The New Testament reveals that the believers are baptized with (or in) both water and the Holy Spirit. In Acts 1:5 the Lord Jesus says, “John indeed baptized in water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” In Acts 10:47 and 48 we have the water baptism of the house of Cornelius. Verse 47 says, “Can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit even as we?” Furthermore, Acts 9:18 indicates that Saul of Tarsus was baptized with water. John 3:5 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Water is the central concept of the ministry of John the Baptist, that is, to terminate people of the old creation. Spirit is the concept of the ministry of Jesus, that is, to germinate people in the new creation. Whenever we baptize the believers, we baptize them both with the water and with the Holy Spirit.
The water of baptism is a symbol and is rich in significance. First, the water signifies the Spirit as the realization of the Triune God. The water of baptism also signifies Christ. According to Matthew 28:19 and Galatians 3:27, when we baptize the believers into Christ we baptize them into the Triune God, for Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God. Moreover, the water of baptism signifies the death of Christ (Rom. 6:3-4a). As we have seen, to be baptized into Christ is to be baptized into His death. Water is a symbol of baptism into the Triune God, into Christ, and into the death of Christ.
The Holy Spirit is the reality of the baptism. The one baptism (Eph. 4:5) has the aspects of the Spirit and the water. The water, the outward affirmation, is a symbol, and the Spirit is the reality. For this reason, the believers are baptized both in water and in the Holy Spirit.
Baptism in water and in the Holy Spirit is typified by the sea (water) and the cloud (the Spirit) of the baptism in which the children of Israel were baptized. “All were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2). In typology the children of Israel were baptized in the cloud and in the sea. They did not have two baptisms; they had one baptism with two elements—the cloud and the sea. The cloud signifies the Spirit from the heavens, and the sea signifies the water on earth. This type is a picture of our baptism today. The New Testament believers are baptized in the water and in the Spirit (Matt. 3:11; 1 Cor. 12:13). Whenever we baptize others, we baptize them in water and in the Spirit at the same time. This means that whenever we baptize believers in water, we simultaneously baptize them into the Triune God.
First Peter 3:20-21a speaks of “those once disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were brought safely through by water: which figure also now saves you, baptism.” The water here signifies God’s judgment upon the God-rejecting world, which becomes the separating power to save His chosen people out of the corrupted generation of the God-judged world. Without judgment there cannot be separation. God’s judgment signified by the water separates us. When we were baptized in water, we were judged by God, and that water separated us. This is fully portrayed in the type of Noah.