It never ceases to amaze me the mental (not just scriptural) gymnastics people engage in to get around the rather explicit biblical witness to baptismal regeneration. Note the following from a recent commentary on Romans I read from Paul C. Jong, an evangelist who is located in South Korea. To summarize his theology:
Jesus’ baptism was him taking upon himself our sins.
While Jesus atoned for our sins on the cross, his taking upon
himself our sins was not on the cross and/or at Gethsemane, but his baptism by
John.
Texts that speak of the salvific efficacy of water baptism does not
refer to our partaking of baptism; instead, it refers to us appropriating the
benefits of Jesus’ baptism.
Here are some relevant quotes from his commentary on Rom 1-9:
Before I was born again, I really
did not know the reason why Jesus received baptism. Therefore, I asked a lot of
questions, but there wasn’t even one person who knew the answer correctly even
among those who supposedly knew the Bible well and had great faith. But God
gave me the understanding of the Truth. We can know this Truth through the Word
in Matthew 3:15. The Truth is that Jesus Christ took all the sins upon Himself
through His baptism which is the antitype of our salvation and by which He has fulfilled
the righteousness of God. God has met with me through His righteousness and
also removed all my sins once and for all. And He made me become an evangelist
sharing the gospel of the water and the Spirit throughout the world. I was also
about to preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit in God’s Church so far
through the grace of God. (Paul C. Jong, Exegesis on The Book of Romans (I) [Seoul,
South Korea; Hephzibah Publishing House, 2006], 129)
Then what is the gospel of the
water and Spirit? God sent His Son Jesus Christ to this world to save all the
sinners of the world from all their sins. After Jesus was born and when He
became 30 years old, Jesus went to the Jordan River and received the baptism
from John the Baptist, the representative of all humanity, and took all the
sins of humanity upon Him. When we look at Matthew 3:15-16, we can see that
Jesus took all the sins of the world upon Himself through the baptism He
received from John the Baptist. And He received judgment for those sins through
the blood He shed on the Cross He was nailed to. This is the very gospel of the
water and the spirit. The baptism and the blood on the Cross shed by Jesus represents
the gospel of the water and the Spirit that he washed all the sins from the
sinners, and that’s how God saved us. (Ibid., 130)
God has made even the most hideous
sin committed by a person be passed over to Jesus through the baptism of Jesus.
God has removed all the sins the people in this world commit in their whole lifetime
including the sins committed y average citizens in their life and the great
swindling and hideous sins committed by a brutal criminal. Jesus has remitted
all the sins through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and His
blood on the Cross. Therefore, those who believe in the gospel of the water and
the Spirit attain the benefit of receiving the remission of sin, but those who
do not are excluded from that blessing. . . . There is sin in their hearts even
if they believe that they can receive the remission of sin even with the blood
of the Cross alone. People cannot receive the salvation from all their sins
through the blood of the Cross alone. Did Jesus come to this world and only
shed blood on the Cross to remove the sins of the sinners? No, that’s not true.
Jesus was born to this world and then He received the baptism from John the
Baptist at the age of thirty and took all the sins of the world upon His body.
It means that Jesus first took the sins upon Himself through His baptism in
order to receive the judgment on the Cross later. That’s why Jesus had to be
nailed to death on the Cross and resurrected from death. Could Jesus shed blood
on the Cross and die even if He didn’t take over the sins through His baptism?
No, that could not happen. If the Lord did not take all the sins upon Him
through the baptism and die on the Cross, then His death does not have anything
to do with us. That’s why Jesus first received the baptism from John the
Baptist and then died on the Cross afterwards. Jesus was able to go to the
Cross because He received the baptism from John the Baptist. Jesus took all the
sins upon Him all at once by receiving the baptism. That’s why there is the
effect of salvation only to those who believe in the baptism of Jesus and His
death on the Cross. (ibid., 132, 133)
But God spoke countless times
about the importance of the baptism Jesus received through the laying of hands
on the head of the sacrificial animals in the Old Testament. Jesus received the
baptism at the Jordan River and the acts of removing all the sins of humanity
was performed there. The Jordan River was the place where the sins of the world
were completely terminated in the New Testament through the righteousness of God
and this is connected to some events that happened at the Jordan River in the
Old Testament. For example, the Jordan River stopped flowing when the priests
stepped into the river to cross with the Ark on their shoulders (Joshua
3:11-17). Also, Naman was healed from his sickness when he dipped himself into
the Jordan River seven times (2 Kings 5:14). There are countless examples in
the Old Testament regarding the Jordan River. (Ibid., 134)
Referring to the baptism of Jesus
that constitutes God’s righteousness, some people stand against God saying, “Where
does it say in the Bible that the sins of the world were passed onto Jesus when
He was baptized by John the Baptist?” In the Bible, the meaning of the baptism
of Jesus is: 1) to be washed; 2) to be submerged; 3) to be buried in funeral; and
4) to be passed on. That the sins of the world were washed away when Jesus was
baptized by John the Baptist in the same principle as the laying on of hands in
the Old Testament, where the sins of the people of Israel were washed away from
their hearts when the High Priest laid his hands on the head of the scapegoat.
The people of Israel, too, were washed from their sins by faith, by believing
in the Word of the sacrificial system of God that was found in the laying on of
hands set by God.
