None, therefore, can claim a union with Christ in whom no such change has taken place. The careless, thoughtless, prayerless professor may be in outward fellowship with the Church; but he is not, he cannot be, partaker of a union with Jesus. No system of man can dethrone from their sovereign authority those awakening words of sacred Scripture, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”
A union with Christ, therefore, involves invariably a change of condition and a change of nature; it only remains that we examine whether these change are connected in the word of God with baptism. If our first conclusion were correct, that a union with Christ is the blessing connected with the sacrament, it ought to follow that these two gifts are connected with it likewise.
What then saith the Scripture respecting the change of condition, or the pardon of our sins? In Acts ii. 38, we read, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” And in Acts xxii 16, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” Can anything be clearer than that there is a connexion in these passages between baptism and forgiveness?
A similar connexion may be observed between baptism and a change of heart.
In John iii 5, believers are said to be “born of water and of the Spirit.” In the passage above referred to, Acts ii. 38, the gift of the Holy Ghost is described as a gift consequent on baptism. “Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” In Eph. v. 26, there is a clear connexion between baptism and the cleansing power of the word. “That He might sanctify it with the washing of water by the word.” (See also Rom. vi.)
The whole of Scripture, therefore, is harmonious. The great, grand, primary gift is a union with Jesus; and as this is inseparably connected with forgiveness of sin and renewal of heart, so these two blessings are connected with the sacrament of baptism. This is the sense in which throughout the following pages we employ the term “regeneration.”
It is important that this definition should be borne in mind, for, if we are not agreed as to the meaning of terms, there can be no hope of agreement in our conclusions. When, therefore, the word regeneration is used in this tract it is in the higher sense just described. It is not used for that admission into the visible church with all its privileges and responsibilities which invariably takes place at baptism; nor is it spoken of as the sowing of a certain seed, which may or may not grow in after life; but it is employed to express the commencement of a new life in the Lord Jesus Christ invariably accompanied by justification and change of heart. I am anxious that there should be no mistake on this point; for those who do not believe in the invariability of baptismal grace are sometimes said to take low views of the sacrament of baptism. But nothing can be further from the fact, for it is just because we take high views of the spiritual grace connected with it that we believe that spiritual grace to be incompatible with the ungodly lives of too many of the baptized.
We have thus far spoken of these spiritual blessings without attempting to define their connexion with the outward sign. Our only concern, hitherto, has been to shew that there is such a connexion clearly pointed out in the word of God. It now behoves us to examine—
II. Into the nature of that connexion.
1. And first we may remark, that the connexion is of such a character as to lead the Apostles when addressing their converts to assume the spiritual gift to have been received wherever the outward sacrament had been administered. The language of St. Paul to the Corinthians may illustrate what we mean. He is addressing a body of professing Christians, of persons baptized in the name of Jesus, and he assumes without the least caution or qualification that they were really what they professed to be, true, devoted, regenerate believers. “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.” (1 Cor. i. 2.) So also, as baptism was the visible act of union, he assumes that the Holy Spirit had been pleased to accompany it, and that they had been really united to their Lord; as, for example, when he says “By one Spirit are ye all baptized into one body.” The same remark may be made of almost every passage in which mention is made to believers of their baptism. The Apostles gave free scope to their affectionate and hopeful interest; they addressed professors on the assumption that they were in fact what they were in profession; that they had received the gift of which they had received the sign and seal.