Subject 28 : If You Have Confusion and Emptiness in Your Heart, Seek the Light of the Truth
[28-14] The Lord Wants Us to Be the People of Faith Like Joseph of Arimathea
(Luke 23:50-56)
“Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man. He had not consented to their decision and deed. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before. That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near. And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.”
“Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man. He had not consented to their decision and deed. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before. That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near. And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.”
Introduction
In today’s Scripture reading, we see Joseph of Arimathea standing before Governor Pilate. “Arimathea” here refers to a city. Why does the Bible specifically mention the name of this city? It is the Prophet Samuel’s ancient home, where he used to live and worship God. Joseph of Arimathea was well-aware of the fact that Jesus had shouldered the sins of this world and washed away the sins of mankind with the baptism He received from John the Baptist.
Joseph of Arimathea was unafraid of revealing his faith clearly for the whole world to see. When we look at Joseph of Arimathea, it is like getting an early glimpse of the age of the Antichrist and seeing the courage of those who believe in the baptized Jesus as their Savior.
Joseph of Arimathea asked Governor Pilate for the body of Jesus, saying to him, “Governor, return the body of Jesus to me. I will lay it in my tomb carved out of the rock.” From Joseph’s burial of Jesus’ body in his tomb of rock, we can see the fulfillment of the Word of prophecy from Isaiah 53:9 saying that Jesus would be buried in a grave of the rich.
There Was Someone Like Joseph of Arimathea During the Age of the Old Testament Also
The Prophet Elijah in the age of the Old Testament was a man who demonstrated to the idolators of his time that the Lord God was a living God. However, when he was fleeing from persecution by King Ahab’s wife Jezebel, he said to God, “Lord, I am the only one left who fears You, and these people are trying to kill me.” The Lord God then said to him, “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (Romans 11:4).
This Word shows us that even today, there still are many people left in this world testifying that the baptized and crucified Jesus is our Savior. Starting with the appearance of the Antichrist in the end times, I believe we will see many more people of faith arising, like Joseph of Arimathea who buried the body of Jesus. That’s because the Bible reveals that when the end times arrive, there will be many believers enduring martyrdom by their faith in Jesus Christ.
In this age also, God has hidden many born-again believers everywhere in the world. We believe in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and the shedding of His blood as our salvation. Just as God said to Abraham in the Old Testament, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them. So shall your descendants be” (Genesis 15:5). I believe that many more people in these end times will come to believe in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood on the Cross as the salvation of mankind.
Do you believe that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized? Do you believe now that the Word of the baptism of Jesus and His blood on the Cross constitute your salvation? If you do indeed believe in the baptism and blood of Jesus as the Word that has washed away your sins and taken care of their condemnation, then you have already been saved and born again from all your sins once and for all. Whether or not people have been born again is known by looking at their faith in the work of Jesus and seeing if they believe that He took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. If they still have any sin in their hearts despite believing in Jesus, then we know that they have been neither saved from their sins nor born again yet. Such people are no more than religious practitioners belonging to worldly religion, not the born-again whose souls have been saved from their sins. They are merely living a religious life, believing in the Cross alone just as taught by their own denomination. Because they believe only in the crucified Jesus as their Savior, they have never had any of their sins washed away.
In contrast, those who believe in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed on the Cross as their salvation belong to God’s “invisible Church.” Such believers whose faith belongs to the God-given, invisible Church in this present age are of those who have been washed from their sins, for they believe that the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and the shedding of His blood is the Word of their salvation. Anyone who has this kind of faith simply cannot belong to the religious in this world.
Those who belong to the “invisible Church” believe that Jesus is the Savior who took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and by this faith they have been washed from all their sins. For these members of the “invisible Church” that only God can see, their faith is placed in the fact that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. They belong to the gathering of the born-again. Put differently, those who belong to this gathering are believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, whose faith is clearly distinct in God’s eyes from that of the religious in this world.
These believers have now been saved from all their sins, for they believe in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood. There is an exclusive gathering open to only those who have been saved from their sins by this faith, and whoever belongs to this gathering is someone who believes that the Lord shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. The gathering of such believers is the gathering of those who belong to the invisible Church.
The leaders of the Early Church knew and believed that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. And they also had the faith that the Lord was crucified in their place precisely because He had shouldered the sins of this world through His baptism. Although the invisible Church cannot be seen, this does not mean it has no leader. For example, the Apostles Paul, Peter, and John were all leaders of the Early Church, and they all had the faith that belonged to the God-spoken, invisible Church. They all lived with the testimony of salvation, bearing witness of their faith in the Lord’s baptism and blood. And they were all able to follow and carry out the will of the Lord in their lives despite facing so much hardship. These leaders of the Early Church era believed that Jesus the Savior took away the sins of this world by being baptized and was crucified for them, and they shared the bread of faith with the Lord’s flock. Thanks to their testimony, many people were saved by believing in the baptism and blood of Jesus, and these saints also belonged to the invisible Church and lived in unity with the Lord.
Just as Joseph of Arimathea believed that Jesus took away all the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received, today, we, too, believe that the Lord is our Savior who has delivered us through His baptism and His blood on the Cross. As such, we will always do our best to preach the gospel for the rest of our lives on this earth. The act of faith shown by Joseph of Arimathea here reminds me once again that this will be our act of faith when we face similar circumstances in the end times.
The faith of the martyrs who will arise in the age of the Antichrist is one that is placed in the Lord, believing that Jesus accepted the sins of this world once and for all on to His own body through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and shed His blood on the Cross. To be a martyr in the end times is possible only for those who believe in Jesus as their Savior, who took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified. Thanks to their faith in the Word of the Lord, such people can endure persecution even unto martyrdom. They give all glory to our Lord, and their faith is more than enough for them to enter His Kingdom. It is my hope and prayer in these end times that all of us would be the people of faith like Joseph of Arimathea.
Joseph of Arimathea Was a Saint of the Invisible Church to Come
Joseph of Arimathea in today’s Scripture reading may be described as an antitype of the saints of the invisible Church. There are two kinds of believers in this world. One type is the people of faith, and these believers have been remitted from all their sins once and for all by believing in the baptism of Jesus and His blood. The other type is the religious, who believe only in the crucifixion of Jesus as their salvation. Such people do not accept into their hearts the work of salvation that Jesus completed by being baptized by John the Baptist and taking away the sins of this world, nor do they believe in this work. In the days to come, the divergence in the outcome of faith for these two types of believers will become patently clear.
One type of churchgoers today is religious practitioners, who belong to a worldly religion. They do not believe that they will be condemned by God for their sins. They are content to live in harmony with this world. They refuse to be washed from their sins by believing in the baptism that the Lord received from John the Baptist and His blood. We call such people religious practitioners, or worldly Christians who have not been born again.
Such sinners are found not only among the laypeople, but also among the religious leaders. When Christians look at their religious leaders, they tend to think that these leaders have been delivered from their sins and born again, but in reality this is not the case. The religious leaders who belong to this world think that even if their sins remain intact in their hearts, they can address this problem with the doctrine of incremental sanctification or the doctrine of justification. So, they believe only in their own theological doctrines, just like their congregation. They are living as sinners always, for they do not know that the Lord has brought the remission of sins to mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist, taking away the sins of this world, and shedding His blood on the Cross. As a result, these worldly religious leaders remain in their sinful state just as their congregation remain sinners.
