WATER BAPTISM AFTER CHRIST IN APOSTOLIC TIMES


Dean Stanley[178] says: "It has been the misfortune of churches that
they have imagined a primitive condition which never existed. The
reluctance to look the facts of history in the face has favored the
growth of a vast superstructure of fable."

Let us avoid this "misfortune of the churches," this "vast
superstructure of fable," and be willing to look the facts of Scripture
and history squarely in the face.

It appears by Scripture that our Saviour did not baptize with water and
that none of his apostles were so baptized _in his time_.[179]

After Christ, Ananias directed Paul to be baptized.[180]

We read that Ananias was devout according to the law of Moses, as were
also many of the apostles.[181]

They looked for Christ to restore again the kingdom of Israel.[182]

With such hopeful prospects for Judaism we cannot wonder that Ananias
and many apostles devoutly believed it to be in order and necessary that
water baptism, circumcision, &c., be continued and that Paul and other
converts be so baptized.

That they should so believe is no more remarkable than that upon two
occasions eight years apart they should pronounce it necessary that