Certain Passages Considered
Zion's Advocate, Vol. 44, No. 12, December 1905.
"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be damned." Mark xvi. 15, 16.
This is a command to the apostles as ministers and to all who are called to the work of the ministry. It was not expected or required that the eleven should preach in every city and neighborhood in the world, or that the ministers of any age should do so. It simply signifies that the world is their territory, to be preached in as the Spirit dictates and directs, their field not being bounded by geographical lines or national distinctions. By every creature is meant people of all classes, or all the people who should come to hear them. In Colossians i. 23, it is declared that the gospel had been preached to every creature which is under heaven." This cannot be taken as meaning every individual member of the human family, but must be understood to mean all classes of people. So it must be understood in the text we are considering. This shows the apostles to have been faithful in carrying out the commission of the Master.This is not a warrant for ministers to force themselves upon people who will not hear them. Jesus instructed the apostles, when he sent them to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel," to leave any house or city that would not receive them, shaking the dust off their feet as a testimony against them. When a persecution was raised against Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, they departed into Iconium, heeding the instruction of Jesus by shaking off the dust of their feet against the Jews, thus showing that what Jesus bade the twelve do under the limited commission given them is to be observed under the present extended commission. Modern missionaries of the world do not observe the orders of Jesus, but they push themselves on nations who manifest such opposition to their preaching that their lives are in almost constant danger, and when things get too warm for them, they call upon their mother country to protect them by force of arms if necessary. What shameful violation this is of the orders of the Master they are pretending to serve!
This passage does not teach that all who never hear the gospel preached are finally lost and sent to endless punishment. No passage in the word of God teaches that absurd idea. No greater injustice can be imagined than that any should be endlessly punished who have not had the opportunity to hear the gospel preached simply because they have not heard it. To think of a poor creature suffering the endless punishment of hell because the gospel was not taken to him, while others whose duty it was to take it to him, but failed to do so, are in the everlasting enjoyment of bliss, is a thought too ridiculous to be entertained by any conscientious mind that pauses to consider its ridiculousness.
Only those who hear the gospel preached are referred to in this passage as believers and unbelievers. The apostles were given signs or evidences by which they might know the children of God from those who were not his children among the people to whom they preached. Preachers see evidences on the part of some to whom they preach that they believe their preaching and rejoice in it. They may know by these evidences that they are children of God, and that they shall be finally saved, for none of God's children can ever be lost. They have eternal life and shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of the hand of Christ or his Father. They may fall, but they shall never be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds them by his hand. The evidences seen in their reception of the gospel is strengthened by their obedience. So when one believes and is baptized we have unmistakable evidence of his being born of God and an heir of heaven.
"Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord." Acts 22:16.
There is a literal and ceremonial washing away of sins. The former is real, the latter is figurative. The literal or real washing away of sins is by the blood of Christ. "For if the blood of bulls or goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh (ceremonial); how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" The purging or cleansing mentioned here is literal or real, and is declared to be done by the blood of Christ. Being in order to the service of the living God, it is not done as a result of any of that service, but is entirely prior to it. This is indisputably true. That the washing in baptism is figurative of this is clearly established by the following passage: "The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Here baptism is called a figure of salvation just as the ark was. The ark and baptism are said to be like figures; that is, they are figures of the same thing, which is salvation in Christ. Furthermore it is denied that baptism is the putting away of the filth of the flesh. The word filth in the passage is from the Greek word rhupos, which means moral filthiness, or sinfulness. A derivative of this word (rhupoo) is found in Rev. 22:11, "He which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still." The word is here used as the opposite of righteous, which proves it to mean moral filthiness. Baptism is not for the literal putting away of the filthiness or sinfulness of the flesh, for this is done by the blood of Christ."Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with Christ by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." - Romans 6:3,4.
As the first mentioned in this passage was a baptism into Christ, and the second was a burial with Christ, there are evidently two baptisms mentioned. There could not be a baptism into Christ and a burial with Christ in the same act, for the two prepositions do not express the same relation. The baptism into Christ is explained by the Apostle in I. Corinthians 12:13: "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." The baptism into Christ is, therefore, by the Spirit. The saints are first baptized, by the Spirit, into Christ and into his death, therefore (for that reason) they are buried with him, by water baptism, into death (formal separation from the world) after which their walk should be a new walk."Faith without works is dead." - James 2:20.
This does not mean that true faith is dead until works bring it to life, as some seem to construe it. James is here writing of showing charity to the needy, and very truly declares that to believe without acting would be a dead thing. If one believes and does not put his faith into activity, it is like the miser's money while locked up in his chest. The money may be all right, but it will not be useful for practical business if it lies idle. So a man's faith will be of no practical benefit while it is not coupled with obedience.Copyright c. 2005. All rights reserved. The Primitive Baptist Library.
