Paul tells the Corinthians, the Gallatians and the Ephesians, each in nearly the same language, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God.  Of fornication, wrath, strife, drunkenness, revellings, and such like, Paul says:  I tell you plainly, they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, goodness, temperance, etc.  Again, he says the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.[142]

By Paul’s whole teaching those who yield the fruit of the spirit—­love, joy, peace, &c., are the inheritors of this heavenly kingdom and the unrighteous are rejected.

Again Paul says:  Some of those Corinthians who were once unrighteous were washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit of our God.  He said they were not inheritors of this kingdom while they were unrighteous.[143]

Membership in the visible church at Corinth did convey this inheritance.[144] They had to be washed, sanctified and justified (not in water, but) in the name or power of the Lord Jesus and in the spirit of our God.  They had to be washed in the Spirit of our God before they could enter his kingdom.[145]

In four of Paul’s epistles he recognizes the Spirit at the door of entrance to this kingdom.  He mentions it seven times in ten verses in this connection, but nothing whatever about water baptism.[146]

Paul knew of no door to this kingdom by way of water baptism or he would have told us of it, for this door and how we may enter is just what Paul was emphasizing.

Our Lord’s memorable Sermon on the Mount, which occupies the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew is mostly about this heavenly kingdom, the blessed who possess it, the unrighteous who cannot enter and how we may all attain it, but not one word about water baptism.

This ancient ordinance was far away from the mind of our Lord amid the dim and receding shadows of Judaism[147] when he taught that multitude on the Mount and gave his kingdom to his saints, the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the meek and the merciful, and encouraged us all to seek first this kingdom, which he said those only can enter who do the will of our Father in Heaven.[148] The kingdom of God is mentioned more than sixty times and the kingdom of Heaven twenty times in the New Testament but water baptism is never once named nor alluded to in any of those eighty texts.

This silence impressively suggests that water baptism is entirely foreign to this kingdom and must belong to another dispensation.

Plainly no door of entrance to this kingdom by way of water baptism had been discovered at the time the New Testament was written.  Jesus said that he himself was the door to this sheepfold and that he is a thief and a robber who climbs up some other way.[149]

We read that John baptized with water but Jesus should baptize with the Holy Spirit, and with fire;[150] and again:  Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God; and again:  Except a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God.[151]