Water Baptism | Page 2

this command to baptize these nations with water? Is it not plainly because there was no such command?
According to foot-note in our revised version,[12] and other authorities, the two oldest known copies of Mark's record omit the twelve last verses, and another ancient manuscript, lately found, also omits them and states that they were by Aristion the elder. As the authenticity of the account of the commission in Mark's record is questioned, we omit comment, altho' we see nothing to conflict with the other six versions.
According to Matthew Christ commanded his disciples to go, teach all nations, baptizing them (not in the name, but) into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[13]
No water is mentioned. He commanded them to baptize into the Divinity, not in water.
This harmonizes all the evangelists with both Peter and Paul.
If we reject this view and assume that in Matthew[14] water baptism is intended to be understood, then we are compelled to believe that this interpretation of Matthew, with its formula for baptism, was conceived after the apostles' time; was unknown to them, and is a human conception and not a correct rendering of the teachings of Jesus. Because with water introduced, it stands alone and is out of harmony with the whole of Christ's teachings upon other occasions, and because it conflicts with all our other six versions of the commission; and because (as we read), the apostles and first Christians never did baptize with the formula prescribed in Matthew, which is conclusive evidence that to their understandings Christ never commanded them to do so. And again, because the apostles and first Christians did continue to baptize with water, sometimes without formula but mostly in the name of Jesus Lord or Christ. This they would not have done in defiance of Christ's command to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Upon these and many other grounds we claim that Christ never did command his disciples to baptize with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, nor in any way whatever.[15]
According to Peter's account of the commission, Christ commanded his apostles to preach to the people. He mentions no command to baptize.[16]
Peter did preach to the people and the Holy Spirit fell upon them as it had fallen upon others of them in the beginning, at Pentecost.[17] Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he said "John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
Here Peter [18] was made instrumental in baptizing with the Holy Spirit through Gospel preaching, and he recognized this to be the same baptism which his Lord [19] had promised should supercede John's water baptism [20] and the same as that with which they were filled eight years before, in the beginning at Pentecost, and the Pentecost baptism[21] he said was that which the prophet Joel foretold should be poured out upon all flesh; upon sons and daughters,[22] servants and handmaidens, and that they should prophecy.
Can anything be plainer than that this Pentecost baptism[23] and that the baptism which was poured out upon the household of Cornelius as Peter preached[24], and the baptism which our Lord promised in the place of John's water baptism and the baptism which Joel foretold should be poured out upon all flesh are all one and the same baptism, and does it not follow that this is the baptism of the commission, the one baptism of the Gospel, and that this is Christian baptism and that there is no water in it?[25]
Because Peter and others continued to baptize with water is no evidence to the contrary. They continued their old Jewish customs generally. They pronounced it necessary to abstain from certain meats. They insisted that Paul should adhere to circumcision. They refused to eat with Gentiles. With such Jewish proclivities how could they at once abandon water baptism?[26]
Some evidently realized that John's water baptism had ended at Pentecost, but they were not prepared to drop it entirely, so sought to perpetuate it by repeating the words, "In the name of Jesus, Lord or Christ." They claimed no divine authority for using this formula and the disciples of water baptism in our day mostly discard it.[27]
Baptism with the formula, "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit"[28] is not to be considered in connection with the apostles and first Christians, as they never mention it and evidently never practised it. Such formula was unknown at that time. It came in as an afterthought; a human invention of later date.
The great diversity in the form of expression used by each of the evangelists and Peter in defining Christ's commission to his apostles is positive evidence that they understood him to prescribe no formula for baptism and it