: Christ's outer or nominal kingdom. The carnal mind is subdued to the spiritual mind by the immediate influence of "the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead." They are the sons of God, led by the Spirit of God. And these are not limited to baptised persons" in the name of" God: Heathens, or Gentiles, are fellow-citizens with the saints, and are of the household of God." The city, whose maker is God, is open to them as to Christians there is no legislative act to shut them out. Their ignorance stands in the way of ready admission, but God does not exclude them. Those who have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, are renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him: where there is "neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free; but Christ is all and in all." The Gospel is given to men to instruct them in knowledge, and men are thereby renewed in the spirit of their minds. Where the Gospel is preached there may be expected many renewed. But, on the other hand, God instructs some men by other means. An enlightened Pagan, awakened by the Spirit of God to a knowledge of the law of life in the inner man whereby the spiritual mind subdues the carnal mind, has an abiding in the city of God: he is a fellow-citizen with the saints. He may not be so well instructed in Divine lore; he may hold false opinions; his theology may be but indifferent; he may not know the true prophet that came into the world to teach man. But God has breathed into his soul the spirit of life; and he is not a murderer, or a liar, or an idolator. He knows that love is the taught to repose his trust fulfilling of the law, and he has been in God, and to conform his character to his highest conceptions of God's requirements. Christ is in him, though the name be not familiar to him. His nature is changed and renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him. The opinion that the new covenant is one between God and men, wherein men have to vow faith and obedience, is false. If the covenant were between God and men, it must necessarily be imperfect, as were preceding covenants. It must be imperfect to the full extent of all the possible contingencies arising out of man's fallibility and peccability. The new covenant is between God and Christ, and is a covenant of grace, and not of law; and is perfect. It is perfect in that it comprehends all men; it is perfect in that it puts away sin from some here, from all hereafter; it is perfect in that it is final; and it is perfect in that Christ for man fulfilled the law, by which men are redeemed from the curse of the law; it is perfect in that it comprehends a body on earth, who "know the Lord," who are accounted sinless, as very members of Christ's body by spiritual union. Water baptism is not essential to salvation. Under the perfect covenant, all men are ultimately saved. Christ died a ransom for all. The intention of water baptism is not, as some suppose, to give a title to salvation. Nor is the rite instituted to afford an opportunity for exhibiting faith; nor as a sacramental medium for imparting the new nature in Christ. It is not intended to be an agent directly for burying the nature derived from the first Adam, and implanting a new nature given by the second Adam. Only those in Christ Jesus, made so by direct influence of the Spirit, by election (Rom. ix. 11), are heirs and joint heirs with Christ. These alone on earth are conformed to the image of God's Son. These alone on earth have the new nature in Christ. Nor is water baptism instituted to be the medium of a covenant between God and men, wherein if men fail they forfeit a title to heaven. The rite is instituted, apparently, to be the means of external union with God, whereby the kingdoms of this world may be gathered into the kingdom of God, and so "become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ." It is instituted to be the medium for gathering within the circle of Gospel influence by which "God may be known upon earth, His saving health unto all nations." The expression of our Lord, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God;" which gave rise to the belief that water baptism was needful to salvation, and to eternal life, is explained by the term "kingdom of God" being applied in two senses; whereby our Lord declared that without water baptism a man could not enter into the outer kingdom, and without Spirit baptism a man could not enter into the inner kingdom. A new birth by water is a birth out of darkness and heathenism into the marvellous Gospel light of Christianity, and a new birth of the Spirit gives the spiritual mind, and confers heirship with Christ, and gives admission on earth into His spiritual kingdom. Our Lord, in His discourse with Nicodemus, was not speaking of heavenly but of earthly things. It had reference to the two states, or two characters, of the earthly kingdom. Adding to this course of argument what has previously been advanced upon the unity and purity of the Church, the subjects of priesthood, and promises of Christ, and the perversions of ecclesiastical divinity, we shall not find it difficult to avow that the claims of an insulated self-created body to a divine mission to baptise with the Holy Ghost, is unscriptural; nor shall we hesitate to avow the truth propounded at the head of this paper, that "water baptism admits to the outer or nominal kingdom; Spirit baptism to the inner or true kingdom; the one baptism being independent and irrespective of the other." H. WOOLDRIDGE, STEAM PRINTING OFFICES, WINCHESTER. |