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Subject 28 : If You Have Confusion and Emptiness in Your Heart, Seek the Light of the Truth
[28-3] The Salvation Granted to Us Has Nothing to Do with Worldly Religion (John 4:19-26)
< John 4:19-26 >
“The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.””
“The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.””
Introduction
After the first wave of Jewish exiles returned from their Babylonian captivity, Zerubbabel sought to rebuild the Temple and asked the Samaritans to participate, but his request was rejected. This is because the Samaritans had been in a bitter conflict with the Temple of Jerusalem for no less than 200 years over its location, as they believed that Mount Gerizim was where Abraham and Jacob built their altar, and the Temple should have been built there instead of Jerusalem.
In 128 BC, the Temple built on Mount Gerizim was destroyed by a pagan man named Hyrcanus. According to the Pentateuch, Mount Gerizim is where Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac, and it is also where he met Melchizedek, but the Jews advocated from the very beginning that God should be worshiped in Jerusalem, basing their argument on Deuteronomy 16:2. This means there were two contending central cities in the same country. At one point, Israel was split into two countries (the Northern and the Southern Kingdoms), and this came about because God divided Israel in half into two kingdoms because of the sins of King Jeroboam. As a result, the place of worship of God was also split into two places.
The first wave of Jewish returnees from the Babylonian captivity rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. Conflict ensued the construction of the Temple for 200 years. The people of Israel in Jerusalem quarreled with the Samaritans for 200 years, saying, “Isn’t Jerusalem the center of the Kingdom of Israel? Why are you worshiping in Mount Gerizim?” Given that the conflict lasted 200 years, it was a very long dispute. It is against this historical background that the Samaritan woman in today’s Scripture reading asked Jesus about their place of worship of the Lord God.
This woman was asking Jesus to address a religious conflict that had been unresolved for 200 years over the proper place of worship, with the Jews arguing that it should be Jerusalem while the Samaritans argued that it should be Mount Gerizim. Jesus answered her by saying in John 4:21-22, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.”
Jesus said that the hour was coming for those who worship God the Father to worship in spirit and truth. To Jesus, what is more important than the place of worship of God is that people worship Him in spirit and truth. God is looking for those who worship Him in spirit and truth, as it’s written, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” In other words, the Lord is saying that those who worship God must first be truly washed and born again from all their hearts’ sins and all the sins of this world through the baptism He received, and then worship God.
What we need to grasp here is that our worship of God is spiritual and does not depend on the place of worship. To worship God properly in spirit, we must worship Him as the born-again—that is, we must first be born again by believing in the grace of God, that Jesus Christ washed away all our hearts’ sins with His baptism when He came to this earth. This is how we ought to worship God today also. This means today’s Christian believers must also be washed from all their sins by believing in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist to blot out the sins of mankind.
The faith of Christianity today is built on the Nicene Creed that was promulgated at the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325. As a result, Christians these days invariably believe in just the crucified Jesus who shed His blood on the Cross, disregarding the true Word that Jesus bore the sins of this world through the Word of the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and therefore they do not actually know exactly how Jesus has delivered them from the sins of the world as their Savior.
Christians today base their faith on the notion, manifested in the Nicene Creed, that only the crucified Jesus is the Savior. Even though they believe in Jesus as their Savior, they still feel compelled to turn to their own prayers of repentance or the doctrine of incremental sanctification to deal with the sins they commit after believing in Jesus. So, the faith of today’s Christians is founded and built on the Nicene Creed.
However, as these Christians have been deceived by the Nicene Creed that says, “[Jesus] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died,” they do not even realize that they believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior while ignoring and leaving out His baptism, who came by the water and the Spirit. And it is an even bigger problem that they are spiritually oblivious to this fact.
We need to go back in history to AD 325 and pay close attention to the Nicene Creed, which was approved at the First Council of Nicaea summoned by Emperor Constantine. The Nicene Creed was promulgated while it left out the fact that the Lord bore the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and with this omission, it led Christians today to commit a grave error in their minds. Since its promulgation, the Nicene Creed has led countless Christians to think mistakenly that only the crucified Jesus is their Savior, while leaving out the Word of the baptism of Jesus. Because Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, those who believe in this fact can wash away their sins by faith, and that is why the makers of the Nicene Creed left out the Lord’s baptism and taught their followers to believe in just the crucified Jesus as their Savior, so that they would remain in ignorance. This was their deception.
When Christians these days believe in Jesus as their Savior according to the Nicene Creed that sets the wrong standard of salvation, they think Jesus has delivered them by being crucified, but in reality, they are missing another element. What, then, is this one thing that Jesus did apart from suffering under Pilate’s, being crucified, and dying? It is something that the Lord did to save us from our sins—that is, He bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. For Jesus to deliver us the sinners from our sins, He had to bear the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist prior to being crucified. Only then could He go to the Cross, be crucified, shed His blood, rise from the dead again, and thereby complete the work of delivering every believer from the sins of the world.
If Jesus were crucified to death without first taking upon the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, where would your sins and mine be now? Would they be in our hearts or on the body of Jesus? Just as every effect must have a cause, it is because Jesus bore the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist that He could be crucified while shouldering all our sins, shed His blood, and die for us. We must therefore realize that Jesus bore all the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. And we must believe in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist as the righteousness of God, who bore your sins and mine.
This Truth is written in detail in Matthew 3:13-17. It is through His baptism and His blood on the Cross that the Lord has saved us. Believing that the Lord has saved us from the sins of the world just by being crucified is not believing in accordance with the Word of God, who loved us so much that He made His Son bear the sins of mankind in this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. Rather, it is believing according to one’s own human thoughts. It is to believe in Jesus as a worldly religion according to the thoughts of mankind, thinking that one is saved just by believing in the crucified Jesus. This is why so many Christians today are confessing that they are still sinners despite believing in Jesus as their Savior. They are living as sinners incapable of being the light of this world because they believe in Jesus as a worldly religion.
In today’s Scripture reading, Jesus spoke of those who “worship in spirit and truth.” However, Christians today couldn’t be further removed from those who worship in spirit and truth. They have been rendered incapable of worshiping God in spirit because Emperor Constantine promulgated the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicaea in Late Antiquity.
Missing from Constantine’s Nicene Creed is the important work of salvation that Jesus carried out by being baptized by John the Baptist. We can discover this fact when we look at the Apostles’ Creed today. It’s written in the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus Christ “was conceived from the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died.” We can see here that a very important ministry of Jesus is missing. It should be written here, “Jesus bore the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist,” and record the fact that the sins of mankind were passed on to Jesus.
This is the sin that the makers of the Nicene Creed committed when they came up with it. When adopting the Nicene Creed, they left out the work that Jesus did by bearing the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and this is the sin they committed against God, which is akin to Satan obstructing Jesus’ ministry. No one has committed a greater sin against God than these people. This is not a minor issue. It means that in the process by which the makers of the Nicene Creed turned Christianity into the state religion while preserving their own pagan religion, they proactively excluded the Word of baptism that “Jesus bore the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist,” thus subsuming Christianity under their Roman religion.
To repeat, it is absolutely important for us to realize that Emperor Constantine and the philosophers presiding over the First Council of Nicaea intentionally left out the Word that “Jesus bore the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist,” so as to fulfill their own purposes.
Therefore, today’s Christian believers and ministers must be washed from their sins by believing in the Word that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist and carried them to the Cross. If you and I want to be remitted from our sins, and we believe in Jesus as our Savior with our hearts but leave out the Word that He bore the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist in 30 AD, we will be forever unable to be washed from our sins.
If we were all to believe in just the crucified Jesus as our Savior while ignoring His work of bearing the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, it would amount to little more than believing in Jesus as just another one of the many religious founders of this world. If we believe in Jesus as our Savior like this, leaving out His work of bearing the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, we would not be able to pass our hearts’ sins to Jesus ever, and we would as a result always remain as sinners.
