"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" Matthew 28:19.
"He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved" Mark 16:16.
We find the meaning of the institution of baptism summarised in these words. The word "teach" means, "make disciples of all the nations, baptising them." The believing disciple, as he is baptised in the water, is also to be baptised or introduced into the name of the Trinity.
By the name of the Father, the new birth and life as a child in the love of the Father are secured to him.1 By the name of the Son, participation in the forgiveness of sins and the life that is in Christ are promised to him.2 By the name of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling and progressive renewal of the Spirit are assured him.3 And every baptised believer must always look upon baptism as his entrance into a covenant with the Trinity, and as a pledge that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit will, in course of time, do for him all that they have promised. It requires a lifelong study to know and enjoy all the blessing that is presented in baptism.
In other passages of Scripture, the blessing is again set forth. We find bound up with it the new birth required to make a child of God. "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God" (John 3:5). The baptised disciple has in God a Father, and he has to live as a child in the love of this Father.4
Then, again, baptism is brought more directly into connection with the redemption that is in Christ. Consequently, the first and simplest representation of it is the forgiveness or washing away of sins. Forgiveness is always the gateway or entrance into all blessing. Therefore, baptism is also the sacrament of the beginning of the Christian life---a beginning that is maintained through the whole life. It is on this account that in Romans, chapter 6, baptism is represented as the secret of the whole of sanctification, the entrance into a life in union with Jesus. "Know ye not that all we who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death?" (Romans 6:3). The more precise explanation of what it is to be baptised into the death of Jesus, and to arise out of this with Him, for a new life in Him follows in verses 4-11. This is very powerfully comprehended elsewhere in this word, "As many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ" (Galatians 3:27). This alone is the right life of a baptised disciple. He has put on Christ.5 As one is plunged into water and passes under it, so is the believing confessor baptised into the death of Christ, in order then to live and walk clothed with the new life of Christ.
And there are other passages where again the promise of the Spirit is connected with baptism. It is promised not only as the Spirit of regeneration but also as the gift from heaven bestowed on believers for indwelling and sealing--for progressive renewal. "He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly" (Titus 3:5,6). Here, renewal is the activity of the Spirit, by which the new life that is planted in the new birth penetrates our whole being, so that all our thinking and doing is sanctified by Him.6
And all this rich blessing which lies in baptism is received by faith. "He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved." Baptism was not only a confession on man's part of the faith that he already had, but equally a seal on God's part for the confirmation of faith--a covenant sign in which the whole treasury of grace lay open, to be enjoyed throughout life. As often as a baptised believer sees a baptism administered, or reflects on it, it is to be to him an encouragement to press, by an ever-growing faith, into the full life of salvation that the Trinity desires to work in him. The Holy Spirit is given to appropriate within us all the love of the Father and all the grace of the Son. The believing candidate for baptism is baptised into the death of Christ and has put on Christ. The Holy Spirit is in the disciple to give him all this as his daily experience.7
Lord God, make Your holy baptism always operative in my soul as the experience that I am baptised into the death of Christ. And let Your people everywhere understand by Your Spirit what rich blessing lies in this baptism. Amen.
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Andrew Murray (1828 - 1917)
Brother Andrew Murray was a well-known writer/preacher in South Africa who ministered amongst the Dutch Reformed churches. His writings now are widely accepted by modern evangelicals and he is published more than ever in his life-time.Some of his better known books titles are: "Abide In Christ", "Absolute Surrender," and "Humility." His burden for the body of Christ were teachings on the abiding Spirit of Christ in the believer, the life of faith with God daily, and the life of intercession and prayer in the Church.
Andrew Murray was possibly the strongest spokesman of the Philadelphian age to expound the Body's necessity to abide in Christ, like the Apostle John before him.
Murray was born into a family of four children in the then remote Graaff-Reinet region (near the Cape) of South Africa. Educated in Scotland, which was followed by theological studies in Holland, Andrew returned to his native land to work as a missionary and minister. Given the daunting task of ministering to Bloemfontein, a remote region of 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people beyond the Orange River, Murray already began to sense the need to for the "deeper Christian life".
Though successful in preaching and bringing many to Christ, Murray found many of his greatest lessons in the School of Suffering, as will all who follow in the path of obedience.
Andrew Murray was one of four children born to Pastor Andrew, Sr., and Maria Murray. He was raised in what was considered to be the most remote corner of the world - Graaff-Reinet, South Africa. Educated in Scotland and Holland, in 1848 Andrew, Jr., returned to South Africa as a missionary and minister with the Dutch Reformed Church. His first appointment was to Bloemfontein, a territory of nearly 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people.
Andrew and his brother John had been in close contact with a revival movement in Scotland, an evangelical extension of the ongoing Second Great Awakening in America. He prayed for the same sort of awakening for the church in South Africa and wrote, "My prayer is for revival, but I am held back by the increasing sense of my own unfitness for the work. I lament the awful pride and self complacency that have till now ruled my heart. O that I may be more and more a minister of the Spirit." (J. du Plessis, The Life of Andrew Murray)
In 1860, revival did come to the churches of Cape Town, South Africa, and subsequently spread to surrounding towns and villages. Even remote farms and plantations felt the impact as lives were changed. Where once the churches had not been able to find one man ready to be a leader for God, the revival raised up 50 in Murray's Cape Town parish alone. There were more conversions in one month in that parish than in the whole course of its previous history. (Leona Choy, Andrew Murray: Apostle of Abiding Love)
Greatly concerned for the spiritual guidance of new converts and renewed Christians, Andrew Murray wrote over 240 books. His writings reflect his own longing for a deeper life in Christ and his prayer that others would long for and experience that life as well.