I don’t know why this eluded me for so long, but in the past few days I had this hunch about the Acts 2 events, as pertaining to the question of baptism. Here’s an interesting twist that I’ve discovered.
Please follow me through Acts 2, all the way from the beginning of the chapter.
Acts 2
37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
38 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.
[ … ]
41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
pay close attention to v. 41. The ones that gladly received the word were baptized, and the same day were added 3000 souls / persons to the number of the outcalled (ekklesia, or church).
All the events in v. 41 – they heard the word, they gladly received it, were baptized, and they were added to the rest of the believers – all of these happened in the same day. That much is 100% clear from the passage. The specific question that I want to address is: can we clearly establish at all, as per the passage, that they were or were not water-baptized? Well, it turns out, we might be able to.
All of this happened in Jerusalem during the day of Pentecost. By that time, Hebrews were dispersed into many nations, hence you see so many languages and lands represented:
Acts 2:5-11
5 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”
The gathering was customary, and furthermore, it was mandated by the law of Moses:
Exodus 23:14-17
14 “Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: 15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty); 16 and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field.
17 “Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God.
Exodus 34:22-23
22 “And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end.
23 “Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the Lord God of Israel.
Deuteronomy 16:9-12
9 “You shall count seven weeks for yourself; begin to count the seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the grain. 10 Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. 11 You shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are among you, at the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. 12 And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
Pay attention to v. 11 – the festival is to be held “at the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide”. Since the construction of the temple by Solomon, on through its subsequent restoration initiated by Nehemiah / Ezra, and up until the destruction of the temple by Romans in 70 AD, the observance was temple-centric, which would be in geographic Jerusalem of the time.
Notice a key part – the text prescribes rejoicing before the Lord with the family, servants, local civil / religious servants that should have been brought along, and with the needy (orphans / widows) at that place. The text adds a further caution to “be careful to observe these statutes” on that day in the prescribed manner. That’s the law.
It’s very important to note – one had to observe the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot / Pentecost) in the manner prescribed in the Mosaic law. It was a holy convocation and a special Sabbath.
Now, here comes the other key part. You’ve seen how the gathering as described in Acts 2 matches the Mosaic law prescription up to this point. Here are the rest of the prescriptions:
Leviticus 23:16-21
16 Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord. 17 You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord. 18 And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, without blemish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be as a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the Lord. 19 Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering, and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering. 20 The priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. 21 And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you. You shall do no customary work on it. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
In addition to what the previous passage specified, people would bring certain items of produce and livestock, and religious ceremonies and sacrifices would be performed. That’s the only work that should be done, the day is a “holy convocation” – i.e., separate for that purpose. No other work that’s done customarily should be done on the day.
Lev. 23 describes what are generally referred to as “High Sabbaths” – i.e., special Sabbaths that may fall on any day of the week. So although the feast of weeks (Shavuot, or Pentecost as it came to be known later) may have fallen on Sunday, it was to be treated as a special Sabbath, with its own work regulations. The law spelled out that no customary work was to be done, which would include washings.
Here’s the final passage regarding the observance:
Numbers 28:26-31
26 ‘Also on the day of the firstfruits, when you bring a new grain offering to the Lord at your Feast of Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work. 27 You shall present a burnt offering as a sweet aroma to the Lord: two young bulls, one ram, and seven lambs in their first year, 28 with their grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths of an ephah for each bull, two-tenths for the one ram, 29 and one-tenth for each of the seven lambs; 30 also one kid of the goats, to make atonement for you. 31 Be sure they are without blemish. You shall present them with their drink offerings, besides the regular burnt offering with its grain offering.
Again – more religious observances, and per v. 30, an atoning sacrifice had to be made, among other things.
Now keep this in mind: this is all happening in a nation where people got stoned for gathering sticks on Sabbath (Numbers 15). The scene is set during a religious holiday, in a city full of observant Jews. A very similar crowd crucified Jesus in the same place a mere 7 weeks ago, during another religious festival.
Keep in mind that the Jewish religious leaders of the day were hyper-literalists, with their own regulations added on top of the law of Moses, accusing Jesus of doing work when he made clay from spitting on the ground and applied it on man’s eyes, or when telling the paralyzed man to take up his bed and walk, or when the disciples were plucking ears of grain, all of which occurrences were on Sabbath. So this is a pretty tough crowd.
