Baptist Baptism Quotes

Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.

Simple, powerful, poignant, the Sign of the Cross is a mnemonic device like the Mass, in which we sit down to table with one another and remember the Last Supper, or a baptism, where we remember John the Baptist's brawny arm pouring some of the Jordan River over Christ. So we remember the central miracle and paradox of the faith that binds us each to each: that we believe, against all evidence and sense, in life and love and light, in the victory of those things over death and evil and darkness.

I was raised as a Baptist in the Bible Belt of the South. Until the age of 37, I had never heard anyone teach or preach about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Oh yes, I had heard those scriptures read, more aptly read over, and had read over them myself, but I had never heard anyone try to explain this amazing experience or even give it any credence.

There were, however, important disagreements regarding the doctrine of the church as well as that of baptism. These two doctrines could not be considered in isolation because they had basic theological implications. These implications are what we call covenant theology. The fact that the Puritans had different views on the church and on baptism is the result of a different way of understanding biblical covenants.

Speaking about praying to our Father in Heaven, I once heard Joseph Smith remark, "Be plain and simple and ask for what you want, just like you would go to a neighbor and say, I want to borrow your horse to go to the mill." I heard him say to some elders going on missions, "Make short prayers and short sermons, and let mysteries alone. Preach nothing but repentance and baptism for the remission of sins, for that was all John the Baptist preached.

By infant baptism a person is committed, while unconscious, to a certain church; he is made a member of that church. Now, unless that church is infallible, it has no right to make a person a member without his consent; for, it may commit him to an alliance with error, and to the defenee of it. But all churches are fallible, they may err; a person who is made a member of such a church in infancy, may discover an error in that church when he arrives at maturity. Without his own consent, he has been committed to that error; he was not left free to choose, where it is evident, from the nature of things, a choice might have been exercised. Pedobaptism is therefore inconsistent with liberty.

Like a koshare, John the Baptist stands out in the crowd. He is memorable by both his costume and his behavior. He stays in the mind of all who see him. His presence breaks the normal pattern. His unsettling actions toward the religious hierarchy is shocking. In this way, John, as a sacred clown, introduces an element of chaos into order. This is precisely the theological task of the koshare. John invites people to participate in a solemn ceremony, baptism, designed to bring them life. At the same time, he reminds them of imminent death and destruction. The ambivalence, the tension makes us want to shudder in fear and sigh in relief. John mixes our emotions in the same way a koshare scrambles reality.

Mark’s Baptist admits that he himself is not the promised messiah—“There is one coming after me who is stronger than I am,” John says, “one whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (Mark 1:7–8)—but strangely, John never actually acknowledges Jesus to be the one he is referring to. Even after Jesus’s perfunctory baptism, when the sky opens and the spirit of God descends upon him in the form of a dove as a heavenly voice says, “You are my son: the Beloved. In you I am well pleased,” John neither notices nor comments on this moment of divine interjection. To John, Jesus is merely another supplicant, another son of Abraham who journeys to the Jordan to be initiated into the renewed tribe of Israel. He simply moves on to the next person waiting to be baptized.

A similar lack of concern about Jesus’s earthly origins can be found in the first gospel, Mark, written just after 70 C.E. Mark’s focus is kept squarely on Jesus’s ministry; he is uninterested either in Jesus’s birth or, perhaps surprisingly, in Jesus’s resurrection, as he writes nothing at all about either event. The early Christian community appears not to have been particularly concerned about any aspect of Jesus’s life before the launch of his ministry. Stories about his birth and childhood are conspicuously absent from the earliest written documents. The Q material, which was compiled around 50 C.E., makes no mention of anything that happened before Jesus’s baptism by John the Baptist. The letters of Paul, which make up the bulk of the New Testament, are wholly detached from any event in Jesus’s life save his crucifixion and resurrection (though Paul does mention the Last Supper).

Lincoln was raised in the thick of Old School Calvinism. In Kentucky and Indiana, his parents belonged to a fire-breathing sect called Separate Baptism, in which congregants heard—in the tradition of Jonathan Edward’s famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”—that they were bound for eternal hellfire, and nothing they could do or say or think would change their fate. Preachers did allow that a chosen few were ordained for grace and would be saved, but these fortunate ones had been selected by God before time began. As one Baptist preacher in Lincoln’s Kentucky explained it, “Long before the morning stars sang together . . . the Almighty looked down upon the ages yet unborn, as it were, in review before him, and selected one here and another there to enjoy eternal life and left the rest to the blackness of darkness forever.” Such Baptist ministers were so intense that it has been said that they “out-Calvined Calvin.

We are bound to conclude, therefore, that the newness of the New Covenant cannot involve the elimination of the curse sanction as a component of the covenant and that this newness consequently poses no problem for the interpretation of Christian baptism as a sign of ordeal embracive of both blessing and curse. In confirmation of this conclusion we may recall that John the Baptist analyzed the work of the coming One as a baptism of judgment in the Holy Spirit and fire. Christ so baptized the Mosaic covenant community and he so baptizes the congregation of the New Covenant. Pentecost belongs to both the old and new orders. It was the beginning of the messianic ordeal visited on the Mosaic community. Those who received that baptism of Pentecost emerged vindicated as the people of the New Covenant, the inheritors of the kingdom. Pentecost was thus a baptismal ordeal in Spirit and fire in which redemptive covenant realized its proper end.

