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

`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.

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