We say that such people have not been born again yet. However, the Lord is telling us that He is the Savior who took away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and He is also telling us all to believe in this amazing Truth of salvation. Our regeneration is possible only by faith, by believing in the baptism that the Lord received from John the Baptist and the shedding of His blood. The baptism that the Lord received and the blood He shed for our sake constitute salvation for the people of faith who believe in this Word. These are the people of faith who have truly been born again from their sins by believing in the baptism of the Lord and His blood. The Lord said to Nicodemus that one must “be born again of water and the Spirit.” With this, Jesus is telling us to be born again by believing that He shouldered the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist.
Today, the saints of the invisible Church are not found in the flamboyant megachurches of this world. These saints do not need a flashy church building; they can worship together anywhere they are gathered. In their hearts is the faith that Jesus is their Savior who took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, shed His blood to death on the Cross, and rose from the dead again. As they have received the remission of sins into their hearts by believing in the baptism and blood of Jesus, they are now able to preach the God-given Word of salvation to everyone throughout the whole world.
These saints are living out their faith freely unfettered by the religious practitioners of this world. As they believe only in the salvation that Jesus has fulfilled with His baptism and blood, they are living for the spreading of the gospel in this world. Their purpose in life is to live in obedience to the will of the Lord by trusting in our Lord’s baptism and blood, and then enter His Kingdom.
Those who belong to the God-established invisible Church are following the guidance of the Holy Spirit while sharing true fellowship of faith with one another. They seek to follow the will of the Lord exactly as it is shown by their leaders. Like this, the saints of the invisible Church desire to emulate their leaders’ faith and live under a spiritual order. In other words, they are led by the leaders of the invisible Church that is guided by the Holy Spirit, and they are living not by their own will but the Lord’s will. And the leaders of the invisible Church are those who teach and guide the saints with the Word of God so that they may know what the will of the Lord is.
In the days to come, we will see many more people in this world coming to belong to the invisible Church established by God. Thanks to their faith, the saints belonging to the invisible Church will come to see the gospel being spread all over the world through their leaders, and they will also come to follow the will of the Lord. Like this, those who are led into the God-established invisible Church are those who are truly rejoiced to follow the Lord’s will in unity. Placing their faith in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His Cross, they seek to dedicate their lives to the proclamation of the Lord’s gospel, and it is clear to everyone that they are God’s people. They are the ones who have been saved from all their sins once and for all through their faith in the baptism and blood of the Lord.
The Apostles’ Faith Was Placed in Jesus’ Baptism and Blood
The Apostle Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Explaining what living by faith meant for him, the Apostle Paul is speaking of two things here. First, Paul believed that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized, and therefore all his sins were also passed onto the body of Jesus. He is speaking of how he believed that he had died with Jesus on the Cross and risen from the dead again, and that he was now living with the Lord by this faith. Second, Paul says that because Jesus loved him and gave His body for him, he was now also living for the Lord by faith in Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul is confessing his faith here, saying that it is because Jesus loved him that He took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist; and therefore, believing that he, too had died with Jesus Christ on the Cross and risen from the dead again with Him, Paul was now living the rest of his life for the Lord. That is why the Apostle Paul is saying that he was living by faith, believing that he had been baptized with Jesus, died with Jesus, and risen from the dead again with Jesus. And he is also saying that because he had faith in the baptism and blood of our Lord, he could do anything and work with the Lord anywhere if it meant spreading the gospel.
Like this, because you and I have also been saved from the sins of the world through our faith in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood, from now on, we can all live for the proclamation of this gospel wherever our Lord sends us. Just like the Apostle Paul, we, too, can offer ourselves to the Lord and carry out His desire to spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit. To do so, we must first give up ourselves.
We are compelled to live the life of faith that the Lord wants us to live because we now have the same faith that the Apostle Paul had. Paul’s testimony of salvation makes it clear that he was saved by believing that Jesus the Lord shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, was crucified, and rose from the dead again. It is because Paul had been saved by such faith that he dedicated his life to the spreading of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Because we believe in the Word of the baptism of Jesus, we, too, have come to pass our sins on to the body of Jesus by faith, and therefore, we are now able to live out this faith of ours and dedicate the rest of our lives to the spreading of the Lord’s gospel.
It is absolutely imperative for our hearts to believe that Jesus bore the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. And we must have faith that Jesus was crucified to death in our place. We must place our faith in the love with which the Lord sacrificed Himself for us as the propitiation for the sins of mankind. It is then that we are able to devote the rest of our lives to the spreading of the Lord’s gospel. By believing in the Word of the baptism of the Lord and His blood, we must now pass our sins on to the body of Jesus by faith.
We were able to be saved from all our sins because we believed wholeheartedly in the Truth that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, took them to the Cross, and sacrificed Himself as the propitiation for our sins by being crucified in our place. Therefore, just like the Apostle Paul, we are now able to walk with the Lord by faith.
For today’s Christians to be called the purest Christians by the people of the world, they must have faith that Jesus washed away all our sins and was condemned for them with the baptism He received from John the Baptist and His blood. The real Christians are those who believe with their hearts that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist to shoulder the sins of this world, and they are the ones who believe that it is precisely because Jesus was baptized that He was punished for our sins in our place by shedding His blood on the Cross. Such believers can say that they have truly become God’s people.
The fact that we are the true Christians means that we have received the remission of sins by believing in the baptism that the Lord received from John the Baptist and His blood, and we are living according to the guidance of the Word of God. Because we have now been washed from all our sins once and for all by our faith in the Word of the baptism through which Jesus took away the sins of this world once for all, we are the people of faith who also believe that the Lord was condemned for our sins in our place.
This Word of true salvation—that is, Jesus shouldered the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, was crucified, and has thereby completed mankind’s salvation once and for all—is written in the Bible in detail (Matthew 3:13-17, John 19:1-30).
How Is the Faith of Today’s Christians?
Christians these days base their faith on the Apostles’ Creed, but it is critical for us to realize that this creed is missing the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and through which He took away the sins of this world. This fact is something that all those who believe in Jesus as their Savior today ought to remember and ruminate, and they must examine their faith. If you still have not been able to pass all your sins on to the body of Jesus despite believing in Him as your Savior, it is because you have believed in the Cross alone without realizing that the Nicene Creed from AD 325 emphasized just the Cross and left out the Word of the baptism of Jesus.
Moreover, even the Protestants today do not know the Truth of baptism, that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. This is because they follow the Nicene Creed and have turned into worldly religious practitioners. Deceived by the makers of the Nicene Creed, Christians today may be said to have pseudo-faith. They have all been influenced by the Nicene Creed so much that even to this day, they remain stuck in its deception and believe erroneously as a result.
Even though Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, because Christians’ today have not heard this Truth of baptism, not even once, they could not have believed in it, either. Even now when they hear the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, they cannot understand it easily, and as a result they are still living as sinners. Such Christians must realize that they have not yet passed their sins to the body of Jesus by believing in His baptism. You must realize here that because you do not understand how Jesus washed away your sins with the baptism He received from John the Baptist, you cannot believe in it, either. Ultimately, the fact that your sins remain unwashed means that your heart remains guilty of sin.
The creators of the Nicene Creed, Emperor Constantine and his followers, emphasized and stressed only Jesus’ work of crucifixion, and in doing so, they prevented His baptism from being testified to people. With the Nicene Creed, they worked to ensure that no one would realize the work of baptism, that Jesus Christ our Lord took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. They should have repented of their sins before God and men, but they failed to do so. That is why so many people are still carrying their sins only to stand before God as sinners.
By coming up with the Nicene Creed, they prevented not only the people of their days but also everyone in the future from passing their sins on to the body of Jesus. Producing the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicaea as commanded by Emperor Constantine, they left out the biblical fact that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, blinded others with this omission, and ended up committing the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit before God. They should have turned away from their sin and believed in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist.