I would have a hard time imagining Peter et al. choosing to violate the holy convocation by baptizing even a couple of folks in water. But getting 3000 folks to agree to publicly violate a very explicit Mosaic legal statute right in the middle of Jerusalem, which on that day was very busy and overflowing with a visiting religious crowd would have broken all of the above mentioned Feast of Weeks regulations. The gathering and all of the activities associated with it were to be held in Jerusalem around the temple, for a specific purposes described in the texts above, and not for anything else. As you saw from the descriptions, it was a very busy day for everyone, with lots of prescribed festal and religious activities.
Had this been a mass water baptism, the procedure would have taken at least a few hours to execute, logistically. Had that happened, it would have been one of the two options:
1) Peter using one or several of a small number of baptistries and / or pools in Jerusalem (naturally filled with “moving water”, from rainfall), which is what some commentaries on this verse speculate as having happened. The problem with this is they completely ignore the fact that Peter had no ecclesiastic authority whatsoever to commandeer the use of baptistries, especially given the fact that doing so during the feast of Pentecost would unequivocally publicly violate feast regulations. Peter wasn’t even a serving Levite or a rabbi, he was just another fisherman. So that’s a very unlikely possibility.
2) Peter taking the 3000 to a nearby river for baptism. You couldn’t just sneak 3,000 people out of Jerusalem on such holiday unnoticed. Again, the problem with this is that this holiday had very specific regulations known to everyone gathered, and taking several hours out of the prescribed observance ritual to perform some newly introduced ceremony would have broken the feast regulations. That would have also likely broken a Sabbath’s length of journey regulation, if such applied on festal Sabbaths.
Either scenario would have also broken the “no customary work” injunction, which would have included washing.
Since Peter’s message indicated that it was around 8-9 am at the time of his speech (v. 15), this procedure, if carried out, would have consumed most of the day, even if they were very apt and did everything very quickly. The morning hours were also the busiest time of the holiday, designated for thousands of morning animal sacrifices, peace offerings, wave offerings, and other related religious activities. You couldn’t just re-purpose a major religious holiday like that without immediate major consequences.
Had all of the above still happened and Peter managed to sneak 3000 people out of bustling Jerusalem and get them to “skip” the feast to get baptized in water somewhere nearby – if Paul was publicly accused of appearing with uncircumcised Trophimus in the temple, and that based on hearsay (Acts 21:29), I can only imagine what type of reaction and havoc the mass water baptism would have caused, and what that would have meant for Peter and the rest of the believers, especially in the context of their subsequent residing and operating out of Jerusalem for years after this event.
Many commentaries I’ve looked at relative to this verse acknowledge the improbability of water baptism by immersion from a logistical standpoint. However, none of the ones I’ve looked picked up on the fact that water baptism would have unequivocally publicly violate the feast regulations, and Peter would certainly not have been allowed to execute a water baptism ceremony of that scope in the religious atmosphere of the day.
So, to sum this all up, and to go back to the original question posed at the beginning of this post – Acts 2:41 can’t possibly be talking about water baptism. With all the information given above, I just don’t see how that view can be accommodated.
Therefore, this passage must be talking about the metaphysical / mystical baptism in the realm of the spirit which happens immediately upon one’s hearing of faith:
Ephesians 1:13 (NIV – the phrasing of this translation illustrates very well how baptism into Christ happens)
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked [actually, sealed] in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
Believer’s baptism is not a work of human hands:
1 Corinthians 12
13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free […].
Acts 17:25
25 And he [God] is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
Now you should be in position to understand what this passage is talking about:
Mark 16:16
16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
You simply can’t believe and not be baptized into Christ right when you do. The two always go together. Placing trust in Christ is what gets you into Christ, and that happens immediately.
If you read the rest of the passages concerned with baptism, you will see the same pattern: hearing > believing > being immediately baptized / immersed / placed into Christ upon belief. E.g.
Acts 8:12
12 But when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized.
Acts 19
5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
So – did the 3000 get baptized in water? Well, I would assume they did at some point, to follow the established practice. But Acts 2:41 doesn’t specifically speak of that. And whenever they did get baptized in water, it’s highly unlikely it could have happened on that very day of Pentecost.
Terminal Salvation 
Comments on: "Into what did the 3000 get baptized on the day of Pentecost" (14)
John the Baptist said he baptized in water but that Jesus would “baptize in the Holy Spirit”. In Ephesians Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote there is one baptism. What is the one baptism, water or Holy Spirit? When a person initially believes on the name of the Lord Jesus, He then immediately baptizes them in the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:13, “…having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”.