Now in the 21st century, we have an opportunity to once again find proof from the Word of God that Jesus accepted the sins of this world on His body once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and to believe in it. We must recover our salvation through faith in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist. As a lost nation is regained, we must believe again by placing our faith in the true Word that Jesus bore our sins on His body.
We must recover the faith that the sins of this world can be washed away with the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to be able to glorify God by faith. As part of His work of salvation, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist prior to suffering His death on the Cross, and we must obtain the washing of our sins by knowing and believing in this fact. In short, we must believe and accept into our hearts the fact that Jesus has washed away our sins with His baptism.
The Reformation launched by such Protestant reformers as Martin Luther, Calvin, John Knox, and Zwingli also espoused a faith that was in accordance with the Nicene Creed, which left out the fact that Jesus bore and took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. As a consequence, the Reformation’s faith also ended up as a failure. This is why today’s Christians who follow the Nicene Creed are all still living as sinners despite believing in Jesus.
Among the Protestant reformers, the theologian who had the most success in systematizing Christian doctrines is John Calvin, a Frenchman. He wrote Institutes of the Christian Religion, which was centered around his five Calvinist doctrines. However, because Calvin, too, based his faith on the Nicene Creed, he and his many followers also failed to understand the righteousness of the Lord. To illustrate this, even though the Lord said that one can enter the Kingdom of God only if he is born again of water and the Spirit, these days there is no one who understands and bear witness of the “water” that the Lord spoke of here. It’s such a terrible tragedy.
We can see that the “water” that the Lord is speaking of here refers to the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist in the Jordan River to bear the sins of this world. That is because for Jesus the Savior to deliver sinners, who are all Adam’s descendants, from their sins, He Himself had to take away all the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist, the greatest of all born of women. So, when Jesus was about to be baptized, He explained it to John the Baptist, saying, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). As the Lord was baptized by John the Baptist for us, God Himself bore the iniquities of sinners, and He made it possible for human beings to pass their sins to Jesus. This means that Jesus has delivered mankind from their sins by being baptized by John the Baptist and thereby bearing all the sins of the world. We are now able to pass our sins to Jesus by believing in the baptism that He received to take away the sins of mankind.
This is the biblical meaning of water. It means that Jesus bore our sins and washed them away once and for all with His water. It means that the Lord, as the Son of the Triune God, took upon all the sins committed by the descendants of Adam in this world through His baptism. We must therefore never forget the fact that we can all be born again of water and the Spirit only if we realize that the baptism of Jesus is the work through which He bore our sins once and for all, believe in it with our hearts, and thereby pass all our sins to Jesus by faith. It’s absolutely imperative that we believe this.
Let Us Not Fight Over Our Denominational Differences of Faith
Here the Samaritan woman said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and the Jews say that we should worship in Jerusalem, while our forefathers say that we should worship on Mount Gerizim, so what should we do?” As we can see from what the woman was saying, the Samaritans in those days were saying that God should be worshiped on Mount Gerizim. They were quarrelling with the Jews, arguing that Jerusalem was not the right place of worship. Even though Israel was one nation, it had two places to worship God. So, the Jews and the Samaritans were fighting each other even though they believed in the same Lord God.
Originally, there had been only one place of worship for the people of Israel, which was the Temple in Jerusalem. So, the people of Israel had all gone to Jerusalem to offer the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement. However, Israel was split into two kingdoms in the days of King Jeroboam, when idolatry ran rampant. This came about because of God’s wrath on the idolators. This is why the Samaritan woman was confused in her mind, wondering, “Where should I worship to be blessed? Would I be blessed by God if I worship Him in the Temple of Jerusalem?” It was quite understandable for the woman to wonder like this, since the nation of Israel had been divided into the Southern and the Northern Kingdoms and been fighting each other over this issue for 200 years.
However, Jesus told the woman that it did not matter whether she worshiped in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim, saying to her, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24). Jesus was saying to the Samaritan woman, “It does not matter where you worship God. But the hour is coming when you will worship God the Father in spirit and truth.” Here, Jesus Christ was saying that as He bore and took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, the day was coming when people would receive the remission of sins into their hearts by passing their sins to Him, obtain the redemption of the Cross, and worship God their Savior by faith.
Because people today have been influenced by the Nicene Creed, everyone who now believes in Jesus remains a sinner. That is why all of us ought to believe from now on that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, shed His blood, died on the Cross, and has thereby not only washed away all our sins but also bore their punishment; and through this faith in Jesus as our Savior, we must wash away our hearts’ sins, be born again, and become righteous, so that we may lack nothing to worship the holy God. As it’s often said, it’s important to get off on the right foot. Likewise, if we want to believe in Jesus as our Savior, we must meet the Lord through the Word that enables us to be born again of water and the Spirit, as revealed in both testaments of the Bible. There would then be no need for Christians to fight over denominational or doctrinal differences as they are doing these days. That’s because everyone can be washed from his sins by believing that the Jesus who accepted the sins of mankind on to His own body is the Savior.
However, when the Nicene Creed was produced at the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the baptism of Jesus was left out of this creed so that people would not know that He bore the sins of mankind once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. As a result, Christians from then on came to believe in just the crucified Jesus without the Word of the baptism through which He accepted the sins of mankind from John the Baptist, and this has continued to this very day. Because so many Christians know just the crucified Jesus who died on the Cross, they believe in Him without actually realizing just how thankful they should be that He bore their sins by being baptized by John the Baptist. That is why they are still living as sinners without seeing any change at all from when they did not believe in Jesus.
Today, Christians have turned into mere religious practitioners just like any other religious people in the world. What we must realize clearly here is that the religions of the world are all about coming up with some objects to rely on with mankind’s own thoughts, and those who put their faith in such objects are religious practitioners. How about you then? As a Christian who believes in Jesus today, are you a religious practitioner, or are you someone who has been born again from your sins by believing in the Word of the water and the Spirit as written in the Bible? All of us belong to either one of these two types of people. It is imperative for us to understand what Jesus meant when He said, “The hour is coming when you will be born again of water and the Spirit, believe in Him and call Him your Father, and worship Him.”
Here, worshiping by the born-again faith means the following. When the Lord came to this earth, it was fitting for Him to go to John the Baptist and be baptized by him at the age of 30 to fulfill all the righteousness of God. Jesus was to bear the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist. Here, that Jesus Christ received baptism from John the Baptist meant He bore the sins of this world on His own body and gave it up according to the will of God the Father. This was the purpose for which God the Father had sent His Son to this earth. God therefore made Jesus take upon all the sins of mankind once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist at the age of 30.
Jesus accepted the sins of mankind on to His body by being baptized to fulfill the will of God the Father for His Son to become mankind’s propitiation. During the age of the Old Testament, when a sinner sought to come before God, he had to first bring a sacrificial offering, pass his sins to it by laying his hands on its head, and kill it through the priests. The High Priest in the age of the Old Testament also passed the sins of the people of Israel to the sacrificial animal by laying his hands on its head. In the same manner, John the Baptist passed the iniquities of sinners to the body of Jesus by laying his hands on His head and baptizing Him (Matthew 3:13-17). So, by being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus sought to offer Himself to God as the propitiation for the sins of mankind in everyone’s place, and to thus become the Savior of those who now believe in Him. That is why Jesus said, “Those who worship God must worship by the faith that has washed away their hearts’ sins,” for He is the Son of God.
The Samaritan woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” This woman knew that Christ was coming to this earth as the Savior. She believed with hope, “When Christ comes to this earth, He will solve all these problems and save us from our sins. He will teach us whether it is right to worship on Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem.”
Jesus then spoke of Himself to the woman in verse 26, “I who speak to you am He.” He bore witness of Himself to her, saying, “I who speak to you am the Christ. The One whom you are waiting for is none other than I.” Jesus knew very well for whom this woman was waiting. The Lord saw right through her heart. The woman then left her waterpot, went back to her city, and testified to her neighbors that Jesus was Christ, saying, “I have met the Christ prophesied to come!” Like this, the Samaritan woman met Jesus as the Christ to come and was saved.
