IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 211

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

The Miracles of Jesus (continued; part xxiii)

At the end of yesterday’s post we discussed two commentaries on the bible story in the Gospel of Mark regarding the request of John and James that they be given special treatment in the Kingdom of God. We noted that this story is told a bit differently in the Matthew’s Gospel as it is the mother of James and John that intercedes for her sons. The verses from Matthew go thus: “Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father” (Matthew 20:20-23). The only difference in the two versions is the presence of the mother and in reading both one can get the impression that although both have been with the Master now for some time, they have not truly learned what it is that He is telling them all. Both versions go on to say that “And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren” (Matthew 20:24, Mark 10:41) which shows also that they all had some issues with pride and this causes the Master to teach them again on that subject.

We noted yesterday that the commentaries seemed to tie the ideas above regarding baptism with the ideas of the Masters crucifixion which is the prior topic but our careful reading does separate these events and our Chronological Gospel separates them as well¹⁰. We cited another saying by the Master in yesterday’s post that also mentions baptism in the same way as these verses from Matthew and Mark and which we will repeat here with the other sayings before and after it. These verses are preceded by the Parable of the Faithful Servant: “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law” (Luke 12:49-53). While we will only address here the ideas on baptism, we show the rest so that the context can be understood. It is the Master’s use of the word baptism that we are here exploring and we should remember Vincent’s ideas on straitened and our own conclusion as well which is a combination of both being stressed and constrained in this context⁴.

So we have these two incidences where the Master speaks of baptism, of the baptism that He is baptized with in the one and that He will be baptized with in the other. According to all that we have learned so far the idea of baptism is to be seen as immersion although it does not have to be an immersion in water. Vincent tells us by its use that it need not always be immersion because at times there is the ritual sprinkling or washing without immersion as done by the Jews⁴. For us today however we will look at this word from the the twofold perspective of ceremonial cleansing and then of immersion. In the baptism of John we will see the idea that we began to unfold over the last few posts and that is that the ritual of water in baptism is but the outward sign of the repentance under which a man did go. The repentance for the remission of sins is the act, the baptizing with water is but the symbol and we will venture to say a necessary one for the Jews in that day who were so accustomed to the ceremonials and rituals of their religion. We should understand that the use of remission should tell us that there is forgiveness which includes self forgiveness; and, as the lexicon tells us remission is: release from bondage or imprisonment; forgiveness or pardon, of sins (letting them go as if they had never been committed), remission of the penalty². To this we must add the concept of repentance which we understand as that fundamental change in one’s life activities,  thought and desires, so as to put one onto the Path to His Kingdom. This is the baptism of John the Baptist; it was not a leisurely dip in the Jordan but a sincere effort to change from the ritual and legalistic view of Judaism to the new way of the Baptist and the Christ. We have spoken before about the idea of sin in relation to the Jews and we should say here again that there is no need to see the people seeking John’s baptism as sinners from the perspective of evil but just to see them as a people who have seen the Light and desire to change their ways to be the ways of the Kingdom. We have but a tidbit of information on John’s preaching but we must know from what we read (In the Words of Jesus parts 127 and 178) that his message was much the same as the Master’s in his saying things like that they should share, not take advantage and they should do no violence.

While the church grabs hold of the word baptism and creates doctrines that require it and calls it a sacrament and while they insist that a man is not saved without it, they yet disagree on just what it is and what it means as well as when it should be done. There is a reality to baptism and it should not be tied to the Masters instructions that we have as our Quote of the Day below nor should it be related to the disputed parts of Mark’s Gospel but it should be left to stand on its own as the outer symbol, for those people at that time, of the remission of sin and the repentance of change and we should be able to see here that this is the true immersion, the immersion into change where one will find the Christ Within. That one wants to maintain that outer symbol is well and good and this is likely still a useful tool for many people who are so inclined but, after more than 2000 years, the religiosity of it should fade and we should begin to teach what it really means to be baptized and what it likely meant to those Jews in Jesus’ day.

That there is teaching in every saying and act of the Master is a Truth and we know, based on His use of the parable, that we at times do not readily see that Truth except when we achieve, for each of us, that degree of spirituality that can give us the necessary revelation. This is true even when one comes and explains to us the meaning as they may see it which is much like we do here in this blog and is much like when the Master Himself interprets a parable for us which His disciples did not yet understand. We see all things from our own perspective and based on our spiritual ‘place’ and we likely can all admit to the times when a thing just ‘dawns’ on us and we see it in a new Light. This is revelation and in our reading of the scriptures we are likely to experience this more and more as we get closer to the Path and to Him; much of what we say here has only the intent of giving us all, including myself, new and different ways, away from the old doctrines and dogmas, to look on the sayings and the events of the Bible. Many times my own revelation comes as I write and, like us all, my interpretations are based on the colorizing of those thoughts from above through the palette called the conscious personality.

