Samuel J. Baird

“ As the descending rain not only penetrates the soil and instils life into the clods and hardness, but washes and purges the surface, and gives freshness and beauty to the scenes of nature, cleansing the face of the impenetrable and barren rock,—so the Spirit sent down not only penetrates the heart and creates new life there, but pervades the outward life and conduct and purifies the whole. ”

“ Thus is Jesus revealed in characters of unspeakable grandeur, as the true and only Baptizer,—his the real baptism, of which all others are mere shadows. His baptizing office is the very end of his exaltation, the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic of his throne and scepter. As the cross of Christ is the symbol of the whole doctrine of his humiliation, sorrow and death, so his baptizing scepter represents the whole doctrine of his exaltation his kingdom and glory. And, as the sacrament of the supper shows forth his abasement and atonement for sin ”

“ Thus have we the perfect antitype of the baptisms of the Old Testament,—the administrator, Jesus the great High Priest; the element, that living water, the Holy Spirit; the mode, his outpouring upon us from heaven; the effect, washing to the corrupt,—life to the dead. By this means, does our Baptizer bestow on his people all grace for the present time, and the resurrection and glory in the end. ”

“ But these waters from the sanctuary heal it. The whole world affords no other type of human apostasy so appropriate, so significant. Think of it! There it lies in its sulphurous sepulcher, thirteen hundred feet below the ocean, steaming up like a huge caldron of smouldering bitumen and brimstone! Neither rain from heaven nor mountain torrents nor Jordan’s flood, nor all combined can change its character of utter death. Fit symbol of that great dead sea of depravity and corruption which nothing human can heal! ”

“ From this vantage point, many things appear in a light of peculiar instructiveness and beauty. But one feature stands out in proportions of loftiness, and glory, which cast all else into the shade of insignificance. As with rapt spirits, we gaze, the high throne is revealed where sits the Son of man,—his human form robed in the Father’s glory,—his countenance blending the infinite majesty of God, with the fullness of grace and truth,—his brow adorned with a diadem of many crowns, and all power in heaven and earth, in his hand. ”

“ The Seed of the woman—the Son of man—must give proof, in presence of all intelligences, both holy and apostate, of his worthiness of that favor which God, from the beginning, so openly bestowed. He must display the mystery of a man walking in the flesh among men, in the glory of a spotless and untarnished righteousness, amid the reign of abounding sin. He must be seen—this glorious man—taking upon his mighty shoulders the vast incubus of the curse, with which Satan’s malicious fraud had burdened the world, and bearing it away to a land not inhabited. ”

“ While they have justly and irrefragably maintained that nothing can be Christian baptism which has not at once the form and the meaning ordained by Christ, we have been weakly disposed to imagine ourselves patterns of charity, in admitting the validity of immersion, while denying it to be the form or to have the meaning which Christ ordained. As if such an ordinance, from the great Head of the Church, could have in it any thing indifferent, or subject to our discretion, whether in doctrine or mode! ”

“ And with all the lamentable facts of unfaithfulness and apostasy which darken the pages of Israel’s history, there were periods of fidelity, in which the church shone in the beauty of holiness, fair and comely in the eyes of God. In fact, with all the disposition which we sometimes realize to dwell on the unbelief and apostasies of the twelve tribes, and lamentable as they were, it is certain that the New Testament church is in no condition to boast herself against Israel. ”

“ Copied in imperfect and perverted forms into the rites of Gentile idolatry,—although distorted, veiled and dislocated from their normal relations, they shed gleams of twilight into the gloom of spiritual darkness, and prepared the world for the dawning of the Sun of Righteousness, when he rose upon the nations. To multitudes of Israel, those ordinances were efficient means of eminent grace. With gladness, they saw therein,—as through a glass, darkly, it may be, but surely,—adumbrations of the salvation, grace and glory of the Messiah’s kingdom. ”

“ It is a vast camp-meeting, in which God himself is the preacher, speaking in men’s ears with an audible voice from the top of Sinai, and alternately proclaiming the law of righteousness and the gospel of grace, calling Israel from their idolatries and sins to return unto him, and offering himself as not only the God of their fathers, but their own Deliverer already from the Egyptian bondage, and ready to be their God and portion—to give them at once the earthly Canaan, and to make it a pledge of their ultimate endowment with the heavenly. ”

“ To imagine the Syrian to have been directed to seek cleansing by means of the latter, and not by the seven sprinklings, would be to suppose him instructed by the prophet to seek to his own outward righteousness as the means of purging away his sins, and not to the virtue of the blood and Spirit of Christ, penetrating to his heart and renewing the inner man. Self-washing, as dependent upon and subordinate to the sprinkling of the water and blood, is beautifully significant of that evangelical obedience and holiness which believers cultivate, whilst resting wholly on the righteousness of Christ ”