As we know, most Romans were polytheistic believers, so it was not that hard for them to believe in Jesus also if only the baptism He received from John the Baptist was left out of the Nicene Creed. The Romans could not accept Jesus, who took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, as their only Savior. When Constantine gave legal recognition to Christianity, his subjects could not accept the Truth that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist.
Think about it again for a moment. The Romans were polytheists. So, given their polytheistic beliefs, even if their emperor commanded them, how could they abandon all the countless deities that they had believed in, from Sol to Zeus and Aphrodite, and accept Jesus the Savior of mankind as their only God, who bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist? Even though Christianity was eventually adopted by their emperor as the state religion of Rome, their belief system made it intolerable for them to throw aside their old gods and believe only in Jesus as the Savior who washed away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. They just could not bring themselves to acknowledge Jesus as their Savior, who took away the sins of this world once and for all and bore the sins of mankind on His own body by being baptized by John the Baptist.
Consequently, the Romans agreed and took part in omitting from the Nicene Creed the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, establishing the most universal and polytheistic religion in this world, and keeping their beliefs in this way. By making the Nicene Creed, Constantine the Great, who was the Roman emperor at the time, successfully turned Christianity into one of the many religions of this world. This, however, meant that he committed a grave sin against God. By turning Christianity into a polytheistic religion, he laid the foundation singularly to not only keep his own political power but also make himself a religious leader of the world.
Emperor Constantine therefore ended up establishing a syncretic religion by omitting from the Nicene Creed the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized, and by drawing Jesus into the polytheistic religion in which the Romans believed. As the emperor of Rome and a politician as well, he did this for his subjects, pulling Christianity into the polytheistic religion they believed in and maintaining their syncretic, polytheistic religion. Although he may be revered within his polytheistic religion for generations to come, inside the Kingdom of our God, his faith was not approved by Him contrary to his wishes. By leaving out the Word of the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist from the Nicene Creed and incorporating Christianity into his own polytheistic religion, he ended up misleading generations after him to believe in a half-Christianity. He did something that no human being should have ever done.
However, many people are committing even a greater sin than Constantine, and these are the people today who are refusing to believe that Jesus the Savior of mankind took away the sins of this world and washed them away once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and are thus rejecting His love. By doing so, they have turned themselves into evildoers committing even more wicked sins than Constantine. You must not reject the work of Jesus like such polytheists—that is, you must not refuse to believe in the Word of Jesus, that He shouldered the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. If you truly yearn to be born again of water and the Spirit, then I beseech you to believe in the Word of the baptism that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and in the Word of the Cross. It is my sincerest hope and prayer that the blessings of the God-given salvation will be with you always.
When I traveled to Mongolia on a mission trip, I saw polytheistic practices with my own eyes. In that trip, I had a chance to visit the home of a professor at a Mongolian university. I was invited by the professor, and when I got to his home, I saw a portrait of Jesus hanging on the wall of the living room. So at first I thought he was a Christian, but I was surprised to see a portrait of a Buddhist monk hanging on the opposite wall. While there are some historical records saying that some Mongolian rulers were Christians, but in reality, they were polytheists. The Mongols were a warring nation, and wherever their armies went, they accepted and incorporated whatever deities they came across in their conquered lands into their own religion.
Roman Emperor Constantine was also such a man. That Constantine was a polytheist can be easily seen from the Nicene Creed of his making. He came up with this creed because he just could not accept into his heart the fact that Jesus the only Savior of mankind took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. So, to turn Jesus into just one of the many deities that the Romans believed in, he left out Jesus’ work of baptism and incorporated Him into their own polytheistic religion. So, the Romans did not have much trouble accepting Christianity as an extension of their polytheistic religion, and that is why we can say that in God’s sight, they were not real believers.
You should now understand why it is that Emperor Constantine omitted the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist from the Nicene Creed. It is for this reason that his followers are claiming that their polytheistic religion is the most universal religion in this world. The problem, however, is that countless people living on this planet think mistakenly that they believe in and serve Jesus as their only God. They should realize here that they do not actually believe in Jesus alone as their Savior.
The Catholics are now leading the ecumenical movement around the world. This is because their goal is propagating polytheism. These people refuse to recognize Jesus as their only Savior, rejecting that He took away the sins of this world and washed them away once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. Even though Jesus shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, they left His love out of the Nicene Creed in their desire to accommodate and believe in everything in this world.
The Catholics are not alone in their ignorance. Today’s Protestants are also ignorant of the power of the baptism of Jesus, and they are unable to believe that Jesus bore the sins of this world and washed them away once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. Their faith is the same as the faith of the polytheists, and they are living in this world as religious practitioners. The First Council of Nicaea was held in AD 325, and as it is 2023 now, around 1,700 years have gone by since then. To incorporate Jesus into their polytheism and bring unity to his subjects, Emperor Constantine and his followers allowed them to believe in only the Cross of Jesus.
They omitted from the Nicene Creed the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist so that they did not have to accept Jesus, who took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, as their God. So, even the Protestant believers today, who are the descendants of the Reformers, believe in Jesus as their Savior while leaving out the Word of baptism that Jesus shouldered and washed away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. This is because they believe in and follow the exact same Nicene Creed that the Catholic Church established.
As a result, even today in the 21st century, Christians still do not know the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and they are abiding in Christianity only as religious practitioners. When today’s church leaders stand behind the pulpit and preach, they cannot preach to their congregations the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, for they themselves do not know this work of Jesus. Consequently, today’s laypeople are also living as sinners and living a merely religious life, even though they believe in Jesus. Despite believing in Jesus, because these Christians do not know the fact that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, they are still living in this world as sinners.
Although these Christians do not know that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, they all take a great deal of pride in the fact that they attend a Reformed church. However, it was impossible to hide forever their sin of leaving out the Truth of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist from the Nicene Creed established by Emperor Constantine. Ultimately, the Truth of baptism, that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, has been revealed to the whole world now at this point in the 21st century through those of us who have been born again by believing in this Truth of salvation. It is finally known now how they have misled so many people to fall into worldly religion for such a long, long time, spanning 1,700 years.
Now that we know how they omitted from the Nicene Creed of their own making the work that Jesus fulfilled by being baptized by John the Baptist and thus shouldering and washing away all the sins of this world, and how they have misled everyone today into a polytheistic religion, we can feel a huge burden being lifted off our chests. The more we think about it, the more we can see how so many Christians and people today are so foolish. But, fortunately for us, we have now come to realize that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and we have been washed from our sins and born again by believing in Jesus again as our Savior.
The more I think about it, the more amazing it is that they were able to hide for so long the Truth that Jesus washed away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. The more I realize, the more stunning their deception is in making it impossible for people to have faith in the Truth that Jesus bore and washed away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist.
From the very founding of the Nicene Creed in Late Antiquity, they advocated Jesus’ work of crucifixion alone and twisted the Truth so that no one would know that Jesus washed away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. They probably didn’t even know that they were committing such an evil sin. So they did not feel any guilt in their conscience. Showing themselves off to everyone in this world as if they were true Christians, they acted like they believed only in Jesus, but in reality, they all secretly kept their polytheism. And now, they have become leaders of a massive religion misleading people all the world to believe in a polytheistic religion.
Even those who launched the Reformation toward the end of the Middle Ages didn’t know the secret of this polytheistic religion. As a result, they, too, turned into religious practitioners who believed in just the crucified Jesus, ignoring the Truth that He took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. Ultimately, they also inherited the faith of the Nicene Creed and turned into polytheists, and to this day they have led their lives as long-corrupted religious practitioners. Like this, for 1,700 long years, Christians all over the world have lived trapped in a worldly religion, all the while omitting from the Apostles’ Creed the Truth that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist.
