Spiritual Baptism

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry with the title “Spiritual Baptism” (Colossians 2:8-15 and 20). The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel.


In the Bible, the real baptism is into Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit, as was made clear at Pentecost, when Jesus appears to His disciples and tells them (Acts 1:5): “In just a few days you will be baptized – with the Holy Spirit!” The water baptism comes after the spiritual turning towards Christ, never before.  

 

Supporters of infant baptism criticize those who hold strongly to believers’ baptism, because they say there should only be one baptism: the one which took place first, i.e. the infant baptism. This is a total misunderstanding of Paul’s assertion of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”. Neither can infant baptism be justified as being the New Testament “successor” to the Jewish rite of circumcision. Circumcision was regarded as a ceremony of induction into the Jewish religion. But baptism must never be regarded as such, because people are truly and spiritually baptized when, by God’s grace, they repent of their sins, find a living faith and trust in Christ, and change their sinful habits. That is what brings a person into the Body of Christ – not any water baptism at man’s timing.

 

In this true and spiritual baptism, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in a person’s heart and mind, and that person is now ready to be baptized by immersion as a believer, so that the biblical symbolism behind baptism (a drowning or burial of the old sinful nature, and an arising from that “dead body” to the new Christ-self henceforth to control our life) can be perfectly understood and experienced as the person is baptized.

 

In the new Christ-self which now dominates such a person’s life, the fruits of the Spirit are abundantly in evidence every day: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:20).

 

May we be given the grace to discern what is physical, and what spiritual. What is good, and what is bad. What is truth, and what are lies. What is an appearance of charm, and what an evil interior. May we all have a good conscience towards God, for the sake of our eternal destiny.

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