The Baptism of the Spirit — L.E. Maxwell

The Baptism of the Spirit and the Need for Biblical Distinctions

Now I must confess that it isn't really to my personal liking to take a subject that is a mooted subject, a mooted question. There are times, however, that we have to do some of these things. I would much prefer to speak on the subject of the fruit of the Spirit or the fullness of the Spirit.

In fact, two years ago, it would be this summer, I was in a CBMC conference, a retreat, and I announced my subject on being filled with the Spirit. I had the scriptures, or at least I had the scriptures read on the subject, and I intended to speak on the subject of being filled with the Spirit.

But the whole CBMC was almost broken up. It was about ready to, just to use a rather slang expression, it was about ready to bust up. Some were going to extremes and others were fearful and afraid and didn't know what to do about it, didn't know how to handle it.

And the whole thing was in a quandary. The leader of the CBMC wrote me later. He said, I was ready to throw in the towel, brother, I was going to quit the whole thing, I didn't know how to handle it. But they were having their, I would say, they were having their pandemonium meetings right in the midst.

It wasn't wholesome. So after I went there to speak on, as I intended on that morning on the subject of the fullness of the Spirit, I said, I haven't been able to get away from the fact that I have to speak to you on the subject of the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Well, I took my neck out, or I asked for trouble, or somebody's trouble, I didn't know. And so we were really in the hot spot. And God was with us. And by the time we got through, we had pretty well had both classes with us, and we spoke for an hour and twenty minutes at that Sunday morning service.

I'm not going to speak. Fortunately, you've got another meeting coming on, so I can't this morning. The baptism in the Spirit. Now, in order to get underway in the book of Acts, let us get our bearings, first of all.

Some may say, now I'm going to say, I'm going to say so many heavy things that you're going to have to keep your eyes open, and your ears open, and dig a little hole there, and make a receptacle, because I can't repeat over much.

Some may say that when we try to sit, and I'll follow my notes pretty closely in order to save time. I don't like that kind of teaching, but sometimes in teaching you must need to do so. Now, some may say that when we try to set forth scriptural teaching about the meaning, mission, and teaching of the Spirit, we are quibbling about words and phrases when we know certain words, distinctions, terminologies, and phraseologies.

I know of a great Bible teacher who said, when it comes to the baptism of the Spirit, filling of the Spirit, anointing of the Spirit, and they all mean one and the same thing. And he was one of the great men of God of the past generation.

But he didn't live in days when distinctions had to be made as we now have to make them. Therefore, he has discriminatory powers were not very good. Now, as these phrases are employed in the New Testament, setting forth the purpose and the power and teaching and mission and ministry of the Spirit, they don't all mean the same thing, I think, or the Holy Spirit would likely have used the same words.

So that the terms do not mean the same thing. Now, it seemed to me after many years of study that the term, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, now, N-O-W means in the 21 New Testament epistles, in the 21 New Testament teaching epistles, it seems to me that the phrase now, as we stand historically, includes the regeneration of the Spirit, John 3, 5, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, 1 Corinthians 3, 16, the gift, Acts 2, 38, the sealing, Acts 4, 30, the earnest, Ephesians 1, 14, the anointing, 2 Corinthians 1, 21, the fullness, Ephesians 5, 18.

That is to say, the baptism seems to me now, N-O-W, to include the whole pie. And all I did was give you a slide in these various terms that I brought in. The baptism is the whole now, and in it are all these others.

I think that is actually the teaching of the New Testament. Now, these words, indwelling, gift, sealing, earnest, anointing, fullness, regeneration, these words do not all mean the same thing. They are not used indiscriminately, interchangeably, or unmeaningfully.

As we classify the New Testament passages, noting where they occur, where they occur, we find them fall into a threefold classification. I'm using Scroggie's threefold classification here. Prophetical, doctrinal, historical.

Now, you'll find what we mean as we go along. Prophetical. Prophetical passages regarding this subject. In the following five passages, the baptism in the Spirit is a yet-to-be thing, not as experienced or as yet bestowed.

Here they are. Matthew 3 .11. Mark 1 .8. You have to take them down as fast as students do in school. Luke 3 .16. And John 1 .33. Those are the four gospel passages. All right, I'll run through them again for your sake.

3 .11, 1 .8, 3 .16, 1 .33. Got them all? Good for you. All right. In Acts 1 .5, we receive this. We notice there. Acts 1 .5 is the climax. Ye shall receive, or ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence.

