The River of Baptism

John the Baptist exercises a significant ministry in the New Testament and in the plan of God. He prepared the people for the coming of Christ and his ministry was powerful yet not complete. While effecting something which was not available through the ministry of the temple, it was only completed when the person believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are meant to learn from the place where he baptised and from other references about baptism in the New Testament that this was to be done where there was plenty of water. It was to be a burial and this suggests full immersion. Under the John the Baptist and still for the Christian today it is an ordinance to be submitted to. We are to obey it and it is to be urged on all. It needs to be entered into advisedly but we are not to rely on it as a proof of our conversion.

Christians need only be baptised once but in another sense we keep going out to the river to recommit ourselves to obey the Lord. We have to forsake leisure and pleasure, display more obedience, conduct more self-examination on ourselves and be willing to bear more reproach for the Lord. Baptism maps out a pathway of obedience that we are continually having to follow.