#17 The visible and invisible aspects of baptism

From Meditations on the Past, Present, and Future, by G. M. Mangold

This cleansing in the blood of Christ is fulfilled upon the believer in his baptism (First John 5 verses 7 through 8) wherein he receives according to soul, body and spirit the threefold testimony of God through blood, water and spirit, unto his sanctification. In this covenant of a good conscience toward God the divine and invisible element operates on the earthy and visible, because the two become united through faith and God’s word; the water being the visible sign of baptism, but the blood and the Spirit of Christ the invisible; and even as the water of baptism affects man’s body unto his cleansing in order to become a clean and holy vessel, so also does the blood of Christ affect the soul unto its cleansing from sin, and the Spirit of Christ operates upon the spirit of man unto his sanctification and enlightenment (Titus 3 verses 4 through 7) so that through this renewing man can be again restored to the image of God, in righteousness and holiness of truth. The baptism into the death of Christ (Romans 6; Colossians 2) is the putting off of the body of sin in the flesh and the burial of the old man (Galatians 3 verse 27), while the believer puts on Christ, and Christ himself, with invisible hand cleanses the soul and washes it (off) in His blood as the believer is immersed in water. For He does not come with water only, as His forerunner John, but with water and blood, the Spirit bearing witness, because the Spirit is truth.