Baptism and Forgiveness

QUESTION: Was Saul of Tarsus already forgiven when Ananais said, "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins."?

ANSWER: Adult baptism is a symbol of a divine work already wrought. I would not knowingly baptize an unforgiven sinner, though our missionaries publicly baptize sincere inquirers intellectually convinced, so as to make his break with his former paganism complete. Saul was converted, in the proper sense of that word, when his will became submissive to Christ when he appeared to him, for he says, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." But, he did not receive the witness of the Spirit till Ananias laid his hands on him and he was filled with the Holy Ghost.

— From Steele's Answers pp. 16, 17.

The Baptism of Suffering

QUESTION: What was the baptism Christ spoke of in Mark 10:38, "Ere ye able to be baptised with the baptism I am baptized with?"

ANSWER: Both the baptism and the cup indicate overwhelming suffering by Christ and his disciples in establishing the kingdom of Christ. They endured ten imperial persecutions, during the first 300 years and were hunted and killed as outlaws.

— Steele's Answers p. 264.

Trine Baptism

QUESTION: Was trine baptism practiced in the apostolic church?

ANSWER: There is no proof of it in the N. T., but it was so universal in the early Christian centuries that some infer its apostolic origin.

— Steele's Answers p. 242.

Salvation and Baptism

QUESTION: Explain I Pet. 3:21, "which also after a true likeness (antitype) doth  now  save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

ANSWER: We are saved from sin which deluges the world and destroys all who are not in Christ, the ark, symbolized by baptism, "not indeed the bare outward sign, but the inward grace enabling us to seek successfully a conscience reconciled to God." "Answer" in the A. V. is "interrogation"; in the R. V., a craving, a seeking after earnestly.

— Steele's Answers pp. 238, 239.

Of Water and the Spirit

QUESTION: Does John 3:5 refer to water baptism: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God"?

ANSWER: It is figurative of the initial purification of regeneration, as the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire is figurative of the perfect cleansing in the entire sanctification of the believer. Fire is a more thorough purgative than water.

— Steele's Answers pp. 236, 237.

Refuting Mormon Teachings

QUESTION: How can these Mormon errors be refuted: (1) Only those who have been baptized will be saved, (2) Baptism for the dead as taught in I Cor. 15:29, (3)  Receiving  the Holy Spirit only through the imposition of hands, (4) Probation after death, I Pet. 3:18, 19, and 4:5, 6, (5) The pre-existence of souls?

ANSWER: (1) That baptism is saving is disproved by those texts which teach that we are saved by faith in Christ (John 3:16, 36; 6:40; 11:25, 26; Acts 16:31). In Mark 16:16 the damnation is not from lack of baptism, but because of unbelief. The penitent thief went to Paradise unbaptized. If baptism is saving, Paul would not have left his converts without this ordinance (I Cor. 1:14-17). Simon Magus was baptized by Peter, who told him shortly afterwards that "his heart was not right before God" and that he and his silver was going to perish (Acts 8:14-24) . (2) In I Cor. 15:29 baptized for the dead (plural) means not for a dead person, but for all the dead. The doctrine of resurrection was so fundamental that faith in it was professed by the candidate for baptism, so that he was baptized into the faith of the resurrection of the dead and thereby he became a sponsor for that tenet. This is the exegesis of Chrysostom. (3) The promise of the Comforter in John 14:16 is conditioned on faith, love and obedience. No mention is made of any human mediation. The Spirit crying Abba, Father, in the heart is the privilege of every son of God, though he may be a thousand miles from any apostolic hands. While Peter was still preaching to General Cornelius and his staff "the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word" (Acts 10:44). "Be ye filled with the Spirit" is a command which can be obeyed by every believer alone by himself without any imposition of hands. (4) We still believe that Wesley's note on I Pet. 3:18, 19 is correct: "Christ through the ministry of Noah preached to the spirits in prison, the unholy men before the flood, who were reserved by the justice of God as in a prison, till he executed sentence upon them all; and are now also reserved to the judgment of the great day. For another instance in this epistle of the activity of the Spirit of Christ before his incarnation he is, in Chapter 1:11, represented. as testifying in the prophets. "Preaching the Gospel to the dead" in 4:5, 6 means to those who in their several generations are now dead. (5) The Mormons say, "No existence is created; all beings are begotten. God himself, once a man, originated in the union of two elementary particles of matter, and that all men coming into being in the same way may become gods, the vastness of their dominions depending on the number of their children. Hence the importance of having a lot of wives to give their godhead a good start by raising an abundance of what President Roosevelt calls "the best crop."

— Steele's Answers, pp. 231-233.

Is a "New Birth" Expereince Necessary?

QUESTION: When a little child is baptized and trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and being morally correct is received into the church without realizing any change of heart, is he to be considered as a Bible Christian?

ANSWER: No; but he is on a good vantage ground for becoming such, if he does not rest satisfied with nominal Christianity, and is earnestly seeking the new birth. Unless he does this his church membership is an opiate inducing a fatal spiritual stupor. It is also a shield against the arrow of awakening Gospel appeals. It is perilous to trust in morality, creeds, and sacraments, to live and die destitute of spiritual life, which only he has "who hath the Son."

— Steele's Answers pp. 185, 186.