In their hermeneutical practices, the Anabaptists were adamant that the New Testament, as the Word of Christ, is the completion of the Old Testament. In the Schleitheim Confession, Sattler and the Swiss Brethren interpreted the Old Testament through the New Testament rather than as a flat document that confuses the two covenants. The Old Testament—more properly, the prophets from Noah to John the Baptist—was a preparation and “figure” that indicated not itself but Jesus Christ. Noah’s deluge is a “figure of what saves you,” spiritual baptism; the Abramic practice and Mosaic command to circumcise is a “testimony” to spiritual purification; John the Baptist “pointed with his finger to Jesus the Lamb of God.”22 This fulfillment of the Old in the New, with its progression of New over Old, fostered profound differences with the Magisterial Reformers. The Anabaptists believed the Reformed conflated the two covenants and thereby departed from Scripture: “they have not so much as a dot in Scripture.”23

authority. What we face now is the “sinner’s prayer.” And I am here to tell you, if there is anything I have declared war on, it is the sinner’s prayer. Yes, in the same way that dependence upon infant baptism for salvation,[29] in my opinion, was the golden calf [30] of the Reformation, the sinner’s prayer is the golden calf of today for the Baptists, the Evangelicals, and everyone else who has followed them. The sinner’s prayer has sent more people to hell than anything on the face of the earth! You say, “How can you say such a thing?” I answer: Go with me to Scripture and show me, please! I would love for you to show me where anyone evangelized that way. The Scripture does not tell us that Jesus Christ came to the nation of Israel and said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, now who would like to ask me into their hearts? I see that hand.” That is not what it says. He said, “Repent and believe the gospel” (Mar 1:15)! Men today are trusting in the fact that at least one time in their life they prayed a prayer, and someone told them they were saved because they were sincere enough. And so if you ask them, “Are you saved?” they do not say, “Yes I am, because I am looking unto Jesus and there is mighty evidence giving me assurance of being born again.” No!—they say instead, “One time in my life I prayed a prayer.” Now they live like devils, but they prayed a prayer!

In a sense the rise of Anabaptism was no surprise. Most revolutionary movements produce a wing of radicals who feel called of God to reform the reformation. And that is what Anabaptism was, a voice calling the moderate reformers to strike even more deeply at the foundations of the old order. Like most counterculture movements, the Anabaptists lacked cohesiveness. No single body of doctrine and no unifying organization prevailed among them. Even the name Anabaptist was pinned on them by their enemies. It meant rebaptizer and was intended to associate the radicals with heretics in the early church and subject them to severe persecution. The move succeeded famously. Actually, the Anabaptists rejected all thoughts of rebaptism because they never considered the ceremonial sprinkling they received in infancy as valid baptism. They much preferred Baptists as a designation. To most of them, however, the fundamental issue was not baptism. It was the nature of the church and its relation to civil governments. They had come to their convictions like most other Protestants: through Scripture. Luther had taught that common people have a right to search the Bible for themselves. It had been his guide to salvation; why not theirs? As a result, little groups of Anabaptist believers gathered about their Bibles. They discovered a different world in the pages of the New Testament. They found no state-church alliance, no Christendom. Instead they discovered that the apostolic churches were companies of committed believers, communities of men and women who had freely and personally chosen to follow Jesus. And for the sixteenth century, that was a revolutionary idea. In spite of Luther’s stress on personal religion, Lutheran churches were established churches. They retained an ordained clergy who considered the whole population of a given territory members of their church. The churches looked to the state for salary and support. Official Protestantism seemed to differ little from official Catholicism. Anabaptists wanted to change all that. Their goal was the “restitution” of apostolic Christianity, a return to churches of true believers. In the early church, they said, men and women who had experienced personal spiritual regeneration were the only fit subjects for baptism. The apostolic churches knew nothing of the practice of baptizing infants. That tradition was simply a convenient device for perpetuating Christendom: nominal but spiritually impotent Christian society. The true church, the radicals insisted, is always a community of saints, dedicated disciples in a wicked world. Like the missionary monks of the Middle Ages, the Anabaptists wanted to shape society by their example of radical discipleship—if necessary, even by death. They steadfastly refused to be a part of worldly power including bearing arms, holding political office, and taking oaths. In the sixteenth century this independence from social and civic society was seen as inflammatory, revolutionary, or even treasonous.

By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy patriarchs, prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy virgins, and of all the saints together, with the holy and elect of God, may he be damn'd. We excommunicate, and anathematize him, and from the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty we sequester him, that he may be tormented, disposed, and delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord God, Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways. And as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him' and make satisfaction. Amen. May the Father who created man, curse him. May the Son who suffered for us curse him. May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in baptism, curse him May the holy cross which Christ, for our salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him. May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him. May St. Michael, the advocate of holy souls, curse him. May all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies, curse him. [Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,---but nothing to this.---For my own part I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.] May St. John the Pre-cursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ's apostles, together curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who by their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and wonderful company of martyrs and confessors who by their holy works are found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him. May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honor of Christ have despised the things of the world, damn him May all the saints, who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be beloved of God, damn him May the heavens and earth, and all the holy things remaining therein, damn him. May he be damn'd wherever he be---whether in the house or the stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. May he be cursed in living, in dying. May he be cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working, in resting, in pissing, in shitting, and in blood-letting! May he be cursed in all the faculties of his body! May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly! May he be cursed in the hair of his head! May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex, in his temples, in his forehead, in his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his throat, in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his fingers! May he be damn'd in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and purtenance, down to the very stomach! May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin, in his thighs, in his genitals, and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and feet, and toe-nails! May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of the members, from the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no soundness in him! May the son of the living God, with all the glory of his Majesty and may heaven, with all the powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him, unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness!

Events surrounding Jesus’ baptism reveal the intense religious excitement and social ferment of the early days of John the Baptist’s ministry. Herod had been cruel and rapacious; Roman military occupation was harsh. Some agitation centered around the change of governors from Gratus to Pilate in AD 26. Most of the people hoped for a religious solution to their intolerable political situation, and when they heard of a new prophet, they flocked out into the desert to hear him. The religious sect (Essenes) from Qumran professed similar doctrines of repentance and baptism. Jesus was baptized at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan (see Jn 1:28). John also baptized at “Aenon near Salim” (Jn 3:23).

Pilgram Marbeck, in conjunction with others, wrote a reply to Schwenckfeld’s strictures on the believers who gathered as churches and practised baptism and the breaking of bread. Schwenckfeld had expressed his disapproval in a work entitled, “Of the New Pamphlet of the Baptist Brethren published in the year 1542.” Marbeck’s reply had a long title (eighty-three words) and took the form of quoting Schwenckfeld and giving 100 answers. In it he and the brethren with him say: “It is not true that we refuse to count as Christians those who disagree with our baptism and reckon them as misguided spirits and deniers of Christ. It is not ours either to judge or condemn him who is not baptized according to the command of Christ.

Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist (John the Initiator) represents the psychic initiation of purification. His death represents the pneumatic initiation, in which initiates die to the false ego-self. His resurrection represents the realization of Gnosis, in which initiates resurrect/awaken from spiritual death here in the underworld and are 'reborn' or 'unborn' into eternal life through the knowledge that their essential nature is disembodied Consciousness, symbolized by the Christ.

Therefore, we can hardly think of submission to his baptism as an act of righteousness, and certainly not a fulfillment of all righteousness. More likely Jesus means “fulfill all righteousness” in a salvation-historical sense. God’s saving activity prophesied throughout the OT is now being fulfilled with the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry and will culminate in his death on the cross. This is supported by the similar salvation-historical reference to John the Baptist in 21:31–32 (Hagner 1992, 116–17). Jesus is expressing his obedience to God’s plan of salvation that has been revealed in the Scriptures (Keener 2009, 132). The public baptism illustrated salvation-historical continuity between John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ ministries. By identifying himself with John through baptism, Jesus endorsed John’s ministry and message, and linked his own cause to John’s (“this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness” 3:15; emphasis added).

Bossuet. ‘Experience has shown that all the attempts of the Reformed to confound the Anabaptists, by the scripture, have been weak; and, therefore, they are, at last, obliged to allege to them the practice of the church.’161 Chambers. ‘As none but adults are capable of believing, they’ the German Baptists, ‘argued, that no others are capable of baptism; especially, as there is no passage in all the New Testament, where the baptism of infants is clearly enjoined. Calvin, and other writers against them, are pretty much embarrassed, to answer this argument; and are obliged to have recourse to tradition, and the practice of the primitive church.’162 Also the Oxford Divines, in a convocation, held one thousand, six hundred and forty-seven, acknowledged, ‘that, without the consentaneous judgment of the universal church, they should be at a loss, when they are called upon for proof, in the point of infant baptism.

During his passage from America to India, in the spring of 1812, he began to doubt the truth of his former sentiments. After his arrival in this country, and before he communicated the exercises of his mind to any of the Baptist denomination, he became convinced, that the immersion of a professing believer, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is the only Christian Baptism

If, thought I, this system is the true one, if the Christian church is not a continuation of the Jewish, if the covenant of circumcision is not precisely the covenant in which Christians now stand, the whole foundation of Pedobaptism is gone; there is no remaining ground for the administration of any church ordinance, to the children and domestics of professors; and it follows inevitably, that I, who was christened in infancy, on the faith of my parents, have never yet received Christian baptism. Must I, then, forsake my parents, the church with which I stand connected, the society under whose patronage I have come out, the companions of my missionary undertaking? Must I forfeit the good opinion of all my friends in my native land, occasioning grief to some, and provoking others to anger, and be regarded henceforth, by all my former dear acquaintance, as a weak, despicable Baptist, who has not sense enough to comprehend the connection between the Abrahamic and the Christian systems? All this was mortifying; it was hard to flesh and blood. But I thought again—It is better to be guided by the opinion of Christ, who is the truth, than by the opinion of men, however good, whom I know to be in an error. The praise of Christ is better than the praise of men.

They were probably confirmed in this idea, by the phrase, ‘buried in baptism.’ The consequence has been, that all the Baptists in the world, who have sprung from the English Baptists, have practiced the backward posture. But from the beginning, it was not so. In the apostolic times, the administrator placed his right hand on the head of the candidate, who then, under the pressure of the administrators hand, bowed forward, aided by that genuflection, which instinctively comes to one’s aid, when attempting to bow in that position, until his head was submerged, and then rose by his own effort. This appears from the figures sculptured in bronze and mosaic work, on the walls of the ancient baptisteries of Italy and Constantinople. Those figures represent John the Baptist leaning towards the river; his right hand on the head of the Savior, as if pressing him down into the water ; while the Savior is about to bow down under the pressure of the hand of John.

Let us also think of the appendix that the Baptists joined to the publication of the Second London Confession of Faith where, several times, they express their desire to maintain good relations with the paedobaptists regardless of their divergences of opinion on the question of baptism:

Now, if children were considered to be capable of admission into the Church by an ordinance in the Old Testament, it is difficult to see why they cannot be admitted in the New. The general tendency of the Gospel is to increase men’s spiritual privileges and not to diminish them. Nothing, I believe, would astonish a Jewish convert so much as to tell him his children could not be baptized! “If they are fit to receive circumcision,” he would reply, “why are they not fit to receive baptism?” And my own firm conviction has long been that no Baptist could give him an answer. In fact I never heard of a converted Jew becoming a Baptist, and I never saw an argument against infant baptism that might not have been equally directed against infant circumcision. No man, I suppose, in his sober senses, would presume to say that infant circumcision was wrong.

Jesus' baptism by John was probably the occasion for an experience of God which had epochal significance for Jesus, even though that significance may only have been fully grasped after some reflection by Jesus. The most striking elements of this experience were Spirit and sonship. He experienced an insurge of spiritual power and became aware that he was being anointed with the eschatological Spirit of God. The `like a dove' may have referred originally to a vision, or it may simply have been an interpretative metaphor drawn in when the narrative was first formulated, either to contrast Jesus' experience of Spirit with the fiery purgative experience of Spirit anticipated by the Baptist,118 or by way of allusion to the epochal role ascribed to the Spirit in creation and to the dove after the flood.119 As to the heavenly voice, in view of the religious history parallels and the further material reviewed below in ch. IV, it is quite likely that Jesus was convinced that at his baptism he had heard God's voice addressing him as son and setting him apart for a special task (as he had the Baptist).120

William and Dolly had still not come to terms with infant baptism. So baby Ann remained unbaptized. It was clear William was leaning toward the beliefs of the Baptists. And why not? Although the Anglican Scott was a major influence, most of William’s spiritual mentors were Baptists, like Skinner and Hall. And as William’s own reputation as a churchman spread, who most enthusiastically welcomed him? Baptists. The congregation of Baptists at Earls Barton, east of Northampton, even persuaded him to preach there every other week. It was a four-hour round trip on foot, so it was no small commitment for such a busy young married man. One day he told Dolly, “A group of Dissenters has asked me to lead their service once a month. And guess where? At Paulerspury!

