themillennialkingdom.org.uk - Baptism and the Flood

Baptism and the Flood/Baptism and the Kingdom

Themillennialkingdom.org.uk Spined HTML

Baptism and the Flood/Baptism and the Kingdom BAPTISM AND THE FLOOD By D. M. PANTON, M. A.   Baptism is enshrined for overly in the gigantic ending of the Flood, incomparably the greatest physical disaster the world has overly seen.  The Holy Spirit selects this startlingly vivid and enormous setting - a drowned world - in which to plant God’s ritual for ever. "Few, that is, eight souls were saved through water, which moreover without a true likeness doth now save you, EVEN BAPTISM,"(1 Pet. 3: 20, 21).   THE DELAY   A pregnant sentence illuminates the whole preliminaries of the ritual.  "The long-suffering of God WAITED" - in a hundred and twenty years’ postponement of judgment - "in the days of Noah" (1 Pet. 3: 20).  God had made a private liaison to the Patriarch:-"The end of all mankind is come surpassing me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth" (Gen. 6: 13).  The parallel to-day is appalling.  The whole world is now under sentence of death: unshortened humanity is to be engulfed: the saved are to be ‘few’ - in figure, eight souls versus the untold millions of the pre-Flood world; for it is a ‘true likeness,’ that is, an word-for-word type.  Meanwhile God waits.  As surpassing the Flood, so now, He waits for a repentance which never comes.  Longsuffering withholds judgment up to the point where remoter longsuffering would itself be sin; and if the Ark is not entered, the wait is only measuring, with omniscient accuracy, a world’s guilt to which every day adds its damming quota.  But the villainous truth is well-turned by another: it is a matter of unutterable thankfulness that the undecorous heavens cannot over-arch for overly such a mass of wickedness, nor the sun shine on such crimes; vastitude lies the glorious [Millennial] Kingdom of Messiah.   SALVATION   Something scrutinizingly equally sobering now opens on our view.  Only the few are saved.  The salvation which God offered then and which He offers now is embodied, in picture, in one of His unconfined rituals. "Wherein" - the ark - "few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water: which without a true likeness doth now save you, plane baptism."  The Christian baptistry thus pictures the Flood; and so vivid is the picture that, had the saved not come through the Flood, they would have been drowned; exactly as, in baptism, if the baptized were kept under the water, and did not merely pass through it, they would be drowned also.  For the water is the judgment of God; descending and ascending floods involved the world in a total immersion; and all mankind was veiled as incurable.  "ALL FLESH DIED" (Gen. 7: 19): so the baptized man is laid under the water as a corpse; and he survives only considering he is lifted: he lives solely considering other hands come between him and death.  Those eight souls speak to us forty-five centuries later.  Since the few are saved, let us never fear stuff among the few: few plane of the few - our Saviour says one in ten (Luke 19: 16) - reach the highest: isolation, ostracism can be hall-marks of Heaven.* "Prefer, if you please," says an old Father of the Church, "the multitude drowned by the Flood; but indulge me to enter the Ark which held the few."   [*Largestto have said, ‘isolation, ostracism can be hall-marks of those who are judged ‘worthy’ to inherit the Millennial kingdom: for “many are called, but few are chosen.”]   THE ARK   So now we behold the Ark.   As the water was their destruction, so the Ark is the only salvation, for all flesh; and as Noah built a water-tight vessel by obedience, so by obedience our Lord built a flawless madhouse of righteousness.  What Noah synthetic vacated saved, and he himself was powerless to save without the Ark: one missing screw, one faulty plank, one miscalculated measure - anything short of a flawless holiness* and a Law observed in its entirety - would plunge all the saved into the humid flood.  The Ark floated death-proof upon the waters.  An weather-beaten saint, asked to explain salvation, said:- "Something for nothing"; but flipside old servant of God, hearing it, said:- "Nay, it is largest than that; it is everything for nothing."  It is God in the place of Hell.   [* Anything short of a flawless holiness gives eternal salvation to all believers; but the scriptures speak moreover of a future salvation which is dependant upon the regenerate believer’s works of righteousness. James 1: 21, 22; 1 Pet. 1: 9, 10.]   ILLUSTRATION   TheUpholdernext thoughtfully defines what baptism is not, and the type fulfils the definition exquisitely.  