Therefore, that Jesus was baptized
by John the Baptist and submerged under water means that He accepted the sins
of the world, and it further means that Jesus died on the Crpss precisely
because He had accepted all those sins of the world. Jesus’ burial tells us
that He died because He had taken upon the sins of the world and shouldered
them through His baptism. “The wages of sin is death,” and this is God’s Law;
therefore, that Jesus was baptized and buried
refers to the fact that He bore all our sins and died in our stead.
When Jesus Christ was baptized by
John the Baptist, He said in Matthew 3:15, “Permit it to be so now, for thus
it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” So it is when He came
out of the water after being baptized that the righteousness of God that saves
mankind from sin was fulfilled. Yet despite this, some people consider
themselves too smart, and they gloss over the significance that is hidden and
contained in the Word of God, and do not hold onto it. Using the word baptism,
the Bible spoke about the washing of sin that fulfilled the righteousness of God.
God spoke about His righteousness that washes away the sins of the world through
the laying on of hands in the Old Testament, and through Jesus’ baptism in the
New Testament. Those who believe in the righteousness of God are those who believe
in the baptism and blood of Jesus as their salvation. IT is such people who abide
by God’s righteousness. (Ibid., 268-69)
Knowing that we would commit sin
when we are born in this world, Jesus Christ had promised to save us from all
our sins. He fulfilled this promise through the baptism He received from John
the Baptist, His death on the Cross, and His resurrection. In the age of the
Old Testament, the sacrificial animals accepted the sins of the Israelites
through the laying on of hands. In the age of the New Testament, Jesus Christ
accepted our sins through the baptism given by John the Baptist, died on the
Cross, and has thereby saved us from all our sins and fulfilled all the
righteousness of God. that is why we must all have faith in the righteousness
of God, and we must all realize that the Doctrine of Justification is a
groundless doctrine. God only approves the faith that is placed in His
righteousness. The Book of Romans is teaching us to cast aside from our own
human righteousness and to place our faith in God's righteousness. (Ibid.,
271-72)
The ability for us to die with
Christ and live with Him all depends on our knowledge of, and faith in the
mystery of the baptism of Jesus. Put differently, to understand this passage,
we must first comprehend the mystery of the baptism of Jesus and put on the
power of His death on the Cross by faith. So through the Word, I would like to
unveil the power of baptism and its mystery. To do so, we need to realize why
John the Baptist had to baptize Jesus, and why Jesus Christ had to receive this
baptism.
In the New Testament, John is
called "John the Baptist" because he baptized Jesus. What, then, does
the baptism that Jesus received from him imply? The word "baptism" is
“βαπτισμα (baptisma)”
in Greek, which means, “to be immersed.” More importantly, it also means that “sin
is passed on, washed away, or buried.” Therefore, “baptism” also means the
death of sin. It indicates that as Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and
thus accepted all the sins of the world onto His body. He washed away the sins
of His believers, and paid off the wages of sin and His own death. It was to
take upon all the sins of mankind that the Lord wanted to be baptized. He was
baptized after saying, “Permit to to be so now, for thus it is fitting for
us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15).
Baptism also means “to wash.” It means
that as Jesus was baptized, He accepted all the sins of the world and washed
away every sinner’s iniquities. Those who know and believe in this Truth can
wash away all their sins by faith. In other words, baptism signifies that all
our sins were passed onto Jesus without exception, and it speaks the Truth that
whosoever believes in this is washed from all his sins without exception. Since
all our sins were passed onto Jesus as He was baptized by John the Baptist,
whoever believes in it is cleansed from all his sins. (Ibid., 308-9)
When we say that we were baptized
into Christ, it means that we have united with Jesus by faith, by believing that
He accepted all our sins when He was baptized by John the Baptist. By the word “unite”
here, I mean that our hearts should be unite with Jesus by believing in
everything that He did when He came to this earth. So we need to realize what
it is that Jesus did when He came to this earth, and we need to believe in it.
What Jesus did when He came to this earth is this: He was baptized by John the
Baptist at the age of 30; He taught His disciples and testified the Truth for
three years; He was crucified, and He rose from the death on the third day. To
believe in all these things is to unite with Christ by faith. (Ibid., 315)
Commenting on Rom 8:2 (“For the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death”):
This Word in verse 2 tells us of
the fact that Jesus’ receiving the baptism and the righteousness of God in
which He has saved sinners from sins by shedding blood at the Cross and being
resurrected from the dead, has saved us from all the sins mentioned in every
statute of the Law. Freedom from the law of sin and death was fulfilled by the righteousness
of God in Jesus Christ. This truth tells us that Jesus Christ had the
sufficient qualification to go to the Cross and shed His blood because He had
taken on the sins of the world once and for all by receiving the baptism from
John the Baptist. Jesus Christ has abundantly freed those of us who believe in
the righteousness of God from the law of sin and death by receiving the baptism
given by John the Baptist, dying on the Cross, all the while bearing the sins
of the world, and then being resurrected from the dead. Even more so, the
righteousness of God in Jesus, which gives us life and saves us from sins, was perfected
by the baptism for the remission of sins and by the blood of the Cross that God
the Father had established through His Son. For this reason, the Bible says
that the righteousness of God is “the law of the Spirit of life that has made
us free from sin.” (Ibid., 394)
To see the overwhelming biblical evidence for baptismal regeneration, see my book, "Born of the Water and of the Spirit": The Biblical Evidence for Baptismal Regeneration (for those who want a free PDF copy, email me at ScripturalMormonismATgmailDOTcom)