Emperor Constantine gifted the saints of the Early Church with religious freedom, but the consequence of accepting this religious freedom was terrible for the saints of the Early Church and Christians all over the world. They ended up drifting away from the Kingdom of God, unable to grasp the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. As a result, they turned into believers in a religious gospel, believing in just the Cross of Jesus. In the end, the saints of the Early Church and today’s Christians alike agreed with those who omitted the Word of the Truth that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and they ended up belonging to this world’s religion. From then on, when people believed in Jesus, they believed only that Jesus shed His blood and died on the Cross, not knowing that He took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and they fell into the religion of this world.
Constantine and his followers emphasized faith in the Cross of Jesus, and because of them, people came to believe in the crucified Jesus alone as their Savior only to perish. To plant the faith of their own polytheistic religion in the souls of even Christians, they came up with the Nicene Creed, and they were responsible for turning Christian believers into mere religious practitioners. They are the ones who, by making the Nicene Creed the foundation of faith for today’s Christians who believe in Jesus as their Savior, ultimately led them into the polytheistic religion.
With the polytheistic religion of their making, they sought to deceive and rule over everyone. By leaving out the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and imprinting only the blood that Jesus shed on the Cross as the Truth of salvation in today’s Christianity, they created a nearly perfect polytheistic religion and succeed in achieving their goal. They misled many people to drift away from the light of the Truth of salvation. This is the process by which today’s Christians turned into polytheists, and it also explains why it is that they are turning ever more corrupt these days.
Today, the participants of the First Council of Nicaea including Emperor Constantine are remembered for their success in establishing the largest polytheistic religion in this world. The first thing they did to make this polytheistic religion was omitting from the “Nicene Creed” Jesus’ work of love, that He took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and writing instead that Jesus became the Savior just by being crucified. In this way, they ended up excluding from Jesus’ work of salvation the fact that He bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist.
To prevent people from knowing the work of baptism that Jesus fulfilled by shouldering and washing away the sins of this world with the baptism He received from John the Baptist, they established a giant polytheistic religion through the Nicene Creed of their own making. To give credibility to their polytheistic religion, they had the theologians of their time whose faith was religious, participate in the First Council of Nicaea. With these theologians’ participation, they made it look as if the polytheistic religion of their own making was credible. What they did was indeed standing against the work of the baptism of Jesus. It still amazes me to see that with the Nicene Creed, they were able to hide from this world the work of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist.
All religious doctrines, no matter who their advocates are, ought to be compared to the Word of both Testaments and confirmed before we decide whether to believe them or not. It is when we are thoughtful like this about our faith that we can believe in Jesus as the Savior who took away the sins of this world and washed them away once and for all with the baptism He received from John the Baptist. It is then that we are made the true Reformists of this world who believe that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist.
Today, all of us must at once wash away all the sins that have remained in our hearts by believing that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist and washed away our sins with this baptism. We ought to realize now that those who came up with the Nicene Creed in Late Antiquity and sought to deceive us all with this creed were polytheistic believers pursuing their own goals, and that they rejected Jesus the Savior who took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. Realizing this fact, we ought to now believe in the Truth that Jesus Christ shouldered and washed away the sins of this world with the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and we ought to be grateful to be saved from all our sins by this faith.
The makers of the Nicene Creed may have successfully established the polytheistic religion that they sought to create, but they were rendered unable to partake in the Kingdom of the Lord. To establish their own polytheistic religion, they left out the work of salvation that Jesus did by bearing the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. As a result, they ended up selling their souls for a worldly religion. Their polytheistic religious practices have also led people today to believe in Jesus as their Savior but only religiously, and to thus be unable to be washed from their sins. At that time, they probably didn’t even realize that what they were doing was committing the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit in God’s sight.
When the time came, the Triune God sent the Son of God to this earth, made Him receive baptism from John the Baptist, and let all the sins of this world be passed onto the body of His Son. God the Father did this because it was in His amazing plan of salvation to deliver every sinner from the sins of this world. That is why all of us are now able to be washed from all our sins by believing in the work of the baptism of Jesus, that He took away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist.
The polytheistic believers left out the baptism of Jesus from the Nicene Creed, so that no one would know the plan of salvation that God established to deliver mankind from the sins of the world and the work of salvation that Jesus carried out by shouldering the sins of this world through His baptism. Fortunately, however, all of us have come to know the work of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, believe in it with our hearts, and reach our salvation by this faith. How could we not be rejoiced that God passed the sins of this world to His Son, and how could we not believe? None of us should ever fall for the polytheists’ deception and end up rejecting, along with them, the fact that Jesus took away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist.
Those who have been born again by believing in the Word of the baptism of Jesus now have the duty to make the real Truth of salvation known to the hearts of those who have fallen into the deception of the polytheistic religion. I hope and pray that even at this very moment, you would turn around from the polytheistic faith that you have known and held from the Nicene Creed; admit your sins before God; believe in the Word that Jesus Christ the Son of God came to this world, took away the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and went to the Cross; be washed from all your sins with this faith; and to thus bring joy to our God’s heart.
We have every confidence that multitudes will come to be saved from their sins from hearing this amazing mystery of the Word of baptism, that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. From now on, whoever believes in the work that Jesus carried out by being baptized by John the Baptist and shouldering the sins of this world, and whoever unites himself with the Word of salvation by this faith, will be delivered from all his sins and condemnation. From now on, all the descendants of the Protestant Reformers must also be saved by returning back to faith in Jesus’ work of baptism, that our Lord bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. With the baptism He received from John the Baptist, Jesus Christ shouldered and washed away all your sins and mine once and for all. Let us all believe in this love of salvation and put on His grace to be saved.
Those who are now standing against God’s love by refusing to believe in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist will be treated as someone blaspheming the Holy Spirit before God the Father. Jesus, our Savior who bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, is calling you and me, and I hope and pray that we would all answer this call with faith.
The Reformation of the Protestant Faith Must Continue Even Now
Today, the reformation of faith must begin again from believing in not just the Lord’s Cross, but the Word that Jesus took away the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist. This is because today’s Christians do not believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that the apostles of the Early Church era believed in, and they have therefore not been born again yet. This is why we must know and believe the Truth that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. Christianity in the present time bases its faith on the Nicene Creed, which omits the work that Jesus carried out by being baptized by John the Baptist and thus shouldering the sins of this world. If you believe in just the Cross of Jesus like this, then it means you are no more than a worldly religious practitioner and you will be condemned for your sins.
While we are still living in this world, you and I must reach salvation by believing in the Truth of salvation that the Lord took away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. Shouldn’t you also return to the Word of the baptism that the Lord received from John the Baptist? Shouldn’t you also be born again by this faith and let your heart enjoy the peace that our Lord is giving you? Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and it is my sincerest hope and prayer that you, too, would be blessed to be born again by believing this Jesus. We must not render the work of the baptism of the Lord and His Cross in vain.
At this point, one thing that we should pay particular attention to is the Reformation movement launched by the Protestants toward the end of the Middle Ages. The Protestant reformers were reduced to worldly religious practitioners, for they still believed in the Nicene Creed established in AD 325 by a polytheistic state. Influenced by the polytheistic faith of their time, they remained religious practitioners. Because they accepted into their hearts Jesus’ Cross alone, just as the polytheistic religion believed in the Cross only, they also remained practitioners of a worldly religion. They lived as sinners, since they did not believe equally in the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. In the end, the Protestant reformers established another religion that was the same as the polytheistic religion, and as a result their followers today have also come to ignore the work of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist.