The point I want to make here is this: just as the Samaritan woman’s questions about where to worship were not that important, today, whether we believe in Calvinist theology, Arminian theology, or Wesleyan theology is not what is important to us. Far more important is that we know and believe that the Lord came to this world, bore its sins as well as your sins and mine by being baptized by John the Baptist, was crucified, and died on the Cross in our place. Let us realize that God is telling us to first reach our salvation by believing in the baptized Jesus who shed His blood to death to solve away our sins, and let us receive the remission of sins by faith and live as the born-again before God.
We must realize here that the faith to accept the washing of sins into our hearts once and for all by believing in the Word of the baptism of Jesus is the all-important born-again faith. That is why Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus Is the True Christ to All of Us
The worldly religious faith that we are all familiar with is different from the Truth of salvation, which proclaims that Jesus has blessed us to be born again by bearing the sins of this world and washing them away with the baptism He received from John the Baptist. We must grasp this fact clearly here. To believe in Jesus’ Cross according to our own thoughts is akin to believing in our own thoughts. When such people also believe in the salvation that Jesus has given us according to the standard of their thoughts, they end up believing in a religion of their own making. Therefore, if anyone believes in Jesus according to his own thoughts, this person will turn into a practitioner of worldly religion and ultimately become a persecutor of the disciples of Jesus. If one believes in just Jesus’ Cross as written in the Nicene Creed from Late Antiquity, it means this person is someone who believes in his own thoughts more than Jesus, and therefore he will remain a worldly religious practitioner and have nothing to do with Jesus in the end.
Why? It is because such people have chosen the crucified Jesus and believe in Him as the Savior merely as one of the religions of this world, and their purpose is no more than leading a virtuous life in this world. So, they don’t think there is anything wrong with believing in Jesus as a matter of religion. Like this, when Christians in this world believe in Jesus as their Savior, they do so by fitting their beliefs into their own thoughts of the flesh.
In a worldly religion, all that matters is that one believes in Jesus, and whether this person is born again or not is not a big issue. That’s because Christians these days all believe only in the Cross of Jesus as shown in the Nicene Creed. However, it is an entirely different matter when we all seek to believe according to the Word of God revealed in both testaments of the Bible. This is because we believe that Jesus bore our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist and crucified, and we believe in this Jesus as our Savior. It is because this Truth of being born again is written in the Word of God. We know that the Word of God is very different from our thoughts of the flesh. So, it is when we believe in the baptism of Jesus and His crucifixion as written in the Bible that we can reach our true salvation.
Right now, those who believe in Jesus according to their own thoughts only as a matter of religion believe that they can be saved if they just believe in Jesus’ crucifixion. However, the Lord is saying in the Bible that anyone who wants to be born again must believe that Jesus bore the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and that He has thereby washed away all our sins once and for all. Like this, we can see that Jesus’ thoughts are completely different from our carnal thoughts, and He is telling us that He has saved us from all our sins by being baptized and shedding His blood.
Through the Word of the Bible, Jesus is telling us that because He bore the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, sinners today can reach salvation from their sins by faith. And we can also see that Jesus is the Savior who has paid off the wages of our sins with His baptism and blood. Therefore, we believe that Jesus has saved us His believers by paying off the wages of our sins once and for all with the Word of the baptism He received from John the Baptist and His death on the Cross. We can reach salvation from all our sins by believing in the Lord’s atonement made with His baptism and blood.
We are not saved from all our sins by believing in some sectarian doctrines from various schools of theology such as Calvinism or Arminianism. Rather, we are saved and born again from the sins of this world only by believing in the salvation of the atonement that the Lord offered with the baptism He received from John the Baptist and His blood. We believe that John the Baptist passed the sins of this world to the body of Jesus once and for all by baptizing Him, and that Jesus shed His precious blood on the Cross while shouldering these sins on His body; and we can see that we have been saved from all our sins by believing in this salvation that Jesus has fulfilled for us.
Now in the 21st century also, we have been saved from all our sins by believing in Jesus as our Savior, who bore the sins of mankind once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist and became our propitiation to pay off the wages of our sins by shedding His blood on the Cross. We are now saved from our sins through faith in the salvation that Jesus has fulfilled by blotting out all our sins with the baptism He received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed on the Cross, not by believing in any theological doctrine in this world.
In fact, it is just the clergy in worldly churches today who need theological ideas. For us the sinners, theological doctrines are completely useless when it comes to reaching salvation from our sins. This means we can be saved only by believing in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and the condemnation of sins that He bore. Isn’t this the case? We can now be born again by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit written in the Bible. We can be delivered from all our sins through faith in the salvation Jesus has fulfilled, by believing that He bore the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist and has now saved us from our sins with the precious blood He shed on the Cross. To ordinary believers, theological doctrines or training is completely useless. Only by believing that our Lord bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and in the sacrificial offering the Lord made by shedding His blood on the Cross, can we receive the remission of sins. It is absolutely important that we are all clear on this point.
From the very beginning of His public life, Jesus bore the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and the Lord became our propitiation with the precious blood He shed on the Cross. We must realize here that by believing that this Lord is our Savior, we can have the same faith that the saints of the Early Church had. Many Christians nowadays are tired of theological creeds, prayers of repentance, or the doctrine of incremental sanctification advocated by different denominations. Some of us used to offer prayers of repentance or put our faith in the doctrine of incremental sanctification trying to be saved from our sins, but such doctrinal beliefs were completely useless for cleansing away our sins.
Regardless of what kind of theological training you might have had, such things are of no use at all when it comes to having the faith that is approved by Jesus. Salvation is reached only by believing that our Lord bore all the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist in the Jordan River, that He paid off the wages of our sins once for all with the precious blood He shed on the Cross, and that this constitutes our salvation.
Among the laypeople in this world, there are now many believers who, despite not studying theology, have been saved from all their sins by believing in Jesus’ bearing of the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed on the Cross. These days, it is mostly pastors who have studied theology, believe in theological doctrines, and are boasting of the superiority of their own theology. We should realize, however, that ordinary believers have been born again from all their sins by believing in the Truth that Jesus bore and washed away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. There are now laypeople without little knowledge of theology who have nonetheless been completely washed from their sins by believing that Jesus came to this earth, bore the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist to save us from these sins, and shed His blood on the Cross. Because we all believe wholeheartedly in the righteousness of Jesus who has solved away the sins of this world with His baptism and blood, by this faith we can receive the remission of all our sins once and for all.
Did Calvin the theologian save us from the sins of this world? Did the founder of Arminianism save us from the sins of this world once and for all? No, all such people are no more than wage earners using their own theological doctrines to make more money. The Lord now wants us to believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. How about you then? Do you really know the fact that Jesus bore the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist? Theologians in this world are incapable of teaching us this Truth. Despite this, many pastors indulge in arrogance as if they can save the sinners of this world from their sins, taking a great deal of pride in themselves for having studied Calvinist theology. Even though they do not know the gospel of the baptism of the Lord and His Cross, they pretend to know it. They are self-conceited, as if they were Jesus’ brothers or sisters, and as if they have inherited His spiritual authority.
However, in reality, these pastors, too, must be washed from their sins by believing in the Jesus who was baptized by John the Baptist. Yet, even though they themselves are in such a dire situation, and despite the fact that they are ignorant of the Truth of salvation that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, they are still trying to domineer over their congregations’ souls with the theological scholarship they acquired in the seminary. These people do not even know the gospel Word of salvation that the Lord has established with the baptism He received and the blood He shed on the Cross for mankind, so how could you ever allow yourself to be oppressed spiritually by such people? They say to their congregation, “Why are you not learning what I am teaching you, when you don’t know anything about theological doctrines?” Such people are no more than fraudsters lying to you. Do not tremble before them, for they are just crooks trying to enrich their own lives by domineering over their congregation and swindling their church donations.