In Towcester he listened to Thomas Skinner. Skinner was a Dissenter called a Baptist. One of the ways Baptists differed from other denominations was that they did not believe infants should be baptized. They believed only a person who could make a mature judgment should be baptized. That ordinance about baptism was the source of their name. Thomas Skinner loaned Willy a book by Robert Hall called Help to Zion’s Travellers.

They who upon pretence of Christian liberty do practice any sin, or cherish any sinful lust, as they do thereby pervert the main design of the grace of the gospel q to their own destruction, so they wholly destroy rthe end of Christian liberty, which is, that being delivered out of the hands of all our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our lives. ( q Rom 6:1-2; rGal 5:13; 2Pe 2:18,21)

Q. What is the sixth commandment? A. The sixth commandment is, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exo 20:13). Q. What is required in the sixth commandment? A. The sixth commandment requireth all lawful endeavours to preserve our own life (Eph 5:28-29) and the life of others (1Ki 18:4).

Although the gospel be the only outward means of revealing Christ and saving grace, and is, as such, abundantly sufficient thereunto; yet that men who are dead in trespasses may be born again, quickened or regenerated, there is moreover necessary an effectual insuperable hwork of the Holy Spirit upon the whole soul, for the producing in them a new spiritual life; without which no other means will effect i their conversion unto God. (h Psa 110:3; 1Co 2:14; Eph 1:19-20; i Joh 6:44; 2Co 4:4,6)

Although temporary believers, and other unregenerate men, may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favour of God and state of salvation, awhich hope of theirs shall perish; yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavouring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured b that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them cashamed

Q. What is faith in Jesus Christ? A. Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace (Heb 10:39) whereby we receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation, as He is offered to us in the gospel (Joh 1:12; Isa 26:3-4; Phi 3:9; Gal 2:16).39 Q. What is repentance unto life? A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace (Act 11:28) whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin (Act 2:37-38) and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ (Joe 2:12; Jer 3:22), doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God (Jer 31:18-19; Eze 36:31), with full purpose of and endeavour after new obedience (2Co 7:11; Isa 1:16-17).40 Q.

One of the problems in the entire debate over baptism has been the natural mistake of deriving the doctrine of the covenant from our doctrine of baptism, instead of beginning with the doctrine of the covenant, and then proceeding to discuss baptism. Many Christians have come to baptistic conclusions because they simply took a Bible and a concordance, and then looked up every incident of baptism in the New Testament. This is objectionable, not because they studied the passages concerned with baptism, but because they did not look up all the passages that addressed parents, children, generations, descendants, promises, covenants, circumcision, Gentiles, Jews, olive trees, and countless other important areas. In other words, the subject is bigger than it looks.

Confronted with the gross and unbelieving history of the Jews, the baptist must say the Old Testament record of the disobedience of the Jews does not apply to our situation, and that to compare them is to compare apples and oranges. But this means he must therefore explain why the New Testament draws parallels where the baptist draws contrasts.

The baptistic assumption is that the covenants are unlike in this respect. Some Old Covenant members were regenerate, some were not. All New Covenant members are regenerate. The paedobaptist assumption is that the covenants are alike in this respect. Some Old Covenant members were regenerate, some were not. Some New Covenant members are regenerate, some are not. The paedobaptist holds that the difference between the covenants is that the promises in the New are much better—meaning that the ratio of believer to unbeliever will drastically change.

We have to remind ourselves that the multitude who heard Peter's sermon on Pentecost was Jewish. It included Jews from Palestine, proselytes, and dispersed Jews from other parts of the Roman Empire and beyond. The Old Testament was all they had of the Holy Scriptures. As they listened to Peter preaching from those Scriptures (twelve of the twenty-two verses of Peter's sermon in Acts 2 contain quotations from the Old Testament), they could have understood his words in only one way-as a reference to the promise in God's covenant and the fact that that promise extended not only to believers but to their children as well. To interpret Acts 2:39 in light of the New Testament Scriptures, which did not yet exist, as do many Baptists," is to engage in hermeneutical error and can only lead to a serious misrepresentation of the mind of the Spirit. The Jewish multitude had Jewish expectations-not just about the Messiah, but also about the way in which God works with people.

In August, 1746, disputes about baptism were first brought into this church; and while the pastor, Mr. Backus, was prayerfully considering the subject, ten persons were baptized by Elder Moulton. The description of his subsequent exercises, and the result to which he was brought, is thus given in his own words.   “About three months after, when the heat of controversy was abated, the question was put to my conscience in my retired hours, Where is it, and in what relation to the church, do those stand, who are baptized, but not converted? I could see that all the circumcised were obliged to keep the passover; and I had seen that there was no halfway in the Christian church, nor any warrant to admit any to communion therein, without a credible profession of saving faith. No tongue can tell the distress I now felt. Could I have discovered any foundation in Scripture for my former practice, I should most certainly have continued therein: But all my efforts failing, I was at last brought to the old standard, so as to leave good men and bad men out of the question, and simply inquire, What saith the Scriptures?” By this means his mind was at length settled, in the full conviction of the baptism of believers only, and he submitted himself to this ordinance, August 22, 1751.

