More On Baptisms

All of the first to believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour were from a Jewish background. They knew that God had interaction with them as a people, a nation, and as individuals. They believed that all non-Jewish people (Gentiles) were pagans who worshipped false gods. The Jews had laws, feasts, scripture and prophets given to them by God, and the early church recognized Jesus as God, come in the flesh to the Jews. John prepared the way with his baptism of repentance. Jesus died and rose from the grave and the people recognized that He had become for them The Lamb from the feast of Passover who would not only take away their sins, but who would also create in them a new spirit. The Holy Spirit came down upon the Jewish believers at Pentecost, empowering them with the gifts of the Spirit, and all new believers (who were Jewish) would be baptized into this new life in the name of Jesus.

As time went on something wonderful happened. God directs Peter in Acts 10 to go to the household of Cornelius, who was a righteous and God-fearing man, but who was also a Gentile. Peter preaches and "While Peter was still speaking . . . the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening . . . And all the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles also. For they were speaking with tongues and exalting God". Peter immediately realizes that the household of Cornelius had the Holy Spirit poured out upon them in the same way that had happened to him and the others at Pentecost. This meant that Gentiles were able to have faith to believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Peter reports to the church later; "And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, 'John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit'. If God therefore gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?" So at the house of Cornelius Peter orders the Gentile believers to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Two of the first to go out into the Gentile world on a regular basis are Paul and Barnabas. One of the places they go to is Iconium, speaking to both Jews and the Greeks. Acts 14 says that "they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands." (Note here that Barnabas was not an apostle, yet signs and wonders were part of his ministry). Later on in Acts 15 there arises a dissension between a group in the church who believed that all Gentile believers needed also to be circumcised (a requirement that God gave Abraham for all of his descendants), and Paul and Barnabas, who were converting Gentiles but not requiring them to be circumcised or to follow Jewish customs. In the Jewish mind, circumcision was the initation into the family of God, a family that was always Jewish, and thus a family that should always follow Jewish law and tradition. Peter responds by recalling his testimony as to what happened with Cornelius. God directed Peter to Cornelius with a vision, showing Peter in the vision that Gentiles would also be acceptable to Him. "God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith . . . We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way that they ae also." Peter is saying that God's grace comes through faith, for both Jews and Gentiles, and that it does not make sense to impose a burden of law and tradition upon the Gentiles, when it was a burdensome stone for even the Jews to carry.

A little while later Acts 19 reconts Paul's first visit to Ephesus. Here he finds some disciples, and noticing that there was something lacking he asks; "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" They respond that they had never even heard of a Holy Spirit. "Into what then were you baptized?" And they answer; "Into John's baptism." Paul tells them that John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was coming after him, that is Jesus. Paul baptizes them in the name of the Lord Jesus (because of their expressed faith), and then he lays his hands upon them and they received the Holy Spirit, and began speaking in tongues and prophesying. (Notice that scripture does not give a specific order. the household of Cornelius first received the Holy Spirit, and then was baptized).

When we look at the evidence of people being baptized into the church today we might be inclined to ask the same question. "Into what then were you baptized?" Yes we have a baptism in the name of Jesus, but usually we do not see the signs and wonders, the tongues and prophecy, the glorifying of God by the baptized. Has baptizm become a Christian form of circumcisn, or is entry into the family of God still by faith?