Page:Southern Presbyterian Journal, Volume 13.djvu/888

 the power of God. Out of His own Resurrection, our Lord affirmed: "All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth." At Pentecost, the disciples testified to the mighty works of God, particularly His act in raising Jesus from the dead and placing Him at His own right hand. When they experienced the second filling with the Spirit, with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon all.

The Apostle Paul, in particular, turns to the Resurrection as the manifestation of God's power and glory. In a powerful manner Christ was declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead, Rom. 1:4. Abraham, the father of the faithful, was fully persuaded that God was able to perform what He had promised, namely, to make alive the physically dead bodies of old Abraham and his old wife so that they might have a son, Isaac—to exercise the same power which God used to call things that were not things that are, Rom.4: 17-25. The exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe is seen in the energy of the might of His strength which He wrought in raising Christ from the dead, Eph. 1:19-20. The Apostle's aim in life is to know "Jesus Christ my Lord" and the power of his resurrection, Phil. 3:8,10. We are risen with Him through faith in the operation or energy of God Who raised Him from the dead, Col. 2:12, cfRom.8:ll. This human nature of flesh and blood must be changed, either by being raised from the dead or by the instantaneous act of His power at His Coming changing the corruptible into incorruption and so swallowing up death in victory, I Cor. 15: 50-54. Likewise the resurrection from the dead is by the glory of the Father, Rom. 6:4; even as Abraham believed in God's resurrection power "giving glory to God." Rom.4:20.

Brethren, let us come to the resurrection with the eyes of Christian faith and magnify therein the power and the glory of God. I am happy that our Pastor calls us to worship the risen, living, reigning Christ, our Saviour and our Lord. As He does, I understand that he is affirming the resurrection as a mighty act of God and looking to the living Christ reigning at the right hand of God for resurrection power to work in me, in our congregation, in his preaching—that this house of God may be the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.—W. C. R.

Baptism is a doctrine on which there are obvious disagreements among Christians: the meaning of baptism is disputed, the subjects to be baptized are not agreed upon, the method of performing baptism is different, and, if we consider some of the smaller eddies of Christian thought, it is even denied that Christ commanded baptism.

Although the difference between the Baptists and the other Christian denominations is commonly supposed to be their peculiar insistence on immersion, the root of the matter goes deeper into the significance or meaning of the rite. The Baptists hold that baptism symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of the believer with Christ. They quote Rom. 6:3,4: ". . . were baptized into his death—Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death." But for Presbyterians and other Christians, while this of course is true, it is not the whole story. That is to say, connection with the death of Christ does not exhaust the significance of baptism. Gal. 3:27 speaks of being baptized into Christ, without particularizing his death; and most obviously of all, the reference in the command to baptize is not limited to Christ alone, much less his death, but the command is to baptize into the name of the PAGE 6