“I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.” - Mark 1:8
To be baptized in water, is to take on the nature of water. If something is baptized in fire it takes on the nature of fire. Immersion inherently makes you part of the nature in which you are immersed. It is said that the best way to learn a new language is to immerse yourself in the culture where it is spoken. You become it, it does not become you. This is the essence of baptism.
The Jews understood water being a symbol for ritual cleansing, and they would recognize the use of water in rite and ceremony. When John came preaching repentance, baptizing in water. It would not have been a great leap for them to recognize the significance of this. John’s baptism of repentance was a turning away from sin. Water baptism represented the cleansing of the old and the immersion into the new. The religious leaders of that day had access to Almighty God, yet they used their knowledge and position to exalt themselves. When John the Baptist came preaching repentance from sin, the people were hungry to hear it; and did hear it. Yet John did not exalt himself but confessed that “he must increase(talking about Jesus), and I must decrease.” How much better off would we all be if we confessed the same? The baptism that we were ultimately to be baptized with, the entire message, the hallmark of God’s glorious plan of salvation to fallen man, was and always will be the baptism of the Holy Ghost. This baptism is meant to be the primary baptism that we all were to be baptized with. It was coupled with the use of water, but not subject to it. Consider the act of baptizing in water. First, the person to be baptized must commit themselves to the waters keeping. Then they are destined to put on the very nature of the water itself. The immersion is a manifest change. This is the allegory to everyone that would be, and should be baptized by the Holy Ghost. A complete surrender to the call of Christ, total abandonment of yourself, and full immersion into the belief of Jesus Christ. By which you take on the very nature of Christ through the Holy Spirit. As Paul says in Galatians 3:27 “for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
Water is not necessary to this change. The Bible tells us that there is one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism. The Lord is Jesus, the Faith is His faith, and the Baptism is His baptism; which is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The baptism that makes Holy, and will keep you holy if you keep yourself “committed unto Him against that day.” Have you received this baptism?
