Water Baptism Idolatry

Well, I think that’s a first. I put up a post on how water baptism is no longer in effect, and nobody gave me a scathing rebuke for it. I’m beginning to feel too well accepted. Actually I had another short message in mind on the subject while I was writing the post yesterday. It is this: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exd. 20:3). This is the first of the ten commandments, and being a moral law, it is still very much in effect. The ceremonial law is what is no longer in effect, being fulfilled by the Spirit (Rom. 10:4; Col. 2:10-17). So what does this commandment have to do with water baptism? It’s really quite simple. One scripture really tells the story like it is: “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (II Cor. 3:17). The “liberty” being spoken of here is freedom from sin, but it’s the first part of the passage that I want to get to here. There is absolutely no other presence or substance of Jesus in this world except for the holy Ghost, because as the passage states, “The Lord IS that Spirit.” Jesus said in John 14:26 that the holy Ghost would be sent back from heaven in his name. What this means is that the Spirit of God is here in the ‘stead’ of Jesus. More plainly, since Jesus is not here physically any more, the holy Ghost is here in his place. Jesus also made the following statements in John 14: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you… If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and WE will come unto him, and make OUR abode with him” (Jn. 14:18,23). So how was Jesus planning to come to his disciples after he went back to heaven? And how was it that he AND the Father were going to take up their abode with believers? Through the Spirit of course. That is all it could be because the holy Ghost is the only thing that he said was going to be sent back after he went away (Jn. 16:7).

When someone receives the Spirit they receive the Father and the Son because the holy Ghost is in fact the ‘life’ that indwells both the Father and the Son (Jn. 5:26; Jn. 10:10; Rom. 8:2). The Spirit is also what makes the Father and the Son ‘one:’ “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, EVEN AS we are one” (Jn. 17:22). They are in one mind and one nature through the Spirit, even as believers are instructed by the scriptures to be: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Cor. 1:10). So the point is this: If someone receives the holy Ghost and thereby becomes one with the Father and the Son, what can possibly be added to that? The scripture says, “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit” (I Cor. 6:17). Being baptized with the Spirit INTO Christ is how we are joined to Christ, as the scripture states: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body;” and “He that is baptized INTO Christ has PUT ON Christ” (I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27). Putting on Christ is the same as being joined to Christ, and that can only take place by the holy Ghost baptism; “For the Lord IS that Spirit.” So there is no other ‘God experience,’ or ‘Jesus experience,’ other than the Spirit baptism with its accompanying sign of speaking with other tongues; because there is NO OTHER God or Jesus to have or receive here OTHER THAN the Spirit. So then, if we are made to believe that we have to go through a ceremonial ordinance, namely water baptism, to be complete; then we contradict the scripture that says, “And ye are complete IN HIM” (Col. 2:10).

The Spirit is what washes away our sins, sanctifies us, and justifies us, according to the Bible (I Cor. 6:11). So how does water baptism add to that? Many will say that we are to be water baptized in order to be in ‘obedience’ to Jesus, but the scripture plainly says that God gives the holy Ghost “to all them that obey him” (Acts 5:32). If water baptism is obedience to God, then why did Jesus baptize Cornelius and his household with the Spirit BEFORE Peter baptized them in water? And how is it that people today receive the holy Ghost with the sign of speaking in tongues without being baptized in water at all? Being “in Christ” makes us a “new creature,” and that means we are born anew by being IN CHRIST, which happens through the Spirit baptism (II Cor. 5:17). If God has given us the holy Ghost, that means we have obeyed him and that we have “put on Chirst,” and we are “COMPLETE in him.” Many folks want to stubbornly defend and hold onto water baptism because their Christian affiliation has erroneously taught them that it is necessary, when in fact it is not even in effect in the sight of God. The Bible is clear that “stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry” (I Sam. 15:23). What most of God’s people don’t realize is that their clinging to water baptism is indeed idolatry because it is assigning godly regard to something that was merely a symbolic ceremony that pointed to what Jesus was going to establish after a spiritual order (Mk. 1:7,8; Mat. 3:15; Eph. 4:5). And in attributing godly regard to a dead ritual is to take away regard from Jesus and the divine life that he died and rose to give us. And everywhere that water baptism is regarded and practiced along with the Spirit baptism, water is esteemed higher in the hearts of those who have the Spirit. And that my friend is breaking the commandment that says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Amen