But in order that baptism shall
be in fact and truth a divine token and covenant of forgiveness of sin, it must
be administered by one holding authority to act in the name of Christ. The
great, solemn, awe-inspiring through, that one is obeying an ordinance at the
hands of one who by virtue of divine appointment and ordination acts in the
very name of the Christ, to intensifies the faith of the one who receives the
ordinance that there comes to him the grace predicated upon obedience. It
requires the Priesthood of Christ as well as the atonement of Christ to invest
baptism with saving efficacy. (Nephi
Jensen, The World’s Greatest Need: Salvation from the World’s Ills through
the Restoring Saving Power of Jesus Christ [Salt Lake City: Deseret News
Press, 1950], 74)
Baptism is an ordinance of initiation. It is
the rite by which we come into union with Jesus Christ and his followers. IT
has very much the same meaning in the spiritual realm that registering at a
college has in the intellectual realm; and that joining a club has a social
step. It is distinctively the act of uniting with the Christ and His co-workers
for the concerted accomplishment of the Master’s saving work in the world. The
apostle Paul had this understanding of the significance of the ordinance. He
told the Galatians that those who “have been baptized into Christ have put on
Christ.” (Gal. 3:27)
The baptism of Jesus furnishes an inspiring
exemplification of the real spirit and meaning of this sacred rite. A recent
text on the New Testament states that Jesus was “baptized into the needs of
humanity.” This conclusion, however, is inept. According to the deep
significant reasoning of Nephi, Jesus was baptized as a witness that “He would
be obedient” to God. It is the solemn will of God that every soul shall
sincerely and openly renounce this world’s ideals of lust, greed and have; and
publicly resolve to live for and uphold God’s royal law of purity, goodness and
love. When Jesus descended into the watery grave He formally and humbly
renounced this world’s sordid ideals. He died to the world of sin. By coming up
out of the liquid grave He publicly proclaimed His solemn intention to obey and
uphold the law and will of God. By submitting to baptism at the hands of the
humble John the Baptist, Jesus manifested his loyal obedience to the Priesthood—“the
holy order of God”—on earth.
Moreover, by His baptism Jesus came into actual
contractual union with God, for baptism is the sacred ordinance by which and
through which mortals are united to God in that eternal allegiance and fellowship
through which comes the sin-conquering power of being in actual alliance with the
God of all power and dominion. (Nephi Jensen, The World’s Greatest Need:
Salvation from the World’s Ills through the Restoring Saving Power of Jesus Christ
[Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1950], 169-70)