“ Section XXI.—This Symbol was derived from the Rain. We have seen, in the prophecy of Isaiah, the source whence the figure of sprinkling or pouring is derived. “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.”—Isa. xliv, 3, 4. It is the descent of the rain from heaven, penetrating the earth, and converting its deadness into life, abundance, and beauty. ”

“ The heavens are astonished at the presence of his glory, and the adoring angels, prostrate, await his bidding. The fullness of the Spirit is his; and his office thus exalted it is, to baptize us sinners with that Spirit,—to give us thus, repentance and remission of sins and sanctifying grace, and to raise us up from the dead and make us sit with him in the heavenly places where he reigns. This is the central sun of the system which we have explored. From this baptism of the Spirit all the ordinances here examined, derive their instructive light and beauty. ”

“ It is a mistake to suppose the figure of fire to be, in the Scriptures, arbitrary and variable in its signification. On the contrary, while constantly resorted to, as a figure of speech, and as a symbol, both real and ritual, it stands out with a meaning, fixed and invariable,—a meaning which springs out of its essential nature and its familiar phenomena and effects, and is incorporated in the language and institutions of the Word, by express divine sanctions. The two most conspicuous phenomena of fire are its consuming power, and the torture which its contact inflicts upon sentient beings. ”

“ It will be the moral triumph of the whole ransomed host, by one Spirit baptized into one body, her garments of wrought gold and needle-work, received and revealed, spotless and complete in all divine perfections,—the bride of the Lamb, the glory of her husband, as he is the image and glory of God. ”

“ By the light thus concentrated, we see, in the ingathering of the harvest of the holy land and the festivities following, a type and prophecy of the ingathering of the nations into the fold of Israel, under the scepter of Messiah, and the songs and joy that hail their coming. Then the solemnity of the eighth day may have anticipated the time when, opposition withdrawn, all nations “shall go up from year to year to worship the King the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles,” when “the Lord shall be King over all the earth, and there shall be one Lord, and his name One.” ”

“ Every soul to whom the grace of God has come, from the day of Pentecost to this hour, has received it from the immediate hand of Jesus, baptizing him with the Holy Ghost. And so it will be to the end. Thus, each one so redeemed is a new proof and pledge that Jesus fills the throne,—that Satan and all the powers of darkness are under his feet; and that the hearts of men are in his hands, to give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him. ”

“ Sin is, in its very existence, an insult to the holiness and sovereignty of God. Its unclean and evil aspect is a disgust and abomination in his sight, and a pollution and deformity on the fair face of his creation. In its first beginning by Satan, it was an immediate assault upon the very throne in heaven. Its introduction into the world was a Satanic device to mock God’s proclaimed purpose of favor to man, and to insult His love by rendering its object unworthy of His regard, and loathsome to His holiness. ”

“ While the enclosed water of the laver at the tabernacle was the symbol of the Spirit’s influences, under the former dispensation, the increasing river of Ezekiel’s vision is their representative in the New Testament times. Flowing forth out of Zion, with a widening and deepening current, it pours its living waters into the dead sea of our apostate humanity, to the healing of the waters. ”

“ The ritual forms in which the gospel was clothed in the Levitical system were far more suitable for the purposes of popular instruction and world-wide dissemination than would have been any conceivable exposition of it in writing. The art of writing was in its infancy. A written gospel would have been, even to Israel, a sealed book; how much more to all other people! The history and laws were put in writing and kept at the sanctuary for the direction of the priests and magistrates in the performance of their duties, the administration of justice, and the instruction of Israel. ”

“ For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son; that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.... Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.”—John v, 19-27.
In his last discourse with his disciples, the night of the betrayal, Jesus was very explicit on this subject. ”

“ The ashes of the heifer were as familiar to the religious life of Israel as was the blood of sacrifice. But the significance of the blood is so much more familiar to us, that a pause is here proper, to call attention to the wonderful propriety and instructiveness of the ashes. In the blood we see the penalty of sin paid, and justice satisfied. But it is satisfied at the price of life, and leaves death in possession. But, in the ashes, Israel saw the sacrifice come 99forth from the exhausted fires of justice, unconsumed and unconsumable. ”

“ The purpose of Christ’s mission, as set forth by John, was, to “thoroughly purge his floor;” by “his floor,” meaning, primarily the people and land of Israel; but, in its ultimate intent, the world and the universe. In order to accomplish this object, not only must the wheat be garnered, but the chaff must be burned. And, as washing with water is none the less a purifying, because it does not cleanse or transform the filthiness, itself, but only removes it,—so, none the less is the baptism of fire a baptism, because it does not cleanse, but punishes the wicked. ”

“ It was a perpetual monition to Israel that those who have been redeemed with precious blood, and raised up to new life by the Holy Spirit, should walk worthy of their calling, and keep themselves from the evil that is in the world, in the blessed assurance of being freed from all corruption and evil, and made partakers in the perfection of holiness and life, on the great Sabbath day of redemption. ”