Featured Church membership

The label "Baptist" means absolutely nothing as every heretical doctrine under the sun can be found under that label.

The Great commission administrator is not a singular you or individual person but a plural "ye....you" or the plural disciples in a singular church body - the congregation. The individual used by the plural "ye.....you" does have to profess the true gospel and right doctrine or else that individual would not be part of the plural "ye...you" that "HAVE already been evangelized by the right gospel, submitted to the right baptism and taught the right faith and order - and "have" demands all three.

I do not know of any baptism administered from John the Baptist until the book of Revelation that was not a "baptism of repentance" as repentance is ALWAYS required before it can be administered (Mt. 3:6-8). The Great Commission is about preaching "repentance unto all nations" and baptism always follows that obedience (Lk. 24:47). As Paul clearly states John preached the same gospel and baptized in reference or unto Jesus Christ (Acts 19:5). Apollos was an unauthorized administrator of baptism ignorant of that a new house of God had been confirmed publicly by God in the baptism of the Shekinah glory (baptism in the Spirit) designated it as the authorized place of public worship where a qualified ministry administered qualified ordinances within the kingdom of God. Jesus sought no other baptism but John's. Jesus administered no other baptism through his disciples but the baptism of John. The only possible existent baptism that the Great Commission could refer to in the past tense "have" was the baptism of John. The Apostles or the seventy, or the one hundred and twenty never rebaptized but had only the baptism of John, The baptism of John was like the gospel prior to the cross both were the only of their kind but with the coming of the cross but took on a fuller meaning but yet the gospel prior to the cross was the same gospel preached after the cross (Acts 10:43; Heb. 4:2) just as the baptism before the cross was the very same baptism after the cross. Both were preached "in the name" of Jesus (Acts 19:4-5; Acts 10:43) and both were administered under the authority of the Triune God. To deny the baptism of John is to take the name of "Christ" out of the only baptism Jesus surrendered unto, adminstered through his disciples to others, and commissioned until the end of the age and to take the side of the scribes and pharisees in "rejecting the counsel of God" against yourself (Lk. 7:29-30). If Jesus did not have "CHRISTian" baptism then preachers should never say newly saved people ought to "follow Christ in baptism" unless they believe one should receive unchrist-like baptism!!!!

Finally, baptism does not merely identify you with the gospel of Christ but with the metaphorical congregational body of Christ and the "doctrine of Christ." For example, if you just got saved and went down to the Nazerine minister and asked him to immerse (they accept all three modes) you in water and invited your friends to come watch, what would they assume? They would assume you have become a Nazerine or why else submit to their baptism. If you chose a Methodist they would assume you have become a Methodist. Jesus placed baptism within the contextual frame work of the right gospel and right doctrine in the Great Commission authorizing only those who had been DISCIPLED in that gospel, baptism and doctrine to administer baptism. In the New Testament only those who were members of churches that shared the same gospel, same baptism, and same doctrine administered baptism and such baptized persons were either added to an existing church or were constituted into a church that shared the same gospel, same baptism and same doctrine and church discipline was the safeguard against those who attempted to pervert these things.

 

The water baptism identifies that you are in Christ, having been saved already, ansd that the Holy Spirit Himself baptized you into the true Church of Christ, the Body of Christ, as you are identified by name Christian, not Baptist/Methodist/Nazarene etc!