Baptism, he says, "is not the putting yonder of the filth of the flesh."  Baptism, it is true, is a pictured bath: "arise, and be baptized, and wash yonder thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord" (Acts 22: 16).  But, since it is a pictured washing yonder of sins, it is no ordinary bath; nor is it a formalism washing, such as the lustrations under the Law, which are tabbed ‘baptisms’ (Mark 7: 4); nor is it an wash from the ‘filth of the flesh’ in a higher sense - a baptismal regeneration of the ‘old man.’  Why? Consideringthe type is decisive.  The deadliest enemy of those saved in the Ark was the water: the water was God’s solitary weapon, and it slew earth’s millions: all salvation, then and now, is in spite of the water.  This is the death-blow of baptismal regeneration.  We do not pass through the water in order to be saved, we pass through it considering we are saved; for we are in the Ark.  The mankind is nor cleansed in the water, but veiled in it, and the Ark vacated saves. *    [* Dean Alford’s contention that "the waters saved them,* rhadamanthine to them a ways of floating the ark," is overthrown as explicitly by the Scripture as by the type; for it was the ark, and not the lifting billows, which was "the saving of his house" (Heb. 11: 7). No one can get into the Ark by proxy, and no one outside the Ark can survive the tempest.  "He who believes by proxy will be damned in person" (Henry Rogers).] [* ”The waters,” says the author, “ were the judgment of God.”.  Therefore the waters saved them in this sense, for only those judged worthy of archway into the kingdom, will inherit it. Matt. 5: 20.]   OUR CATECHISM   So theUpholdernow discloses the only definition of baptism overly given by inspiration.  Baptism, he says, is "the answer" - the question and reply, the catechism, the successful viewing - "of a good conscience toward God": a good conscience God-ward, not man-ward; a conscious which God sees to be good, and not only the examiner for baptism.*   The Scripture leaves us in no shadow of doubt what ‘a good conscience’ is.  "How much increasingly shall the thoroughbred of Christ purge your conscience" (Heb. 9: 13): "let us yank near, having our hearts sprinkled" - blood-sprinkled- "from an evil conscience" (Heb. 10: 22).  If there be no purged conscience, there is no baptism; for this is baptism, the [Holy] Spirit says - "Baptism is the wordplay of a good conscience toward God."  Baptism is the combination of an inner fact and an outward act, and of the two the inner fact is the one vital: baptism saves, considering it is the saved who are baptized, and it is a completion, by outward confession (Rom. 10: 10), of an inward reality.  Those to be baptized are thus sharply defined.  As Noah’s household had to be within the Ark surpassing they could pass through the waters, and committal to the water vacated would have been scrutinizingly instant death; so the conscience of the person to be baptized must first be blood-cleansed; first the Blood, then the water: "Shall be saved" (Mark 16: 16). **    [* The ‘answer,’ the asking or questioning of conscience, which comprises likewise its answer; for the word intends the whole correspondence of the conscience with God.  It probably alludes to the questions and answers used in baptism; but it remoter expresses the inward questioning and answering which is transacted within, betwixt the soul and itself, and the soul and God. - Archbishop Leighton, The First Epistle of Peter, p. 251.  ** Christian life properly began with baptism, for baptism was the convert’s confession surpassing men, the soldier’s oath which enlisted him in the service of Christ.  The rite was very simple, as described by Justin in the second century. Withoutmore or less instruction, the candidate supposed ‘his weighing in our teachings, and his willingness to live accordingly.’  Here he made his formal confession, and here he was baptized by immersion in the name of the Trinity. Withoutthis he was taken to the meeting and received by the brethren.  We have decisive vestige that infant baptism is no uncontrived institution either of the Lord Himself or of His apostles.  There is no trace of it in the New Testament.  Immersion was the rule. - H. M. GWATKIN, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Cambridge, EarlyDenominationHistory, vol. I., pp. 246-250.]   BURIAL   So the type reveals that baptism is a solemnities in the inflowing of wrath: the proportions of the Ark are the proportions of a man, that is, of a coffin; six times as long as it is broad, and ten times as long as it is high.  