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A water baptism could have been performed using the several mikvahs somewhat recently discovered at the base of the Temple. However, since the gist of Pentecost was about being baptized in the Holy Spirit, a water baptism would have sort of been a rather anti-climatic ending to the narrative. Further, the whole concept for some Christians about being “baptized in the H/S with the evidence of “tongues”” is completely negated here – certainly 3.000 people “speaking in tongues” (hell, even a tenth of them – 300) I should think would have merited at least a sentence or two in the narrative, yet absolutely nothing of the sort was recorded. Great point about a water baptism, or the idea of someone performing one, would violate the “no work on Sabbath” law. Hadn’t thought about that. Perhaps that lends support for a H/S baptism (sans “tongues”, of course).
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The answer to your question is YES, the 3,000 converts were water-baptized on the day of Pentecost. Period. The biblical pattern is that when someone gets saved, he gets water-baptized.
The sense in which Luke use the term “baptize” in the book of Acts is different from the sense in which Paul use the term in 1 Corinthians 12:13. Throughout the book of Acts, Luke uses the term “baptism” to mean water baptism whereas in 1 Cor. 12:13, Paul uses “baptized” to mean the spiritual incorporation of a believer into the body of Christ.
The word “baptism” in the book of Acts refers to water baptism unless it is otherwise specified. .
In Matthew 28:19, Jesus gave the great commission to the disciples instructing them to go and make disciples of all nations “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. This was a reference to water baptism since the disciples could not do the type of baptism that Paul talked about in 1 Cor. 12:13.
In Acts 8, we read that Philip went to Samaria to preach Christ and a large number of people believed the Gospel and were baptized. Verses 12-13 say: “But when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were BAPTIZED. Then Simon himself also believed; and when he was BAPTIZED he continued with Philip, and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs which were done.” The baptism referred to in these verses is water baptism. We read in verses 14-17 that the Apostles later sent Peter and John to lay hands on the converts so that they might receive the Holy Spirit. So, when the book of Acts talks about “baptism”, it is referring to water baptism, not baptism in the Holy Spirit. When it means “baptism with the Holy Spirit”, it will specify it. We see this same pattern in the conversion of the Gentiles in Cornelius’ house (Acts 10) and the rebaptizing in water of John the Baptist’s disciples followed by their subsequent baptism in the Holy Spirit (Acts 19).
In Acts 2:38, Peter tells the crowd of unbelieving Jews: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized [water baptism] in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit [baptism with the Holy Spirit]”. So, Peter tells them first to repent and be baptized in water, and thereafter, they would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Then in verse 41, we’re told: “Those who gladly received his word were BAPTIZED; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them . .” So, it is clear that the baptism of the 3,000 converts in verse 41 is water baptism. And it happened on the day of Pentecost. That day itself was a day of extraordinary supernatural events. When God means to save souls, the religious observances and rules of the Pharisees cannot stop it. Jesus healed people on Sabbath days and no one could stop Him. So, let’s stop thinking that the water baptism of 3,000 converts could not have taken place on the day of Pentecost. Why not? That day itself was not your usual day of Pentecost seeing that several supernatural events happened on that day.
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In my post (if you carefully read it past its headline), I argue that the answer to whether the 3000 were dipped into water is a rather solid “NO”. In this piece, I’ve laid out several clusters of arguments which illustrate the practical impossibility of mass water baptism occurring at that time. I also see you haven’t addressed any of my points in your response. As I’ve pointed out in the piece, basically all of the commentaries on this passage that I’ve read simply skirt or dance around these rather profound problems, due to their religious presupposition that baptism must by necessity involve water.
As to “God can do anything he wants – ergo, he did do what I would like to have seen him do” argument which you seem to lean on in the latter part of your response. I am afraid that appeal to deus ex machina (I believe God did it because I want to believe that he did it) is generally a weak argument in any scenario. This can be applied toward anything that one wants to state as true, without actually having to do the work of arguing their points.
