QUES. 5.-Please explain Acts 22:16, " Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins." Can anything but the blood of Jesus Christ wash away our sins?

ANS.-Nothing can really wash away sins-for eternity and before God-but the precious blood of Christ. But baptism is a figure of salvation through the death of Christ, and therefore the language of the verse can be used. Where there was real faith there was real forgiveness, otherwise there was the mere outward discipleship of which baptism was the badge. The fol-lowing correspondence on the subject of baptism is added as famishing further remarks upon this subject.

Your question as to " baptism " takes us into a large field, although if all were ready to accept the plain inferences of Scripture the task of explaining it would be an easy one. There are five aspects of baptism in a general sense, in their order-viz:Repentance (Matt. 3:) performed by John the Baptist; the Holy Ghost (Matt. 3:11; Acts 2:) ; Water (Mark 16:; Acts 2:; Rom. 6:; Eph. 4:etc); the cloud, and the sea (1 Cor. 10:), and that which related especially to the Lord (Luke 12:50). But as water-baptism is mainly before us, we will keep to that one point. Christian baptism was not instituted until after Christ had risen from the dead, when it became the official mode of entrance into the Kingdom. (See Acts 2:41.) Peter was the first one to use it together with the key of knowledge to the Jews, and in Acts 10:he uses it to the Gentiles. Now one reason why we find in the Acts of the apostles that every believer was called upon to be baptized was, because no one had hitherto been baptized in (or to) the Name of the Trinity or in (or to) the Name of Jesus; those who had been baptized prior to that had simply been baptized unto John's baptism of repentance, but in Ephesus they had not heard whether the Holy Ghost that had been promised, (see Matt, 3:) "had yet come," (Acts 19:2, Rev. Ver.).

What does baptism of the believer typify? Let the Word tell us:in Rom. 6:3, we learn that Christians are baptized unto Christ Jesus (J. N. D.) consequently unto His death. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto His death, just as in the same figure we say that we died on the Cross, we rose again; or to simplify it, our going under the water refers to His death and burial and our identification with Him in it, just as the grave shut Him out from the world, for the last the world saw of Him, was when He was on the cross-so, as Christians when we became that, we were practically severed from the world-our old man, what we were in Adam was, in God's mind, also buried out of sight, so that what linked us to the world and the first Adam has been annulled. Baptism has absolutely nothing to do with the work of salvation, but is the confession of Christ's death as our own, just as His resurrection is the ground of our justification. (Rom. 4:25.) The bread and the wine surely did not save us but speak to us of a Saviour that did. If baptism were a saving ordinance, then men could save themselves just whenever they chose, surely a false impression. No! His work and His alone did that. (1 Pet. 2:24.) Baptism then is my confession to all, of my faith in Christ who died for my sins, and typifies my identification with Him in that death-just as I eat the bread and drink the wine to show His death. It is but a figure-Noah was saved by or through the water, 1:e. the water that was judgment to the world was what bore him away in safety in the Ark, so we-for the water of baptism typifies death, or rather is to me the grave of Christ. Christ passed through death and is risen. We pass through death in baptism, in figure, but it was the Ark that rode the waters of judgement and bare Noah in it. So now Christ having passed through death has atoned for our sins, and we also passing through it in spirit (surely not literally) leave all our sins there (in death) just as Christ really did for us-as another has said, "We pass through death in spirit, and in figure by baptism."Trusting that this may make the subject a little clearer to you,

Your affect, bro., F. J. E.

QUES. 6.-What has been the employment of our Lord since "He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God" (Mk. xvi, 19). Is He still seated there?

ANS.-"Whom the heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all things " (Acts 3:21). " Sit on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool" (Heb. 1:13). "He ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Heb. 7. 25). These and similar scriptures show that our Lord will remain upon the throne till His enemies are put under Him, till He sets up His Kingdom. During this time He is engaged in the blessed and needful work of intercession for His people, and fulfilling His work as Head of His Church.