Do you understand the announcement by John and Jesus? These are all five prophetic passages, all awaiting the day of Pentecost for fulfillment. All right. Now, number two, the doctrinal passages. The doctrinal passages.

We have seen prophetically. Listen now. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts 1 .5. Now we move clear on over here to the doctrinal epistle. We'll note them. We'll come back and notice Acts in the historical, between the two.

The baptism viewed doctrinally now in the epistle. I'm going to take, I think I'll take all the passages there are. I'll give them quickly. 1 Corinthians 12 .13. And we read this. For in, now you need to do some discriminatory listening as well as writing.

For in one spirit were we, were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free. Note the past tense. Were we all. An accomplished fact. Now, here's a question right at once.

Did these all have the baptismal experience as taught by some today? And when I go into these matters, I, I trust that you will not think we're just having a kind of a fisticuff with Pentecostal people.

I, I don't want to, I think that is a bad, bad spirit that fundamentalists are, have fallen into head over heels. It's just too bad. Now the Lord save us. After all, if we all belong to Christ in one body, then the Lord save us from knifing up the body.

Nevertheless, that doesn't sanction erroneous teaching which leads to falsehood and errors and dangers in living. I could tell you some things, serious things about that. But note the past tense. Now, listen.

Did these all have the baptismal experience as taught today? Were we all baptized. Past tense. Now, if they did, those to whom Paul is writing, you notice he's not writing to what we would call the faithful Thessalonians or the, the spiritual Ephesians.

Now, he's not writing to his beloved Philippians. He's writing to the carnal Corinthians. Babes in Christ. Concerning these, Paul says, all ye were baptized. Whatever the baptism was, it was not a blessing that cured their sex.

S-E-C-T-S. Didn't cure that. Didn't cure their immorality. Didn't cure them automatically of their lawsuits. Didn't automatically cure their loose textual matters. Didn't cure them of eating meats offered to idols.

Didn't cure them of envy, jealousy, and strife. And didn't cure them of errors regarding the resurrection. In fact, there's not a more erroneous living church in the New Testament than the Corinthians.

Yet he says, concerning these, ye were all baptized in one spirit. Paul is writing to them. He is writing to them. Not of their spiritual experience. Or rather, not of their state of experience. Not about their state of Christ, as Christians.

Now, this lady needs, do you, are you just where you want to be right now, are you sister? All right. I thought you were looking for a seat and couldn't find one. All right. All right, follow us back.

He's writing to them of their factual, actual standing as joint members with Christ. That's what he's doing. As having been united to Christ. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 6 -11, he says, such were some of you in your false days and false living.

But you have been washed from past pollution. You have been sanctified, separated unto God. You have been justified as though you had never sinned. That's what your actual, factual relationship to God in and through Christ is.

See? That's what he says in 1 Corinthians 6 -11. Now, the baptism past had, in this case, clearly to do with their occasion and means of their incorporation into the mystical body of Christ. All have, were baptized into one body.

No racial distinction. Neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond or priest. No social distinction. Come to another passage, Galatians 3, 27 and 28, in which we read, As many of you as were, here you got it again, have been is to, is to, it doesn't give the true tense of it.

As many of you as were baptized into Christ did not have, but did put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond or priest, neither male nor female. Now, the baptism in this verse is here spoken of as as having secured the unity in one body of all Christians, breaking down, breaking down what?

Doing away with all distinctions, whether national or social or even sexual distinctions. Legalism even did away with that. Sexual distinction as well as national, racial, social. This baptism has to do then, not with our spiritual state, but with our standing in Christ and membership in the one body.

Another passage, Ephesians 4, 5. Ephesians 4, 5. You want to take down perhaps 4, 1 to 5, because on 1 to 3 we read of the church's calling to walk worthy. In verses 4 to 6 in that passage, we read of the basis or ground of their unity.

Then he says there's, even as there's one hope in, even as you're called in one hope of your calling, there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father who is above all, through all, in you all.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Now the great point here in the one body, in the one baptism, is that they're baptized into Christ in one whole. That is the teaching of the passage. Over all our God and Father.

Now may I say that some baptism people, because there are too many branches so I don't know which one to name, we'll just leave out the name, but some say, some have consistently, within their own inconsistencies, said.

I mean it just like that. They have concluded that unless you have the baptism and tongues, you're not even yet a member of the body of Christ. I say that is consistency. Within their inconsistencies, that's consistency.

