Johns baptism

I had always thought that as well, but found this article by Dr. Thomas....

"....he selected his apostles from those who “justified God in being baptised with John’s baptism.” There is no other conclusion open to us. It is this or none at all.

But one may say, were the apostles not afterwards re-baptised in the name of Jesus, and if so, who immersed them? No, they were clean without it. Their case was peculiar, and cannot occur again. Jesus did not baptise in his own name. Indeed there was no baptising into any name before Pentecost. There could be none; for although jesus had power on earth to forgive sins, his name had not acquired a sin-remitting efficacy, because he had then as yet neither died nor risen again. John’s baptism was the immersion of believers into repentance for remission of sins; so was the baptism Jesus preached. The difference existing between them was in that believed by the disciples of John and of Jesus. Both classes believed in the Hope of Israel; John’s, however, expected the coming of Messiah to put the nation in possession of its hope; while the disciples of Jesus believed that he was already come, and that Jesus was he.

....Thus by reasoning on the testimony we come to the full assurance that the apostles were baptized of John, and cleansed by Jesus with water and the word. He exhorted them to wash one another’s feet, as a memorial, doubtless, of their being shod, and of the humility he exemplified for their imitation. Such a feet-washing was never before or since, nor will ever be again. The lesson inculcated remains in all its force. Jehovah’s future king of the world washing the feet of the thief, whom he knew, within two days, would sell him to his enemies that they might put him to death! No meekness and humility ever exceeded this."

1880 The Christadelphian: p435

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

1.—The believers of Acts 19:4, though “baptised unto John’s baptism,” required baptism into Christ, because the time had come for baptism into Christ to be required. The work of God had advanced a stage since the preaching of John, of which these persons were unaware; and just as it was necessary for those who had submitted to the divine institution of circumcision to conform to the new divine institution of baptism when they became aware of it, so those who had submitted to John’s baptism were required to submit to baptism into Christ when the name of Christ, as a saving institution, had been fully developed by death, resurrection and ascension. Christ was not preached in this way till Christ’s departure.
2.—(“Jesus made and baptised more disciples than John”). Those so baptised would not be John’s disciples; for the baptism administered by Jesus during his ministry (by the instrumentality of the twelve) was identical with John’s as regarded its object. The people were by both called upon to repent in prospect of the Kingdom of God, and to be baptised for the remission of sins. It was only after the resurrection of Christ that his name was placed in the institution in a way that led to the complete eclipse of John’s baptism. The subjects of the baptism practised by the disciples of Christ would be, as our correspondent suggests, “the mass of Israel in that wicked generation.” As for the apostles themselves (who had been baptised with John’s baptism), we have no information that they were re-immersed on becoming associated with Christ. Christ chose them on the basis of John’s baptism, to which he himself had submitted. It was a time of transition. His direct choice of them (within the circle of an obedience which they and he had rendered to what God had enjoined through John) might lead him to dispense with the re-immersion which Paul deemed necessary for the Ephesian twelve (Acts 19.). Possibly, the feet-washing at his last meeting with them, before he suffered, had a special significance in this connection. He seems to intimate that it was essential for their continued connection with him (John 13:8). It may have been intended to answer the purpose for them that was served by re-immersion in the case of the Ephesian disciples. The whole subject is greatly simplified by remembering the authority of Christ as Lord and Master, to make such appointments as he pleased

1886 The Christadelphian p35