You need to realize here that Christians all over the world are living as sinners because they do not believe in the fact that the Lord bore the sins of mankind through His baptism, and these Christians are turning into God’s enemies. So, it is my hope and prayer that from now on, you would listen carefully to the Word of the water and the Spirit that the Bible speaks of, believe in it, and thereby reach your salvation. No sinner needs Calvin, Arminius, Livingston, or any doctrines espoused by any other theologians. Sinners need only the salvation that Jesus has fulfilled by bearing the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and shedding His blood.
According to both testaments of the Bible, Jesus is the Savior of sinners. When God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning, Jesus Christ was the God of the Word who created all things. He is the One who made Adam and Eve, the ancestors of all human beings. When Adam and Eve sinned by not believing in the Word of God and were estranged from what had been a very close relationship with Him, Jesus came to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man in obedience to the will of God the Father. Having thus come to this earth, Jesus Christ the Son of God bore the sins of mankind through the baptism He received from John the Baptist at the age of 30, shed His blood to death on the Cross, and has thereby solved away all our sins now.
This is the sacrifice of atonement that the Lord made for us the sinners. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, was crucified, and shed His blood and died on the Cross. This means that Jesus became our propitiation and paid off the wages of our sins by being baptized and shedding His blood to death. Like this, because the wages of the sins of mankind were paid off with the Lord’s baptism and blood, we are now able to be saved from all our sins through faith in the God-given gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.
The Lord is our Savior who has delivered us from the sins of this world by bearing our sins through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and paying off the wages of our sins with the precious blood He shed on the Cross. It is Jesus who paid off the wages of our sins with the baptism He received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed. Therefore, it is by believing in the righteous work of Jesus that we are able to enter the Kingdom of God. The Lord is the High Priest of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Messiah who has saved us. Jesus is the Savior and the Lord of Heaven, and He is our everlasting Redeemer who came to this earth and paid off the wages of our sins with the water of His baptism and His blood. He is the Lord of life who has given us new life, He came looking for us as the true light, He drove away all the darkness of our sins once and for all with His baptism and blood, and He has made us children of the light. Without Jesus’ Truth of salvation, what theologian in this world, and what theological doctrine, can ever save us, who had all fallen into sin, from the sins of the world? There is none. He who has now made us sinless when we were sinners is no one else but Jesus Christ.
Calvin the theologian came up with the doctrine of “unconditional election.” He argued that God chose some people for salvation but not others. When we turn to Calvin’s work, we see him explaining his doctrine of unconditional election by referencing Jacob and Esau in the Bible. When the two children were in their mother’s womb, God said, “The older shall serve the younger,” and, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” Calvin argued that since God chose to love one but hate the other like this before the two were born in this world, in the same manner, some of us were chosen by God while others were not chosen long before we were born in this world. So, according to Calvin, some people are God’s elect, while others were predestined to not reach salvation as they were not chosen. This, however, is a misinterpretation of the Word of God stemming from Calvin’s own arbitrary reading. We must realize here that God did not say such a narrowminded thing, for He is a just and fair God.
It is written, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). This means that when Jesus came to this earth, He bore all the sins of everyone in this world by being baptized by John the Baptist and was condemned for all the sins of mankind with the precious blood He shed on the Cross, for He loved everyone.
If we were to follow the logic of Calvin’s argument, we would reach the conclusion that Jesus bore some people’s sins by being baptized by John the Baptist but not others’ sins. This, however, is absolutely not what the Bible says. On the contrary, the Lord is saying that He has saved every believer by bearing the sins of mankind once and for all through His baptism and dying once and for all. Jesus did not choose and save just certain, specific people for no reason. Jesus is holy, but He is also a just God, and therefore the claim that He bore all the sins of some people but not others through the baptism He received from John the Baptist greatly undermines the fairness of God.
Jesus bore the sins of everyone in this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, paid off the wages of all the sins of everyone with the blood He shed and the death He suffered on the Cross, and He has thereby saved all His believers. It is written in Hebrews 10:13-14, “From that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” God is saying here that His Son took upon the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and that the Son paid off the wages of the sins of mankind with His blood on the Cross.
Let’s turn to John 3:16 here again: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” As God Himself bore the sins of everyone in this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist and shed His blood to death on the Cross, God the Father has solved away the problem of all the sins of everyone who believes in this fact and accepted them as His own children.
However, while some people accept into their hearts every Word of salvation that God has prepared for them to be born again of water and the Spirit, others do not. Nonetheless, whoever accepts that Jesus bore the sins of this world and washed them away once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist are saved from all their sins. When such people are saved from their sins, the true Word that Jesus indeed bore their sins and washed them away through the baptism He received from John the Baptist remains as their evidence, and therefore they are able to enter Heaven by faith as their hearts are washed from their sins.
In contrast, those who do not accept into their hearts that the baptism of Jesus was to bear their sins cannot receive the washing of sins prepared by the Lord, and consequently they will be cast into hell with their sins remaining intact in their hearts. Because such people have not accepted into their hearts the fact that Jesus Christ bore all their sins and washed them away once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, they remain as sinners to stand against God’s love only to end up in hell.
The Reason Why the Theological Doctrines Advocated by Today’s Theologians Are Wrong
Let’s examine this issue through the lens of Romans. In his sermon in Romans chapter 9, the Apostle Paul teaches us that our salvation—that is, receiving the remission of sins from God—is not by our works but by the One who calls. It is written in verses 10-11, “When Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls).” Here the key point of the passage is the phrase, “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls.”
We were all conceived in our mothers’ wombs and born after 40 weeks, and we are now carrying on with our lives in this world. The will of God is not for some of us to be saved by His unconditional election while some of us are not saved. This is because Jesus, God Himself, bore the sins of everyone once and for all by being baptized, paid off the wages of our sins with the blood He shed, and has thereby saved us all. God has saved us from the sins of this world because He Himself bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist and paid off the wages of our sins with His blood. That is why the Bible says, “might stand... of Him who calls.”
Whom Does God Call Then?
God calls people like Jacob. He calls people who, like Jacob, are full of shortcomings, lies, and treacheries and cannot live on their own without God, and it is on such people that God bestows the grace of salvation to become His children. God said, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion” (Romans 9:15). This means that we stand not by any work of mankind, but only by the work “of Him who calls.”
Here the Bible mentions the “works” of mankind. It also speaks “of Him who calls.” Referenced in this passage is the story of Esau and Jacob, whom Rebecca carried in her womb as twins. Esau was the elder sibling and Jacob was the younger one. Even though they were twins, they were completely different in both personality and the way they looked. One of them was an alpha male, able to do everything on his own. He was great at both archery and swordsmanship, and strong as well. Esau’s occupation was hunting. So, with a quiver swung over his back and a sword hoisted on his waist, he would go out in the morning to roam the fields and the mountains, hunt the game he came across, and bring the game back home to his parents, saying, “Mother, I caught this deer today for dinner.” His father was very fond of Esau for his hunting skills.
Jacob was completely different. He was a shepherd. A tender, easygoing man, Jacob looked after his herd of sheep. I can easily imagine him singing happily in the field, perhaps something like Danny Boy: “♪Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling From glen to glen, and down the mountain side. The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling, It’s you, It’s you must go and I must bide. But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow, Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow, `Tis I’ll be there in sunshine or in shadow.♬” Unlike his brother Esau, Jacob was a gentle, nurturing kind of man. He was someone who would eat the lunch his mother packed for him, spend the day in the field, and go back home at sunset and dutifully report back to his mother. We need to remember here that the salvation God is offering us does not depend on our own acts of the flesh, whether they are good or bad.
