Produced by Barbara Tozier, Geetu Melwani and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: A number of typographical errors found in the original text have been corrected in this version. A list of these errors is found at the end of this book. WATER BAPTISM A PAGAN AND JEWISH RITE, BUT NOT CHRISTIAN PROVEN BY SCRIPTURE AND HISTORY CONFIRMED BY THE LIVES OF SAINTS WHO WERE NEVER BAPTIZED WITH WATER JAMES H. MOON FALLSINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA Copyrighted, 1902 Press of The Leeds & Biddle Co. 1019-21 Market Street Philadelphia "THE COMMISSION" Did Christ command his disciples to baptize with water? Let us search the New Testament and see what it says. We find the four evangelists and Peter each render Christ's command to his apostles in very different language. Matthew's version[1] is generally adduced to support water baptism. We cannot assume that in Matthew, our Saviour's words are quoted verbatim, while Mark, Luke, John and Peter are all in error or less reliable, particularly as this part of Matthew claims for itself to have been written a long time after, as appears by the statement that "This saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day."[2] Seven different accounts of the "apostolic commission" are given in the New Testament.[3] Did not each of these writers express in his own language what he understood to be Christ's command to his disciples and will not these seven different records all agree in substance if genuine? Let us seek that interpretation which harmonizes them all and not pin our faith to the popular conception of one version alone. We will turn first to the one only recorded allusion which our Saviour ever made to water baptism.[4] We here find that he commanded his apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father which, said he, ye have heard of me; for John truly baptised with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence. Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.[5] These are given as the last words of our Saviour before his ascension. He speaks of John's baptism as the water baptism of the past, and of Holy Spirit baptism as the baptism of the future. By this Holy Spirit baptism his apostles are to receive power to become his witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth. There is nothing whatever which implies a command to baptize with water. This whole context militates against the belief that Christ ever gave such command.[6]