Power For Living

# 219 Today’s Living Word comes from Mark 1:8 “I indeed baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

How was John’s baptism different from the baptism of Christ? Both effected the forgiveness of sins, but John’s lacked the depositing of the Holy Spirit in the believer.

John’s baptism with water was for the “remission of sins” (Mark 1:4) a removal, a cleansing, a washing that is necessary in order to have fellowship with God.

But the baptism that Jesus would bring to the church on the Day of Pentecost would not only effect the remission of sins, making it possible for fellowship with God, but the Holy Spirit would come through this means of grace and actually live in the believer! Fellowship with God would become an intimate, empowering reality, as a result of the baptism of Christ, and it would be necessary for the process of sanctification.

In Titus 3:5,6 we read, “He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” This then defines all baptism after the Day of Pentecost. It is a means by which the forgiveness of sins is effected, and at the same time, a means of communicating the Holy Spirit to the individual. By it, we enter the kingdom and through it we receive the power for living in the kingdom.

I’m Duane Matz and that’s today’s Living Word.