The excellent Mr. Edwards was settled there, with his grandfather Stoddard, upon the opinion that the Lord’s supper was a converting ordinance, and he had gone on fifteen years in that way, until he was fully convinced that it was contrary to the Word of God; and he also found that gospel discipline could not be practiced in such a way. No sooner was his change of mind discovered, in 1744, than most of his people were inflamed against him, and never would give him a hearing upon the reasons of his change of sentiments; but they were resolute to have him dismissed. As he could not get them to hear him preach upon the subject, he printed his thoughts upon it, in 1749, though most of them would not read his book. In it he says, “that baptism, by which the primitive converts were admitted into the church, was used as an exhibition and token of their being visibly regenerated, dead to sin, and alive to God. The saintship, godliness, and holiness of which, according to Scripture, professing Christians and visible saints do make a profession and have a visibility, is not any religion and virtue that is the result of common grace, or moral sincerity, (as it is called), but saving grace.” And to prove this, he referred to Rom. 2:29; 6:1-4; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11, 12. [On a right to Sacraments, p. 20-23.] Though he did not design it, yet many others have been made Baptists by the same scriptures, and the same ideas from them.

All things in Scripture are not alike mplain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so nclearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them. (m2Pe 3:16; n Psa 19:7; 119:130)

This Jesus came to this earth as the Savior, and by receiving baptism from John the Baptist and being crucified on the Cross to shed His blood, He has through this forever washed away all our sins. Therefore,

In other words, through this baptism, John the Baptist passed all the sins of this world onto the body of Jesus Christ who is the Lamb of God.

Priest. In like manner, Jesus accepted all the sins of this world ‘once and for al’l through the baptism

areas. This is how, for instance, Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. But when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, He stood in the Jordan River waist-deep. The baptism that Jesus received from John was one where John the Baptist laid both his hands on Jesus’ head, immersing Him under the water, and then raising Him out. This baptism has the same meaning as the Old Testament’s laying on of hands, where the High Priest passed- on the sins of the Israelites by placing both his hands on the head of the sacrifice. The baptism that Jesus received from John

The ministry of John the Baptist where he passed-on all the sins of the people of this world onto Jesus was truly a righteous act. This is the gospel of the atonement for sins, the righteousness of God, and the way toward salvation John witnessed. In order for us to receive salvation, we must realize and believe in our hearts both Jesus’ baptism and His shed blood, and His resurrection, which makes up the gospel of the atonement for sins.

Jesus completed our salvation by taking-on the sins of the entire world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and dying on the Cross, after atoned for all these sins.

If we look at the Book of Hebrews, we find Jesus to be the High Priest of Heaven after the order of Melchizedek. He is without genealogy, and He is not even a descendant of Aaron. Jesus Christ is not a descendant of Adam either, but rather, He is the Son of God. Moreover, because He is our Creator and the One who calls Himself “I am who I am,” He does not possess any genealogy. However, despite this, He put aside His glory of Heaven and came down to this earth so that He could to save His creation. When His creation were gasping for life after having fallen into sin due to the devil’s temptations, He came down to this earth in the flesh of a man and received baptism in the Jordan River in order to save mankind completely by atoning for all their sins.

Secondly, the meaning of washing denotes that as the sins of the world were passed-onto Jesus with His baptism,

fire of hell, but now that our sins were passed-onto Jesus through our faith in His baptism, Jesus had to die for our sins in our place.

commonly to be had, and also that many others have since embraced the same truth which is owned therein, it was judged necessary by us to join together in giving a testimony to the world of our firm adhering to those wholesome principles by the publication of this which is now in your hand. And forasmuch as our method and manner of expressing our sentiments in this doth vary from the former (although the substance of this matter is the same), we shall freely impart to you the reason and occasion thereof. One thing that greatly prevailed with us to undertake this work was not only to give a full account of ourselves to those Christians that differ from us about the subject of baptism, but also the profit that might from thence arise unto those that have any account of our labors in their instruction and establishment in the great truths of the gospel, in the clear understanding and steady belief of which our comfortable walking with God, and fruitfulness before Him in all our ways, is most nearly concerned. Therefore, we did conclude it necessary to express ourselves the more fully and distinctly, and also to fix on such a method as might be most comprehensive of those things we designed to explain our sense and belief of. The Westminster Assembly Finding no defect in this regard in that fixed on by the Assembly,4 and after them by those of the Congregational

For more than two centuries, black people had resisted Christianity, often with the tacit acquiescence of their owners. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Christian missionaries who attempted to bring slaves into the fold confronted a hostile planter class, whose only interest in the slaves' spirituality was to denigrate it as idolatry. Westward-moving planters showed little sympathy with slaves who prayed when they might be working and even less patience with separate gatherings of converts, which they suspected to be revolutionary cabals. An 1822 Mississippi law barring black people from meeting without white supervision spoke directly to the planters' fears. But the trauma of the Second Middle Passage and the cotton revolution sensitized transplanted slaves to the evangelicals' message. Young men and women forcibly displaced from their old homes were eager to find alternative sources of authority and comfort. Responding to the evangelical message, they found new meaning in the emotional deliverance of conversion and the baptismal rituals of the church. In turning their lives over to Christ, the deportees took control of their own destiny. White missionaries, some of them still committed to the evangelical egalitarianism of the eighteenth-century revivals, welcomed black believers into their churches. Slaves - sometimes carrying letters of separation from their home congregations - were present in the first evangelical services in Mississippi and Alabama. The earliest religious associations listed black churches, and black preachers - free and slave - won fame for the exercise of 'their gift.' Established denominational lines informed much of slaves' Christianity. The large Protestant denominations - Baptist and Methodist, Anglican and Presbyterian - made the most substantial claims, although Catholicism had a powerful impact all along the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana and Florida. From this melange, slaves selectively appropriated those ideas that best fit their own sacred universe and secular world. With little standing in the church of the master, these men and women fostered a new faith. For that reason, it was not the church of the master or even the church of the missionary that attracted black converts; they much preferred their own religious conclaves. These fugitive meetings were often held deep in the woods in brush tents called 'arbors.' Kept private by overturning a pot to muffle the sound of their prayers, these meetings promised African-American spirituality and mixed black and white religious forms into a theological amalgam that white clerics found unrecognizable - what one planter-preacher called 'a jumble of Protestantism, Romanism, and Fetishism.' Under the brush arbor, notions of secular and sacred life took on new meanings. The experience of spiritual rebirth and the conviction that Christ spoke directly to them armed slaves against their owners, assuring them that they too were God's children, perhaps even his chosen people. It infused daily life with the promise of the Great Jubilee and eternal life that offered a final escape from earthly captivity. In the end, it would be they - not their owners - who would stand at God's side and enjoy the blessing of eternal salvation.

