Certainly not, but one immersion “into the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” There is but one immersion commanded
in Scripture; that one is _in water_, and “into the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Peter said, “Can any man
forbid water that these should not be baptized, who have received
the Holy Spirit as well as we?” Here the _water_ is mentioned as the
element in which they were to be immersed, and they had already been
immersed in the Holy Spirit; and in the next verse we are informed
that “he _commanded them_ to be immersed in the name of the Lord.” The
immersion _in water_, then, is the one commanded, and the only one.
The immersion in Spirit is not commanded; and the command, if it
existed, to be immersed in Spirit could not _be obeyed_. Suppose the
Lord would command any one to be immersed in the Spirit, how would
he obey? No man ever was commanded to be immersed in the Spirit, nor
was any man ever commanded to immerse any one in the Spirit. Man can
not immerse in the Spirit. The immersion in water is commanded, and
is the immersion “into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit,” “into Christ,” “into one body,” the initiatory rite
into the New Institution. Immersion in the Holy Spirit never initiated
any one into any institution or anything. It was never commanded.
No man ever administered it. The Lord was the only administrator of
the baptism of the Spirit. It was a _promise_. It was a miracle. It
imparted miraculous power. It never occurred except on Pentecost, and
at the house of Cornelius. On Pentecost the subjects of it were in
Christ before it occurred, and at the house of Cornelius they were not
in Christ after it occurred till they were immersed in water. In both
instances they spake with tongues and prophesied.
When Paul wrote the letter to the church in Ephesus there remained
but “one immersion,” the one of the last commission, connected with
salvation, the remission of sin, or induction “into the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” This is Paul’s “one
immersion.” It is not “one pouring,” “one sprinkling,” or “_three_
immersions,” but “one immersion.” _Three_ immersions has not one scrap
of authority in the commission or anywhere else. In the same sentence
where the apostle has “one body, one Spirit, one hope, one faith,” he
has “one immersion,” and it would be in no more direct violation of his
language to talk of _three_ bodies, _three_ Spirits, _three_ hopes,
_three_ faiths, than of “_three_ immersions.” There is no method by
which the language can be so tortured as to get _three_ immersions
out of the words, “immersing them into the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Such a thing was never thought of
till the dispute about the Trinity sprung up. This dispute originated
it. There is not a trace of trine immersion till more than a hundred
years after the apostles were gone; till the shallow nonsense of infant
sin, infant regeneration, infant immersion and infant damnation were
introduced. Here, and not in the Bible, the friends of trine immersion
go to find it, and here they find it among those who taught that
infants were _guilty_ of original sin and liable to eternal damnation;
that infants must be regenerated; that the stain of Adam’s sin must be
washed away; that this can not be done except in baptism, to prepare
them for heaven. They practiced no infant sprinkling, but infant
immersion, and, in time, trine immersion, or immersed them three times.
We think some of the Greeks do this to the present day.