Because if there's one baptism, and if you haven't spoken in tongues or haven't a special experience of some kind, if you haven't had that experience, you're not yet a member of the body because there's one baptism that puts you into the body.

Therefore, until you have spoken in tongues or something like that, you're not yet a member of the body. Now that's at least consistency within the realm of inconsistency. All right, you get what I mean, all right.

Romans 6, 3 and 4. Romans 6, 3 and 4. Know ye not, so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Now hear this. The deepest reference is to our having by the Spirit been baptized into Christ and therefore into him crucified and risen.

Baptism of the Spirit into Christ. You say, but all that talks about water. Well, may I just throw in something to help you be a little more frustrated? I had an uncle who really knew God, and he was a good Baptist deacon, way down almost below the Mason-Dixon line.

And, you know, he said, he said, until I began to see that passage without H2O in it, he said, I didn't see identification with Christ in death and resurrection as I should, because all he saw up until that date was H2O.

Well, I think symbolically it's there, but that's not the primary that's there. The primary that's there is identification. Know ye not that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, of which the others are symbols, were baptized into his death?

Therefore we have died already. Not talking about experience, talking about your position. I may go into identification tomorrow if I get there. Now, all these references that I've given you constitute the doctrinal statement, the body of doctrinal teaching truth on the subject of the Spirit baptism as contained in the doctrine in the epistle.

I think these are pretty well all the teachings. These passages all point, this latter group of passages, all point backwards. They point backwards. The first five passages I gave you point forward. Now, where are we?

Doctrinal in the epistles point backwards. Prophetical in the Gospels, including Acts 1 -5, pointed forward. But now the question, forward to what? Backward to what? That's where we're at now. Forward to fulfillment, backward to the history which has explained in the epistle.

You see, historical experience is never doctrinal precedent. Not necessarily. But doctrinal teaching is explanation of historical experience. Now, that may not mean too much to you if you haven't studied the Word, but it does mean much.

The Historical Transition from Israel to the Church

Now, number three, the book of Acts, historical. Between the Gospels and the epistles, now, the old dispensation was passing, the new dispensation was beginning. Israel had been God's witnessing functionary.

Got that word, have you? On earth, here was a national witness, and Israel was God's functionary of old. Israel had been God's witnessing agent. Now, the church of this age is to be and have a different kind of witness.

Not a national, but a preaching, proclaiming witness. An enunciation of the long-anticipated gospel good news, preaching it in all the world. Now, in Israel, you turn to 1 Corinthians 10, and I'll be there by the time you get there.

In Israel, Moses was God's visible head of Old Testament witnessing agents. In the church, Jesus Christ is the head of the New Testament agency. 1 Corinthians 10, 1 and 2. I found this a very wonderful passage.

Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be in doubt, but all our fathers went unto the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all, listen, baptized unto, with respect to Moses, in the cloud and in the sea.

Well, there, Moses was the visible head of Old Testament witness. Now, in the New Testament, it could, you could, shall I read, shall I transliterate that second verse for you? Look at it. It might be said concerning us, and were all baptized into Jesus Christ in the element of the Spirit.

That's giving it a proper transliteration to the present dispensation. One means the same as the other. That is, not that the witness was the same, but the Old Testament Israelitish witness, they were whelmed into one hole around Moses the leader, never got away from him.

In the New Testament, we are whelmed into one hole in another element, not the cloud and the sea, but in the Spirit unto Christ the head. We are now the functionaries. They were the functionaries coming out of Egypt, that they should show forth the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light.

We, as strangers and pilgrims, have now been whelmed into one hole, into Christ, that we should show forth the praises of him who called us out of the world's darkness into his marvelous light. We do it in preaching.

They did it as a national witness. I've said a whole lot there in a little time. All right. Now, the congregation, thus the congregation of old was incorporated on its functioning mission, incorporated into one hole around Moses.

It's called baptism unto Moses. Now, similarly, the two-foldness of the baptism is symbolically set forth. Ours is unto Christ, into him, connecting us to him, linking us, identifying us with him, and uniting us to him, according to Romans 6, 3 and 4, as you already have.

Now, therefore, therefore, in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, we're all baptized into one body. Now, the baptism as I see it now, doctrinally speaking, as explained in all the epistles, is simply a baptism into union with Christ, and in him we are one body, neither jew nor Greek, bond or free, male nor female, ye are all one in Christ Jesus, whelmed into one hole around him, into Christ.

