Lesson 3495

 (Lesson 3495)(07-29-21) Luke 24:45-48

    “Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.”

    Today’s quote relates the Luke account of Jesus’ final instructions to His apostles before He ascended into Heaven. 

    There is something that should be noted here. The Luke account does not mention baptism as does the Matthew and Mark accounts of the same events.

    It is my belief that this is because the word “baptism”, in the original Greek,  simply means to immerse one item, substance or being, INTO another, leaving it there to permantly alter the physical or spiritual state of the item being immersed, or ‘baptized’. 

    This is the same as what is done when canning pickles. In pickling, when you put the cucumber into brine, you don’t just dip it and remove it, you leave it in the brine with no intent of removing it until it is ready to eat.

    The baptism that Jesus referred to in Matthew 28:19 and also in Mark 16:16, is NOT an immersion into water, but rather, it is an immersion INTO God the Father, and INTO God the Son, and INTO God the Holy Ghost. Of course we know that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are all one in the same. The Holy Triune.

    Romans 6:1-3 “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.~