The Bible says, “That the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls.” God knows very well that if human beings’ acts were so perfect that they could live without relying on Him, they would not answer Him even if He called them. In other words, it is not people like Esau but people like Jacob whom God calls to give them salvation from all sins and make them His people.
Like most people, I, too, have tried to live a virtuous life in this world, but the reality is such that it makes me wonder just how many people were hurt by me. I once thought about whether I was like Esau or Jacob, and the conclusion I reached, knowing what I knew about myself, was that I was like Jacob. I had no physical strength, and even though I pretended to be righteous and claimed to be just, I acted for my own interests whenever circumstances dictated. So, I absolutely was not a great man like Esau. On the contrary, I was devious, flawed, mean, weak, and full of sins. This was certainly true in God’s sight.
I was someone completely incapable of living according to the Word of the Law. That is precisely why I am now living by believing in Jesus as my Savior. When Jesus came to this earth, He accepted the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and it is because He bore our sins like this through the baptism He received from John the Baptist that He shed His blood on the Cross. So, I believed in the Lord who paid off the wages of my sins as my Savior. Now, it is not just I who have been saved from all my sins, but so has everyone else who believes in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood on the Cross. This is because Jesus has saved us through the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. What a wonderful news this is! To save us, God has washed away all our sins by sending His Son to this world and making Him receive baptism from John the Baptist.
In God’s sight, people living on this earth are either one of two types of people. They are either Esau’s type or Jacob’s type. Those who stand before God and receive His blessings are all Jacob’s type. No one who receives the remission of their sins from God is Esau’s type, Jacob’s elder brother. Those who are Esau’s self-conceited type of people do not answer God even when He calls them.
Human beings are so weak that if bitten by a mosquito infected with encephalitis virus, it can make them shiver in the middle of the summer. Even in the thick of the summer, they cover themselves in thick blankets looking for warmth. But, once they get proper medical treatment, they get back on their feet right away. Humans are such fragile beings.
However, there are some people whose hearts are Esau’s type. They consider themselves to be physically and mentally strong and smart, thinking to themselves, “This is who I am. If I want to, I can win over anyone. I can deceive anyone and prey on anyone.” Those who are so minded are Esau’s type.
God does not look at our acts, but instead He looks at our hearts. Among today’s Christians, those who are living by relying on themselves rather than the righteousness of God are Esau’s type. Even when such people are told that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized and shed His blood to save them from these sins, they do not believe in this Jesus as their Savior.
Jesus is our true Savior who came to this earth, bore the sins of mankind once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and paid off the wages of our sins by shedding His blood on the Cross. It is by believing in such a Lord as our Savior that we are saved from all our sins. Our Lord is saying to us, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus is saying to us now, “All you who are laden with sins, all you sinners struggling to carry on with life in this world, come to Me, and I will give you rest.” The Lord bore our sins once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, was crucified, shed His blood on the Cross, and paid off all the wages of our sins by bearing their condemnation, so that He may save us. Having thus paid off the wages of sins and risen from the dead again, He is now saying to us, “Come to Me, all of you!” However, those whose hearts are Esau’s type do not turn to the salvation offered by Jesus.
This is the key point of the passage that says, “That the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls,” which the advocates of the doctrine of election are misinterpreting. Who among us can stand before God? Who can live amid God’s blessings? They are those who admit themselves to the Lord and say to Him, “Lord, I absolutely need You. I cannot do anything about my sins on my own, nor can I carry on with my life in this world on my own. My heart is full of shortcomings, I am too greedy, and my will is too weak, just as my body is too weak. I absolutely need Your grace of salvation in my life and the Word of salvation that You have given me, for You have saved me through Your baptism and blood. I need Your help desperately, Lord.” It is those who ask God for His help like this whom God calls to receive the blessings of salvation by believing in the baptism of Jesus Christ, His blood on the Cross, and His death as their salvation.
That we rely on the baptism of Jesus Christ and His blood means that we rely on and believe in the grace of salvation that the Lord has given us. Put differently, we lean on the Lord by faith for our souls’ remission of sins. For us to lean on Jesus is to trust in His salvation, saying, “Lord, I am counting on Your justice and love. I believe that You have delivered me from my sins, and I believe in the baptism You received and the blood You shed. Give me faith, Lord, so that I may reach salvation from my sins, and help me carry on with my life.” Jesus Christ is pleased with those who count on Him like this, saying to them about their sins, “I have taken care of your sins also. I have paid off all the wages of your sins by being baptized by John the Baptist and shedding My blood on the Cross.” Therefore, it is by faith that we are saved, by believing in the baptism of Jesus Christ and His blood that constitute His righteousness.
Of all these countless people, the Lord gives salvation from the sins of mankind to those who plead for God’s help and ask Him to blot out their sins. In sharp contrast, some people do not rely on the righteousness of God, saying, “I don’t need God. I would rather believe in my own strength than God.” Even though the Lord has done His part and blotted out such people’s sins once and for all with the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, since these people refuse to believe in the righteous baptism and blood of Jesus, there is not much the Lord can do for them.
The Bible Does Not Say That God Elected Us Unconditionally
When we take a look at the Calvinist theology of unconditional election, at first it may seem as though it is right, but when we turn to the Bible, we see that this is not the case. The Lord said in Romans 9:11, “For the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls.” Here, the Lord is saying that God does not call those who keep His Law flawlessly, but rather He calls those who are faulty in the Lord’s sight, sin all the time, and are suffering as a result, and it is these people whom God makes His children. God said, “That the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls.” Whom, then, does God call to stand before Him? They are not people like Esau, but people like Jacob.
As a way to educate us, God spoke the Truth of salvation by comparing Esau and Jacob so that we would understand it more easily. When God looks at human beings, He asks of everyone, “Are you Esau or Jacob?” Of these two types of people, God gives salvation and His blessings to those who are like Jacob. There are some people who, despite being admirable in every aspect and having everything they could ask for in the world, still know their sins and shortcomings, and accordingly believe that God created the heavens and the earth and rely on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is highly probable for such people to be saved from their sins. For sinners like these, God sent His Son Jesus Christ to this earth and made Him bear the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and the Lord has thereby brought salvation. For those among mankind who know their shortcomings and now wish to be washed from their sins by relying on and believing in the Word of His baptism, the Lord has prepared their salvation from sin and is waiting for them. The Lord takes care of the sins of such people who count on His righteousness and guarantees their future.
God saves from their sins those who believe wholeheartedly in the Word of the baptism that our Savior Jesus Christ received and the Word of the blood that He shed. Therefore, all theologians’ arguments and doctrines are rendered completely useless before the salvation of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given to every sinner living on this earth. In fact, people who engage in such arguments know nothing about the righteousness of God. Yet, they go on and on about their theological training, and for this, they are highly respected by churchgoers. However, even though they speak and boast of their theological ideas before their congregation, they have no ability to actually address the sins that their followers commit.
All that they say to their congregation amounts to just this: “Pray and repent from your sins however you want to. Carry on with your life by trusting in the God-given doctrine of incremental sanctification”. Such people love to boast of the doctrines they learned from studying theology. And they teach only the theological ideas they learned at the seminary. This means that they are teaching nothing but the doctrines taught in theology because they actually know nothing about the Word of God. Those who have learned the theology of this world tend to rely more on the doctrines advocated by the theologians whom they respect than they believe in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist.
So, these people often throw around fancy theological vocabulary when giving sermons to their congregation. This, however, is like using philosophical vocabulary to someone who did not study philosophy. Peppering their sermons with big theological words that the congregation finds difficult, they make it harder for the audience to understand. Like this, those who learned theology in the world and got the license as a pastor are now preaching and ministering based on the theological doctrines they learned, because they think that they can enslave their congregation’s souls with such doctrines.