No sooner was the Ark finished than it entered the villainous storms; and most remarkably our Lord uses the very icon of baptism to express what He must meet without He had completed the zippy righteousness. "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened until it is accomplished!" (Luke 12: 50).  "Are ye ignorant," Paul asks (Rom. 6: 3), "that all we who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?  We were BURIED therefore with him through baptism into death; that like Christ was raised from the sufferer through the glory of the Father, so we moreover might * walk in newness of life" - landed on Ararat.  Our Lord’s resurrection was at once the completion and the proof of His righteousness: therefore it is the goal both in type and in fact.  "Baptism doth now save you, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." There opens surpassing us an Ararat a new world ¹ made wipe by the judgments that fell on Calvary.   [* Not every regenerate parishioner does walk in newness of life; many fall into sin and never recover, (Acts 5: 1-10); others wilt apostates and lose the kingdom, (Rev. 2: 14).]   Thus baptism, plane untied from its stuff commanded, becomes tightness on all the saved; for in both its Divine types, salvation and baptism are pictured as one: the Ark passing through theInflowingto Ararat, and Israel, blood-cleansed surpassing stepping into the Red Sea, "all baptized in the deject and in the sea" (1 Cor. 10: 2).*  The unshortened people of God, in both cases, are unsupportable as passing through the waters; and both waters are explicitly stated, by the Holy Spirit, to picture baptism; and both are a total immersion in dangerous death-dealing floods. [* That they were baptized in the deject as well as in the Sea - the deject spanning from wall to wall of water - reveals baptism once then as a gigantic sepulcher for the whole people of God.]    Experience exquisitely confirms baptism, so administered, as of God.  Here are some testimonies the writer has himself received.  "Last night I was smitten to the dust.  Of undertow I shall obey Him in baptism!  There is nothing else to do.  I do so gladly, humbly, thankfully, gratefully." - "Sunday night was far increasingly trappy plane than I had thought: I saw no one - the Master was there." - "I shall never forget how I realized the preciousness of Christ without I obeyed Him." -  "It has brought greater joy into my life, and it has given me a stronger passion for service. ‘To obey is largest than sacrifice.’  The blessedness that has been mine since my baptism is increasingly than words can express." - "I was just trembling in every limb - but when the time came to step into the water, it was just as if He held my hand, and led me.  Never in my whole life has He been so dear: I cannot tell you all that it meant to me, as I laid my whole life at His feet." - "Each moment of this evening last week comes to my mind tonight; so overpoweringly, that I was forced to my knees in the ecstasy of joy.  What hath God wrought!" -------   BAPTISM AND THE KINGDOM   By   ROBERT GOVETT, M.A.   The Lord has been pleased to testify to us both concerning eternal life and the millennial kingdom.  Baptism is in tropical connection with both; but it is my intention now expressly to treat of its connection with ‘the kingdom of God’ (or ‘of heaven.’)   God, who had spoken oft in the Old Testament, prophets of Israel’s day of glory, and of the kingdom of the Son of David, was pleased at length to send John Baptist to proclaim, that the promised kingdom had drawn nigh, when Jesus was well-nigh to be presented to Israel.  He tabbed on all to repent; for all were sinners.  He preached "the baptism of repentance for (in order to) the forgiveness of sins." Mark 1: 4.  Those who received his doctrine, wonted his rite, and were immersed in the river Jordan.  Thus he carried out God’s undeniability by Isaiah. "Wash you, make you clean: put yonder the evil of your doings from surpassing mine eyes; closure to do evil, learn to do well:" Isa. 1: 16, 17.  For the kingdom of God is a kingdom of saints, as Daniel foretold, 7.  All, then, who enter that kingdom must have their past sins forgiven, and live a new life.   For the day of wrath must visit earth surpassing the kingdom comes, to sweep yonder from off it all living sinners; as John moreover assumes; expressly in his unravelment of Messiah as the woodman with axe ready to smite the evil trees; and as the husbandman, with winnowing fan and fire, prepared to sever the wheat and the chaff.  Baptism seen in connection with John’s preaching, presented the receivers of it as set vastitude that waterflood of wrath, pensile in safety the coming glory. There were, as Israel of old, standing on the farther shore of the Red Sea, while the enemies of God are swallowed up in the deep.  