I do agree that in the interpretive tradition of the post-apostolic church, baptism became equivalent with an eponymous water ritual, to the extent that the largest Protestant denomination in the US has this very idea embedded in their name. Unfortunately, in my opinion that’s a rather glaring oversight, in that it’s confusing the outer metaphorical layer of this ceremony (which is water) with the actual contents (who is cosmic Christ). If the most noteworthy things that people associate with one’s initiation into a life of faith are small artificially constructed containers of pooled water, and tiny little cups of wine with kosher crackers – then I don’t see how anyone can immediately see in that any kind of real answer to life’s existential and metaphysical questions. Which is why being unwilling to move past symbolism into much deeper divine realities is one of the factors responsible for making today’s traditional Christian church increasingly irrelevant, in my opinion. But I digress.
Also, most mentions of baptism in the NT portion of the Bible don’t refer to water baptism. That assertion doesn’t have a leg to stand on. In fact, those mention refer to the baptism into Christ, and via that – into God. That’s why the majority of the text speak about baptism into Christ, not into water. Do a keyword search on the entirety of the New Testament, and it will become self-evident.
Baptism into Christ points to the process of theosis (using high church Orthodox terminology), which is the highest state of human spiritual attainment. Which is what one of your quoted examples – Matthew 28:19 – points to. Notice how it doesn’t way “they will be baptized into water”, but “into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. That’s the substance – essence of God (pointed by by the Ancient Near East usage of the metaphor “name”), and not water. Ditto Acts 8:12-13, in which you are capitalizing the word “baptized” – but again, notice how the word “water” is nowhere to be found in that passage. Ditto Acts 2:38 – no water mentioned there. And numerous other passages in the NT canon, and especially in the Pauline corpus of writings. All you have aside from John the Baptist are about 2 mentions of water baptist, and the rest of them are baptism into Christ.
So, here’s my criticism of the “baptism must always mean water” viewpoint: seeing water in the text where no water is mentioned is a textbook example of eisegesis (reading one’s presuppositions into the text). Merely capitalizing the word “baptize” in the analyzed passages won’t impart “water” into the relevant passages’ texts, I’m afraid. We are meant to exegete the texts by taking them at their historical-grammatical context, rather than reading them from our Western 21st century church perspective, which often times means shedding our inherited beliefs, in pursuit of higher truth. And that’s the vantage point from which this piece was written.
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Baptism[water baptism] on that day is possible. The baptism in the act 2 is not literal. Yes Peter spoke to the people but there were 12 apostles at the day of Pentecost. 3000 souls, so if the apostles were to share these people amongst themselves, the apostle will have 250 persons to baptize. Logically 3000 souls were possibly baptized in water on that day.
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If you read the body of the post carefully, you will find that it’s addressing your point in abundant detail.
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God bless you for the explanation about this matter, which look like a tradition following without a good exegesis about the subject. May God keep blessing you open people eyes. You have shown me some point that I didn’t pay attention to, so thanks again and stay blessed!
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NOTE FROM THE BLOG ADMIN
Given that this is the most popular post on this now nearly-defunct blog, it seems odd that for whatever reason, most of the people who choose to comment demonstrate by their responses that they, in fact, have not bothered to carefully read and comprehend that which they are commenting on or objecting to.
Also, I’ve had to delete several comments by chest-beating defenders of the tradition who came out swinging their rhetorical sticks, who didn’t realize that being shrill is not the same thing as being either intelligent or spiritual.
It takes less than 5 minutes to read and properly process the contents of the post. It’s really not that difficult.
Going forward, I will simply not publish the responses which demonstrate such lack of engagement with the post’s argumentation.
Peace out.
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It’s well. May God help us to serve him with humility, faith and understanding so as to help others come to the knowledge of truth in Christ Jesus. Thanks for your teaching.
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This is an interesting and thoughtful article with a valid claim. Perhaps this has already been said but one opposing thought I can see for 2:38 being water baptism is it was to be done “in the name of Jesus.” There are three other times in Acts where baptism “in the name of” occurs and they all point to water baptism.
I wish the word was more descriptive so we didn’t have to guess which one.
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I take a different analysis to those texts. But first – a bit of preface.
I have come to believe that the thing that prevents us from taking the Scripture at face value is the non-conscious importing of our modern religious traditions and biases into the text. For well over a millennium and a half, church universal had little to no revelation as to what it means to be immersed into the living Christ, nor what it means to be immersed into the Holy Spirit of the living God. That, in turn, occurred because there was little revelation of Christ’s ontology, particularly vis-a-vis how we humans are meant to interface with Christ. Same with the present-day operation of the Holy Spirit.