After the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, led by the apostles and church fathers, the saints of the Early Church believed that Jesus bore the sins of mankind through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and they lived by this faith that had saved them from their sins. Even though they were persecuted heavily by Roman emperors for 250 years, they still kept their faith in the baptism of Jesus and His blood. The saints of the Early Church were saved by believing in the gospel preached by the apostles—that is, they believed in the fact that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. Because they were saved from their sins by knowing and believing that the baptism of Jesus and His death were Jesus’ work that saved them, they did not betray their faith and defended it unto martyrdom even as they faced untold persecution by the Gentiles.
When the Edict of Milan in AD 313 gave Christianity legal recognition, the saints of the Early Church were able to escape from the persecution they had faced for their faith. With the adoption of the Nicene Creed under Emperor Constantine, however, they could no longer keep their faith in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood, which had been at the core of their creed until then. Put differently, their freedom of faith was now restricted.
For this reason, the Protestant Reformation launched in the 16th century should have led to a faith that was different from the polytheists’ faith in the Cross alone. The believers in the polytheistic religion had come up with the Nicene Creed to eradicate the Word of baptism believed by the saints of the Early Church, that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. The Nicene Creed emphasized faith in Jesus’ Cross alone. Therefore, the advocates of the Reformation movement in late Middle Ages should have looked at Emperor Constantine’s polytheistic religion to locate the reason why the priests of the universal church at the time were so corrupt. Restoring the work of Jesus that had been omitted from the Nicene Creed, they should have believed that He took away the sins by receiving baptism from John the Baptist just as written in both Testaments of the Bible.
Since the faith of the apostles of the Early Church was completely different from Emperor Constantine’s polytheistic faith, the Protestant reformers should have returned Christianity back to faith in the Word of baptism that Jesus bore and washed away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. Yet, far from understanding and believing in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, they still kept the same polytheistic faith in the Cross alone and sacrificed themselves for the cause of the Reformation. Even they could not grasp the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist.
So, when we look at today’s churches founded by the descendants of the Protestant reformers, we can see that they have the same faith as the polytheists, for they are testifying only Jesus’ blood on the Cross, being completely ignorant of the Word of baptism that Jesus shouldered and washed away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. This is why, led by the descendants of the Protestant reformers, it was inevitable for Christianity today to be corrupted spiritually and reduced to a mere religion. Just like the polytheists, they believe in Jesus’ blood on the Cross alone and are spreading this faith all over the world. They are therefore no more than religious practitioners who believe in polytheism, and they need to realize that they can’t help but live in this world with even deeper spiritual corruption.
Even now, despite believing in just the Cross of Jesus, they think they are not living like the polytheists and do not believe like them. So, they see no need to believe in the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. They are going about with their lives uninterested in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist to deliver us from the sins of this world. They do not know why Jesus had to be baptized by John the Baptist, and why they must believe in this baptism of Jesus. What might explain this? It is because they do not know the Truth that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and that all the sins they are committing now were also passed onto Jesus.
Why can’t these people see the need to believe in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist? It is because they themselves are trapped in the polytheistic Nicene Creed and believe only in the Cross of Jesus. It is because they do not know what a great sinner they are now before God. It is because they are drowning in the dogma of polytheistic religion—that is, the doctrines of worldly Christianity. It is because they believe blindly in such doctrines as the doctrine of justification, the doctrine of incremental sanctification, and the doctrine of repentance. Today, those professing to believe in Jesus as their Savior have in fact fallen into polytheism. This why they are refusing to accept into their hearts the Truth of salvation that Jesus bore the sins of this world on His own body and took them away once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist.
If today’s church leaders themselves believed in and testified the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, they would not have led their congregations to a dead faith using man-made methods. So, the religious leaders must now also believe with their hearts that the Jesus who bore the sins of this world and washed them away once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist is the Savior, receive the remission of sins, and carry out the Lord’s work until the day they go to His presence. All of us must address the problem of all our sins now, by placing our faith in the Lord who has brought the washing of the sins of mankind through the baptism that He received from John the Baptist to take them away.
Unless you do this, you will remain stuck in your situation as a polytheistic believer whose heart is always guilty of sin. To avoid this, we must now accept into our hearts the Word of baptism, that Jesus took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. It is absolutely imperative for us to believe in the Lord Jesus who shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and to thus make sure that our faith is like that of the truly born-again, not of the polytheists.
From the very first moment we believe in Jesus as our Savior, all of us must build our house of faith on the knowledge of the water of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood on the Cross. One thing we must remember here is that we cannot escape from all our sins if our understanding of Jesus is limited to what the polytheistic religion is teaching, that He shed His blood and died on the Cross. The Truth that we now know from the Bible is that Jesus washed away our sins once and for all by bearing the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. In other words, we must know and believe that because Jesus shouldered our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist, He washed away the sins of this world once and for all, and He bore the punishment of our sins on the Cross in our place. When we accept into our hearts and believe wholeheartedly that Jesus has saved us from our sins through His baptism and blood, it is then that we can be freed from all our sins.
To do so, we must understand and believe properly in the work of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist to bear the sins of this world, which is the Truth of salvation that was omitted from the Nicene Creed in Late Antiquity at Emperor Constantine’s instruction. We must correct the Roman emperor’s error in omitting the work of the baptism of Jesus, and we must have the right faith. We can turn to Matthew 3:13-17 to find the conviction of faith to see and believe that Jesus took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist.
“Permit It to Be So Now, for Thus It Is Fitting for Us to Fulfill All Righteousness”
To begin His public life, Jesus went to see John the Baptist who was baptizing multitudes in the Jordan River. At first, John the Baptist declined to baptize Jesus, but Jesus commanded Him to do so, saying to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). It is at this time that Jesus accepted all the sins of mankind passed onto Him through His baptism. And it is after this that Jesus bore the condemnation of our sins in our place by being crucified, thus saving His believers from their sins.
It was possible for Jesus to be condemned on the Cross precisely because He had shouldered the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist three years prior to His death on the Cross. Jesus could be crucified to death because He had gone to John the Baptist and received baptism from Him to accept the sins of this world three years before His crucifixion. In short, Jesus was crucified in our place as our propitiation because He had borne the sins of this world on His body by being baptized by John the Baptist.
However, in AD 325 when Emperor Constantine summoned the First Council of Nicaea and promulgated the Nicene Creed, he left out the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and through which He took away the sins of this world once and for all, and with this omission he corrupted the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. Constantine corrupted Jesus’ work that took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and he left out the Truth of the baptism of Jesus. The fact that Jesus the Savior of mankind shouldered the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist meant that He was the only Savior of mankind, but this was unacceptable for Constantine’s polytheistic religion, and that is why he rejected Jesus’ work of baptism.
Those who believe that Jesus is the Savior who shouldered and washed away all the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist can always be saved from their sins by faith. Since Constantine knew that the unique Truth of salvation that washes away the sins of mankind was contained in the Word of the baptism of Jesus, to keep his beliefs, he had no choice but to leave out the work of Jesus from the Nicene Creed. If he had not omitted from the Nicene Creed the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, people all over the world would have now accepted the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that delivers them from their sins. This would have made it impossible for Constantine to expand his own polytheistic religion, and that is why he left out from the Nicene Creed the Truth that Jesus bore the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist.
