"And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. And all the men were about twelve."
Today's quote helps further clarify the meaning and intent of the term "baptize" and the phrase, "baptism of John" as they are applied in today's quote as well as the many times they are applied in the New Testament.
When Paul asked a group of "certain disciples" if they had received the Holy Ghost, they said, "We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost."Knowing that one must have learned of the saving blood of Jesus Christ and accepted it in order to receive the Holy Ghost, Paul asked, "Unto what then were ye baptized?" The men replied, "Unto John's baptism."
Note that Paul's question was, "UNTO" (toward) "WHAT were ye baptized?" the answer was, "UNTO JOHN'S BAPTISM".
To accept the common and false definition of this text one would have to accept that those men were baptized (immersed into, or bathed with water.) UNTO (toward) John's baptism (another immersion of bathing in water).
If these two variations of the term 'baptize' relate in any way to water it renders the whole discussion senseless in that it would make the statement literally say that those men were 'immersed unto (toward) water unto John's immersion into water'.
If we read the quoted text, applying the proper intent of the two variations of the term 'baptize', the discussion makes perfect sense. Paul simply asked if those men had received the Holy Ghost to which they replied, we have not yet learned about the Holy Ghost, meaning that they had not been taught the gospel of Jesus Christ in it's entirety.~
Then Paul, in essence, asked what part of Christianity they had been taught so far, to which the men replied, only the message that John the Baptist taught. We know, as Paul did, that the message John the Baptist taught was that Jesus (The Messiah) was soon to appear and that the Jews should repent their old ways and be prepared to accept the new law of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, once He had appeared and completed His soul saving ministry and sacrificial ordeal.
Therefore, we can easily understand that the two variations of the term 'baptize', as they are applied in the context of today's quote, refer to the message John taught and that they had nothing to do with water.~
NOTE: Tomorrow's lesson will further Paul's encounter with those "certain disciples" and will be taken from the same text.
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