And so, in traditional Christianity, symbols have supplanted substance. In this case – water is a mere symbol, but the substance is either the Christ (and transitively – the Father) or the Holy Spirit (and via that – God eternal).
Due to all that – whenever the texts talk about baptism, we tend to non-consciously fill in what we consider to be blanks with water – at a massive detriment to our understanding of the key points of the texts.
But what if we took texts at their face value? What if we allowed the texts to tell us what substance a believer was being immersed to – water or Christ or the Holy Spirit? Let’s try that on for size using the Scriptures that you’ve quoted.
Acts 8:16
16 The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, for they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
No need to guess here – the substance in which they were baptized into is Christ. The substance into which they haven’t been baptized yet is Holy Spirit. That’s taking the texts at face value. No water is mentioned anywhere, so there’s no warrant for us to import that notion here.
Acts 10:48
48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. …
Again – the substance in view is Jesus Christ, not water.
Acts 19:5
5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Same thing – the substance into which they were immersed is Christ. No water is mentioned, so we don’t read that in.
Acts 8:36-38
36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” [37] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
And finally – there’s water. Again – we aren’t guessing, we are reading the text at face value. If it says ‘water’ – then water it is.
Once I’ve figured out this simple yet powerful idea (namely, the ontology of Christ, and how to interface with that – which is pretty much the key that unlocks both the actual New Testament spiritual economy and the NT spiritual physics) – it removed a lot of ambiguity in these and many other related texts. The good part is that once you catch glimpse of this – you can’t unsee it, and this revelation stays with you for good.
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“whenever the texts talk about baptism, we tend to non-consciously fill in what we consider to be blanks with water “
I am not presupposing here. Sorry, if I wasn’t clear on how I arrived at water baptism for the 3 passages. Let scripture interpret scripture. 10:47-48 Luke defines water baptism for us as “in the name of Jesus.”
Acts 10:47-48 – Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. He [Peter] ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Water baptism = baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Yes the substance is in Christ but it is accomplished via water immersion – it is a participation in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (Romans 6:3).
Acts 8:16
16 The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, for they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Luke has already defined this as immersion in water (10:47-48).
Acts 19:5
On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Luke has already defined this as immersion in water (10:47-48).
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Thank you for clarification. About my point regarding reading water baptism into the texts which don’t reference it – notice how in your last response, you appear to be importing water baptism into Acts 8:16 and Acts 19:5, whereas those texts themselves don’t explicitly mention it. That’s what I was talking about in my previous response.
So that still leaves us with Acts 10:47-48. My view differs from yours in that I don’t see this passage define baptism into water as baptism into Christ any more than wedding ceremony defines marriage itself. I see that Luke simply describes the two as co-occurring, and there’s nothing that I see in the text to suggest that Luke explicitly defines the one in terms of the other.
In general, it should be evident that water and Christ are two entirely different substances, so one can’t possibly be equivalent to the other. If it were otherwise – then one could use water for salvation, in lieu of Christ. But just as water is needed for the sustenance of physical life – Christ is needed for the sustenance of metaphysical / spiritual life. That’s the relationship between the two, in my view – one is a symbol; the other is the substance.
So I believe that in the post-resurrection passages which explicitly reference water baptism in connection with Christ, water baptism is used as a ceremonial vehicle through which to symbolize metaphysical immersion into Christ. (One can argue also that this is the vehicle through which to effect one’s immersion into Christ, but I don’t see it that way).
Also, there are a number of instances in the Bible where people are baptized into Christ immediately upon hearing the good news, without any hint of water ceremonies. One of those instances is the scenario described in this article. In fact, in this article I demonstrate the impossibility of water baptism altogether, in that situation – whereas the text describes that the baptism (obviously, not via water) took place.
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This is wonderfully written and logically supported by good exegesis. The church tradition of water baptism is highly overrated and unnecessary. To my knowledge, only Quakers as a denomination do not practice water baptism. If water baptism is salvific as some claim or if its an important first step as others claim, they pray tell me why Jesus never baptized anyone or why He did not instruct anyone to have some water baptism. The answer is He didn’t and He spoke only of Spirit baptism.
I’ve written a book on this subject which addresses both circumcision and baptism and how the early church was hung up of male surgery and how the church (mostly gentiles) became hung up on ceremonial washing. I’d off the author a copy if you cc me at melharness@gmail.com
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