Baptizing believers in water signifies that they are being immersed into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19). We were born outside of God and we have drifted far away from Him. One day we heard the gospel, and the gospel brought us back to Him. However, it is not adequate merely to be brought back to God; we must also be put into Him. For this, we need to be baptized. Whenever we baptize believers into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, we are placing them into the Triune God. After we have been baptized, we have not only come back to God and belong to Him; we are also in Him. Therefore, we can declare, “I used to be a sinner outside of God and far away from Him. But now I have been discipled and baptized into the Triune God. Angels, do you know where I am today? I am in the Triune God. Oh, I am in the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Satan, don’t touch me! I am valuable and precious because I am in the Triune God.” After we have been baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, wherever we are and whatever we do, we are in the Triune God.
Do not consider baptism a ritual or an empty form. I say again, to baptize believers is to put them into the Triune God. In the past, I saw some who shouted and danced after they came out of the baptismal water. Some even waved their arms and rejoiced, so glad were they to be in the Triune God. Hallelujah, we are in the Triune God! As those in the Triune God, we are the material for the building of the church. The church is not a physical building, nor even merely a gathering of believers. The church is a corporate composition of those who have been immersed into the Triune God.
Galatians 3:27 says, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Those who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. In this verse Christ is likened to a garment that we put on. When we are baptized into Christ, we are put into Christ, and we put Christ upon us. This is our union with Christ. Now that we have been baptized into Christ, we are one with Christ. And we are one with the Triune God.
In Matthew 16:18 the Lord prophesied and said, “I will build my church.” In Matthew 28:19 He commanded His disciples to baptize the nations into the Triune God. Hence, the first step in producing the church is to immerse the believers into the Triune God.
On the day of His resurrection, the Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples in a mysterious way. After entering the room where the disciples were gathered, He breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). We need to be very clear regarding the significance of this action. By breathing into the disciples and telling them to receive the Holy Spirit, the Lord indicated that from then on He would be in them and that He would never leave them.
The Gospel of John reveals that in eternity past the Lord was the Word, that the Word was God, and that, in His incarnation, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us as a man. This man was the Lamb of God (John 1:29). After dying on the cross to take away our sins, He was resurrected. On the day of His resurrection He came to the disciples as the holy breath. Here we have a problem in language. In the Greek language, the same word, pneuma, is used for both breath and spirit. The Lord Himself was actually the very breath, the pneuma, that He breathed into His disciples after His resurrection. After accomplishing the work of redemption as the Lamb, He went into death and was resurrected. In resurrection He became a mysterious One, for He became the pneuma breathed into His disciples. How wonderful! Although Peter, John, and all the other disciples had already been baptized into the Triune God, on the day of resurrection Christ as the Spirit, the pneuma, the breath, was breathed into them to be their content. In the past we were sinners outside of God and far from Him. Now, as saved ones, we have been brought back to God and baptized into Him. However, we still may not have the Lord as our content within. Our content must be the incarnated, crucified, and resurrected Christ as the Spirit of life, the holy breath. As He breathes Himself into us, we need to breathe Him in. He breathes out, and we breathe in. After the Lord breathes Himself out as the Spirit of life and we breathe Him in as the reality of life, He becomes our content. Now not only are we in the Triune God, but the resurrected Christ as the Spirit of life is also in us. Thus, our content is the Spirit of life, the resurrected Christ, as the resurrection life within us. This content, which is Christ Himself, is the very substance of the church.