John’s Baptism

1. John the Baptist lived in the dispensation of Israel

2. John the Baptist preached Christ as we do today. His message (as declared in Acts 19) was “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

3. When a person believed in Jesus Christ, John took him down to the water, usually the River Jordan.

4. The believer was identified with the water, but the water represented a spiritual identification.

5. The water represented the Kingdom of God. By believing in Jesus Christ they had entered the Kingdom of God and this was their testimony to that fact.

6. The Kingdom of God is a general term for regenerate people from the time of Adam to the end of the Millennium.

7. The believer was put under the water, representing his identification with the kingdom that John preached: A kingdom of believers (primarily OT believers, although a few lived into the Church Age).

8. Coming out of the water and being identified with the air is a picture of the fact that they possessed eternal life.

9. John's baptism was a sign of the interruption of the Age of Israel. In Acts 19:1-6 believers were asked if they had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit WHEN they believed, making them Church Age believers. John's baptism confirmed that they were Jewish Age and therefore by identification of the “laying on of hands” they (Jewish Age believers now come over into the Church Age) were entered into union with Christ by receiving the baptism of the Spirit.