Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 6: One Merges with Christ by Believing on Him

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Otis Q. Sellers with daughter Jane (left), and wife Mildred, 1934, the year he vowed, “I’m going to do my own studies!”

According to Sellers, in 1 Corinthians 12:13—“For in one Spirit are we all baptized (merged) into one body . . . and are all made to drink of one Spirit”—theologians have found a doctrine of the body of Christ. Believers allegedly become members of this body through baptism. But, Sellers, argued:

The truth declared in the promise “He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit” and the truth declared in the words “in one Spirit are we all baptized in one body” are not the same. The first has to do with Jesus Christ identifying men with the Holy Spirit, and the second has to do with the fact that those “identified in one Spirit” are merged in one body.

Sellers builds up to his defense of that distinction by adducing Romans 6:3, which he believes refers to the most important baptism in the Bible: that of being baptized (ἐβαπτίσθημεν, ebaptisthēmen) into Jesus Christ by being baptized (ἐβαπτίσθημεν) into His death. Paul avowed Christ, and Christ will do the same for him before the Father: “Whosoever shall be avowing Me before men, him will I also be avowing before My Father Who is in Heaven (Matthew 10:33).

The word “avow” here . . . implies open and emphatic declaration even in the face of opposition. If ever a man did this, it was Paul. Before the seeking Savior stopped him in his tracks on the Damascus road, he had vigorously disavowed any relationship to Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 26:9-12). There was no ceremony connected with these disavowals. They were his way of life. After the Lord Jesus appeared to Him, the character and purpose of His life changed. He became a man identified with Jesus Christ. There was no ceremony connected with this new relationship. It simply became his way of life.[1]

In Damascus a disciple, Ananias, was sent by God to the house of Judas where Paul had been living and praying for three days after being blinded on the Damascus road (Acts 9:10-16). If there was a ceremony for Paul’s identification with Jesus, Ananias was deputized to perform it, but it wasn’t something he could deputize others to do.

Ananias was a mediator between God and Paul. The ceremony he performed had meaning and it resulted in a reality which was Paul’s identification with Jesus Christ. This was the Acts period when God-given rituals performed by God-commissioned men brought positive results. Thus, it was that Paul could speak in his Roman letter of being identified with, even merged with the Lord Jesus Christ. This . . . is the paramount baptism of all Scripture. This is the “one baptism” set forth in Ephesians 4:5.

Sellers counsels his readers to pay attention to the difference between the church ceremony we call baptism and the reality to which it refers. From the Acts dispensation to the present dispensation of grace, we must test (δοκιμάζειν, dokimazein) the things that carry through (διαφέροντα, diapheronta) (Philippians 1:10). The ceremonies did not; the reality of publicly identifying oneself with Christ did.

When the Israelites went out into the wilderness to John the Baptist, we are told that they were baptized of him in Jordan. This was the ritual called baptism, and since it was performed by a man commissioned and authorized by God, it resulted in producing men who were by avowal submissive to God. John’s act identified them with those professedly submissive to God, and it signified before God an irrevocable step which when taken committed them to a course of action which could result in serious consequences if they failed to follow it through. They were not putting themselves under grace when they submitted to the demands of God’s government.

In Israel there was circumcision the ritual, but also the reality: “And the Lord God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart” (Deuteronomy 30:6). Paul sets forth both in Romans 2:28-29. As with circumcision, so with baptism in the Acts period. Wherever in the New Testament one finds the word “baptism,” one must ask whether the passage refers to speaks of the ritual or of the reality of baptism.

Context helps. Acts 2:38—“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”—could not possibly refer to the water ritual. The Apostle Peter charged the men in his audience with complicity in the murder of Jesus (Acts 2:36).

[I]n view of the magnitude of their sins, even to have been dipped in a river of water would have done less for them than one drop of perfume would do for deodorizing a skunk. They were told to submit and to identify themselves with the name of Jesus Christ with a view to the remission of their sins. . . .

[I]f a man is a sinner and needs forgiveness, let Him identify himself with the Savior of sinners with the end in view of obtaining the forgiveness he needs and it will be forthcoming. The Lord Jesus dispenses forgiveness. With Him is forgiveness. Keep the water out of Acts 2:38.

In marriage he finds an analogy: there’s the ritual—the wedding—and there’s the reality.

No matter how elaborate a marriage ceremony may be, it cannot ensure that a marriage (the reality) will be the result. . . . If two people become “one flesh,” as God had expressed it, it will be because they have worked hard to accomplish this. It will never be the result of a ceremony.

Similarly, there’s a ritual called “baptism” because the Greek word baptisma had come to signify a relationship of identification amounting to a merger. “John was a baptizer, and each time he performed this ceremony it resulted in someone becoming identified with the submissive ones in Israel . . . . Inasmuch as God was involved in it, it became the most serious step that any Israelite had ever taken.”

We, however, have no interest in identifying and merging with Israel’s submissive ones Israel, and in any case, there’s no “baptizer” to perform it under God’s authority. Rather, we’re interested in being identified with Jesus Christ, and we can be without a ceremony. We become identified with Christ by believing in Him, that is, by faith, the watchword of the dispensation in which we live: we take God at His word and think accordingly.

For example, the Colossian epistle was written to believers in Jesus Christ (1:2). I am one of these. They became believers upon the basis of hearing the word of truth (1:5, 9). So did I. Paul declares that they were “complete in Him” and were “buried with Him in baptism” (2:10, 12). So am I, and I want no other baptism but this. I am identified with Jesus Christ. Please believe this and don’t try to find out what else I am identified with, or belong to, or what someone did or I did to make this a reality. It is real to me, even as He is real to me.

In Romans 6:3 Paul declares that as many as are (not “were”: are) identified with Jesus Christ are identified with His death. The first brings about the second. . . . God has identified me with His death for our sins. There are many in Christendom today who profess identification with Christ but deny the vicarious nature of his death, making it to be nothing more than a man giving up his life for his convictions. Christ died for our sins in harmony with the Scriptures. He was also buried, and rose again the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Being identified with Him, we are also identified with His death, burial, and resurrection. If anyone should ask to see our “Certificate of Identification,” we will show him God’s Word.

To be continued.

Note

[1] “Identification with Jesus Christ,” Seed & Bread, No. 139, March 10, 1981. Emphasis added.

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