Baptism, not a command, but a priviledge...JND

The first thing I must do is to set the principle of baptism on its right grounds. It is not obedience: obedience to an ordinance is unchristian ground altogether. Baptists have gone so far as to allege the Lord's words, "Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." It is inconceivable that Christians should speak so—fulfilling righteousness by ordinances! It is Galatian doctrine—a denial of the first principles of truth for a sinner. Further, if John's baptism had been submitted to, it is nothing as regards christian baptism. The twelve at Ephesus (Acts 19) were baptized as Christians after that. But more particularly, a command there was to baptize, not to be baptized; but this was not even to baptize believers, but to disciple the nations, baptizing them—a commission which supposes Jerusalem and the Jews received—a commission which St. Paul declares was not given to him, who was appointed minister of the church. Not only so, but when we read how it was administered, we find the directest evidence that it was not a matter of obedience but of according a privilege—entrance into the professed external assembly of God on the earth. "What does hinder me to be baptized?" says the officer of Candace, a question which precludes the thought of obedience, and speaks of an admission which he counted a privilege: so with Cornelius—"Can any forbid water that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? " Hence, the first Christians gathered by the Lord during His life on earth (the disciples) who were baptized with the Holy Ghost, were never baptized: they were sent to baptize, and did. Paul was baptized, because he was received like any other. Thus the testimony is complete from holy scripture as to its character.

Next comes the question, Into what were they received? Not into the unity of the body, for then the twelve would not have been in it, nor is there ever a hint in scripture of baptism being into the unity of the body. It is a symbol of death and resurrection (for which reason John Baptist’s baptism was nothing for Christianity as such), the admission into the assembly gathered on the earth to the name of Christ; people were baptized to (never into) something—as to Moses (not into Moses)—it is the same word: so to Christ (not into Christ), and to His death (not into, here, either); and thus were individuals held figuratively to be on the professed ground of resurrection; but this was not the unity of the body; that was a real and essential thing, and came by another kind of baptism. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body," not by water. The ordinance that symbolizes this is the Lord's supper, not baptism: for we are all one body, inasmuch as "we are all partakers of that one loaf." The baptism of the Spirit, not baptism by water, is that by which we are baptized into the unity of the body.