John Chapter 1:

John Chapter 1:

29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.

31 And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.

32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.

33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.

34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.

If people could just look at this passage and study it closely, a lot of confusion and obstruction could be eliminated from the minds of God's people today. In these few verses the only forerunner of Jesus tells us clearly why Jesus came to this world. That was and is , as John said, to "take away the sin of the world," and to "baptize with the holy Ghost." It's unfortunate that the body of Christ has made two separate things of these two elements, because actually they are the same thing. Jesus died at Calvary to pay the debt of sin for all men, because we are told, "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). He rose from the dead on the third day to make eternal life available to us. But the key to all of this is understanding HOW we are forgiven, and how we are made partakers of eternal life with him. In order for us to properly understand these things we need to understand how we became sinners, and how we had death passed upon us. There have been two men in the history of the world who represented all of mankind. The first man was Adam, and the second man was Christ. "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit... The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven" (I Cor. 15:45,47).

Everyone who has ever lived was literally in Adam's body, and that is what the scripture tells us, "For as IN ADAM all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (I Cor. 15:22). Hold onto the second part of that verse for a moment and I'll get back to it. We were all born in sin, and we are all subject to death because we were IN ADAM as the scripture plainly states. We were literally part of Adam, so when he sinned and subjected himself to death, we basically went along for the ride. We had no choice. Adam made that choice for us. The way we become righteous, and the way we obtain eternal life is no different. When Jesus died at Calvary he died as mankind, and he thereby paid that insurmountable debt for all of us. We didn't choose for him to do it. Like Adam, he made that choice for us. The difference of course is that Jesus made a choice that obtained righteousness and eternal life for us, rather than sin and death. But here is the real key to the whole Gospel, and this brings us back to John's testimony in our text passage. As we were literally IN ADAM, and that is how we had sin and death passed upon us, so we must also be literally IN CHRIST in order to have his righteousness and eternal life passed upon us. When Adam sinned we were in his body, and that is why we became sinners, and that is also why we die. So in order for us to be made righteous and have eternal life, we must have been IN Christ's body when he died and rose again.

The only way our sins can be taken away is if we were IN Christ when he died to take our sins away. Likewise the only way we can be partakers of eternal life is if we were in him when he rose from the dead. The apostle Paul says it as plainly as it can be said: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:3,4). There it is, plain and simple. God's people have somehow been fooled into thinking that these verses are speaking of water baptism. Same for the following verse: "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead" (Col. 2:12). Nothing could be further from the truth however. The scripture tells us in another place, "Now the Lord IS that Spirit" (II Cor. 3:17). Earthly water has nothing to do with the person of Christ, but according to that scripture the holy Ghost has a whole lot to do with Christ's person. Look at another verse that makes this point even more clearly: "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have PUT ON Christ" (Gal. 3:27). We put on Christ ONLY if and when we are baptized with the holy Ghost BY Christ INTO Christ literally, because "the Lord IS that Spirit." As Romans 6:3,4 says, we are made partakers of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ when we are baptized INTO HIM!

1 Corinthians 12:13 nails this truth down nice and tight for us: "For BY ONE SPIRIT are we all baptized into one body..." The baptism of the holy Ghost, which is administered by Jesus from heaven, literally puts us into his body; which is the same body that was crucified, and the same body that rose from the dead. The Spirit of Christ is part of his person, and his Spirit is in his body, even as our spirit is in our body. We are body, soul, and spirit; and so it is with Christ and the Father, whose image we are made in (I Thess. 5:23; Gen. 1:26). So when we receive Christ's Spirit we are literally in his body because his Spirit is in his body. Therefore we are made literal partakers of his righteousness because we are in the body that died to pay the debt of our sins. Likewise we are made partakers of eternal life with him because we are in his body which rose from the dead. When someone fully believes that Jesus died to take their sins away, Jesus baptizes them with the holy Ghost, and the sign of speaking with other tongues will manifest, even as it did in the beginning (Jn. 7:38,39; Acts 2:4; Acts 10:46). So it is only by being IN CHRIST that anyone's sins are taken away, and eternal life is obtained. And therein is the reality of what John the Baptist had to say about why Jesus came here from heaven. Being baptized with the holy Ghost by Jesus IS HOW he "taketh away the sin of the world." Amen!!