The Holy Spirit's Biography of Christ # 17

Christ Greater Than All (continued)

The Two Baptisms

Then you have the two baptisms. There are two baptisms in the Bible, and you will find these mentioned in the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Acts, when Paul came to Ephesus and discerned that there was something missing in the Christians there. He asked them: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" (verse 2), and they replied: "Nay, we did not so much as hear whether there is a Holy Spirit." So Paul said: "Into what then were ye baptized?" And they said: "Into John's baptism." Then, after Paul had explained the significance, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

Now I do not advocate being baptized twice. I believe that in one country people are baptized every year, but, as far as I can tell, they are not any the better for that! However, here you have two baptisms alongside one another. John said: "I indeed baptize you in water ... but He that cometh after me is mightier than I ... He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit." Water in the Old Testament speaks of judgment and death. You ask Noah about that! You remember that the Apostle Peter refers to the flood as the baptism of that time (1 Peter 3:21), and that was a baptism indeed! If you asked those people: 'What did your baptism mean to you?', and they were able to answer you, they would say: 'Well, it was judgment and death. That is what the water meant to us.' Go on a little further in the Old Testament and ask Pharaoh about water. You know that the Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that the Israelites were "all baptized into Moses in the sea" (1 Corinthians 10:2), so the Red Sea was a baptistery. If you asked Pharaoh and his army what their baptism meant, they would answer: 'It was judgment and death.'

This was the baptism of water in the Old Testament, and John's baptism was the baptism of judgment and death. But he said: 'He Who comes after me will baptize in the Spirit,' and that is life and salvation, that is baptism into the Saviour and not into death and judgment, and that is baptism into eternal life.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 18 - (The Two Lambs)