| An Alphabetical Analysis Volume 5 - Dispensational Truth - Page 261 of 328 INDEX | |
was the finished Work of Christ, or the equally blessed fact of the
believer's identification with that finished Work. We can, therefore, go
back to Romans 6 to discover further light upon this third baptism, knowing
that while dispensational positions and callings may change, the rock
foundation of the finished Work of Christ must ever remain.
`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).
Here is a close parallel with the passage already quoted from
Colossians 2:12. The church of the One Body is reckoned to have `died with
Christ' (Col. 2:20) to have been `buried with Christ' (Col. 2:12); to have
been `quickened with Christ' (Eph. 2:5); to have been `raised with Christ'
(Eph. 2:6), and to be `seated with Christ' (Eph. 2:6).
Some of its members who endure suffering
for Christ's sake will `reign
with Christ' (2 Tim. 2:12), while every member
by virtue of the fact that
they `died with Him' is assured that they will
`live with Him' (2 Tim. 2:11),
looking for that blessed hope of one day being
`manifested with Him in glory'
(Col. 3:4).
Before any ordinance of baptism was imposed upon Israel by the law,
they too had experienced a baptism that was entirely outside of their own
volition, a baptism that united them as one company together with their
leader:
`All our fathers ... were all baptized unto Moses (burial) in the cloud
(spirit) and in the sea (water)' (1 Cor. 10:1,2).
Baptism in water never had the place with Paul that it occupied in the
ministry of Peter, for Peter could never have said:
`Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel' (1 Cor.
1:17).
The apostle Paul gives the fact that Christ was `buried' a prominent
place in his gospel (1 Cor. 15:4), for burial is the `end of all things'
apart from God.
The church of the One Body has come to that stage where nothing of the
flesh in any shape or form counts with God. This church begins with Christ
risen, and the One Baptism to which we hold is the union that grace has
accomplished, a union of the believer with the whole finished work of Christ,
His death, His burial and His resurrection. This baptism depends upon no
external signs or internal feelings. The member of the Body of Christ today
who prays for `the baptism of the Spirit' is actually praying for that which
he has already received `buried with Him in baptism', or is praying for that
which he will never receive, because what he prays for belongs to a
dispensation past and gone.
It would have been strange if the sevenfold Unity of the Spirit had
contained no reference to that one great Work which alone makes the believer
accepted before God, namely, the finished Work of Christ. We have seen that
it does give it a place. We gladly `leave' the typical baptism in water and