Acts 9:17-18 “And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." (18) Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.”
In the second account quoted above we see the apostle Paul being baptized in water by the disciple Ananias. Paul was saved i.e. baptized into Christ, on the road to Damascus when our Lord appeared to him in a vision. While Paul was fasting and praying after his encounter with the Lord, our Lord sent Ananias to pray for Paul to receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. But Ananias did not stop there, because he then immediately baptised Paul in water as well. And so we see that Paul was baptized in water, only after he was saved. And in Paul’s instance we see that he was baptized in the Holy Spirit before he was baptized in water. The scripture tells us that Paul had been fasting and praying for three days before Ananias got to him (Acts 9:9). And so we see that Paul was only baptised in water three days after he was born-again. The reason for the delay however, was because there was no one physically present who could baptise Paul when he was saved, for he had been saved through his encountering the Lord Jesus in a vision. And so we see that something else can be highlighted from this passage, which is that of the three baptisms, water baptism must be done by another disciple. In other words, one cannot baptize themselves in water. So why is that? As we will see later in this series, water baptism is a physical act symbolising our bodies being buried and our Lord raising our bodies up from the dead. And so just as one who has died is unable to bury themselves or raise themselves up from the dead, so it is that water baptism requires another believer to perform it for us. With regards to the other two baptisms however, it is entirely possible for them to take place without another disciple being present. For both the baptism into Christ and the baptism of the Holy Spirit are spiritual encounters, not physical. For example, Paul was baptized into Christ directly from heaven and the disciples on the day of Pentecost were baptized with the Holy Spirit, also directly from heaven.
Michael E.B. Maher
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