For most Christians, baptism’s the ceremony performed in their churches, one involving being dipped into or sprinkled with water. That, however, puts a ritual on par with believing in Jesus Christ. This implication bothered Otis Q. Sellers, who claimed to be complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10) and therefore not in need of a water ceremony. He understood Mark 16:16 to mean “He that believeth and is identified shall be saved.” The Lord then said:
And these signs shall follow them that believe; in My name shall they cast our devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover (Mark 16:17-18).
These abilities were the result of being identified with Jesus in the Acts period, not of the ritual that may or may not accompany the identification. During the divine administration which the book of Acts chronicles, a believer was required to personally and publicly identify with Jesus.
Since God-commissioned men were speaking divinely inspired messages and their words were confirmed by signs following, those who heard and believed were expected to make it public. So, men believed, they identified themselves with Jesus Christ, and God identified Himself with them by causing certain signs to follow those that believed.
These signs came to an end with the dispensational change that Paul announced at Acts 28:28, but the divine imperative to identify has not changed. Today it is needed, not in order to be saved, but to develop the new life in Christ Jesus.
We’re familiar with this KJV translation of Matthew 10:32: “Whosoever therefore shall confess (ὁμολογήσει, homologēsei) Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven.” As the Lutheran commentator R. C. H. Lenski paraphrased it: “Whoever thus confesses and identifies Himself with Christ, with him Christ will identify Himself, him Christ will confess.” Lenski rendered it that way, Sellers surmised, because “confess” doesn’t do justice to homologeo (ὁμολογέω) which literally
. . . means “to say the same thing as another” and it implies some sort of pressure that leads to so doing. Our word “avow” would be a much better rendering, since it implies an open or bold declaration, also assertion in the face of hostility. Continue reading “Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 3: Him, with Whom I Am Identified, I Confess”