This birth from above; this birth by water and the Spirit; and this baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire are all three plainly one and the same divine operation and there is no water baptism either mentioned or implied:  Yet man who is prone to substitute the letter which killeth for the spirit which giveth life, long ago perverted this testimony of Christ to Nicodemus by construing “born” to mean “baptized” and thus by changing one Scripture word he would close the kingdom of God against his fellow man who would not come to him and be baptized with water.[152]

But we trace through history from the beginning a seed or remnant who constantly protested against such sacramentalism and by legions sealed their testimonies with martyr’s blood.[153]

With the Bible, which was long forbidden, now open to all, how can we of this enlightened day still adhere to such idle dogma or ever quote these words of Christ to Nicodemus as authority for any water baptism?[154] By this whole context and by all of Christ’s relevant sayings upon the Mount and elsewhere he had no allusion to water baptism.  Had he meant baptized he would have said baptized and not born.

Just as Christ said:  We must surely be born of water and the Spirit and we must just as surely be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire, but we shall no more be born of material water than we shall be baptized with material fire.[155]

Neither is Christ’s fan material nor his axe at the root of the tree, nor are the waters which he said should flow from the bodies of believers, nor the waters which he promised should be in them a well of living water springing up unto everlasting life;[156] nor the living fountains of water, where God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes.  Neither shall we be tried and refined literally as gold and silver; nor purged literally as a fuller purges with material soap.[157]

These fires, fountains, births, baptisms, waters, &c., are all spiritual.  The purifications are symbols of our spiritual regeneration and preparation for the kingdom of God which the unrighteous shall neither inherit nor enter.[158]

Like those Corinthians we must be washed, sanctified and justified in the name or power of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit of our God; be saved by the washing of regeneration and the renewings of the Holy Spirit shed upon us abundantly by Jesus Christ our Saviour.[159]

We must be circumcised and crucified as well as washed and baptized.

We must be crucified upon a cross which we may often carry but with outward eyes can never see.  We must be circumcised in Christ and buried with him in baptism.  We must be baptized into Christ.  Put on Christ.  We must be circumcised of heart in the Spirit by the circumcision of Christ.[160]

As instructed by Scripture we accept this circumcision without hands, and this baptism and washing without water, and do most firmly believe that our Saviour never commanded nor intended any other.[161]