Unconfinedwere the effects of this proclamation throughout the land.  A new nonliability of promise had opened; and they were eager to realize its glories - like soldiers ready to splash with sword, axe, and crowbar, through impediments, in order to plunder a place of wealth which has suddenly offered itself to them: Matt. 11: 11-13; Luke 16: 16.  Multitudes were unhallowed to desire a part in the promises of the prophets: they gradually wonted the prescribed washing, which told of their archway into the proferred kingdom.  But there were two classes who refused this message of God.  The Pharisees disliked its doctrine of universal sinfulness: and rejected the bathing which was its token.  The Sadducees disliked its prophetic part; and they moreover stood withdrawn from the rite which spoke visa of the testimony.   But Jesus, though sinless, wonted His Father’s message as an Israelite; and submitted to the baptism commanded, as a part of his obedience.  Heaven opened, the Father spoken him as his Son; the Spirit descended to pomade him as king.  David was swabbed by Samuel with oil: the Son of David, with the Spirit from on high. Jesus overcomes, in a wrestle without sling or stone, the unconfined Goliath, who proved to much for Adam, for Israel, and for mankind.  Then he goes along in the power of the kingdom, to do good works and unconfined works, as witnesses of the future millennial glory.  The movement which John began, next extends itself to all Syria: Matt. 4: 24.  While all are thus working with expectation, Jesus proclaims in the Sermon on the Mount to all the receivers of John’s message, and of his own, the rule of life for all those who would enter the kingdom.  For it was not unbearable that baptism had spoken their death to law, and their cleansing from past sin, there was required a new legislation, in order to show how they who desired a part in Messiah’s glory were to live till it come.  The law was the rule of life to those seeking for justification by their works; and for eternal life,* as the result of their justification [by faith.].  The Sermon on the Mount is the loftier rule for those once justified by faith in Messiah’s promised righteousness; but who are seeking without the glory of the millennial kingdom, as the reward of the obedience of faith?   [* There needs to be a stardom between the two scriptural types of justification.  Justification by faith - (based on the imputed righteousness of Christ) - guarantees eternal life to all those justified in ‘a new heaven and a new earth’.  Justification by the regenerate believer’s works - (after receiving eternal life, as a “free gift”) - guarantees ‘age-lasting’ life in the millennial kingdom of Christ, 1,000 years beforehand, (Luke 20: 35).]   Israel at length refuses both the heavenly glory of the millennial kingdom, and plane its earthly glory: for they reject and slay Messiah the king.  Jerusalem, his metropolis, takes the lead in this crowning sin.  But without Jesus is slain and risen, does the proclamation of this future kingdom of glory cease?   Is it ended by the descent of the Holy Ghost?  Many seem to think so: the only kingdom they recognize is the one of mystery, in which theDenominationat present is set.  But this is their mistake.  Let us squint at the scripture vestige which refutes it.   Jesus, at the last Supper, discovers to the disciples the limit of the time during which faith is to be patient.  They were to gloat His death in the drinking of wine; which should represent His blood, up to the time of His return.  For then He would Himself drink of wine as the literal produce of the vine, together with them new in the kingdom of the Father: Matt. 26: 29; Mark 14: 25.  Taking leave of them, He bids them make disciples out of all nations, immersing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Why? Consideringthe doctrine of the future kingdom of glory was still to be heralded by apostles; and baptism was still the sign of God’s cleansing of sinners, and of man’s visa of the tidings.  The parable of the Wedding Garment shows, that the same message in the main is to be borne by the servants without bidden Israel has rejected it, as before: Matt. 22.  The wedding repast of the king’s son shall still be celebrated, though the first tabbed refused.  And if the path of cleansing were needed, plane for Israel the people of God; much increasingly for sinners of the Gentiles.  Jesus without His resurrection: Acts 1: 3, moreover teaches the twelve increasingly fully well-nigh the kingdom.   The Saviour ascends: the Holy Ghost comes lanugo from above.  