Acts 2:38

PLAN OF SALVATION

38. Peter interjects uproariously amid the heterogeneous clamor like ten thousand ocean billows breaking against the rock-bound shore.

“Repent ye, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” As Peter's introductory sermon is broken up by the uproarious wailing of eight thousand penitents, amid whose bitter cries soon mingle the vociferous shouts of three thousand new-born souls, the one hundred and twenty take the work into hand, dashing in all directions, preaching and expounding the way of salvation, the Holy Ghost wonderfully using their joyous instrumentality, utilizing the double miracle, empowering every one to hear in his own language and every disciple to speak fluently in all of the languages of that heterogeneous throng, thus restoring all the confusion at the Tower of Babel. Sad to say, heretic, Catholic and Protestant have woefully perverted this beautiful 38th verse, adroitly turning it to support the Popish dogma of baptismal regeneration, which has deluded and sent multitudes to hell. In the E. V. “repent and be baptized” are grammatically and logically co-ordinated a bald error. In the Greek, “repent” is second person, plural number and imperative mood, applying to the entire multitude, while “be baptized” is third person, singular, applying only to the subject of “repent.” Hence, none are to be baptized but those who have repented. That simple fact knocks the Popish dogma of baptismal remission beyond the North Pole. “Repent” is metanousate, from meta, “change,” and noos, “the mind.” Hence, it means “change your mind.” You have no right to give this or any other Scripture a more metaphysical interpretation, from the simple fact that the Bible is not a metaphysical, but a spiritual book. Consequently, unspiritual preachers in all ages have run it into heresy and nonsense and made it a passport to hell. When God created man He put His mind in him. The devil, in the fall, succeeded in knocking it out and putting his old filthy carnal mind in its place. Hence, change of mind, indicated by the word “repent,” means to get rid of the carnal mind and receive the mind of Christ. The churches abound in people as ignorant of repentance as baboons, hosts of preachers in the same dilemma. You remember that sermon by John Wesley, which all Methodist preachers are required to study, captioned “The Repentance of Believers”? That is in harmony with the true meaning of the word. You have the carnal mind till you are sanctified wholly. It is conquered and bound in regeneration, but destroyed in sanctification. The repentance of a sinner and the consecration of a Christian are generally identical but specifically different. They are both a giving up. The sinner in repentance gives up all of his bad things to the devil and leaves him forever; the Christian in consecration gives up all of his good things to God to be used for His glory forever. This is what John Wesley meant by the repentance of a believer, i. e., his entire consecration of all to God for time and eternity. Hence, when repentance has finished its work you are not only converted but sanctified wholly. I heard so many sermons preached from this text by unconverted preachers when a boy I do thank God for His mercy which alone protected me from the horrific hell-traps they set to catch poor ignorant people like me. “Misery likes company.” They were in the devil's trap of water regeneration, and they did their best to catch all they could. Although repentance not only invariably secures remission of sins but prepares you to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, the glorious positive side of entire sanctification and the climacteric achievement of the gospel dispensation launched at Pentecost. If the Hydrolators (i. e., water worshipers, as abominable in the sight of God as any other form of idolatry) would only take the whole verse, press and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost they would come out right after all. But they pervert the first clause and throw away the second. Consequently they have nothing left but the water. “For remission,” E. V., does not necessarily mean “in order to remission,” as the Hydrolators construe it. When I was in California last winter a man was hung for murder. He was not hung in order to commit murder, but because he had already committed it. Hence “for remission,” not in order to get it, but because you have it. The E. V. is right in harmony with the Greek. There we have it, “and be baptized every one of you unto the remission of your sins,” i. e., confirmatory of the fact. You can not confirm a thing till you have it. We see from this wonderful verse which rings out the keynote of that salient response to the cries of the panic stricken multitudes, the two distinct marks of grace in the plan of salvation, i. e., remission of sins as a result of repentance and confirmed by water baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, the glorious hyperbole of the gospel dispensation. Mark the word “gift” here in the singular number. The Holy Ghost confers gifts on the sinner, i. e., conviction, repentance, regeneration, justification and adoption to bring him into the kingdom. Then when you are truly converted, it is your glorious privilege to receive from the Father and the Son the “gift of the Holy Ghost,” i. e., the Holy Ghost Himself as an indwelling Sanctifier and Comforter. This was the crowning glory of the Pentecostal experience, consummating full salvation. After you have received the “gift of the Holy Ghost,” and thus been sanctified wholly, it is still your precious privilege to receive the greater gifts of the Spirit, nine in all (1 Corinthians 12), by which you are enabled to save others, these gifts of the Spirit constituting your impregnable panoply and preparing you for the Lord's battle-field.