As a Roman, Emperor Constantine was a polytheist just like his ancestors. If he were to accept into his heart the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, he would have become the first Roman emperor to be saved from his sins. But, this would have meant having to abandon his polytheistic beliefs that he had had all his life, and that is why he omitted the Word of the baptism of Jesus from the Nicene Creed. To incorporate Christianity into his own polytheistic religion, the first thing he had to do was leaving out from the Nicene Creed the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. This is because unless he omitted the Word of the baptism of Jesus from the Nicene Creed, the policy of imperial unity that he was pursuing would have ended as a failure.
So, as Constantine found it imperative to omit from the Nicene Creed, whose making was presided over by him, the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. If he had accepted into his heart Jesus’ work of baptism through which He bore the sins of mankind, he would have been the first Roman emperor among those who were delivered from all the sins of this world. At the same time, however, he would then no longer have been able to carry out his priesthood to worship the sun god as a polytheistic believer.
As a worshiper of the sun god and also a priest of this religion, Emperor Constantine could not throw away his faith. So, he did not want to believe in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood. On the contrary, he worked diligently to pull Christianity into his own polytheistic religion and spread this religion all over the world. The Lord Jesus said to all His believers, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). From the very beginning, Emperor Constantine had no desire to abandon his own sun god and believe in Jesus as his Savior, and as a result, he drifted far away from the salvation the Lord was offering him.
As the Protestant reformers were influenced by Constantine, today’s Christians who are their descendants have been reduced to polytheists as well, for they also believe in Jesus while leaving out the work of the baptism that He received from John the Baptist to take away the sins of this world. Even though Constantine claimed that the Nicene Creed was built based on the faith of the apostles of the Early Church, his actual purpose in life was spreading his own polytheistic religion throughout the whole world. So, he turned himself into a religious leader, misleading today’s Christians under his influence to believe in the same polytheistic religion that he believed in. This is an undeniable fact of Christianity today, and every Christian ought to admit it.
Christians today who do not know how the Nicene Creed came about are following in Constantine’s footsteps and committing the same sin that he committed. That is why just like Constantine, they have also left out from their faith the work of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist to take away the sins of this world. Today’s Christians are also living as religious practitioners who believe only in the Word of the Cross, while the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and through which He shouldered the sins of this world is missing from the Apostles’ Creed that they recite. The consequence is that Christians today do not actually believe in and follow Jesus, and instead they believe in and follow worldly religion. Unless this is addressed, their spiritual corruption will reach the heights and they will ultimately face destruction.
Today, those who have built their faith on the foundation of the Apostles’ Creed believe in Jesus while leaving out work of His baptism. In the end, these Christians are trapped in the same condition as the polytheists, and their souls are perishing equally. Therefore, Christians today must accept into their hearts the work of Jesus that was left out of the Apostles’ Creed, that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and with this faith they must bring joy to God. Otherwise, they will continue to believe in Jesus while leaving out His work of baptism, following the footsteps of the polytheists of the past who believed in the Nicene Creed of their own making. The sin they are now committing is the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit before God, and unless they turn around from this sin, its remission will of course remain out of their reach.
When God looks at them, He sees them committing the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Even though Jesus was baptized to save the sinners of this world from their sins, since these people do not believe in the Word of this baptism, they have rendered themselves unable to be washed from their sins forever. Therefore, they must believe now that Jesus took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and they must be washed from their sins by this faith in Jesus’ work. They must all turn around their sins and believe in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood.
What all of us must realize now is this: because Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, we can all be washed from our sins by placing our faith in the work of Jesus. What we must realize and believe is that the very first work Jesus Christ carried out to solve the problem of the sins of mankind was the work of baptism—that is, He shouldered the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. Three years after being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus was crucified while shouldering our sins that He had borne through His baptism, and He died on the Cross for our sins in our place.
Having come to this earth, Jesus Christ was baptized to bear the sins of mankind on His own body, and that is why He could take away our sins and die on the Cross in our place as our Savior. Had Jesus not carried out this work to take away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, you and I would be making only a religious confession of faith, saying that Jesus is our Savior even though our sins remain in our hearts. The condemnation of your sins and mine would then be remaining with us.
“The Wages of Sin Is Death” (Romans 6:23)
The wages of sin is death. This is the God-spoken, just Law. Therefore, when we believe in Jesus as our Savior, if we do so while leaving out the fact that He bore the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist, we will remain sinners always. If you were now trying to believe in the crucified Jesus without the work of the baptism He received from John the Baptist, what would happen to your heart? The more you believe like this, the more of a sinner you will become, for you will be guilt-ridden for the sins that you commit while carrying on with your life in this world. This is because you cannot help but continue to sin as long as you are living in this world. That is why we must be washed from all our personal sins by faith, by realizing and believing that our Jesus took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist.
If Christians today had believed in Jesus even slightly earlier as their Savior who took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, they would have given more glory to God while living in this world until they entered His Kingdom. The Kingdom of God would then have come to this earth. If all of us believed in Jesus as our Savior who shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, all of us would have received the remission of sins once and for all by our faith and come to praise our Lord Jesus Christ in our lives.
The polytheistic believers in today’s Christianity believe in the Nicene Creed made by their ancestors. They have turned themselves into religious practitioners committing the greatest sin against God. They are hindering God’s work that has saved mankind from their sins. We can say that they are committing an indescribably terrible sin by obstructing the work of the baptism of Jesus. God loves everyone. God the Father will judge on the last day all those who are hiding the work of the baptism of His Son Jesus and hindering it from being revealed and made known to everyone in this world. They are working to prevent people from realizing that Jesus washed away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. From now on, therefore, we should no longer be deceived by them, believe in Jesus as our Savior who shouldered the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and be washed from all our sins once and for all now as the people of faith.
God’s enemy Satan made the makers of the “Nicene Creed” leave out the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, and use the creed to achieve their own goals. To fulfill their own carnal lust, they omitted from the Nicene Creed the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, and they misled countless people to believe only in the blood that Jesus shed on the Cross and the suffering He endured. However, the Lord will make sure that the work that they did to hide the Word of the baptism of Jesus would no longer have any effect on Christians.
Long after the passing of Late Antiquity, even the Protestant reformers in the 16th century were still influenced by the Nicene Creed, and they, too, were devoted to believing in just the Cross while hiding how Jesus washed away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and how people can be born again of water and the Spirit. As a result, Christians all over the world today have come to know and believe in Jesus’ Cross only. By placing their faith in the Cross of Jesus alone, their souls have been deceived and they remain completely guilty of their sins.
There is a Korean proverb that says, “Hate the sin, not the sinner.” In the same vein, I do not want us to hate any sinners. My goal here is to help those who want to believe in Jesus realize the fallacy of the Nicene Creed, as it was established only to fulfill its makers’ own carnal lust, and, from the perspective of someone who has been born again of water and the Spirit, it is a deeply flawed creed. In other words, I want you to realize the fact that even though Jesus took away and blotted out the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, this was left out of the Nicene Creed by its polytheistic creators. To be more concrete, let us hate the sin that these people committed, but not the people themselves. They were following their political ambition when they omitted from the Nicene Creed the Word that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist.
Because of the sin that the makers of the Nicene Creed committed by leaving out from the Truth of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, the Truth of the washing of sins, from then on, the number of people who knew this Truth and were washed from their sins was drastically reduced. From then on until now, everyone born in this world came to know only the crucifixion of Jesus, and consequently believe in the polytheistic religion and suffer spiritual death. For the Protestant believers who now belong to this worldly polytheistic religion, no matter how hard they try to be good Christians, they are ultimately incapable of understanding from the written Word of God that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and therefore it is impossible for them to be delivered from their sins. But, it is not too late. Even at this very moment, they can and ought to be born again of water and the Spirit and receive the remission of sins by believing in the Truth that Jesus bore and washed away their sins once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist.