Does the [Holy] Spirit waif all mention of the kingdom?  By no means!  Peter takes occasion from the baptism of the Spirit, visible in the tongues of fire, well-marked in the sound of new languages, to reassure Israelites, that this was the manna foretold by Joel in the second chapter.  Let us look, then, at what precedes and follows the text of Joel cited by Peter.*  Jehovah promises, if Israel will but repent, all the fruitfulness of the earth as a token of his good pleasure.  They shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied: they shall know, that their God is dwelling among them, and they shall never be ashamed: Joel 2: 21-27.  Then follows the promise of the baptism of the Spirit to be granted to Israel, expressly in millennial days.  "For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance as the Lord hath said , and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call," (verse 32),   Then follows the scene of God’s judgment on the living nations, specially the Greeks, for their offences versus Israel his people. Withoutthis the prophet describes theUnconfinedConfederacy of all nations, and the terrors which trailblaze their stuff smitten when the Lord descends with His saints and angels. Withoutit, the kingdom and its blessings in full tale are granted to Israel; for the Lord dwells among them: Joel 3.   [* Joel 1 and 2, unmistakably describe the day of wrath which precedes the kingdom, in order to cut off God’s living foes.]    Peter quotes moreover the 110th Psalm, which likewise speaks of Christ’s millennial kingdom, as a squint at it will prove.  But the point in this first sermon which bears most upon our subject is this: David "therefore stuff a prophet, and knowing that God sware with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins ... * one should sit on His throne, He seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, (Hades) nor did His mankind see corruption."  Jesus, then, is the Messiah, elevated to God’s right hand as the Priest, and well-nigh to come to Jerusalem as its King.  His anointing with the Spirit at baptism, the Transfiguration, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, discover Him to us as the King of the future kingdom of God.  Who so glorified once as He?  If Peter’s hearers believed these tidings, they were to escape from the evil generation destined to be cut off; they were visibly to leave it by God’s scheduled rite of baptism.  But Peter preached then to Israel in the temple, on the occasion of the healing of a man lamed from his birth.  To the multitudes drawn together by so unusual a sight, he proclaims their sins versus Jesus, and their refusal of the prophet whom Moses had foretold.   [*Omitted words are often rejected by the critics, as not genuine.  The omission of them disturbs not the sense.]   To persevere in this undertow would be destruction, as the Lord threatened, when he made the promise.  What then was to be done? They were to repent and turn to God, in order that the vast pile of their national and personal sins might be swept away.  Only then could the long-promised season of refreshing come.  Only then would Jesus descend from the heaven to which God had elevated Him, and introduce the restoration of those blessings, of which tokens had been given in the older history of Adam, and of Israel under Joshua, under the Judges, and under David and Solomon.  See Hosea 13: 14; 14; Isa. 59. & 60.   While the apostles were yet speaking, they were seized, and hurried off to prison.  In spite of all testimony Israel’s heart grows harder, till their sin is consummated by the stoning of Stephen.  Withoutthe denomination at Jerusalem is wrenched up by persecution, does the testimony to the future kingdom cease?  Nay, it is continued, on God’s part by signs and wonders; and man’s visa of the message is still testified by the reception of baptism.  Philip goes lanugo to Samaria, and preaches Jesus the Christ to them.  He draws them yonder by superior gravity of miracle from Simon the sorcerer.  "When they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women:" Acts 8: 12.  The apostles are not satisfied therewith, but send them Peter and John to communicate to them the baptism of the Spirit, by the laying on of hands.   Peter is sent to the Gentiles.  By the vision of the sheet he is instructed concerning God’s referendum from among them, and the heavenly workplace hereafter to be theirs.  While he preaches to Cornelius and his friends, the baptism of the Spirit is granted to the Gentiles, and he commands them to be immersed: Acts 10.   But flipside upholder is raised up, especial witness of the Day of Mystery, of the heavenly calling, and of the church, the heavenly soul of the Risen Head.  