Representing all of mankind - John the Baptist passed-on all the sins onto Jesus. This is how Jesus received His baptism from John the Baptist.

of the world by receiving my baptism from you.” In addition, “For thus” means “By you giving me My baptism, and I received my baptism from you.” The words “For thus,” as mentioned here is ‘’ (hoo-tos gar) in Hellenic or Greek. In addition, these words have the meaning, ‘exactly in this way,’ ‘most fitting,’ or ‘no other way besides this.

Therefore, the phrase, “For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness,” means that “it is fitting that I take-on all the sins of mankind, in the most fitting way or method, you performing baptism on Me and I received the baptism from you all.

When Jesus told John the Baptist, “Perform this baptism on Me,” John the Baptist replied, “Yes Sir, I will do so.

When Jesus Christ started His public ministry, the very first work accomplished by Him was the work of taking-on all our sins by receiving baptism in the Jordan River.

When Jesus walked toward John the Baptist the day after He was baptized, John the Baptist bore witness by saying to the people, “Please take a look at Him. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. You people, take a look at Him! He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Because he had passed-on all the sins of humanity onto Jesus by the baptism, he was able to bear witness personally to the fact that Jesus was the Savior.

On behalf of you and me, the Son of God, our Creator, came to this earth and blotted out our sins through His baptism and bloodshed. In order to take-on and atone for all our sins—our original sin, future sins, personal sins, all the sins of trespasses, and whatever wicked sins that every single human being commits from the days of the Creation until the end of this earth, Jesus received His baptism from John and shed His blood on the Cross.

Because in A.D. 30, Jesus took-on the sins of the world completely by receiving baptism from John the Baptist, John the Baptist pointed out Jesus the next day and said,

it was John the Baptist who testified, “Having taken-on the sins of the world by His baptism, Jesus carried them all away to the Cross.

Because of John the Baptist witness and those who are faithful, it becomes possible for humankind to believe that the baptism Jesus received was the baptism of taking-on the sins of all humanity; and because of this, Jesus had to shed His precious blood on the Cross.

sins completely by understanding and believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Jesus has enabled us to realize why He had to be baptized by John the Baptist, and because His baptism, He had to shed His blood by dying on the Cross. It is only when we reach this correct understanding of the gospel Truth that we can truly be saved and become God’s own people.

To baptize, “baptizo” in Greek means to immerse or submerge under water, to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, to wash one’s self, and to bathe. It also means to pass over or to transfer. By receiving baptism from John the Baptist all our sins were passed onto Jesus, and Jesus became the Savior to the faithful by taking on the sins of the entire world, dying on our behalf - for the wages of sin, and being resurrected from the dead. The Lord received baptism through which He took on all our sins on our behalf and died on the Cross. This was because ‘the wages of sin is death’.

In order to atone for all of our sins, Jesus took-on all the sins of the world through the baptism He had received from John the Baptist.

This age of the Law came to an end with the onset of the age of grace that is, when Jesus’ received His baptism. All salvation promised by the atonement for sins during the Old Testament era came to an end with the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist. Thus,through His baptism and the shedding of His blood, the sins of all humankind were remitted, and salvation from sin was perfectly completely.

The second baptism was different from the first one as this was carried out when John the Baptist baptized Jesus, and this was the baptism that passed-on all the sins of the world onto the body of Jesus. John the Baptist bore witness for those who had received the baptism of repentance before God, and to believe in Jesus who had taken-on and carried the sins of the world away by His baptism.

He passed-on all the sins of the world onto Jesus by His baptism. This was the way of making us prepare the way to Heaven by having us receive the remission of sins,

Testimonies of the Apostles about the Baptism of Jesus Who Had Taken on the Sins of Mankind

By receiving His baptism, Jesus took-on the sins of all the people in this world, and then bore witness to His salvation for 3 years. After this period of three years, He died on the Cross shedding His blood and He was resurrected on the third day. By doing this, He perfected salvation for all those who believe in this Truth, and now sits at the right-hand of the throne of God the Father. In addition, the disciples of Jesus stated, “So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation” (Hebrews 9:28). This passage means that the Lord will appear a second time only to those who are ‘apart from sin’ and are waiting for Him. In other words for those who by faith, have received salvation through the atonement for sins by believing in the baptism Jesus received and His blood on the Cross.

Because of this, people have a vague belief that ‘Jesus somehow has taken- on the sins of the world,’ but this type of thinking stems from ignorance of the baptism of Jesus and its meaning. We

that were so, then Jesus died without having taken-on all your sins through His baptism. Do

We need to understand how the Apostle Peter believed and explained the baptism of Jesus? In 1 Peter 3:21 he said, “There is also an antitype which now saves us-baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The Apostle Peter is telling us the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist is an antitype of the salvation of how He atoned for our sins.

Just as it is written in this passage, the Words of the prophecy of God that says Jesus would take-on and atone for the sins of mankind was realized. All people who believe in Jesus must believe in both the baptism and the blood of Jesus including the gospel of the atonement for sins. Because John the Baptist, the preparer of the gospel of Heaven, had passed-on the sin of the world onto Jesus for all eternity by

Yes, this is true. Jesus has saved us by taking-on your sins as well as mine through His baptism He had received from John the Baptist, dying on the Cross and paying the full price for them, and then being resurrected from the dead.

The news that Jesus took away all the sins of the world by having taken them onto His body when He received His baptism from John the Baptist for the atonement for sins, is the gospel of Heaven. All the sins of the world had been passed-onto Jesus through John the Baptist when Jesus received His baptism.