Now, the same time, at the same time we are regenerated by the Spirit, we are baptized into Christ, were we all, were we all baptized into one body, 1 Corinthians 12, 13. Now, just as Israel was inaugurated or nationally inducted into her national witness, so we have been baptized into Christ in the Spirit to show forth the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light, 1 Peter 2, 9.

Pentecost and the First Historical Pattern

Now, we're going to go through these groups rapidly. Group number 1 in Acts chapter 2. We're taking the historical now, you see. Between the prophetical and the doctrinal is the historical. Group number 1 in Acts.

I'm taking for granted that you know, you know your Bibles fairly well. So, the church in group number 1, the church as the out-called, Israel was out-called from Egypt, wasn't it? Out-called from the world.

So, the church as the out-called and collected whole were baptized unto Christ Jesus in the Spirit, constituted officially and publicly, manifestly inaugurated, inducted into her functioning witness as baptized into one constituted body, visibly set forth, this is God's new thing, witnessing through, not through Israel now, he's changing, we're in transition here.

Simultaneously, listen, simultaneously in Acts 2, simultaneously they were filled with the Spirit, therefore it says, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. I wouldn't say the baptism and the filling were precisely the same.

The baptism is one thing, the filling is another. But in describing the experience of that day, they were all filled. Basically, back of it all, they were baptized into Christ as the new functionary in the earth.

They were simultaneously filled with the Holy Ghost. And it says, therefore it says, filled. And they began to speak. That was the function. That was the chief function of this age. Now the tongues of fire, speaking in supernatural tongues, and tongues of fire both indicated the character of this age, a witnessing dispensation with great boldness of speech, with a fiery tongue, character of the dispensation.

I must make one thing clear here regarding the preaching of the day of Pentecost. The disciples, when they began to speak, have you gotten up with me now? The disciples, when they began to speak, did not preach the gospel.

All you have to do is read it and see. They, it was noise to blow, but they were speaking the wonderful works of God, and that brought all the people together. Then after that, Peter preached in the Jewish language that wonderful sermon on the day of Pentecost.

All right, that's just incidental. Peter preached that wonderful sermon in the Jewish language. What meaneth this? He explained it in things they understood. But at first, we do hear them speak in our own languages as all around Asia Minor, in our own languages where we were born, back there in Cappadocia, and all out in Laodicea and so on.

We heard, why, in our languages back there, we hear them speaking the wonderful works of God. They came together. Now, the sermon in the intelligible Jewish language. Now, the exalted, what happened? The exalted, once crucified, but risen Lord Jesus is yonder, and he hath poured forth this.

What meaneth this? It's this, he's yonder. That's what it means. Men and brethren, what shall we do? Repent. You killed him? Repent of it. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus.

I think that's a better rendering. In the name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Three thousand converted and filled all at once, simultaneously.

I have no doubt they were. Manifestly at once, then and there, no delay, no space of time, no particular signs. As far as I know, on the day of Pentecost, it doesn't say that these three thousand had any particular signs.

It doesn't say so. They had already, they'd already seen signs. If you require signs, they'd seen, they'd seen much already. At least there's no mention of tongues in connection with the three thousand.

They simply met the simple condition, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Meet the condition, the gift is yours. The promised spirit was theirs, and having met the condition of salvation, repenting, believing, the gift was theirs as promised.

Samaria and the Inclusion of Half-Jewish Believers

Group number two. We're just, we're just going slightly fast. Acts chapter eight. The second instance in the book of Acts. God chose Philip to carry the gospel where? Down to the Samaritans. All right, according to Acts 6 -5, Philip was a man full of the Holy Ghost.

There were many gospel triumphs in Samaria. You can look at it if you like, 8, 5 to 17. Much divine power attended Philip's preaching. Yet Philip was not one of the apostles. You understand? I didn't say that incidentally either.

He was just a deacon, but as we often say, he was a deacon who did deek. He preached the Christ to them. There were miracles, demons cast out, paralytics restored. People listened with one accord, great joy in Samaria.

Many believed, were baptized. Yet we read the Holy Ghost. Isn't that a crazy thing? The Holy Ghost had fallen yet. Now don't think about the word fallen as though somebody's going to strike you dead. A lot of people, Oh, if only I could be under the Holy Ghost when he falls and hits me.