Can you then be saved from all your sins and enter Heaven just because you dutifully listen to your pastor who studied theology? If you learn a great deal about theological ideas, will you come to know the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit and be born again? Will your sins be wiped out if you believe in Jesus and offer a lot of church donations? If you devote yourself to the Lord, will you go to Heaven on account of this work? Will martyrdom enable you to enter Heaven even if there are sins in your heart? The answer is no to all these questions!
We should never forget the fact that we were all born as sinners by our inherent nature because we were all born as Adam’s descendants. As such beings, we are saved only if we listen closely to the will of the Lord who has called us and believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that He has given to mankind—that is, we must have faith in the Lord’s sacrifice and believe that He bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, moved our sins from us to His own body, and was condemned for them on the Cross. In other words, we can be saved only by believing that the punishment of sins that our Lord bore with His baptism and His blood on the Cross was the very price He paid for our sins. If we want to pass our sins to Jesus by faith and be washed from them in God’s sight, then now in the 21st century as before, we must have faith in the baptism of our Lord and His blood, and the Lord will be rejoiced by such saved people.
Anyone who has any sin must believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given. A hymn goes, “♪Call me, oh Lord, when You call on the sinners to come♬” Who in the Lord’s eyes is bound to hell? The Lord is calling on all such sinners to come to Him. For all those bound to hell for their sinfulness, the Lord has made it possible to reach salvation once and for all from all the sins of the world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and the precious blood He shed on the Cross. And He is telling us to be saved by believing in the Word of salvation, saying to us, “With the baptism I received from John the Baptist and the blood I shed on the Cross, I have now saved you.” We ought to confess our hearts to our Lord, saying to Him, “Lord, I am bound to hell, for I have sin in my heart”; run to the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given us; and be saved from all sins by placing our faith in this gospel.
Our Lord is the Savior God who offers salvation from all sins to those who know the sinfulness of their hearts. We know and believe that the Word of the Bible from both testaments is the Word of God. That is because the Word of God we have is the Word of the Triune God. It is because this Word of God was written by the servants of Jesus for thousands of years. It is therefore untenable to think that the Word of the Bible is inferior to any theological ideas. Anyone who thinks like this is a fool in God’s sight.
Whereas there is only one Bible composed of New and Old Testaments, the theological ideas taught in today’s seminaries are a myriad. There are so many books on theology that they can probably fill this church building and there would still be leftovers. This is because theologians keep publishing them endlessly, to turn the ideas of their own minds into doctrines and teach them to the congregation.
Your heart is moved when you read the Word of the Bible from both testaments because it is the Word of God. It is because even though God knows all about our hearts’ sins and points them out with His Word, He is also offering to address this problem with His true Word—that is, with the baptism and blood of Jesus. And it is because the Word of the Bible is the Word of God written by those inspired by the Holy Spirit.
In contrast, doctrines produced by theologians in this world are no more than carnal ideas spoken by one human being to another human being. Some people might say to me, “What is there is to gain by criticizing the teachings of today’s theologians? Why not just preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit?” I am criticizing theological ideas because they are so harmful to so many Christians in this world who believe in and follow the Nicene Creed. The current global population is around 8 billion, and 1-3 billion of them are said to be Christians professing to believe in Jesus. However, almost all of these myriad of Christians believe in and follow the doctrines of the Nicene Creed, and this is why I am so critical of today’s theology.
Moreover, theologians do not teach the gospel of the water and the Spirit written in both testaments of the Word of Scripture. Why? It is because they do not know that the Lord bore the sins of mankind once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and that He washed away our sins and was condemned for them once and for all by being crucified. Even if some of them know it, they try to hide it, lest people come to know and believe in it. Their purpose is hiding the Word of the baptism of the Lord from their congregation, and they are devoted to teaching theological doctrines instead. With their own theological doctrines, they dilute the Truth that Jesus bore the sins of this world and washed them away by being baptized by John the Baptist, which is the Word that enables sinners to be born again from their sins. Like this, they cannot teach the Truth of salvation that Jesus has paid off the wages of our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist and shedding His blood on the Cross, and therefore they are fools.
These theologians do not know the Truth of salvation that the Lord has saved mankind from sin through the water and the Spirit. Because they themselves do not know the Truth that the Lord has saved us from the sins of this world through His baptism and blood, they cannot teach it to their congregation, either. When we say to those who believe in theological doctrines that we have now been washed from our sins and become God’s people through our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit written in the Bible, they say that we are arrogant and even accuse us of heresy. Such happenings are common in this world.
The longer someone has been a Christian, the more one confesses to be a sinner, saying, “I am such a flawed sinner,” and theologians approve such people’s faith, saying, “Pass!” In contrast, when we say that Jesus has saved us from all our sins through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and His blood on the Cross, they say blindly, “Fail!” Theological dogmas are completely different from the Word of redemption that Jesus has fulfilled with His baptism and blood. Why? Because their adherents are saying that mankind’s salvation is reached by offering prayers of repentance, all based on theological doctrines.
Long ago, when Constantine the Great summoned a religious council, he omitted the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist from the Nicene Creed. Did you know about this? Those who leave out the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist think that the right answer is for everyone to always live as a sinner before the Lord. This means they have already turned into God’s enemies. Today, those who yearn to be delivered from all their sins in the world must instead pray to God as the following: “Lord, please save my soul!”
Why Was the Samaritan Woman Not Able to Be Saved from Her Sins Before She Met the Lord?
The Samaritan woman had not been saved, for she had not met Jesus the Messiah. Because she had not met Christ, she was sad even though she had had five husbands. She came to the desert to draw water under the blazing sun at noon because she was ashamed of herself and trying to avoid others glaring at her. After meeting Jesus at the well and hearing Him speak for a while, she asked Him finally, “The Samaritans here say that we must worship on the mountain called Gerizim, but the Jews say that we must worship in the Temple of Jerusalem, so where should we worship properly?” The woman’s question here is akin to us asking which denomination’s theological doctrines we should believe.
The dispute over the place of worship was no different from today’s theological disputes, such as arguing over whether we should believe in Calvinist doctrines or Arminian doctrines. Mankind’s salvation is reached only through faith in the baptism of Jesus and His blood on the Cross. We must realize that faith in Jesus alone as our Savior is the only way for us to receive salvation from all our sins. Only the Word of Scripture from both testaments is the light that shines the Truth of salvation, and this gospel Word of the water the Spirit alone is the Truth of salvation.
Can we receive the remission of sins into our hearts by believing in the theological ideas taught at the seminaries? No, of course not! We are washed from our sins by believing in the true gospel Word with our hearts, that the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood on the Cross are the price that paid off the wages of our sins. Did you try to receive the remission of sins by believing in some denomination’s ideas? Did you receive the remission of sins by believing in some sectarian doctrines?
No, we could reach salvation only by believing in the Truth written in the Word of the Bible and spoken by the Lord in Scripture, that Jesus has saved us once and for all by bearing all the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist and shedding His blood on the Cross.
Given this, there is absolutely no reason why we should not believe in this Jesus Christ as our Savior! We can be saved from all our sins by believing wholeheartedly in the Truth of the baptism that Jesus our Savior received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed. It is by believing in the Word of the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist and the Word of His blood that we become God’s children, and it is by this faith that we can be made righteous.
Realizing that she had met the Christ, the Samaritan woman left her waterpot at the well, went back into her city, and spread the news to its Samaritan inhabitants, saying, “I have met the Christ!” This woman had now been saved from all her sins by realizing and believing that Jesus was the Christ the Scripture spoke of. All her sins’ burden had disappeared, and she had become one of the Lord’s people. What does the fact that this woman met Jesus Christ tell us? It tells us that she believed in Jesus Christ as her Savior who bore her sins by being baptized by John the Baptist, just as the sacrificial offering in Old Testament times bore the sins of the people through the laying on of hands and died.
Jesus was born on this earth through the body of Mary, and at the age of 30, He bore all the sins of this world and accepted mankind’s sins on to His own body by being baptized by John the Baptist. Put differently, all the sins that only we human beings had were passed to Jesus once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and as a result, Jesus was crucified, shed His blood in our place to death, and thereby became the propitiation for our sins.
