The Apostle Peter no sooner sees that conviction has pierced the heart of his hearers

than he says, "Repent, AND BE BAPTIZED, every one of you in the name of

Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost"

(Acts 2: 38). "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day

there were added about three thousand souls" (verse 41).

At Samaria "When they believed . . . . . they were baptized" (Acts 8: 12). In

Acts 16: 14, 15, we read of Lydia, who was baptized, and her house.  In 16: 30-33,

the apostle Paul speaks to the Jailer, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be

saved, and thy house . . . . . and was baptized, he and all his".

So with Crispus, in Acts 18: 8 (with which read I Cor. 1: 14), "many of the

Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized".  The Apostle in his defence

(Acts 22: 16) says of his conversion, "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins,

calling on the name of the Lord". We do not believe that unbiased exegesis would

attempt to divorce the "baptism" here from the "washing away of sins". It is only when

we mix up dispensations that we are driven to wish that some Scriptures said other than

they do. That baptism had a typical teaching as to cleansing can also be gathered by

reference to Heb. 9: 19, "Meats and drinks and diverse WASHINGS and CARNAL

ORDINANCES". The word translated "washings" is rendered "baptisms" in Heb. 6: 2.

Some of the passage quoted above, from the Acts, include the house of the believer as

well as himself. Lydia, the Jailer, Crispus and Zaccheus, believed, "and their house". It

is important to distinguish between "house" and "household", especially as the A.V. uses

both terms interchangeably. The "house" refers to parents and children, the "household"

includes the family, servants, visitors, etc., etc.  The Apostle spoke of Salvation to the

jailer for him and his house (oikos), he then spoke to all that were in his household

(oikia).  In I Cor. 1: 16 the word household should be house. "To you, and to your

children", the promise was given; and family conversion and blessing seems to have

been the general thing during the period of the Acts. Is it so now?

The Apostle Paul refers to another wonderful symbolism in Rom. 6:, where he

speaks of being "buried with Christ". It must, however, be remembered that the primary

teaching of Rom. 6: is not Water Baptism, but Death to Sin (verse 2). Those who had

been united to Christ in His Resurrection Life were to remember that they had also been

crucified with him and buried with Him. Burial with Christ is a solemn yet blessed truth

for us to-day, but quite independent of Baptism or other rites.

We have, in passing, referred to I Cor. 1:;

let us turn to that passage again, as

verse 14-17 are often used in this controversy.

It is both absurd and untrue to teach from these verses that the Apostle Paul did not

baptize, or that he considered baptism in that period to be wrong. It is not that he

thanked God that the Corinthian believers were not baptized, but that he was thankful that

he, personally, had had so little to do with it, because the Corinthians had turned the