Water Baptism / A Pagan and Jewish Rite but not Christian, Proven by Scripture and History Confirmed by the Lives of Saints Who Were Never Baptized with Water

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Did Christ command his disciples to baptize with water?
Let us search the New Testament and see what it says.
We find the four evangelists and Peter each render Christ's command to his apostles in very different language.
Did not each of these writers express in his own language what he understood to be Christ's command to his disciples and will not these seven different records all agree in substance if genuine?
Let us seek that interpretation which harmonizes them all and not pin our faith to the popular conception of one version alone.

We here find that he commanded his apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father which, said he, ye have heard of me; for John truly baptised with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence.
John never intimates that they were sent to baptize with water.
Had Christ commanded his disciples to baptize all nations with water, John would certainly have known it, and could not have failed to report a command of such world-wide application, John's silence is further evidence that no such command was given.
There can be no baptism in the commission other than the baptism of the Holy Spirit according to John's record as we have it.