Fundamentally, our sins were in your heart and mine, but Jesus bore them all by accepting the sins of mankind through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. In this way, our sins were passed to Jesus once and for all. Where, then, are the sins that were in your heart now? Are they still in your heart? No, they are not. They have been washed away by faith. They have been cleansed away by faith. Just as in the age of the Old Testament there was the laying on of hands through which the people’s sins were passed to the sacrificial offering, in the age of the New Testament, there was the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist. This means that the Old Testament’s laying on of hands is the same as the baptism of the age of the New Testament. It is through the baptism and blood of the Christ that the Lord took upon our sins once and for all and bore the punishment of death, thus offering the sacrifice of atonement for us.
The baptism that Jesus Christ received in the Jordan River was not the kind of baptism that Christians receive in churches today, with some water sprinkled on them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Rather, Jesus Christ accepted all the sins of mankind once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River in Israel, where the water came up to the chest—He was, in other words, fully submerged in water when He was baptized. When John the Baptist baptized Jesus in a form of the laying on of hands, all our sins were passed on to the body of Jesus once and for all, and therefore all our sins were washed away once and for all from our hearts. When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, the sins of mankind were passed on to the body of Jesus, and because Jesus our Savior bore the sins of the world through His baptism, He carried them to the Cross, shed His blood, paid off the wages of our sins, and has thereby saved all of us who now believe in this.
Therefore, all of us can be washed from all our sins by believing in the baptism of Jesus Christ and His blood. Jesus Christ never committed any sin in this world, not even once. He is the Son of God, who is completely different from human beings like us. Yet this perfect, completely sinless Lord bore the sins of mankind and paid off their wages. It is because Jesus shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist that He shed His blood on the Cross, and we believe that the baptism He received and the blood He shed are the sacrifice He made to save us from our sins so that we may live.
Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” It had taken Herod over 40 years to build the Temple, but Jesus was saying that He would raise it up in three days. He meant He would be resurrected in three days to give us eternal life. Here, Jesus is saying that by shouldering the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead again, He has made the believers His people. From now on, if only any one of us believes in the fact that the baptism of Jesus and His blood on the Cross constitute the work of salvation with which He paid off the wages of your sins and mine, this person will be saved from all his sins. All those who believe from now on that Jesus paid off the wages of their sins with His baptism and blood will receive the authority to become God’s children by faith.
The Lord is He that has blotted out our sins once and for all with His Word. He is the One who came looking for you and me through His Word, blotted out our sins with the Word of His baptism and blood, and gave us new life. And from now on, by accepting the Word of God into our hearts and believing in the Word of the baptism Jesus received for us and His blood, we can all become His disciples. In short, we can be remitted from all our sins once and for all if we know and believe with our hearts, “The Lord has blessed us the believers in the water and the Spirit to be born again.”
It is written in John 4:24, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” God is indeed Spirit. He is not in the flesh like us, but He is the Holy Spirit. This hallowed Spirit came looking for us incarnated in the flesh, and to save us humans, He Himself was baptized by John the Baptist to take away the sin of the world and paid off all the wages of our sins with the blood He shed on the Cross. And among the sinners, He has saved those who believe in this work of salvation from the sins of the world. We reach salvation by believing, through this written Word, that Jesus took away all our sins and paid off the wages of the sins with His baptism and blood, for He loved us. And we receive the gift of the Spirit of God. God is so wonderful that for all those who now believe in His gospel—that is, those who believe that Jesus is their Savior who bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist and paid off all the wages of sins by shedding His blood—God has given the gift of the remission of sins and the Holy Spirit into their hearts.
The Gift of the Spirit of God Is Given to Those Who Have Received the Remission of Sins
The Holy Spirit is God’s gift given to those who believe in the work of the Lord Jesus, who accepted our sins through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and paid the price of our death with His blood on the Cross. Even though we do not sense it physically, the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and seals us as God’s children when we believe, “The Lord has saved me like this through the Word of His baptism and blood!” This means that because we believe from the God-spoken Word that Jesus has blotted out our sins, God has blessed us to become His children and workers, and the Lord’s disciples as well. All of this is the gift of the Holy Spirit that we have received from God on account of our faith in Jesus Christ who washed away all our sins with His baptism and blood.
In the past, our sins were in our hearts, but now, whenever our sins are exposed, the Holy Spirit makes us trust in the salvation that Jesus has fulfilled for us by blotting out our sins with the baptism He received from John the Baptist and His blood. And the Lord has given the gift of the Holy Spirit into our hearts to guide us. Even though in our flesh we have all kinds of evil thoughts, the Holy Spirit has blessed us so that our hearts are always having holy thoughts and are rejoiced to do what pleases God. We have received the remission of sins into our hearts by believing in the written Word of baptism and blood.
Because we have found Jesus Christ our Savior and the salvation He has fulfilled with His baptism and blood, and because we also believe in this Truth with our hearts, we have received the true remission of sins.
We have not seen Jesus physically with our eyes. However, through the Word of salvation written here in both testaments of Scripture, we have seen Him and the work He did when He came to this earth. It is through the written Word that we meet the Lord our Savior. Thanks to the Word of the baptism of Jesus, we have come to realize that His bearing of the sins of mankind and shedding of His blood were all to pay off the wages of our sins. We must therefore believe in Jesus our Savior according to the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given us.
It is through the written Word of God that we must know Jesus, realize how and with what method He took away our sins, and believe this. It is by knowing and believing that Jesus has paid off the wages of our sins with His baptism and blood that we are saved. We meet our Lord by knowing how He has saved us by paying off the wages of our sins with His baptism and blood, feeling it with our hearts, and believing it willfully with all our hearts.
People of character do not act just on their own emotion. They listen to what others have to say with an open mind, process it calmly with their heads, sense and react to what they understand, and then take action. We say such people are noble. People with noble character are not stirred up by their emotion. They listen calmly, agree with reason, and then act.
Like this, we must believe according to the Word of the baptism of Jesus and His blood on the Cross. Through the Word, we must grasp that Jesus has become our Savior by bearing the sins of the world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and shedding His blood on the Cross, believe in this with our hearts, and thereby reach our salvation. When we place our faith in Jesus as our Savior, this faith must also be one that knows, feels, and believes in the written Word of regeneration with the heart. Our will to believe belongs to free will. Once we realize that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist and shedding His blood, we ought to believe it with our hearts, and then faith comes in our hearts. In our hearts, we must hang on to the salvation the Lord made with John the Baptist with a willful faith. If you hold on to the God-given Word by faith, this Word will bring salvation from sin to you. We must ruminate on the Word that we heard so that we may know what the Word of the water and the Spirit means to us and understand this Word fully.
You need to carve into the tablet of your heart the fact that Jesus bore our sins through the Word of the baptism He received from John the Baptist, ruminate on it, and believe it. You must realize that our souls have been delivered from God’s judgment by faith, remembering the Word that Jesus was crucified and shed His blood on the Cross after being baptized. Realizing and believing that the baptism of Jesus and His punishment on the Cross were the means by which Jesus paid off the wages of the sins of mankind, you must keep this Word of salvation in your heart. When the Word of God is written in the tablet of your heart, this Word will save you from the sins of this world. That is how we come to know that the Lord is our Savior. We come to realize that Jesus took away our sins through the Word of the baptism He received from John the Baptist. We need the faith to know and believe that the Word of the shedding of the blood of Jesus paid off the wages of the sins of mankind. Our souls must therefore be saved by not only realizing the Word of the baptism of Jesus and His blood, but also believing in it with our hearts. It is by knowing the Truth of salvation and believing in it with our hearts that we come to believe in and thank the Lord for the baptism He received and the blood He shed for us.