With the Nicene Creed, Emperor Constantine used Christianity to come up with the most universal religion that could bring unity to his subjects and serve his political purposes. This is the reality of the polytheistic religion that exists today in this world. Omitting from the Nicene Creed the work of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist to take away the sins of this world, Constantine created the most universal and polytheistic religion in this world, and he drew in countless souls all over the world. Through this polytheistic institution, he made himself the head of a world-wide religion, and he successfully achieved his goals by using Christianity.
Today also, Christianity is dominated by religious leaders with such faith. Abiding in the polytheistic religious doctrines of their own making, they have left out from the Nicene Creed the true Word that Jesus washed away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and they are emphasizing only the Cross of Jesus and teaching their congregations to believe in it alone. So, with their polytheistic religion of the Cross, they are bringing spiritual confusion to today’s Christians who believe in Jesus as their Savior. With the most universal religion of their making, they believe that Jesus’ Cross alone constitutes salvation, and they pretend as if they have been saved from all their sins. They are driving everyone all over the world into their polytheistic religion.
That is why all of us must stand against them, placing our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior who took away the sins of this world and washed away our sins once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. Jesus has solved away the problem of all our hearts’ sins with His baptism, and we must believe in this Jesus as our Savior. We must reach our salvation by believing wholeheartedly that our Lord who took away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist is our Savior. In this way, no matter when our Lord returns to this world, we must be ready to stand before God as those who have received the remission of sins by believing in Jesus as our Savior who washed away all the sins of our hearts with the baptism He received from John the Baptist.
Today’s Anti-Christians Must Also Believe in This Truth
Today’s anti-Christians are those who are living their lives of faith without realizing that Jesus took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. These are the people who, influenced by the Nicene Creed and not knowing that Jesus accepted the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, tried to lead their lives of faith by believing in Jesus’ Cross alone, got hurt, and gave up on church life as a result. Because they do not know that the Lord Jesus bore the sins of this world once and for all and washed them away once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, they ended up giving up on their religious lives. This happened because they believed in the Christian doctrines taught by the polytheistic religion.
The Nicene Creed that they believed in is a polytheistic creed that was created in the First Council of Nicaea presided over by Emperor Constantine in AD 325, long before any of today’s Christians were born in this world. Left out of the “Nicene Creed” promulgated at the First Council of Nicaea was the biblical Word that Jesus took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. This creed became the keystone that generated today’s Christianity and the universal church. It also exerted a great deal of influence even on the Reformation by the Protestants, and came to form the core of their beliefs.
Created by polytheistic believers, the Nicene Creed is so entrenched that today’s Christians can neither avoid being influenced by polytheism nor reject it no matter how hard they try. This is because today’s Protestant churches were founded by the reformers of the 16th century, and these reformers had adopted the Nicene Creed as the essential foundation of their faith. It is no exaggeration to say that Christianity today in the 21st century was built by the Protestant reformers under the influence of the Nicene Creed, and that it was built on the doctrines of these reformers’ making. In short, from AD 325 to this very day in 2023, all Christians laid the foundation of their faith and build their churches on the Nicene Creed promulgated at the First Council of Nicaea. That is why churches today find themselves unable to avoid the influence of the Nicene Creed even if they try.
For example, if you were now to go to your church and listen to the sermon preached by your pastor in the hour of worship, you will be listening to a sermon given by someone under the influence of the Nicene Creed. This is because your church leaders who are teaching you and feeding you with spiritual food have already been influenced by the Nicene Creed, and their sermons are grounded in this faith. If some of you have turned into anti-Christians after trying to live your lives of faith in this kind of an environment, this came about because your faith in the Nicene Creed has now been exhausted. And those who have turned into anti-Christians like this are models for those who will follow them and become the same as them. In not-too-distant future, they will come across other former Christians who, influenced by the Nicene Creed and disappointed in their lives of faith, ended up leaving their church.
What, then, must we know and believe about Jesus with our hearts to be saved? You can be born again when you believe that the Jesus who took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist is your Savior. I hope and pray that you would from now on understand that you are saved from all your sins by listening closely to the work of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and believing in it. The Word of salvation that enables everyone to now be washed from his sins is the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and through which He took away the sins of this world once and for all.
In both Testaments of the Bible, it is written in numerous passages that the sins of mankind are washed with water in God’s sight. In the age of the Old Testament, the Bible writes that the water of the basin in the Court of the Tabernacle is what cleansed the body of the priest. Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a leper, but when he heard about the Prophet Elisha from a young girl serving his wife, he went to see him, dipped his body in the Jordan River seven times as Elisha told him, and was healed from his leprosy. (2 Kings 5:1-14). Throughout Leviticus chapter 4, the Bible mentions the “laying on of hands” when speaking of the sacrificial system, saying that sinners must lay their hands on the head of the sacrificial animal set by God and thus pass their sins on to it.
When we turn to the New Testament, we see Jesus taking away all the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. We see the Word of baptism, in other words, telling us that Jesus shouldered all the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist in the Jordan River (Matthew 3:13-17). The Bible shows us that the washing of sins for everyone living today in the 21st century was fulfilled by Jesus by bearing the sins of this world once for all through the work of the baptism He received from John the Baptist. The Lord is now showing us the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of this world and washed them away once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, the representative of mankind, and He is telling us that this Truth is the greatest Truth of the remission of sins.
The Place Where Jesus Shouldered Your Sins Is the Jordan River
It is written in Matthew 3:15-16, “But Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he allowed Him. When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him.” By being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus shouldered the sins of this world, and this means He bore and washed away all your sins and mine for all of us living in this world now. Referring to the righteous work that Jesus carried out by being baptized by John the Baptist and thus shouldering the sins of mankind, going to the Cross, and shedding His precious blood to death, the Bible says that this is “all righteousness” of God. Today, people do not know the fact that Jesus took away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and as a result they are suffering under the weight of their sins even now. It is because you have been under the influence of the makers of the Nicene Creed that you have drifted away from Jesus.
Today’s churchgoers who do not realize that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist are still living bound by their sins. This is because they have been taught to believe in the Nicene Creed of AD 325 while leaving out the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist. Yet, despite this, they do not even know that they have been deceived by the ideas of the Nicene Creed, and that is why they remain sinners spiritually. More and more Christians these days are devoting themselves to their religious lives without realizing that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist, and that He has cleansed away all their present sins once and for all.
Many Christians end up turning into anti-Christians because they believe in Jesus without knowing the Truth, omitted from the Nicene Creed, that Jesus accepted the sins of the world by being baptized by John the Baptist. In other words, it is because the Nicene Creed, which makes it impossible for you to pass your sins to Jesus, came to constitute the foundation of faith for churches in this world. Even as you believe in Jesus as your Savior, you have always lived as a sinner to this day, and yet you have thought mistakenly that all this spiritual problem is your fault. You are living as a sinner always, only to perish, because the Nicene Creed is preventing you from passing all your sins to Jesus by believing that He accepted them through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. This is why the Christian religion today is a religion that believes in just the Cross, all the while distorting the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and through which He took away the sins of this world.
Pastors these days are preaching to their congregations to receive the remission of sins just by believing in the Cross, without knowing the fact that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. So, not only have they failed to be washed from their own sins, but their ministry is also preventing their congregations from obtaining the washing of their sins by placing their faith in the baptism of Jesus. Even though they call themselves pastors and claim to be preaching the Word of God, in reality, they are incapable of preaching Jesus’ work of baptism to their congregations, for they themselves do not know that Jesus took away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist.
