REFUTATION OF THE HERESY OF THE WATER

Things can be said so simply but taken so complicatedly.  For instance, Jesus commanded the eleven apostles to represent Him when He gave them final instructions for after His ascension: 

(KEY VERSE) Go you therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (Mat 28:19)

 He began with “Go you therefore.” He was telling them to go somewhere. Surely, that was the Way that He had gone. He Himself had come into the world and baptized many, but in Spirit, not in water. He had set the example. However, there was one disconnect; He did not command a mode of baptism, at least directly; He merely reminded them of what He had just said, to wit: “All Power is given unto Me in heaven and in Earth” (Mat 28:18). It was Power from Him and not any other substance.

They were to tell them about the Power of Jesus; tell them by teaching people from all the nations of the world. The word, “therefore,” was the pointer to the previous words about His own Power.

It was not just to a select few but everyone that they would encounter.

Now consider the first mode of baptism that the prophets wrote about: 

 Prepare you the Way of the Lord, make His paths straight. John did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. (Mark 1:3-4)

 John prepared the Way for Jesus. His way was preparation, but was not the Way. John did baptize in the wilderness “and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins” (Mark 1:5).

The action therein was water baptism, not for the remission of sins, but for repentance in preparation for the remission of sins. They were to confess to the onlookers of what sins they had repented. (You seldom hear that confession, so the baptism must be a vicarious way of confession.)

That a sinner was baptized in water is a confession rather than a remission. It is like a criminal that confesses to the crime before the judge removes the penalty. John instrumented the confession, but Jesus the remission of the crimes against God and humanity.

So, John did baptize in water; that is a fact, but John is not Jesus who never baptized in water. Mark wrote, “I indeed have baptized you with water: but He (Jesus) shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost” (Mark 3:6). Therein are two modes of baptism — water and the Holy Ghost which Jesus referred to as, not just water, but “Living Water” that even flowed.

Jesus said to the sinful woman at the well: 

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that said to you, “Give me to drink; you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water." (John 4:10)

 Jesus is the ‘fountain of Living Water’ and baptism would be in Him. However, the Person Jesus left, leaving behind the Holy Ghost as the “Comforter” who would abide with them forever (John 14;16). The Holy Ghost is the ‘Living Water’ that is always present, even forever afterwards.

The eunuch asked Philip, after he believed, “See, here is water; what hinders me to be baptized?” Then they went down in the water for the eunuch to be baptized. If the water had not been there, water would have hindered the eunuch. Note that the eunuch had confessed no sins for him to even be baptized in water. The baptism in water was THE confession.

Something miraculous happened after the eunuch was baptized that is often forgotten; “The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip” (Acts 8:38). The Holy Spirit — the Holy Ghost of Jesus — had been there. The Holy Ghost, unbeknownst to Luke who wrote that account, had baptized the eunuch, but after the confession — the baptism in water. The efficacious baptism was not the water but the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The water prepared the Way of the Lord!

Jesus did baptize! His Holy Ghost still does, but Jesus never used the water mode of baptism; always using Living Water from His own ‘belly’ so to speak.

In fact, Jesus baptized the ground (Adam in the Hebrew), the soldier who pierced His side, and surely the repentant thief when His Divine Blood gushed forth onto those who believed. The Living Water from His belly regenerated Adam, most certainly, as “many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves” (Mat 27:52-53). One of those “saints” would have been Adam since Calvary was the place of the skull (of Adam). Adam was the first saint because God had grace on him with His coat of skin (Gen 3:17).

Speaking to the apostles and some of their mothers, Jesus asked a pertinent question, “Are you able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Mat 20:22). Only Jesus had been baptized with the Holy Ghost because the water in which He stood was of no effect since Jesus had not sinned and had no need to confess. The Baptism of Jesus was not of John nor water, but of the Holy Spirit and Power of God.

John said about Jesus, “He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, ‘Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is He which baptizes with the Holy Ghost.” (John 1:33).

John did baptize with water, then died. Water baptism should have died with him! Baptism of the Holy Ghost remains with us who confess our sins to this day. Water hinders the sinner! Why wait on water, when Living Water is always available. Why confess with water when you are always there to confess. The woman at the well was after real water when her thirst could only be satisfied by drinking the ‘Water’ of Jesus.

Jesus’s mode of baptism is substantial and always present since God is omnipresent; that is because wherever Christians go, the Holy Ghost is always there to baptize.

Jesus said to his followers, “I am come to send fire on the Earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” (Luke 49:50). The baptism of Jesus was by “fire” (Acts 2:3), or in Power just as in the Key Verse.

Now consider Paul who denied that he had baptized in water: 

Then said Paul, "John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus." (Acts 19:4)

 Who were they to confess, John or Christ Jesus? The baptism of John in water indeed confesses John who was unworthy compared to Jesus, but they compared to the baptism of John belief in the baptism of Jesus that is by His Power, in the Key Verse — the Holy Ghost.

Have you ever wondered why? Why… why “he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost has never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation?” (Mark 3:39). That is because those who profess the power of water baptism trespasses against the Holy Ghost — the ‘Instrument” of true living water baptism.

There are three substances of the Godhead, according to the key verse: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in whose Name people are to be baptized. They are the three modes of baptism. The Jews baptized, confessing in the Name of the Father, Yahweh, in the molten sea in water (1 Kings 7:23); Jesus baptized those who confessed Himself in His Power; and the Holy Ghost baptizes those who understand that the Holy Ghost is as much the Spirit of Yahweh as Jesus is the Person of Him.

So many wanted to be baptized in water because theretofore they saw that was what the holy priests had done since the Exodus.

“For the Jews require a sign” (1 Cor 1:22). The sign for the Jewish confessors was water. So, it is with a small body of Christians that are very Jewish indeed! “He is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Rom 2:29).

Those who insist on the letter of the Law, not the Spirit, are Jews inwardly. Many thinking that they are the only Christians are the remnants of Judaism who must have some thing to worship God.

Water has become the manifestation of ‘god’ to many; Jesus was not even required, so long as water was always plentiful. With Jesus gone, so long as there is water, those who call themselves Christians, are as much, Poseidons.

To be honest, those who belong to the Churches of Christ are very diligent and hard workers for their doctrines that they even dismiss as doctrinal. They indeed are inwardly Jews because they still think trekking down to the river’s bank is the one essential work that earns heaven. It is what they do, not what the Spirit of Jesus does. They have become the ‘gods’ that judge who is worthy and who is not. They are very Jewish indeed!

Don’t get me wrong; they indeed are serious and well-intentioned, but so were those who crucified the Savior, who Jesus said, “They know not what they do.” Jesus will excuse them for their ignorance, but there is no reason that other Christians should remain as ignorant as them.

One last word of caution; when baptism is mentioned in scripture, ask yourselves, “Whose baptism; John’s or Jesus’s?” Scripture says that there are, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephes 4:5). Ask yourselves, (1) Who is Lord? John or Jesus? (2) faith in whom? water or the Power of the Spirit? and (3) whose baptism? The Holy Ghost’s or water?