Romans 6.3-Water Baptism versus the Baptism of the Holy Spirit
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday June 4, 2008
Romans: Romans 6:3-Water Baptism Versus the Baptism of the Holy Spirit
Lesson # 179
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 6:1.
Last evening we studied Romans 6:3a, in which Paul reminds the believers in Rome that they were identified with Jesus Christ the moment they exercised faith in Him as their Savior.
We noted that the verb baptizo, “baptized” has two meanings: (1) a literal meaning-to dip or immerse (2) a figurative meaning-to be identified with.
In Romans 6:3, 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Galatians 3:27, the verb means “to be placed in eternal union and identified with Christ by the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation resulting in permanent change of condition.”
Romans 6:1-3, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?”
1 Corinthians 12:13, “For by one Spirit we were all identified with one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
Galatians 3:27, “For all of you who were identified with Christ have clothed yourselves with the nature of Christ.”
Before the New Testament canon was completed in 96 A.D., water baptism was used to teach the baptism of the Spirit.
When the believer was submerged under the water, this portrayed his identification with Christ in His death and burial, which we call in theology, “retroactive positional truth” meaning that the Father views the believer as having been crucified, died and buried with Christ when Christ was crucified, died and buried.
When the believer came up out of the water, this meant the believer was identified with Christ in His resurrection, ascension and session, which is called in theology, “current positional truth” meaning that the believer is “currently” seated at the right hand of Father with Christ.
This represented that the believer is a new spiritual species, a member of the royal family of God and a member of the body of Christ.
Therefore, water baptism was an outward, visible symbol of what the Holy Spirit has done inwardly and invisibly in the believer.
The baptism of the Spirit first occurred on the day of Pentecost 30 A.D. according to Acts 2, which was in fulfillment of our Lord’s prophecy (John 7:37-39).
John 7:37-39, “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
God the Father told John the Baptist that the Lord Jesus Christ will be responsible for the Baptism of the Spirit (John 1:33).
John the Baptist prophesied of the baptism of the Spirit (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33) and makes a clear distinction between water baptism and the baptism of the Spirit (Mark 1:8; Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16).
Matthew 3:11, “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
In Acts 1:5, our Lord distinguishes water baptism and the baptism of the Spirit.
Acts 1:4-5, “Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard of from Me for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’”
The baptism of the Spirit is for believers and the baptism of fire is for the unbeliever (Luke 3:16).
In John 14:16, our Lord promises to the send the Spirit for the first time in His Upper Room Discourse.
John 14:16, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.”
In John 14:20, the phrase “in that day” refers to the day of Pentecost when the apostles would be placed in union with Christ by God the Holy Spirit.
John 14:20, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
In John 14:26, the Lord taught His disciples that God the Father would send the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost in His name.
John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
In Acts 1:8, our Lord repeats His promise to the apostles of sending them the Holy Spirit.
Acts 1:7-8, “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.’”
The Baptism of the Spirit first took place in Jerusalem among Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost in June of 30 A.D. as recorded in Acts 2 and it also took place among the Gentiles as recorded by Luke in Acts 10:34-38, 19:1-7, thus making it universal in scope in the church age (Gal. 3:27; 1 Cor. 12:13).
The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Ephesians 4:5 state dogmatically that there is only one baptism.
Ephesians 4:5, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
In 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, Paul teaches that water baptism was a non-essential and he emphasizes the fact that Christ sent him to preach the Gospel and not to baptize with water (1 Cor. 1:17).
Baptismal Regeneration is taught by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, some Pentecostal sects (notably the anti-Trinitarian United Pentecostal Church and other “Jesus Only” groups), and pseudo-Christian cult groups such as the Mormons.
Baptismal Regeneration is also the doctrinal stance of many teachers and preachers within the Restoration Movement, sometimes called Campbellism (from its founder, Alexander Campbell), whose members are mainly found in churches called Churches of Christ or Independent Christian Churches.
Proponents of baptismal regeneration argue that water baptism is an essential part of salvation because, in their view, it is in the act or ceremony of water baptism that we are born again.
Peter makes clear that Spirit baptism is essential and not water baptism.
1 Peter 3:18-21, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you -- not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience -- through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
It is also significant that Jesus never performed water baptism on anyone (John 4:2)
If water baptism was essential to salvation, why wasn’t the Lord practicing it?
There is a passage in Matthew 28:18, which many churches use as documentation to support their observance of the ritual of water baptism.
This is the only passage in the Gospels where our Lord mentions water baptism and it is not even a command.
Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
The verb for “baptize” in Matthew 28:19 is not in the imperative mood, but rather the verb translated “make disciples” is in the imperative mood.
The verb baptizo, “baptizing” in Matthew 28:19 is a participle that accompanies the action of the main verb matheteuo, “make disciples.”
In every recorded instance in Acts immediately upon receiving Christ as Savior, the believers were baptized (Acts 2:41; 8:12-13, 38; 9:18; 10:48; 16:15, 33; 18:8; 19:5).
Water baptism was commanded of the pre-canon period of the church age as a teaching aid in order to teach the doctrines of retroactive and current positional truth to the early church, but since we have the completed canon of Scripture, we no longer observe it as a church ordinance (cf. 1 Cor. 1:10-17; John 4:1-2).
Water baptism was a teaching aid to instruct believers that when they believed in Christ, the Holy Spirit placed them in union with Christ identifying them with Christ in His death and resurrection.
When the believer was dipped underneath the water, this portrayed the reality that the Holy Spirit identified them with Christ in His death and when they were taken up out of the water, they were identified with Christ in His resurrection.