Water Baptism and the New Birth

My post today is a copy of an email that I just sent to someone that I've been corresponding with recently about receiving the holy Ghost, and about water baptism. I'm copying three questions that he asked in his most recent email, and below them are my answers. I think these are some really solid things about Jesus to go over and be reminded of, so that we can keep in mind that he is our all in all. Here are his questions: "What did Jesus mean one must be born of the water and spirit to Nicodemus? And was Paul water baptized After he was blinded for days immediately? Third, why did Peter baptize the gentiles after they received the spirit (Cornelius). Why was the Ethiopian eunuch water baptized by one of the disciples?"

Jesus immediately told Nicodemus what he meant, when he said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Water baptism never came up in that discussion, but being born of a woman's womb did. We know that we are born from a sac of water when our fleshly man is born, and we know that our spirit man must be born of God's Spirit to enter the kingdom of God. Yes I'm sure Paul was baptized in water at that time because nothing else had been understood yet. It was him to whom God gave the revelation of the fulfillment of the law for the Gentiles, which eliminates the natural ordinances of the old covenant. Most of his writing in fact dealt with that very topic because there were Jews trying to persuade the Gentile believers that they had to keep the ceremonies of the law in order to be saved. That started in Acts 15:1. Jesus actually beat Peter to the punch in baptizing Cornelius and his household with the holy Ghost before Peter had the chance to baptize them in water. He was making a statement there, and the statement was that the Gentiles were not and are not supposed to take the route of the works of the law to get to faith in Christ, as mentioned in Gal. 3:24. The Jews took that route by design, but that was never intended for the Gentiles, who had never been under the law to begin with. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth" (Rom. 10:4). Jesus was and is what it's all about, and once he had completed his work there was and is nothing left but him; and faith in him is the only path to righteousness that exists (Rom. 3:20-22).

Peter simply missed what happened in front of his eyes, and in fact he never even remembered that Jesus had told them that receiving the holy Ghost was a baptism until Acts 11:15,16. When he said, "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized;" that was a genuine question. He was totally bewildered at what had happened because Jesus had emphatically overwritten his instruction on the day of Pentecost about baptism in water and receiving the Spirit (Acts 2:38,39). He just didn't get it. You may recall that just before going to Cornelius' house he had to be shown and told by God that there was no longer a law of clean and unclean meats (Acts 10:10-16). The apostles were men and this was a brand new thing happening with God in the earth, because the covenant of God had never been with the Gentiles; so there were some major changes that simply were not revealed and understood overnight, even by Paul. The Ethiopian eunuch was a converted Jew and was baptized by Philip, who also was a Jew. The Jews continued with the law along with the Spirit, which was natural, seeing it had been their life for 1400 years. The rule of thumb is that whatever could be done before Jesus died, rose again, and went back to heaven, just doesn't count anymore because he has fulfilled it all and has become the centerpiece of all things (Gal. 2:21). It's all about Jesus and the things he has accomplished for us. There is no need to go backward to get somewhere that we can get to now, namely faith in Christ that results in the Spirit baptism, which alone puts us into Christ (Jn. 7:38,39; Gal. 3:24; I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27; II Cor. 3:17; Gal. 5:18). To believe that we have to do that is to believe that having Christ himself does not make us complete, and the scripture says that it does (Col. 2:10).