We must believe in the fact that the Lord accepted all our sins through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and that the blood He shed on the Cross was the sacrifice He made for the wages of our sins. We must cherish in our hearts the Word that Jesus was baptized and bore the condemnation of our sins on the Cross, so that we may not lose it. We can cherish the Word of God in our hearts by faith because this Word of baptism and blood is the path to our salvation, and we have no other way of salvation.
We must bear the Word of the water and the Spirit in our hearts by faith. It is such people who are saved from all their sins. You ought to verify from the Word if Jesus in fact washed away all our hearts’ sins and bore all their condemnation through His baptism and blood, and then believe in it. Even if someone gives us great food, to really make this food ours, we have to put it in our mouth, chew on it, and swallow it. No matter how great the food might be, it is not yours unless it goes into your mouth.
As a Korean proverb says, “Salt in the kitchen cabinet is not salty unless you use it,” so must our faith be exercised—that is, we must actually realize and believe that our Lord bore the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and that our sins were passed to Jesus. Like this, it is when we pass our sins to Jesus through His baptism that our hearts are washed from our sins. And it is when we realize that Jesus shed His blood on the Cross for the price of our sins, and believe in all this with our hearts, that our souls come to escape from God’s judgment. No food tastes salty unless salt is actually used. It doesn’t matter how close the saltshaker is within your reach; if you do not use it, your food will not taste salty.
Like this, our salvation is fulfilled in our hearts when we realize and believe that our sins were passed on to the body of Jesus through the Word of the baptism the Lord received. Can you now understand? Can you now believe? In our hearts, therefore, we must hold on to the baptism Jesus Christ received from John the Baptist when He came to this earth. We must realize it and believe in it with our hearts. What use is it to just say, “Oh, I see what you mean. I’m fine now”? We must grasp in our minds that our sins were passed on to Jesus through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and we must hold steadfast to it until it is planted firmly in our hearts by faith. No matter how right the Word preached by God’s Church is, if we just know it and stop there, what use is it? We need to unite our faith with the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that God’s Church is proclaiming now. We must hang on to the God-given Word of salvation, knowing and believing with our hearts that we have been washed from our sins with the Word of the baptism of Jesus and the wages of our sins have been paid off with His blood.
Let’s turn here to the prayer Jacob gave to God at the ford of Jabbok upon hearing that his brother was coming to kill him. “Lord, my brother is Esau, a brute. His chest is full of hair, and he is ruthless and strong as a boar. I robbed his birthright as the firstborn, but my mother protected me and prevented him from killing me. To stop him from killing me, my mother Rebecca told me to flee to my uncle’s place, so I ran away. Now I am going back to my hometown, but I am so afraid, for I heard that my brother was coming to meet me with a great army. Protect me, Lord. Protect me from my brother’s revenge and bless me.” Jacob was now about to meet his brother once he crossed the Jabbok River. So, he sent all his family ahead of him, saying to them, “Cross the river first, and I will follow you,” and he prayed to God on that night.
Like this, Jacob prayed to God to protect him. Jacob prayed desperately, beseeching God to bless him as He had promised, and the Bible says that an angel then appeared before him. In ancient times, God sometimes revealed Himself as an angel. So Jacob grabbed the angel and hung on to him for his life, imploring him desperately, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” With the night passing, daybreak was coming. When the angel wrestling with Jacob said, “Release Me and let Me go now, for the day is breaking,” Jacob said, “I can never let You go. Unless You bless me, I cannot let go of my God, so bless Me, Lord!”
The angel had dislocated Jacob’s hip while wrestling with him. Even so, Jacob did not give up and asked God desperately to protect him, so the angel said to him before departing, “I lost, you won. From now on your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.” The name “Israel” means “one who struggled with God and prevailed.” So, Jacob became someone who struggled with God and won. He was, in other words, blessed by God. It is my sincerest hope and prayer that God would also bless you and me like Jacob.
We, too, must now believe with our hearts that the Lord bore the sins of this world and washed away our sins with the baptism He received from John the Baptist. We must have the faith that Jesus was crucified and shed His blood to bear the punishment of our sins in our place. The Lord bore our sins and paid off their wages with the baptism He received from John the Baptist and His blood, and we must have faith in this Lord as our Savior.
“Without the Word of salvation that has come by the water and the Spirit, I cannot be saved from the sins of this world once and for all. There is no other way for me to receive the blessing of being born again from my sins but by believing in the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed on the Cross. I don’t care whether others believe in theological doctrines or not, for I have reached my salvation by believing in the fact that the Lord took away all my sins by being baptized by John the Baptist and paid off the wages of my sins by shedding His blood. No matter what anyone says, I believe in the Truth of my salvation that has come by the water and the Spirit. Why? Because the Word of God says that the Lord has saved me through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed.”
When we believe like this in the baptism of Jesus and His blood, our salvation is fulfilled for our hearts to be delivered from our sins. It is written, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12). What about you then? In accordance with this Word, do you believe in the baptism that Jesus received and the blood He shed on the Cross, and are you by this faith holding on to the Word of salvation that the Lord has given you?
What is important at this hour is that you place your faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. It is absolutely important for us to believe that the Word of the baptism that Jesus Christ received from John the Baptist and the blood that He shed constitute our salvation. The gospel Word of the water and the Spirit is the Truth of regeneration that the Lord has given us, and it is imperative that we believe in this Word with our hearts and hang on to it. We must never let this Word of salvation slip by us.
I, too, have been saved from all my sins by hanging on to the Word of salvation that the Lord bore and washed away my sins with the water and the Spirit. Knowing the gospel of the water and the Spirit only with our heads is completely useless. If we just know the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit with our heads, it will amount to nothing more than the seed that fell by the wayside in the Lord’s parable of the sower. Just as this seed was devoured by the birds, if we just know with our heads the Word of God that enables us to be born again from our sins, Satan will devour the Word of salvation that has been sown in our minds.
This means we must believe with all our hearts, and have the full assurance, that Jesus has washed away our sins with the Word of the baptism that He received from John the Baptist. And we must have the conviction of salvation by believing wholeheartedly in the true judgment, that Jesus has paid off the wages of our sins with the blood He shed on the Cross after being baptized. By faith, we must now sow your heart and mine with the Word of salvation, the Word of the baptism of our Lord and His blood. To sow the salvation of faith in our hearts, we must ruminate on the faith that has been sowed in our hearts, and if we lack faith, we must hold on to the Word of the Lord again and repeatedly verify that the Word has blotted out our sins. If we still lack faith, we must pray to God and continue to hear and read His Word again and again. We will then have the assurance of our salvation and become people of faith.
Even if it seems like we know the gospel of salvation that the Lord has given us, salvation is fulfilled in our hearts when we actually realize and believe with our hearts that Jesus bore the sins of mankind through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and that the blood He shed was the price of our sins. We ought to confess our faith repeatedly time after time for our salvation. We ought to listen to the Word of salvation again and again, preach it, and refine our faith, so that it may be planted even deeper in our hearts. The Word of salvation that is planted in our hearts like this cannot be taken away by anyone. Satan attacks us with doubtful questions, asking us how we can have the gospel that blesses us to be born again. Even so, we can confess our faith without any hesitation by trusting in the Word of the water and the Spirit planted in our hearts.
Just as the Samaritan woman received salvation when she encountered the Word of Jesus Christ, so have you and I been born again from all our sins by finding the washing of sins that Jesus Christ fulfilled by bearing the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. And by believing that Jesus was baptized and bore the cost of our sins with the blood He shed on the Cross, we have reached our salvation.
Once we realize the Truth hidden in the name of Jesus Christ—that is, once we realize the Word of Truth that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist—we can believe in the washing of our hearts’ sins, we are saved from all our sins to become God’s children, we are made sinless, and we become Jacob spiritually. God has blessed you and me today to believe in the Truth of salvation. Let us thank the Lord, live by faith, and see Him face to face in His Kingdom!
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