Most of the Mid Acts believers say that submitting to the rite of water baptism was a requirement for salvation for the so-called "kingdom saints".
They use the following verse to attempt to prove their idea:
"And He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned " (Mk.16:15-16;NASB).
This "salvation" spoken of here is in regard to "temporal" or "physical" salvation, and not eternal salvation.
The Jews who were baptized by John the Baptist realized the the "wrath" from which they were being saved from is in regard to the "wrath" that will happen during the "Day of the Lord":
"But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Mt.3:7).
This "wrath" refers to a harvest, the same harvest which will take place on the earth when the Lord Jesus returns to bring judgment on the sin cursed world, as witnessed by the words of John the Baptist just five verses later:
"Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire " (Mt.3:12).
This is in reference to the same harvest which the Apostle John saw in a vision:
"And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle...And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped " (Rev.14:14,16).
John the Baptist came in the "spirit and power" of Elijah, and we can see that the coming of Elijah was in regard to "the day of the Lord":
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse " (Mal.4:5-6).
On the same day that Peter told the children of Israel to repent and be baptized he also referred to the "day of the Lord":
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come: And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved " (Acts2:21).
Here Peter is quoting the following verse,a verse that demonstrates that the "salvation" of which he spoke was in regard to being "delivered" from the temporal judgment on the "day of the Lord":
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call " (Joel 2:31-32).
The Jews would understand the following about "the day of the Lord":
"Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing. And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the LORD. Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light " (Amos 5:16-18).
So when verses speak of "salvation" in regard to water baptism the reference is to "temporal" salvation and not "eternal" salvation.
Zane C. Hodges writes that "When the Greek translation of the Old Testament is considered along with the Greek New Testament, it can safely be said that the most common meaning of the word "salvation" (soteria) in the Greek Bible is the one which refers to God's deliverance of His people from their trials and hardships...First century Christians, therefore, were every bit as likely to understand a reference to 'salvation' in this sense as they were to understand it in the sense of 'escaping from hell'. New Testament interpreters forget this fact very frequently. In place of careful consideration about the sense which the term 'salvation' has in any given context, there is a kind of interpretive "reflex action" that automatically equates the word with final salvation from hell. This uncritical treatment of many New Testament passages has led to almost boundless confusion at both the expository and doctrinal levels" (Hodges, The Gospel Under Seige, Chapter 7).
In His grace,
Jerry