These pastors are no more than believers in the religion of the Cross alone, for they do not even know the fact that the Nicene Creed is missing the Truth that Jesus washed away the sins of this world by being baptized by John the Baptist. As a result, they have no detailed knowledge of the reason why Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, and with this ignorance they are now leading their congregations into darkness also. It breaks my heart to see the whole world today is so full of such religious leaders preaching just the Cross of Jesus. I pray to the Lord to instill our hearts with compassion for these people.
In such worldly, religious churches that preach just the Word of the Cross, no one can teach that the Lord took away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and therefore the congregations are also living every day as sinners. Countless church leaders and laypeople are now living a religious life in vain, for they do not know the amazing Truth of salvation. They are just living a religious life with their zeal, oblivious to the fact that Jesus is the Lord who bore the sins of this world though the baptism He received from John the Baptist and saved every sinner in this world once and for all its sins.
Those of us who believe in the Truth that Jesus bore all the sins of this world on His body through the baptism He received from John the Baptist must now preach this gospel throughout the whole world. It is when we fulfill our duties as witnesses that all the people in this world can also come to realize and believe that Jesus accepted all their sins once and for all through His baptism, and to thus receive the remission of sins into their hearts. This is why God’s Church preaches the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist every time we worship our Lord. For Christians whose hearts are sinful and non-Christians alike, everyone must believe in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and always live by this faith.
The Lord is telling us in John chapter 3 that we must “be born again of water and the Spirit.” He is telling us that faith in the Jesus who took away the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist is the faith that enables us to be born again of water and the Spirit. From AD 1 to AD 33, Jesus completed all the work of salvation to deliver all sinners from every sin by bearing the sins of this world through His baptism and shedding His blood on the Cross. Contained in the baptism that the Lord received from John the Baptist is all the righteousness of God, who shouldered and washed away the sins of this world.
The Lord’s work of saving and delivering us from our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist began with the birth of Jesus Christ the Savior in this world, coming to the earth incarnated in the flesh of man through the body of Mary. And at the age of 30, Jesus began His public life by being baptized by John the Baptist and thus bearing the sins of mankind on His body once and for all. The work that Jesus carried out by taking away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and bearing all the condemnation of all our sins in our place, is the real Truth of salvation.
It is written, “For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). The Bible writes that it was fitting for Jesus to shoulder the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. It was in the Lord’s plan of salvation established for mankind even before the foundation of the world for Jesus to cleanse mankind from the sins of this world once and for all with the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and it was also the way to reveal the true God. By placing our faith in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist, we are now able to receive the washing of sins into our hearts and be crucified with Jesus Christ.
That Jesus shouldered the sins of this world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist constitutes the righteousness of God, and it is what has saved His believers. Therefore, it is by being baptized by John the Baptist, dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead again that Jesus has become the Savior of all who believe in this Truth. When we believe in this Truth of salvation with our hearts, this, too, constitutes the righteousness of faith that enables us to reach salvation now in God’s sight. It is by believing in the Word of the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist that we come to have the faith that brings salvation into our hearts.
It is through the baptism He received from John the Baptist that He took away the sins of mankind once and for all. It is because He went to John the Baptist and received baptism from him to bear the sins of mankind that the Lord was condemned for our sins and put to death in our place. Like this, the Lord has now become our Savior by His baptism and blood. Through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, Jesus was able to accept your sins and mine once and for all.
The saints of the Early Church could become our Lord’s disciples on account of their faith, knowing and believing that Jesus went to the Cross and shed His blood because He had shouldered the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. For us to become like the disciples of Jesus now, we, too, must have faith in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist. The disciples of Jesus believed in His baptism, and we ought to also inherit their faith and become Jesus’ disciples to the Lord’s pleasure.
Through our faith in the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood, you and I have now been saved from all the sins of this world. What we must realize here is that we are now able to help others become Jesus’ disciples and follow in His footsteps, for we have been saved from all our sins by believing in Jesus our Savior with our hearts, who took away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. Now that we have been saved by believing wholeheartedly in the Word that Jesus has delivered us from all the sins of this world through His baptism, we are to lead our lives as the Lord’s disciples. By believing in the baptism that the Lord received from John the Baptist, we have not only passed all our sins to the body of Jesus, but we now have the duty to help all those who hear the gospel we are preaching pass all their sins to His body also.
Even though our true faith is not seen in the eyes of the flesh, we have been born again from all our sins by believing in the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed. Now that we believe in the Lord’s righteousness, we have become witnesses testifying this righteousness of the Lord in our everyday lives. Because we have faith in the baptism of the Lord, His blood, and His resurrection from the dead, we can all live an ever more blessed life by this faith in our Lord’s righteousness.
The faith we now have in the resurrection of the Lord, and in the fact that Jesus took away your sins and mine through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, is forever unchanging. We still continue to carry out the Lord’s work by our faith in His righteousness, and our only purpose in life is preaching the Lord’s baptism and resurrection to the best of our abilities, even beyond the limits of our flesh. And now, placing our faith in the written Word of the Lord, we are carrying on with our lives hoping only for the Lord’s return until the day our bodies are transformed to enter His Kingdom. Through our faith in the baptism of our Lord, we can now die on the Cross with Jesus Christ and rise from the dead again with Him.
By believing in the baptism of Jesus Christ, we are to be washed from all our sins, die on the Cross with Him, and rise from the dead again with Him. While living in this world, whenever we pray to the Lord, we can get all our problems solved by trusting in the Lord. By giving us faith in His baptism and blood, the Lord has given us the faith that enables us to be freed from all the sins we commit while living on this earth. By believing in the true Word that Jesus took away the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, we have been saved from all sins.
Enoch, our predecessor of faith, is said to have gone to the Lord without facing death on this earth. As long as I am alive, I will preach this gospel of baptism to everyone throughout the whole world, proclaiming that Jesus took away the sins of this world once and for all through being baptized by John the Baptist. Together with you, I will live by trusting in the baptism of the Lord and His blood until I stand in His presence. As someone who has faith in the baptism and resurrection of Jesus, I believe with every conviction that the most blessed life awaits you and me alike.
When Jesus came to this earth, He said, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working” (John 5:17). And as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4, I believe that it is my work to preach to the entire human race the Word of the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist when He came to this earth. The Lord said that His flesh is the bread of life for mankind. Once, when the disciples bought some bread in a town and offered it to Jesus, the Lord said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know” (John 4:32). For those of us who believe in the Lord’s baptism, the work that Jesus carried out by bearing the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist is our food.
We now have the faith that passed the sins of this world to Jesus through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, but what would happen if we were not to serve the Lord’s work? When we carry out the Lord’s work, we feel satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment from the completion of His work, and we rejoice beyond description thanks to our Lord and the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit in our hearts. The Holy Spirit is pleased by us when we spread the work of salvation that Jesus completed, preaching that He accepted our sins through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. Even though our bodies may be weary, the Holy Spirit brings endless joy into our hearts. Thanks to the work you and I are doing to preach the Word of the baptism through which Jesus bore the sins of this world, and the Word of the Cross, countless souls in this world will be blessed to receive salvation.
With my faith, I give all my thanks to the Lord for taking away our sins once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, rising from the dead again, and blessing us His believers. I hope and pray that you and I will also live by faith like Joseph of Arimathea, rise from the dead with the Lord, and enter His Kingdom to live forever. Hallelujah!
Copyright © 2021 by The New Life Mission