It is natural, or, rather, it is in harmony with God’s order in the creation of man, for him to desire to have a part and lot in all the Lord does for him.  He enjoys most the fruit of trees planted by his own hands.  A lady appreciates the garden or lawn arranged and set according to her taste, and cultivated by her hands.  God mercifully favors us with similar feelings in making good, pure-minded, truth-loving, faithful men and women of his intelligent creation.  With this intention he has given man special work and ways of manifesting his will to work with the Lord.  The only ordinance of this kind which I will call your attention to to-day is that of baptism for the remission of sins.  It is also called the washing of regeneration.  As the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, the three eternal and infinite essentials of the Divine Trinity, all have part in man’s repentance, in the remission of his sins, as well as in the regeneration of his will unto eternal life, BAPTISM in water, in each of the three names, is enjoined in our Lord’s great commission.  “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

As an order of Christian Brethren, we hold that a threefold immersion of the body in water by a properly authorized administrator is necessary to fulfill the requirement of the great commission.  As water, in its highest and divinest significance, symbolizes all the holy means by which man is enabled to renounce and remit his sins, so baptism symbolizes his heartfelt acceptance of and submission to those means.  From this it is called the baptism of repentance first, and, later on, as the truth became clearer, it is called baptism for the remission of sins.  As additional light was still thrown upon man’s salvation, a light which Nicodemus could not see, baptism acquired a new significance, described by Paul as “the washing of regeneration.”

Almost unwittingly we now find a threefold significance in the ordinance.  It symbolized first, in the ministry of John, repentance toward God the Father.  But after the martyrdom of John no baptism was administered until the day of Pentecost, when it received its full significance.  As Peter had experienced so much of the evil of sin and the joy of forgiveness, it symbolized to his mind the remission of sins.  He was right.  Paul was the unbelieving, educated Jew, whose heart was so set against the Lord that after his conversion he felt himself to be a new man, with a new name; and in his letter to Titus he calls it “the washing of regeneration.”  Thus we have a threefold significance of the ordinance, as well as a threefold act.  Anyone, then, whether fully conscious of the truth or not, says, by submitting to the ordinance, “I have repented of my sins; I have forsaken my sins and desire to keep them forever behind me; I desire to walk in newness of life.  I accept the love of the Father, the truth of the Son, and the power of the Holy Ghost by which I have been taken ’out of death into life,’ and from the power of Satan to God; my feet set into the way of holiness, and a ’new song put into my mouth, even praises unto our God.’”