Mark 16:16 He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be condemned. John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name, 3: 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.
To believe is to receive the Slave-Savior (John 1:12), not only for forgiveness of sins (Acts 10:43) but also for regeneration [i.e. to be born anew with God's eternal life] (1 Pet. 1:21, 23), so that those who believe may become the children of God and the members of Christ (Eph. 5:30) in an organic union with the Triune God (Matt. 28:19). To be baptized is to affirm this, by being buried to terminate the old creation through the death of the Slave-Savior and by being raised up to be the new creation of God through the Slave-Savior's resurrection. To believe and to be so baptized are two parts of one complete step for receiving the full salvation of God. To be baptized without believing is merely an empty ritual; to believe without being baptized is to be saved only inwardly without an outward affirmation of the inward salvation. These two should go together. Mark 16:16 does not say "who does not believe and is not baptized shall be condemned." This indicates that condemnation is related only to not believing; it is not related to not being baptized. Believing itself is sufficient for one to receive salvation from condemnation; yet it needs baptism as an outward affirmation for the completion of one's inward salvation. [Continued tomorrow] (c) Living Stream Ministry.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of Mark, pp. 436-437. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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