Wait a minute. That isn't the illusion. That's just the psychological thing that's in your system. That's simply a psychological reflex that you have, the idea you have. If you lived in the New Testament times, that wouldn't be the idea at all.

It'd be this, as dew falls in the evening. Slight difference between that and knocking it into pieces. But a lot of people, Oh, my, I met a fellow on the train once. He goes, Oh, my, when I was under the power, when I was under the power, he kept talking about under the power.

I said, well, if that's the case, then just as Israel had manna the first ten years, twenty years, thirty years, forty years, now we ought to have manna today. We would if we had faith enough. I said, now you are crazy.

Foolish, I think I said. Pardon me. But what kind of extreme camp we go into? When I was under the power. Now, you see, he had a psychological something. Too bad. Otherwise, good fellow. Good chap. We had good time talking.

Holy Ghost. Yet, at Samaria, the Holy Ghost had fallen on none of them. Verse 16. They had faith and regeneration. I think it would be foolish to say they weren't regenerated people with all that took place there.

They were therefore born of the Spirit. Now, Peter had said on the day of Pentecost that the one condition of receiving the Spirit was to repent and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, listen.

Hadn't he done that? They had repented. They had believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and had been baptized. Well, what does it mean the Holy Ghost had fallen on none of them? Well, you see, these are puzzling points.

And I don't wonder people get mixed up on them. What was the sole condition of receiving the gift of the promised Spirit on the day of Pentecost? 3 ,000? They met the simple condition, repent, be baptized, believe on Christ and be baptized, and the gift is yours.

No other conditions or strings attached. But this promise, the promise had been fulfilled in the 3 ,000 according to Acts 2 .41. But why not on these then? Apparently no gap of time on the day of Pentecost between their repentance and faith in Christ and their having been filled with the Spirit.

Though no mention is made in Acts 2 .41 of any special signs attending the gift of the Spirit, what then is the difference between the 3 ,000 in Acts 2 .41 and the multitudes of believers in Acts 8 down at Samaria?

Because Philip was just as much filled with the Holy Ghost as anybody else. Philip the deacon was mightily filled with the Spirit, mightily used of the Spirit, and they had a great revival at Samaria.

Listen, there is a great, grand, doctrinal, divine reason at Samaria for Peter and John to come down from Jerusalem. On the day of Pentecost, the Church was especially... Now, I don't go to seed on extreme dispensation.

You don't have to be especially learned in the Bible to see the Jews used in the Old Testament, the Church in the New, and the Jews in the days to come. You don't have to be especially learned in Bible study to see that simplicity.

But that's far different from going off the deep end on extreme dispensation. Now, listen. On the day of Pentecost, the Church was especially Jewish. To the Jewish believers, it never occurred that anybody else could have such spiritual privileges and blessings as for us Jews.

Inclusively and exclusively, we are God's people. That was their belief. Now what? Samaritans were half-Jews, half-Gentiles. You know, they were dogs. Mixed. The northern tribes had been led into captivity.

Jews, Gentiles had been imported. They had intermarried some 600 years before. Ever since, in their half-breed character, these were neither Jews nor Gentiles. A lot of half-breeds. The Samaritans stood midway between the distant and distinct national differences and extremes.

Extremes almost of race, color, and tongue. Now, the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. John 4, 9. Recall that Jesus said, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He gave them an intense evangelization first.

Matthew 15, 24. Yet he did visit Samaria in John 4, didn't he? The Samaritans were God's halfway house between the extremes, between the vast antipathies, between the Jews and the Gentiles. Peter and John.

Now note. Peter and John with the keys to the kingdom, both to the Jews and the Gentiles. Matthew 16, 19. Now note the significance. Here is quite a point. Because you notice the confusion if you try to point to a particular pattern, experience.

Acts 2, 41. No signs, apparently. And no gap of time. Repent, be baptized, you shall receive the gift. There's a fourth way. It's a whole lump sum. Samaria. Miracles, regeneration, many, much joy, great survival.

Holy Ghost hadn't yet been imparted unto them. What in the world are we talking about? Listen. Apostles had to come from Jerusalem to properly, properly to complete and incorporate the Samaritan believers into the one body.

Samaria must be identified with the Jews baptized into one body. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither Jew nor half-Jew. Philip could complete the word just as easily as any apostle. Had it not been officially necessary for officials from Jerusalem to come down and endorsingly put their hands on these believers credentialing them as full-fledged members in the body of Christ.

