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At the founding of the Church on the day of Pentecost in CE 30, the crowd asked Peter what they were to do to be saved. Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38 NASB)."
Once these conditions were met, God was bound by promise to place within the repentant believer God�s Spirit, which meant God�s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). These were the identical requirements given by Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. According to the gospels, Jesus began his ministry with a call to repentance (Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:14-15) and baptism (John 3:22; 4:1-4).
When a man or woman entered into the new covenant, God provided the means through the Holy Spirit to be victorious over sin. The new birth in Jesus transformed the new Christian through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in such a way as to totally reorient his or her life away from sin and toward God.
As God�s children, Christians became participants in a spiritual maturation process which required their commitment and perseverance. Although converted Christians were still imperfect, they had to continually return to the throne of grace in humble repentance (Hebrews 4:16). A life not devoted to God was not a Christian life. Christians were to become perfect, that is, mature, right, and complete, like God (Matthew 5:48). This necessitates the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to empower a man or woman with the mind of Christ for achieving such perfection is an impossible task for the natural mind. The state of mind of a converted person is wholly different from that of the natural mind.
The apostles taught that only God has inherent eternal life (John 5:26) but that God intends to give eternal life to others through Jesus of Nazareth. Of all men and women who have lived, only Jesus Christ of Nazareth now has immortality (I Timothy 6:16). Through Christ, God promised to give it to humans (I John 5:11-12) who were saved by Jesus the Messiah�s life, not by his death (Romans 5:10). Those who die in the faith await the a resurrection.
For the early church Jesus of Nazareth was a living savior. He who paid the penalty of sin in humanity�s stead through his shed blood and broken body was not dead, but alive. He rose from the dead. Humans could not be saved by his shed blood and broken body alone, as these only made it feasible for God to free humans from the death penalty. There would be no New Covenant if Jesus had not risen from the dead (I Corinthians 15:17-18). Mortal humanity, under the penalty of eternal death because all have sinned, have to be born of God to be saved.
The Pharisees used ritual immersion in converting Gentiles to Judaism. A proselyte had to undergo ritual baptism, consisting of full immersion in water, to be admitted to the Old Covenant as a proselyte of the gate.F1 John the Baptist utilized water baptism by immersion as symbolic of repentance (Matthew 3:13-17). Jesus set an example by traveling from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:13). John attempted to dissuade him but Jesus said "it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness" and John consented (Matthew 3:13-17 NIV).
The mode of baptism in the ancient Church was by immersion. In his Lecture on the History of the Eastern Church, Oxford professor Arthur Penrhyn Stanley described the practice of the ancient Church as accurately today as when he composed them 150 years ago. He wrote:
There can be no question that the original form of baptism�the very meaning of the word�was complete immersion in the deep baptismal waters; and that, for at least four centuries, any other form was either unknown, or regarded, unless in the case of dangerous illness, as an exceptional, almost a monstrous case. To this form the Eastern Church still rigidly adheres; and the most illustrious and venerable portion of it, that of the Byzantine Empire, absolutely repudiates and ignores any other mode of administration as essentially invalid. The Latin Church, on the other hand, doubtless in deference to the requirements of a northern climate, to the change of manners, to the convenience of custom, has wholly altered the mode, preferring, as it would fairly say, mercy to sacrifice; and (with the two exceptions of the cathedral of Milan, and the sect of the Baptists) a few drops of water are now the Western substitute for the threefold plunge into the rushing rivers, or the wide baptisteries of the East. (Stanley 1862:117.)
BaptismF2 was a vital part of the process of salvation and required of all who would enter into the New Ccovenant. The apostles were to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). All were baptized by one Spirit into one body, the Church of God, and all given one Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 12:13). Those who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death (Romans 6:3). Mark wrote they were to go into "all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:15-6 NIV). For salvation a man or woman had to be born from above by receiving the impregnating life of the Holy Spirit as a gift from God and had to exercise the commitment, courage, and conviction to live God�s new Way of life.
F1Although controversy exists involving the precise meaning of the term "Proselyte of the Gate," it is widely understood to be a designation signifying a Gentile converted to many of the basic principles, but not necessarily the ceremonies or circumcision, of Judaism (Werblowsky and Wigoder 1986:312, Gehman 1970:, Gaebelein 1981:, Unger 1971).
F2The Greek for "immerse" is baptiso, for "sprinkle" is rantizo, and for "pour" is cheo. In the New Testament the ritual was by total immersion, baptiso, into a watery grave for the symbolic burial of the old self.
Page last edited: 11/28/04 08:44 AM
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