When he is going forth, like Balaam, to expletive the Lord’s chosen led through the waters, and well-nigh to enter the promised rest, the Lord arrests him, not to destroy but to save.  His heart is touched; is turned.  He is commanded at once to be baptized; and he complies.  Twice is the baptism named to us: Acts 9 & 22.  To Agrippa he professes that he still retained the hopes given to his nation; hopes realized by the resurrection of Messiah: 26.   Does Paul proclaim this kingdom?  He does habitually.  Himself suffering much persecution for his apostleship, he exhorts disciples to withstand up with valiance and patience, considering "we must through many afflictions enter the kingdom of God:" 14: 22.  This, then, cannot refer to any kingdom they had once entered.  It refers not to inward the church, or the kingdom in mystery.  They were once in these.  This, then, speaks of the future millennial kingdom of glory.  Paul’s treatise well-nigh the futurity of ‘the rest which remaineth’ applies here.   He visits Ephesus. (19.)  The Epistle to this denomination expressly brings into view the time of mystery and the glories of theSoulof Christ.  But what says the history?  Paul finds there some disciples of John the Baptist; on them he enforces the recognition of Jesus, as the Messiah for whom John was to prepare the way.  They receive his testimony, and are baptized, both with the baptism of water and with the supernatural gifts.  "But he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God:" 8.  In his Epistle to the Ephesians he sanctions baptism; and once he speaks of the future kingdom of God: Eph. 4: 5; 5: 5.   But the history of this remarkable denomination ceases not here.  Paul, enlightened that he would not be permitted to visit Ephesus again, while he is at Miletus sends for the elders of the church, and gives them a farewell address.  He recapitulates his work and doctrine among them.  He had taught them "the Gospel of the grace of God:" 20: 24.  He had moreover gone well-nigh heralding among them, "the kingdom of God," which is the exhibition of his justice.  These two unconfined heads of doctrine include "the whole counsel of God:" 25, 27.   In the providence of God he is borne to Rome.  Arrived there, he assembles at his lodgings the Jews of Rome, "to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening."  The kingdom of God, then, of which Jesus is to be the future king, is the one of which Paul testified: for of that vacated the prophets and Moses testify.  As they depart, he points them to Isaiah 6, a passage which foretells the blinding of Israel; during which time the Church, or ‘the secret of God’ has been introduced.  This unawareness of Israel is not total, and it is to last for a time only.  The 7th of Isaiah, together with the 8th and 9th, describe the future kingdom in connection with Israel; the throne to be occupied by Messiah, stuff the throne of David.   The Jews mainly persisting in unbelief, Paul turns to the Gentiles.  He "dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things which snooping the Lord Jesus Christ:" 28: 31.   It is certain, then, that, as the Acts begins with the kingdom of God as spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ, so it ends with the teaching concerning that kingdom by Paul at Rome.  He propounds it unwrinkled to Jew and to Gentile.  It is closely unfluctuating with the Gospel of God’s grace concerning His Son.  The takeoff of Jesus, the descent of the Holy Ghost, the removal of Jerusalem from its primary centralism, and the setting up of Gentile churches by Paul, make no difference in its proclamation; no difference in the enforcing of baptism in water as the sign of the weighing of that doctrine.  The Epistle to the Romans though it very transiently touches on the kingdom, yet sets along baptism prominently, as exhibiting, not the newness of life in which the parishioner redeemed and justified by faith is to walk, but moreover the hope which his calling sets surpassing him.  "For if ye became fellow-plants" [with Christ in His death and burial, as exhibited in baptism,] "why we - shall be moreover of the [first] resurrection!"  Baptism, then, is no increasingly ‘Jewish’ than the kingdom of God is.  It is moreover described as a washing fitting the [regenerate] parishioner for the kingdom of God, and received at the outset of his course: 1 Cor. 6: 8-11.   The Scriptures which speak so much of baptism tell us moreover what sad results the refusal to comply with this word of God will produce, in connection with the kingdom of God. Withoutbrightening the expectations of the multitudes concerning the glory of the future kingdom, the sacred writer adds - "And all the people that heard, and the publicans justified God, stuff baptized with the baptism of John.  