old Testament, prophets of Israel’s day of glory, and
of the kingdom of the Son of David, was pleased at length to send John Baptist
to proclaim, that the promised kingdom had drawn nigh, when Jesus was about to
be presented to Israel. He called on all to repent; for all were
sinners. He preached "the baptism of repentance
for (in order to) the forgiveness of sins."
Mark 1: 4. Those who received his doctrine,
accepted his rite, and were immersed in the river
Great
were the effects of this proclamation throughout the land. A new
dispensation of promise had opened; and they were eager to realize its glories
- like soldiers ready to burst with sword, axe, and crowbar, through
impediments, in order to plunder a place of wealth which has suddenly offered
itself to them: Matt. 11: 11-13; Luke 16: 16.
Multitudes were aroused to desire a part
in the promises of the prophets: they gradually accepted the prescribed
washing, which told of their entrance into the proferred
kingdom. But there were two classes who refused this message of God.
The Pharisees disliked its doctrine of universal sinfulness: and
rejected the bathing which was its token. The Sadducees disliked its prophetic
part; and they also stood aloof from the rite which spoke acceptance of the
testimony.
But
Jesus, though sinless, accepted His Father’s message as an Israelite; and
submitted to the baptism commanded, as a part of his obedience. Heaven
opened, the Father announced him as his Son; the Spirit descended to anoint him
as king. David was anointed by Samuel with oil: the Son of David, with
the Spirit from on high. Jesus overcomes, in a battle without sling or stone,
the great Goliath, who proved to much for Adam, for
[* There needs to be a distinction between the two
scriptural types of justification.
Justification by faith
- (based on the imputed righteousness of Christ) - guarantees eternal life to all those justified
in ‘a new heaven and a new earth’. Justification by the regenerate believer’s works - (after receiving eternal life, as
a “free gift”) - guarantees ‘age-lasting’ life in the millennial kingdom of Christ,
1,000 years beforehand, (Luke 20: 35).]
Jesus,
at the last Supper, discovers to the disciples the limit of the time during
which faith is to be patient. They were to celebrate His death in the
drinking of wine; which should represent His blood, up to the
time of His return. For then He would Himself drink of wine as the
literal produce of the vine, together with them new in the kingdom of the
Father: Matt. 26: 29; Mark 14: 25.
Taking leave of them, He bids them make disciples out of all nations, immersing
them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Why? Because the doctrine of the
future kingdom of glory was still to be heralded by apostles; and baptism was
still the sign of God’s cleansing of sinners, and of man’s acceptance of the
tidings. The parable of the Wedding Garment shows, that the same
message in the main is to be borne by the servants after bidden
The
Saviour ascends: the Holy Ghost comes down from above. Does the [Holy] Spirit drop
all mention of the kingdom? By no means! Peter takes occasion from
the baptism of the Spirit, visible in the tongues of fire, audible in the sound
of new languages, to assure Israelites, that this was the blessing foretold by Joel in the second
chapter. Let us look, then, at what precedes and follows the text
of Joel cited by Peter.* Jehovah
promises, if
[* Joel 1 and 2, clearly describe the
day of wrath which precedes the kingdom, in order to cut off God’s living
foes.]
Peter
quotes also the 110th Psalm,
which likewise speaks of Christ’s millennial kingdom, as a look at it will
prove. But the point in this first sermon which bears most upon our
subject is this: David "therefore being a prophet,
and knowing that God sware with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins ...
* one should
sit on His throne, He seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of the
Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, (Hades) nor did His flesh see
corruption." Jesus, then, is the Messiah, elevated to God’s
right hand as the Priest, and about to come to
[*Omitted words are generally rejected by the critics, as not
genuine. The omission of them disturbs not the sense.]
To
persevere in this course would be destruction, as the Lord threatened, when he
made the promise. What then was to be done? They were to repent and
turn to God, in order that the vast pile of their national and personal
sins might be swept away. Only then could the long-promised season of
refreshing come. Only then would Jesus descend from the heaven to which
God had elevated Him, and introduce the restoration of those blessings, of
which tokens had been given in the earlier history of Adam, and of
While
the apostles were yet speaking, they were seized, and hurried off to
prison. In spite of all testimony
After
the church at
Peter
is sent to the Gentiles. By the vision of the sheet he is
instructed concerning God’s election from among them,
and the heavenly abode hereafter to be theirs. While he preaches to
Cornelius and his friends, the baptism of the Spirit is granted to the
Gentiles, and he commands them to be immersed: Acts
10.
But another apostle is raised up, especial witness of the
Day of Mystery, of the heavenly calling, and of the church, the heavenly body
of the Risen Head. When he is going forth, like Balaam, to curse the Lord’s chosen led through the waters, and
about to enter the promised rest, the Lord arrests him, not to destroy but to
save. His heart is touched; is
turned. He is commanded at once to be baptized; and he
complies. Twice is the baptism named to us: Acts
9 & 22. To Agrippa he professes that he still
retained the hopes given to his nation; hopes realized by the resurrection of
Messiah: 26.
Does
Paul proclaim this kingdom? He does habitually. Himself suffering much
persecution for his apostleship, he exhorts disciples to bear up with courage
and patience, because "we must through many
afflictions enter the
He
visits
But
the history of this remarkable church ceases not here. Paul, aware that he
would not be permitted to visit Ephesus again, while he is at Miletus sends for the elders of the church, and gives them
a farewell address. He recapitulates his work and doctrine among
them. He had taught them "the Gospel
of the grace of God:" 20:
24. He had also gone about heralding among them, "the
In the providence of God he is borne to
The
Jews mainly persisting in unbelief, Paul turns to the Gentiles. He "dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received
all that came unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and
teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ:" 28: 31.
It
is certain, then, that, as the Acts
begins with the
The
Scriptures which speak so much of baptism tell us also what sad results the
refusal to comply with this word of God will produce, in connection with the
[* The true translation is
- "the counsel of God with regard to
themselves." But as it was a
counsel of mercy and they refused it, the sense is that given by our
translators.]
Another
proof of this neglect of John’s invitation is found in our Lord’s words to the
chief priests: Matt. 21: 25-32. The
inquiry was, whether John’s baptism came from heaven, or was it of his own
devising? They affirmed falsely, that they could not tell. Our Lord
then spoke the parable of the two sons. The first being commanded by the
father to go and work in his vineyard, bluntly refuses. The second, on
receiving the same command, promises to go, but does not. The Saviour
then expounds the parable to them. "Verily I say
unto you, the publicans and the harlots are going into the
And
will it not be the same in the day to come, with those who refuse the doctrine
of the kingdom, and baptism as its representative rite? To me it seems
clear. If
violent ones alone press into the kingdom, they who sit still enter not.
The
same just reproach is cast upon the scribes and Pharisees by our Lord.
"Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;
for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye go not in
yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering, to go in:"
Matt. 23: 13. They not only themselves refused John’s
baptism, but as far as their influence extended, they persuaded others not
to accept it. Is there not something like this in our day?
And
does not our Lord teach, that the
refusal of baptism would exclude from the kingdom? "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born out of water* [* Greek 'ek'.]
and the Spirit, he cannot enter
the
But
will a believer’s refusal of baptism, though seen to be commanded, entail on
him simply the negative result of exclusion from the kingdom? What then
says our Lord? "But that servant which knew
his Lord’s will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes:"
Luke 12: 47.
May
the reader not be of this unhappy number, but
one of the obedient and willing ones
to whom the Lord when He cometh shall award praise, and the entry into His
millennial joy!
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