God’s mystery is to have the church, and God’s economy is to bring forth the church. Both God’s mystery and God’s economy are just to have the church. We must see how this has been done and how this is still being done.
First let us look at Matthew 28:19. This verse has been altogether misused by Christianity, mainly due to an inadequate translation. The King James Version says, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” The Greek preposition here for in actually means into. It does not mean baptizing them in the name but baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit. The preposition into is crucial, and the name is also crucial. This verse does not say, “baptizing them into the Father, into the Son, and into the Holy Spirit,” but rather, “baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” These two words into and name are hard for Christians to understand.
This kind of composition, baptizing into, is used in the New Testament several times. Besides Matthew 28:19, this phrase baptizing into is used in Romans 6:3 where it says that we have been baptized into the death of Christ. This verse also says that we have been baptized into Christ Jesus. The same kind of verb and the same kind of preposition are used to reveal that we are baptized into the name, into Christ, and into the death of Christ. Galatians 3:27 has the same phrase, “baptized into Christ.” First Corinthians 12:13 says that “we were all baptized into one body.”
We have to baptize people into four things: into the name, into Christ, into the death of Christ, and into the Body. Physically speaking, we baptize people into the water, but we all know that the water is not the real thing. The water denotes something. When we baptize people into the water, it denotes that we baptize them into the name, into Christ, into His death, and into His Body.
In Christianity I never heard that we should baptize people into the name. I heard just a little about baptizing people into Christ. It was after I was saved and had advanced much in the Lord that I read some books which told me that baptism is to put us into the death of Christ. Also, I never heard that to be baptized is to be baptized into the Body. Have you ever heard this? To baptize people is to baptize them into the name, into Christ, into His all-inclusive death, and into His Body.
After the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the first mention of baptism is not to baptize people into the water, into the tomb, or into death. The first mention of baptism after Christ’s resurrection is to put people into His name (Matt. 28:19).
The New Testament goes on to tell us in Romans 6 that to baptize people is to put them into Christ. This Christ in Romans 6, into whom we baptize people, is no more just the Lamb. We can never baptize people into a Lamb. This Lamb has been crucified, buried, and resurrected into the Spirit! Now the very Christ in Romans 6 is no more just the Lamb but the life-giving Spirit.
One day while I was speaking in Indianapolis, a sister interrupted my speaking and asked how we could abide in the Lord and the Lord in us. She had tried and tried to abide in Christ, but could not make it. I told her that it was so easy for us to abide in the air and for the air to abide in us. Right now we are abiding in the air, and the air is abiding in us. After Christ’s resurrection, He became the pneuma, like the air. He is the pneuma. Pneuma means the Spirit, the breath as the air. Christ is the living pneuma. We have our being in Him just like we have our living in the air. If you take away the air from this room, after five minutes we will all be dead. We have our life in the air. We are abiding in the air, and the air is abiding in us. Hence, we can easily baptize people into Christ because Christ today is the Spirit. The Spirit is the pneuma and the pneuma is like the air.
How could we be baptized into the death of Christ? Where is the death of Christ? I have read some books which told me that we have to reckon this death by faith. I reckoned and believed that I was baptized into His death, but it never worked. In Brother Watchman Nee’s book, The Normal Christian Life, there is a chapter on reckoning. However, those messages were given by Brother Nee in his earlier ministry, before 1939. Those were elementary. After 1942 he learned that to experience the death of Christ is not just a matter of reckoning. After 1942, Brother Nee gave messages telling us that the real experience of Christ’s death is not in Romans 6 but in Romans 8. What Romans 6 says is just an objective fact. If we are going to experience this fact subjectively, we must be in Romans 8. The real death of Christ today is not in the tomb. The real death of Christ today is in the all-inclusive Spirit.
In the Bible, in the typology of the Old Testament, the compound ointment signifies the compound Spirit (Exo. 30:23-33). In this compound ointment, Christ’s divinity, Christ’s humanity, Christ’s death, Christ’s resurrection, the power of His death, the power of His resurrection, and the ascension of Christ are all included. This is a compound, an ointment, compounded with all kinds of spices. The Spirit of God before Christ’s crucifixion was not a compound. It was just a divine Spirit without humanity in it, without the very element of the effective death of Christ in it, without the resurrection in it, and without Christ’s ascension in it. After Christ was processed through death, resurrection, and ascension, He came down to descend upon us. Now He is the compound Spirit. We have all these good elements compounded in this one compound Spirit. This compound Spirit is Christ as well as the life-giving Spirit! When we baptize people into this compound Christ, we put them into His death. There is no need for us to reckon. We put them into the name, into the compound Spirit, and into the death of Christ which is one of the compounding elements of the Spirit. When we put them into the name, into Christ, and into His death, at the same time we baptize them into the Body.
Home | First | Prev | Next