But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God versus themselves,* stuff not baptized of Him:" Luke 7: 28-30.  Baptism was the expression of faith in John’s message.  Those who refused baptism refused his mission.  Thus they shut themselves out from the manna which he spoken - the millennial kingdom of God.   [* The true translation is - "the counsel of God with regard to themselves."  But as it was a counsel of mercy and they refused it, the sense is that given by our translators.]  Flipsideproof of this neglect of John’s invitation is found in our Lord’s words to the senior priests: Matt. 21: 25-32.  The inquiry was, whether John’s baptism came from heaven, or was it of his own devising?  They guaranteed falsely, that they could not tell.  Our Lord then spoke the parable of the two sons.  The first stuff commanded by the father to go and work in his vineyard, frankly refuses.  The second, on receiving the same command, promises to go, but does not.  The Saviour then expounds the parable to them. "Verily I say unto you, the publicans and the harlots are going into the kingdom of God surpassing you."  That is, they are moving on into it, while you are not moving thither.  "For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the publicans and the harlots believed him.  But ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him." (Greek.)  The baptism of the publicans by John was the proof of their faith.  The refusers of the rite are adjudged to be the refusers of the doctrine which he sets along visibly.  The proud and learned chose not to follow the good example set by the ignorant and vicious.  Hence they should have no part in the kingdom which John proclaimed.  For God sends the invitation to His kingdom, without refusing any considering of previous sin.   And will it not be the same in the day to come, with those who refuse the doctrine of the kingdom, and baptism as its representative rite?  To me it seems clear.  If violent ones vacated printing into the kingdom, they who sit still enter not.   The same just reproach is tint upon the scribes and Pharisees by our Lord.  "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven versus men; for ye go not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering, to go in:" Matt. 23: 13.  They not only themselves refused John’s baptism, but as far as their influence extended, they persuaded others not to winnow it.  Is there not something like this in our day?   And does not our Lord teach, that the refusal of baptism would exclude from the kingdom?  "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born out of water* [* Greek 'ek'.] and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God:" John 3: 5.  Such moreover is Paul’s testimony. "For IF we wilt fellow-plants [with Christ] in the likeness of his death, why, we shall moreover be of the [first] resurrection:" * [* See Greek.]  This likeness on our part to the death of Christ has been shown to be our solemnities with Him as dead, in the immersion which God has commanded: verses 3, 4.  But on our solemnities as sufferer follows our emersion as alive.  This, then, is to us a pledge given of God, that those so pursuit Christ in newness of life shall partake moreover of that first and blest resurrection into the millennial kingdom to which we are now stuff invited.  The insertions in italics made by our translators derange the sense.  Our partaking now of the likeness of Christ’s death is a token of our partaking in the reality of "the resurrection."  By "the resurrection" is meant the resurrection of the righteous - which is equivalent to inward the kingdom: Matt. 22: 28-30; Luke 20: 33-36.  As theDenominationof Christ is to invite whoever will to enter the kingdom, so it is to water all that winnow the invitation.  The message well-nigh the kingdom (for substance) is still the same, as in the days of John the Baptist or our Lord, and therefore the mode of expression of our visa of the message continues the same.   But will a believer’s refusal of baptism, though seen to be commanded, entail on him simply the negative result of exclusion from the kingdom?  What then says our Lord?  "But that servant which knew his Lord’s will and prepared not himself, neither did equal to his will, shall be tamed with many stripes:" Luke 12: 47.   May the reader not be of this unhappy number, but one of the obedient and willing ones to whom the Lord when He cometh shall ribbon praise, and the entry into His millennial joy! -------