“One Lord, one faith, one baptism”
(Ephesians 4:5).
(Ephesians 4:5).
“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).
There is one Lord.
A lord is someone who has authority over others. Who is the one Lord? Jesus Christ “is Lord of all” (Acts 10:36). He once asked His hearers: “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). After His resurrection Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). The Father is also Lord: “The Lord God Omnipotent reigns!” (Revelation 19:6). And “The Lord is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Since there is one Lord and all three are called “Lord”, the one Lord with authority over all men is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
To be the one body, the church of Christ, and to have the one faith, we must submit to the authority of the one Lord who through the Scriptures has made the gospel known to all nations: “now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith” (Romans 16:26).
There is one faith.
The one faith is “the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (James 2:1), “the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27), “the faith of God’s elect” (Titus 1:1), the faith we obey (Acts 6:71), the faith in which we remain “grounded and steadfast” (Colossians 1:232), the faith in which we are “strengthened” (Acts 16:5), the faith in which we are “rooted and built up in Him and established” (Colossians 2:7), the faith in which we “stand fast” (1 Corinthians 16:13), the faith in which we have unity (Ephesians 4:13), “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” and for which we “contend earnestly”! (Jude 1:3).
Sadly, there are thousands of false faiths in this world, fake faiths of human origin.
But there is only one genuine faith, the faith of the church of Christ, also called the doctrine of Christ. “Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 9). Paul warned: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). We may not deviate from the one faith.
There is one baptism.
The one baptism (and the only valid baptism), is the baptism of the one faith, the baptism authorized by the one Lord and practiced by the one body, the church of Christ. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13).
Sadly, there are many false forms of baptism practiced by false faiths. Any form of baptism that is different from the one baptism of the one faith is not valid because it is not performed by the authority of the one Lord.
Millions think they have been baptized when they have not been baptized. They have been deceived by Satan. He wants people to think they are saved when they have not been saved because their baptism was not the one baptism authorized by the one Lord.
Infant baptism, for example, is not the one baptism because it is not based on the faith of the one being baptized. Jesus said, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16).
The one baptism is a burial, an immersion in water. The Ethiopian eunuch confessed his faith and was baptized in water: “Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?’ Then Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing” (Acts 8:36-39).
The one baptism is a burial in water that unites us with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus: “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Romans 6:3-6).
The one baptism is an immersion in water, but not every immersion is the one baptism. Immersion as practiced by Baptists, Evangelicals and Pentecostals, for example, is not the one baptism because they do not baptize “for the remission of sins” and they do not believe that the “gift of the Holy Spirit” is received at baptism. Their form of baptism conflicts with the command of Peter: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). They reject baptism as the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:4-7) and deny that one must be born of both water and Spirit to enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5). They also do not baptize into the one body, the church of Christ, as designated by Paul: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13).
All forms of baptism that differ from the one baptism, are not valid because they are not part of the one faith and do not occur in submission to the one Lord.
“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).
Let us be certain that we submit to the one Lord, that our faith is the one faith, and that our baptism is the one baptism. Amen.
Roy Davison
Roy Davison
Endnotes:
1 See also Romans 1:5; 16:26
2 See also Acts 14:22
The Scripture quotations in this article are from The New King James Version. ©1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson Inc., Publishers unless indicated otherwise. Permission for reference use has been granted.
Published in The Old Paths Archive
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