THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

d of this baptism when he said: ‘One comes after me Who will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire!’ These baptisms are not two, however, but a double baptism, and are so closely related to one another that they cannot be separated from each other; and on Pentecost this prophecy of a baptism to come was fulfilled, according to Acts 2:1-4. 2. “The Apostle Paul also speaks of this baptism in I Corinthians 12:13, where we read: ‘For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit! ' The correct understanding of this baptism is as follows, that the spirit of man, through sin, died a spiritual death, as it were, and is in need of a reawakening to spiritual life— which life man had before the fall. And the means for such a reawakening is described by the word ‘baptism,’ which means ‘incorporation,’ that is, a re-incorporation with §137(2) 306 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH God, with Whom fellowship was broken through the fall. But Holy Scripture speaks of three kinds of baptism: water, spirit and blood baptism. John, too, testifies concerning this three-fold baptism, and how all three fit together, when he writes: ‘This is He who came with water and blood (Jesus Christ), not with water alone but with water and blood. And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is the truth. There are three witnesses in heaven: the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three agree.’ Therefore, spirit, water, and blood baptisms belong together if they are to achieve their intended purpose. The latter refers to Christ’s baptism of suffering and blood, Luke 12:49-50 and Matt. 26:28, a baptism on which our salvation alone depends. Whoever receives water baptism without the baptism of the Spirit has as yet no part in Christ’s blood baptism, which alone saves according to 1 John 1:7, for only the baptism of the Spirit can produce a ‘walking in the light,’ as He, God, is in the light, that is, a life of Christian discipleship according to John 8:12. Only then does the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse us from all sin, Revelation 1:5-6; for through the baptism of the Spirit the spirit of man, though dead in sin, is awakened, renewed, cleansed and made holy; even though this Holy Ghost is called ‘water’ in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 44:3 and Ezekiel 36:25, where the communication of the same is called ‘pouring’ in the former reference and ‘sprinkling’ in the latter, both of which have been fulfilled in this form in the New Testament and are called baptism. Water is the flowing element for the cleansing of all bodily filth upon the body, but the spiritual pollution of the Spirit in the heart no natural water can remove; consequently, even water baptism cannot again restore that fellowship with God which has been broken through the fall and which must be achieved in this mortal life if we want to dwell in eternal bliss. For that purpose