 |  |
Lest any reader should feel that all this reference to O.T. types is contrary to the
exclusive character of the Mystery, we would remind ourselves that the Mystery does not
consist of the basis doctrines of redemption and justification, nor even of the doctrine of
identification as taught in Rom. 5: and 6: These are fundamental to the Mystery, but
are not the Mystery itself.
We can bring to bear upon this O.T. teaching concerning baptism the argument of
Gal. 3: 17-19, changing the terms from that which deals with the promise made to
Abraham 430 years before the law, to that which deals with the one great initial baptism
at the Red Sea.
"And this I say, that the baptism of all Israel unto Moses at the Red Sea, temporarily
suspended, and resumed by the baptism of all Israel at the crossing of the Jordan, this
initial baptism which was 430 years from the call of Abraham, and two years before the
setting up of the tabernacle with its `baptisms and carnal ordinances, imposed until the
time of reformation' which, as Gal. 3: 19 reveals were `superseded' (prosetethe), these
baptisms cannot displace the initial baptism at the Red Sea, which will be most gloriously
fulfilled when every ordinance has passed away."
We must never omit from our consideration that baptism which the Lord spoke of,
long after He had been baptized in the waters of Jordan. That too is beyond the
fluctuation of dispensational changes, and gives meaning even to the carnal and passing
ordinance. Yet one more note. The reader may have met at times some such question as
the following:
Consider this group of names: Shakespeare, Browning, Gladstone and Byron. Which
name is an intruder? Naturally, Gladstone, for he was a politician, the other being poets.
So also can we propound a question.
Crucifixion, Death, Baptism, Quickening, Raising, Seating, Manifesting with Christ.
Which word is an intruder? Again the answer is obvious. To put an ordinance into this
series is to intrude. It must be substituted by the word Burial, and all is harmony. Here
then is light upon "baptism" wherein the believer is "buried" and reckoned "with Christ"
both in death and in resurrection.
The baptisms of water, whether the carnal ordinances of the law imposed on Israel
until the time of reformation, the baptism of repentance of John the Baptist, or the
baptism as practiced by the Pentecostal Church, have been allowed by orthodoxy to
eclipse the only baptism that matters, namely that baptism toward which the Lord
Himself looked, long after His baptism at Jordan (Luke 12: 50).
This is the baptism of the Spirit, the baptism that is associated with the One Body
(Eph. 4: 5), the baptism that fulfils all that the baptism unto Moses and Joshua
foreshadowed and more. To introduce the rite of baptism in water into such a passage as
Rom. 6: or Col. 2: is not only an anachronism, it is an intrusion, dispensationally
untrue and consequently dangerous. Let us try the things that differ, and hold fast that
which is good.