And the Samaritans must need submit to salvation is of the Jews. There's not going to be any little Mount Gerizim church up here in Samaria. Because we have it split in the body right from the word go.

It would have been right off of another split. And a little Mount Gerizim site up north. We say in this mountain the place for men ought to worship. You say down there. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

That long age long antipathy has to be broken down. And so Peter has to come down and say, Okay. That was a step for Peter. Almost broke his neck to take that step down. But it was God's halfway house.

I'm glad God furnished a halfway house so the man wouldn't step all the way to break his neck. Going all the way to Gentiles. Well, the laying on of hands endorsingly serves from a Jewish standpoint recognition by Peter and John as officials from the church in Jerusalem.

They endorsingly accept the Samaritan believers as one with Jerusalem. The Samaritans on the other hand submit to Jerusalem. All right, we've got so far we've kept the body intact. That's the meaning of the baptism.

On to Christ. One body. He's a junior great. One the free. Male and a female. There is our oneness preserved. Good. Peter officially represented the original baptism. Well, do they speak in tongues down there?

I don't know. It doesn't say so. I think they did. It doesn't say so. And if it doesn't say so it doesn't mean it was so absolutely indispensable to say so. Incidentally, it didn't say so but it seems Simon saw something and it looks as though they had.

I rather expect they did because that would seal the sign these Jews and half-Jews that would seal to them the fact that they were no less and would seal to Peter and John that these two men were no less.

The Jews require a sign, don't they? I think Peter got it. Well, all right. Why the delay? I've shown you why. Now, let's go ahead, shall we? I'll skip over two or three pages of my notes here and give you group number three.

Cornelius and the Gentiles Receive the Holy Spirit

This is the interesting group. It gets thicker. The plot is thicker. Chapter 10, as you know. In chapter 10 and 11 we have the account of Peter preaching to the Gentiles. You know about that. To the Jews in Jerusalem Peter had been the chief agent at Pentecost, hadn't he?

To the half-Jews of Samaria he had been the chief agent with John among the believers at Samaria. The body of Christ is being made up. Now to the Gentiles. Here's a new group. Another group. Another national incorporation into the body.

It requires a supernatural revelation from heaven to persuade Peter even to go down to the house where he is. Doesn't it? Sheep led down from heaven. Arise, Peter. Slay and eat. Not a bit of it. Nothing unclean.

Never touched my mouth. Dr. McCroken once said, How much more was a miracle needed to bring Gentiles into the very body of Christ? Oh! Will Jewish hands be laid on these Gentiles? Will Jewish hands be laid on these Gentiles?

Is there to be a Judaized church? There's another danger in the case of the Cornelius household. Will Jewish hands be laid on Gentile believers? God will take the matter out of all Jewish hands but He'll give them the same sign so there's no difference.

You watch. Oh! You know I've been inclined once in a while to think that God seems to have known what He was doing. Well, I just said what's latent in some of your thinking, questioning. All right. Will God take the matter in hand and take the matter out of Jewish hands and yet give them the same sign?

We can scarcely appreciate the fact, beloved, that in the days that they act it required a miracle, a direct revelation, a special working of God to have the early church baptized body at Pentecost considered such an amazing departure as that the Gentiles should be received into the church on the same plane.

That was too much. To us it's no problem at all. But in those days it was of all problems the problem. To those it was indeed a mystery, one of God's best kept secrets. But mysterious to the original believing Jews, how carefully and patiently Paul in his epistles taught, didn't he, the middle wall of petition being broken down.

Wasn't that, don't you find it in Colossians? Don't you find it in Ephesians? You find it most everywhere. Trying to show the oneness of the body. We are seeing a little of the meaning of Paul's teaching historically here as he taught later in the doctrinal epistles.

Now, by what is happening historically here in the Acts, Gentiles being baptized. 1034. Look at 1034. Then Peter opened his mouth and said, unto the truth I perceive that God is what? No respected person.

Every nation and so on. Well, read on down. Stating times 39 and 40. And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of Jews and in Jerusalem whom they flew and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the third day and showed him openly not to all the people but under witnesses chosen before God.

Even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and the dead.

To him give all the prophets witness that through his name what's the word? Whosoever. That's a good little word. Whosoever. That's a good word here. Receiveth or believeth in him shall receive the remission of sins.

Well, Peter yet spake these words before he got down to his application and drew the net. What happened? God took the matter out of his hand and said, Peter, that's enough. We'll go forward. I'll carry on from here.