"Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call."
I have reposted yesterday's quote to further demonstrate the true intent of Peter's use of the term "baptized" as it appears in verse thirty eight of that quote.
I hope also to clear up the ill conceived notion that water was the medium into which Peter was advising those Jews to be "baptized".
As we have established in previous lessons, the Greek term "baptizo" from which our English word "baptize" was transliterated, as it is applied throughout the New Testament, and simply defined, means to place one 'something' into another 'something' so as to change or alter the nature of the first 'something'.
For example, to make pickles, one must baptize cucumbers into a brine or vinegar solution and leave them there so as to change them from cucumbers into pickles.
If one simply dips cucumbers in brine and brings them right back out one simply gets wet briny cucumbers, NOT pickles. In order for a cucumber to become a pickle it must remain in the brine solution until it is consumed.
The same is true with the soul saving baptism Peter intended. If a lost soul is merely dipped in water and taken right back out, it merely becomes a wet, lost soul. Whereas, if you immerse that lost soul, by faith, into the shed blood of Jesus Christ and leave it there, it becomes a perfectly righteous, eternally redeemed soul and a brother or sister to Jesus Himself. "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ."(Galatians 3:27)
Some might say, why couldn't one be baptized into the blood of Christ then taken right back out?
The answer is simple, once a lost soul is buried within the blood of Jesus Christ it cannot come out on its own, nor can it be taken out, it is sealed there by the Holy Spirit of God; "And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, WHEREBY YE ARE SEALED UNTO THE DAY OF REDEMPEION." (Ephesians 4:30)
Therefore, we can easily see that Peter's intent was that those Jews who believed in Jesus were NOT to be simply dipped in water but rather they were to be buried by faith in the soul saving blood of Jesus Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Further, as was also stated by Peter, each redeemed soul, after having been baptized into the blood of Christ, would receive the power of the Holy Ghost.~
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