The phrase here, “For John came to you in the way of righteousness,” speaks of the work of John the Baptist, the last High Priest of the Old Testament (Matthew 11:13), who passed-on all the sins of the world onto Jesus by baptism. Why do you think tax collectors and the harlots believed in the baptism of Jesus where John the Baptist passed-on the sins of the world onto Jesus?

am sure that you now believe in the Word of Truth where John the Baptist bore witness by saying, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”(John 1:29) Jesus bore witness for 3 years by saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”(John 14:6), and bore witness to the fact that the atonement for the sins of all of mankind was the baptism Jesus received and His blood. He told those of us who believe to live a life as His disciple, spreading the gospel of Jesus’ baptism and blood.

Only in this form could the prophecies of the Old Testament be fulfilled, and it becomes possible for us to believe in God in the proper way. Because the High Priesthood is something set eternally by God, the sins of the world had to be passed-on through the baptism given to Jesus

If infant baptism is not commanded in Scripture, it is thus a violation of what is called the Regulative Principle of Worship.

What is the Lord’s Supper?

Mark provides us, for example, with the first mention in Christian history of the figure we call John the Baptist. Mark is the first to relate the story of Jesus’ baptism and the account of his temptation in the wilderness. He is the first to suggest that the betrayal was by the hand of one of “the twelve.” He is the first New Testament writer to associate miracles with the memory of Jesus. He is the first to assert that Jesus taught in parables.

Neither Christ, nor his Apostles have left us a single preceptor example of Infant Baptism. This is a conceded fact. The very first Pedobaptists in history Cyprian of Carthage and his clergy, (A. D. 253,) did not plead any law of Christ, or Apostolical tradition, for infant baptism. They put the whole thing upon analogy and inference upon the necessity of infants on the one hand, and the unlimited grace of God on the other. Their own language is an implied and ab solute confession that their “opinion,” as they call it, had no basis in any New Testament law or precedent. It confesses, in a word, that in advocating the baptism of literally new-born babes, they were introducing an innovation into the Church of Christ and they defend it only on the ground of necessity.

The references to baptism in Mark's Gospel present themselves therefore as follows: (1)  1:4–9: John the Baptist's baptism of repentance and his baptism of Jesus (2)  6:14,24–25: Rumor that Jesus is the Baptist raised from the dead; John's beheading (3)  7:13: Elijah has come in the person of John the Baptist (4)  8:28: Some say Jesus is John the Baptist (see 6:14) (5)  10:38–39: Jesus' reference to a future “baptism” he must undergo (his crucifixion) (6)  11:30: Jesus' challenge to the Jews to identify the source of John's baptism

As far back as 1656 the magistrates of Connecticut asked those of MASSACHUSETTS some questions concerning infant baptism. June 4th, 1657, a meeting of ministers was held in Boston, who adopted what is known as the Half-way Covenant, which provided 'that all persons of sober life and correct sentiments, without being examined as to a change of heart, might profess religion or become members of the Church, and have their children baptized, though they did not come to the Lord's table.' A synod of all the ministers in Massachusetts ratified this provision in the same year. It will be readily seen that such an unscriptural step opened the doors of the Congregational Churches to an immense influx of unconverted people and to a corresponding worldliness of life. The Baptists were obliged, almost single-handed, to stem this public sentiment, but they bravely stood firm for Gospel principles. The Churches increased in number and influence continually, and in a large measure they counteracted these dangerous influences upon the public mind.

This is further underscored by Jesus' disciples' comment in Matt 16:14 that some think Jesus is John the Baptist (presumably raised from the dead; see Matt 14:1; see Mark 6:14) and is made even more clear by Jesus' clarification that “Elijah has already come, and they didn't recognize him. On the contrary, they did whatever they pleased to him. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” (Matt 17:12). The teachers of the Law insisted that Elijah had to come first (presumably on the basis of passages such as Mal 3:1–2), so that the time had not yet come

Protestants have discovered great genius in inventing arguments for the support of infant baptism, and to some Baptists they seem to reason in this manner: It is written, God made a covenant with Abraham and his family: therefore, though it is not written, we ought to believe he makes a covenant with every christian and his family. God settled on Abraham and his family a large landed estate: therefore, he gives every christian and his family the benefits of the christian religion. God commanded Abraham and his family to circumcise their children: therefore, all professors of christianity ought, without a command, not to circumcise but to baptize their children. Jesus said, "suffer little children to come unto me:" therefore, infants who cannot come ought to be carried, not to Jesus, but to a minister, not to be healed, but to be baptized. Paul advised married believers at Corinth not to divorce their unbelieving yoke-fellows, lest they should stain the reputation of their children, with the scandal of illegitimacy: therefore, children, legitimate and illegitimate, ought to be baptized. A man of thirty years of age says he believes the gospel: therefore, his neighbor’s infant of eight days ought to be baptized, as if he believed the gospel. And finally, the scripture does not mention infant baptism; but it is, notwithstanding, full of proof that infants were and ought to be baptized.   Really, the Baptists ought to be forgiven for not having a taste for this kind of logic; yea, they ought to be applauded for preferring argument before sophistry.

The whole account of baptism in the New Testament is plain and intelligible, and the state of this ordinance, during the lives of the apostles, is to be gathered mostly from the book of Acts, written by Luke, the first ecclesiastical historian.

You know it’s a real salvation when Baptists use cold water.

the saying of Jesus where he likens prayer to a son's request: `If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things (Luke - `Holy Spirit') to those who ask him' (Matt. 7-Ii/Luke 11.13). And we cannot exclude the possibility that this confidence of Jesus was based partly at least on his own experience at Jordan; he may have come to the Baptist already with some awareness of God's fatherly care and calling; his baptism may have expressed his willingness to respond to that call and his request for the good things necessary to obey it.123 At any rate we would do better to treat consciousness of sonship and consciousness of Spirit as two sides of the one coin. We cannot say that the one gave birth to the other, and to build dogmatic conclusions on the priority of one or other is to build on sand, without foundation. The most we can say on the basis of the Jordan pericope is that from the very beginning (more or less) of Jesus' ministry he was conscious of God as Father and of the power of God.

THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST AND NEW CREATION A dimension of the baptism of Christ that is unfamiliar to some is that it echoes many of the new creation themes from the Old Testament. However, the baptism of Christ must be understood against the backdrop of John the Baptist’s activity at the Jordan River. Why was John baptizing at the Jordan? The answer comes from the Old Testament and the echoes of the baptism-new creation theme. This section therefore will begin by evaluating John the Baptist’s actions and then proceed to examine Christ’s own baptism. John’s actions at the Jordan All four Gospels record the ministry of John the Baptist, which testifies to his importance as a transition figure, the last Old Testament

By infant baptism a person is committed, while unconscious, to a certain church; he is made a member of that church. Now, unless that church is infallible, it has no right to make a person a member without his consent; for, it may commit him to an alliance with error, and to the defenee of it. But all churches are fallible, they may err; a person who is made a member of such a church in infancy, may discover an error in that church when he arrives at maturity. Without his own consent, he has been committed to that error; he was not left free to choose, where it is evident, from the nature of things, a choice might have been exercised. Pedobaptism is therefore inconsistent with liberty. This will more fully appear from the

Baptismal regeneration" and "infant baptism." These two errors have, according to the testimony of well-established history, caused the shedding of more Christian blood, as the centuries have gone by, than all other errors combined, or than possibly have all wars, not connected with persecution, if you will leave out the recent "World War." Over 50,000,000 Christians died martyr deaths, mainly because of their rejection of these two errors during the period of the "dark ages" alone -- about twelve or thirteen centuries.

The wellspring of these folk churches was a stern Calvinism which the Scotch element of the population had carried with it from the dour highlands. Without competition from other religious ideas or doctrines it slowly pervaded the whole populace, and eventually became deeply rooted in their mores, so widely and unquestionably accepted as to constitute unwritten law. And while its adherents might split into a myriad of disputing minor sects, they were to remain steadfastly loyal to its basic tenets. One of these was a hatred for the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope as nothing less than arms of Satan. Another was confession of sins “before men,” and a third was the requirement of baptism. Still another was an immutable principle that no preacher or minister be compensated in any way for his time or work. Their Biblical hero was John the Baptist, and each church was fiercely proud to call itself “Baptist,” the members insisting that they alone were true followers of the methods and doctrines of the prophet.

BAPTISM a water ritual, used as a spiritual symbol (see also HOLY SPIRIT, JOHN THE BAPTIST) as sign of repentance, Matthew 3:1–12 Jesus’ baptism, Matthew 3:13–15 as sign of conversion, Matthew 28:16–20 of the Holy Spirit, Acts 1:1–8; 1 Corinthians 12:12–13 in the early church, Acts 2:37–41; 8:26–39 and the believer’s death and resurrection in Christ, Romans 6; Colossians 2:11–12

2. I testify that baptism, or dipping in water, is one of the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that a visible believer, or disciple of Christ Jesus (that is, one who manifesteth repentance towards God, and faith in Jesus Christ) is the only person to be baptized or dipped with water, and also that visible person that is to walk in that visible order of His house, and to wait for His coming the second time in the form of Lord and King, with His glorious kingdom, according to promise; and for His sending down, in the time of His absence, the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit of promise, and all this according to the last will and testament of that living Lord, whose will is not to be added to or taken from.

the different administrations. What is more, by separating the substance and administration, the paedobaptists introduced a notion of mixed nature within the covenant of grace by which they explained that “unconverted” people could be in the covenant without taking part in its substance, yet being hermetically contained in its administration. Finally, in considering the old and new covenants simply as administrations of the same covenant by insisting on the identity of their substance, the paedobaptists perpetuated a principle given to Abraham: “I will be your God and the God of your posterity.” This principle allowed the paedobaptists to consider their children as members of the covenant of grace and to justify a legitimate place for them—that of the unregenerate who participate nevertheless in the covenant of grace and who receive the seal: formerly circumcision, now baptism. This understanding of the covenant of grace was very widespread amongst the Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century.

Infant baptism was not named in the Holy Scriptures, nor in any history, for two hundred years after the birth of Christ. And when it was first named, ministers called it regeneration. Because Christ says, “Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” they held that baptism washed away original sin, and that infants could not be saved if they were not baptized. And because Christ says, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,” they held that no person could be saved without eating the Lord’s supper; and they brought infants to it, as well as to baptism. For the truth of these facts, we appeal to the most noted writings of the third and fourth centuries. A noted minister of the third century said, “It is for that reason, because by the sacrament of baptism the pollutions of our birth is taken away, that infants are baptized.” [Clark’s Defense of Infant Baptism, 1752, p.111.]

In a US context, authors Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird note, Among established Southern Baptist churches, for example, there are 3.4 baptisms per one hundred resident members, but their new churches average 11.7. That’s more than three times more! Other denominations offer similar numbers. It’s not hard to conclude that the launching of more new churches will lead more people to Christ.

I hope never to become convinced that my spiritual learning is so complete that I refuse to learn new ways of love and faith from wise teachers, simply because their vocabulary does not match mine. My Buddhist friends have said yes to their faith, yes to their Dharma, yes to the Mystic Law that they embrace. Who am I to say that this Mystic Law is not one of the many names of God? Did not Jesus say, 'And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shephard.

John the Baptist’s historical importance and his role in launching Jesus’s ministry created a difficult dilemma for the gospel writers. John was a popular, well-respected, and almost universally acknowledged priest and prophet. His fame was too great to ignore, his baptism of Jesus too well known to conceal. The story had to be told. But it also had to be massaged and made safe. The two men’s roles had to be reversed: Jesus had to be made superior, John inferior. Hence the steady regression of John’s character from the first gospel, Mark—wherein he is presented as a prophet and mentor to Jesus—to the last gospel, John, in which the Baptist seems to serve no purpose at all except to acknowledge Jesus’s divinity.