We come now to that next part of the Master’s teaching on this idea of baptism which we have said should be likened as well to immersion. Jesus says to the sons of Zebedee: “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” in response to their desire to be closest to Him, at His right hand and at His left. As we discussed, the commentaries tend to portray these words as reflecting upon the suffering and the crucifixion that the Master had previously told His disciples of but there is not need to adhere to this continuity in the Master’s thoughts as the subject is changed by the question in the one version and by the entrance of the mother of James and John in the other. However, if the suffering and crucifixion are not the subject of the Master’s answer, what is? What is the cup and what is the baptism.

The Master speaks of the cup more than once and, although in very different circumstances, we can relate these together under a common theme which is not so much the suffering itself but it is rather the resistance of the lower self to it. In the other instance, in the garden before He is arrested, the Master says that:

• “Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying , O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt…..He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done” (Matthew 26:38-38, 42).
• “And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:34-36).
• “And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22:41-43).
• “Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11).

We have here four renditions of the mention of the cup while in the Garden. The synoptic gospels all agree in the general presentation but in John’s Gospel we find it a bit differently with the Master’s prayer occurring before they arrive at the garden. Our attention here is however only on the cup and the thoughts of the Master in saying these things. We can liken the cup to the overall experience that the Master is anticipating as He does know in His Spirit all that will take place and, since the communion between Spirit and personality is made one in Christ, this knowledge is forthcoming to Him in His senses as a Man. This is also the reality of much of what the Master says regarding the Father telling Him what it is that He should do and say. Much like the charge to all of us is to disregard the wiles of the body and the personality consciousness so too we should see the situation for the Master. As a man He is at least apprehensive of His fate or else He is telling us such so that we will know the dilemma; He knows that He must do this thing but in His conscious personality He does not want to and is looking or at least appearing to look for an escape. His realization in John is that He must do this, it is the way it must be. In the synoptics He appears to be seeking His escape but is overcome by the reality that it must be done saying “not my will, but thine, be done“. To better understand what we are saying here we can look at the way that Luke states this regarding the angel that comes to give the Master strength. We know that under all circumstances, as the Son of God, that Christ needs no intervention but here, as the conscious personality, the man, He is comforted by the angel of the Lord which is likely by His own Soul.

So this is the cup and we can assign these same thoughts to the other saying of the Master to James and John; there is not much more that would need to be said of it to the Zebedee brothers nor His other disciples and whether they Truly understood the saying and the relevance of the cup is unknown. The Master however does go on to the idea of the baptism saying: “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” and we can see in the phrasing of this that there are very likely two different points here. Having held the Master’s thoughts of the cup to be the same in these instances as this is the most likely of scenarios we should here look then at His thoughts on baptism to remain constant as well and in our understanding they are the same except from a slightly different perspective.

Our idea of immersion in the repentance, the change, is our thought from the baptism of John and Mark’s speaking of this as the “baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4) helps to point us this way. The Apostle Peter helps us here in this from the Book of Acts: “Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:37-41). We can see here that the common thought of the disciples with Peter  is that this baptism is not merely the ceremony but the ideas of “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins“. It should be clear that without the repentance the baptism is just a ritual and the essence of repentance is change.

The Apostle Paul has this to say about baptism : “He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” ( (Acts 19:2-5). Here, Paul is asking these believers which he calls disciples at Ephesus about their understanding of the Holy Spirit which we can liken to the action of the Christ Within on one’s consciousness but which they only understood in their terms. Our point here however is not this but simply the ideas on baptism as Paul viewed it; that John the Baptists baptism is “the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus“.

Of course we can see, in our view here, that an infant baptism is just a ritual according to church doctrine and that there is no repentance possible in it. However, what baptisms are there in any denomination or sect that can actually be called a “baptism of repentance for the remission of sins“. Somewhere in the building up of doctrines and dogma this idea has become relegated to be known as the Baptism of John so as to make it a separate thing from the baptism that one should practice after Christ. One of the sources of this misunderstanding is found in the citation above in the words of Luke in Acts 19:5 which relates what happened after the discussion with Paul. The view of the various denominations and sects of the church vary much on the relationship between the baptism of John and what they deem to be baptism today and on the relationship between baptism and the remission of sins; many fail to make the connection between repentance and the remission while our view is that the repentance is the essence of the baptism itself.

We failed to get to the ideas regarding the Master’s thoughts regarding His saying to John and James nor his repeating of this again as “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” (Luke 12:50). We should understand this in the context of our understanding of baptism as we have seen it above through the hands of the baptist and which is attested to by Peter and Paul; this is with the thought of immersion. Not in the water, the outward symbol, but in the reality of immersion of the conscious self into the repentance that brings us to God from the perspective of John and immersion into the Spirit Life and  the Soul Life in the words of the Master to the Zebedee’s and His disciples.

We will conclude this with some final thoughts and examine briefly the next phase of baptism; the baptism with the Holy Ghost which we may just find to be all about the same things.

Note on the Quote of the Day