Acts 10:42

42, 43. Having now followed the career of Jesus from the beginning to his resurrection and exhibition of himself alive to the witnesses, Peter proceeds in regular order to the next historical fact, the giving of the apostolic commission. (42) "And he commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is he who is ordained by God the judge of the living and the dead. (43) To him all the prophets testify that every one who believes in him shall, through his name, receive remission of sins."

The declaration that every one who believes in him shall receive remission of sins has been construed as proof that remission of sins is dependent on faith only. But the fact that Peter is here stating what Jesus commanded the apostles to preach should prevent such a construction of his words; for, in the commission to which he refers, immersion is connected with faith, as a condition of pardon. His words must be construed consistently with this fact. There is no difficulty in doing this, for it is a common apostolic usage to employ faith as an equivalent for the conditions of pardon. To deny that immersion is for remission of sins, because, in a condensed statement like this, it is not specifically mentioned, is not less subversive of the truth than to deny that repentance is a condition because it is not mentioned. It is not sufficient to reply to this, that repentance was always implied in genuine faith; for it certainly was not more uniformly attendant upon faith than was immersion. It would be difficult to find, in apostolic times, a penitent believer who was not immersed, without unnecessary delay, as a genuine believer who was not penitent. All believers who repented were invariably immersed. Of course, we exclude from this remark all cases which occurred previous to the date of the commission.

If any one, dissatisfied with this explanation, is disposed to insist that Peter's declaration, that every one who believes in Jesus shall receive remission of sins, must include those-if any there be-who believe, but are not immersed, we have but to show the absurdity of the assumption by referring to a parallel case in which there can be no dispute. The Apostle John says: "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God." He who would conclude from this remark, that the only condition of communion with God is to confess that Jesus is his Son, subverts the truth no more than he who makes the assumption in question; for the universality of the declaration is the same in both, and there is no limitation expressed in either.

There is no one fact more distinctly stated in Acts that that believers should repent and be immersed for the remission of sins: hence, there can scarcely be a grosser perversion of the word of God than to construe other statements of the Scripture so as to deny the truth of this. A condition of pardon once stated can never be set aside by any less than express divine authority.through his name." The expression, "through his name," was not thrown in here at random; for the inspired apostles never spoke at random. It has a well-defined meaning, and was intended to qualify the sentence of which it forms a part. What we receive through his name certainly can not reach us until we attain some connectionwith his name. But we are immersed into his name with that of the Father and the Holy Spirit; hence it is at the time of this immersion, that the believer receives remission of sins through his name.