Baptized Into Christ

QUESTION: Is the statement that we are "baptized into Christ" of Rom. 6:3, and Gal. 3:27, to be understood to mean that water baptism actually brings the believer into a saving union with Christ, and that without it or until it has been performed, we are not really saved?

ANSWER: No, for often the sign, water baptism, is by metonomy put for the thing signified, inward cleansing, begun by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Hence, the Westminster Catechism wisely says, "Grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it (baptism) as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it, or that all, who are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated." Unless the administrator of water baptism can read the heart of the candidate he may affix the sign in the absence of the thing signified as did Peter in the baptism of Simon Magus in Acts 8:13-23. If water baptism saves, it follows that Paul generally left his converts unsaved, for he says in I Cor. 1:14, "I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius." It seems that Peter, in Acts 2:38, thought baptismal regeneration was the invariable Divine order, but he was corrected in 10:44-48, when the Spirit fell on the hearers before they were baptized.

— Steele's Answers pp. 175, 176.

Is Baptism Necessary to Salvation?

QUESTION: Does this verse teach that water baptism is necessary to salvation, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved"?

ANSWER: The rest of the verse (Mark 16:16), "but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned," makes unbelief the sole cause of condemnation. Water baptism is not saving, but contempt of it is damning. An involuntary absence of it, as in the case of the thief converted on the cross, cannot be the ground of condemnation.

— Steele's Answers pp 138, 139.

Are the Sacraments Life-Giving?

QUESTION: I have recently heard a preacher describe the sacraments as "life-giving." Is this correct?

ANSWER: They are not the source of life, but rather the means of grace through which, when used with faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit may impart and sustain life. Baptism is the outward sign of the Spirit's inward work The Lord's Supper is a memorial of Christ's great love manifested in voluntarily dying for us. Whatever brings this event vividly to the mind of the believer is a means of grace. We should beware of resting in the symbol instead of the thing signified. Thousands of ceremonialists are trusting for salvation in symbols instead of the Savior — in the shadow instead of the substance. The sacraments alone, though administered by priests who claim to be ordained by bishops in succession back to the apostles, are not saving. Only Christ saves.

— Steele's Answers p. 122.

Saved Without Baptism?

\QUESTION: How can the Friends or Quakers be saved when they do not believe in baptism?

ANSWER: It is not a saving ordinance, but a willful neglect of it indicates a spirit of disobedience which is a bar to salvation. But the Friends have no such disobedient spirit. Their difficulty is not in their hearts but in their heads. They believe in baptism, not water baptism, but that of the Holy Spirit, the reality of which water baptism is only a symbol. They say, "Why should I be concerned about the shadow while I have the substance?" Let us be charitable toward the mistake of the Christians.

— from Steele's Answers p. 94.

The Baptism with the Holy Spirit

QUESTION: Does the baptism with the Holy Ghost effect entire sanctification?

ANSWER: The word "baptism" implies purification.When the word "fire' is added, perfect cleansing is indicated, by the figure of hendiadys, one idea expressed by two words, cleansing and fire. This denotes the complete and final purification, while being born of water and the Spirit denotes [an] initial cleansing less radical. The Pentecostal gift was cleansing in Acts 15:8, 9.

— Steele's Answers pp. 85, 86.

---

EDITOR'S NOTE: This was the standard view in the Holiness movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries: Baptism with the Holy Spirit is another name for Entire Sanctification. This reflects the influence of the teachings of John Fletcher, as I argue here: Spirit Baptism: Wesleyanism & Pentecostalism. 

However, Dr. Steele seems to me to backpedal a bit on this issue when challenged by James Mudge's book Growth in Holiness Toward Perfection. His reply to Mudge is here: Baptism With the Holy Ghost. In this response, Steele goes so far as to say: "Hence we conclude that the phrase, 'baptism or fullness of the Spirit,' may mean something less than entire sanctification." He distinguishes ecstatic (or charismatic) fullness from ethical fulness. The one does not necessarily imply the other.

And, further down the page, Steele says: "Our author's chapter on the baptism of the Spirit might have been included in his discussion of irrelevant texts, on none of which do our standard theologians ground the doctrine of Christian perfection."

So, while it is true that Baptism with the Holy Spirit and Entire Sanctification were often spoken of interchangeably in the Holiness movement, their view did not rest upon this identification. 

On Luke 12:49, 50

QUESTION: Explain the meaning of "fire and "baptism" in Luke 12:49, 50: "I came to cast fire upon the earth... I have a baptism to be baptized with," etc.

ANSWER: Since fire disorganizes and sunders compact substances, it is used in this passage to symbolize dissension, as described in verses 52 and 53, the Gospel salvation being accepted by some and rejected by others in the same family, the pagan father opposing the Christian son, etc. The baptism relates to the sufferings which would overwhelm Christ in giving his life a ransom for many and which would in a measure be shared by his disciples.

— Steele's Answers p. 70.

John's Baptism

QUESTION: Was baptism by John the Baptist Christian baptism?

ANSWER: It was not. It was designed to combat the error that the performance of external ceremonies is all that is required to enter the kingdom of God. John insisted on repentance. Paul rebaptized, in the name of Jesus Christ, those whom John had baptized. (Acts 19:1-5.)

— from Steele's Answers p. 39.