THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JESUS CHRIST

(Today's “News & Views” is the expansion of “A Thursday Morning Observation” I posted on Facebook back on August 6, 2026).

There are those who say that we should not read the New Testament as if it were a constitution, a blueprint, or a pattern to be adhered to in all respects. They think it should be read with the leeway to change, adjust, and adapt it to contemporary culture and the constant changes that occur in society.

Well, how about this: Since it is a testament, a will, why not read it as such? No one has the right to change another person's will. The New Testament is the last will and testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Once He had died and sealed it with His blood (Matthew 26:28), He has not modified it in the least iota or attached any codicils to it, and no one else has the authority to do so.

During His personal ministry, Christ was modeling and teaching the principles of His will (Acts 1:1). As noted above, at His death His unchangeable will was sealed by His blood (Matthew 26:28). “And for this reason He is the mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant (the Old Testament, hf), that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives” (Hebrews 9:15-17).

After His death and resurrection, Christ gave a synopsis of His will to His apostles. He said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). The apostles were appointed by Christ to be the executors of His will under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Shortly before His ascension back to heaven Christ appeared to His apostles for the last time and said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. And behold I send the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:46-49). Notice that it was necessary for Christ to suffer (die) and to rise from the dead before repentance and remission of sins under His last will and testament could be preached in His name (by His authority) to all nations, and it was to all begin at Jerusalem!

Christ's will was first “read” in Jerusalem on the first day of Pentecost following His death, burial, and resurrection as we see in Acts 2. Throughout the remainder of the book of Acts we observe that will continuing to be declared. What the New Testament said when it was put in place 2000 years ago it still says. Christ's will sets forth conditions, blessings, and benefits, consequences of failure to comply with it, as well as for tampering with it (modifying it). What it originally said about how to be saved from sin and become a child of God it still says. What it originally said about how to receive the eternal inheritance of heaven it still says. Christ has not changed His will in the least, and no man or woman has the right to do so.

How people were saved before the inauguration of the New Testament, including those whom Christ saved during His personal ministry (e.g., the thief on the cross and various others), has no bearing on how people are saved after the last will and testament of Christ came into effect. While on earth Christ had power to forgive sins on whatever conditions He chose (Matthew 9:1-6). But after the New Testament came into effect all sins are remitted on the conditions stipulated in His last will. “He takes away the first (the Old Testament) that He may establish the second (the New Testament). By that will (the second, the New) we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:9-10). Since the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ, people are saved on the basis of the New Testament, not on the basis of the Old Testament.

Let us not look to the Old Testament (under which Christ Himself lived and died) for the the last will and testament of Christ. It will not be found there. We are saved today by complying with the stipulations of Christ's last will and adhering to its conditions in order to receive our eternal inheritance. The book of Acts is a divinely inspired record of how the will of Christ was presented to mankind and how people complied with the conditions of that will in order to become “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:17). At least nine cases of how people are saved under the last will and testament of Christ are found in Acts: the people on Pentecost (Acts 2), the Samaritans (Acts 8:1-13), the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40), Saul of Tarsus (who became the apostle Paul) (Acts 9, 22, 26), Cornelius and his household (Acts 10), Lydia and her household (Acts 16:11-15), the Philippian jailer and his household (Acts 16:25-34), the Corinthians (Acts 18:1-8), and about twelve men in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-12). It is highly presumptuous for anyone to think that Christ will save people on any other basis! To plead God's mercy and grace for salvation on any conditions other than those clearly stated in His last will is to fly in the face of the Lord's will as set forth in “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

If we want to be saved from our sins today and obtain the hope and promise of eternal life in heaven, we must do what people did in the book of Acts to be saved. Certainly we need to read, study, absorb, preach, and teach what Christ did and taught in the four gospel records. In them He was setting forth the soul-saving principles of His last will and testament. But, it is in Acts that we find His last will and testament being proclaimed. It is then “fleshed out” in the rest of the New Testament. The part of the New Testament that comes after the four gospels needs a lot of reading, study, teaching, and preaching today. Sadly, the denominational world, to say nothing of the secular world around us, seems to know little about the last twenty-three books of the New Testament, the last will and testament of Jesus Christ.

Hugh Fulford

 

BAPTISTS AND BAPTISM

In the last edition of “Hugh's News & Views” we set forth the Lord's way of salvation as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. We said much about baptism because the Bible says much about baptism and the part it plays in salvation from sin. In spite of the clarity with which the Lord and His apostles spoke with regard to baptism it is still often claimed that baptism has nothing to do with one's salvation from sin.

In 1890, Edward T. Hiscox, a Baptist theologian, produced a Standard Manual for Baptist Churches. In it he said: "It is most likely that in the apostolic age when there was but 'one Lord, one faith, and one baptism,' and no different denominations existed, the baptism of a convert by that very act, constituted him a member of the church, and at once endowed him with all the rights and privileges of full membership. In that sense, 'baptism was the door into the church.' Now it is different (emphasis mine, hf); and while the churches are desirous of receiving members, they are wary and cautious that they do not receive unworthy persons" (Page 22).

I bought that book and read that statement over seventy years ago when I was a junior in high school. I wondered then and I still wonder why, by the author's own admission, things were one way in the age of the apostles, including the purpose of baptism, but now they are different! Why are they different? Who made them different? Who had the authority to make them different?

I am aware that there are many kinds of Baptists and that they all do not believe and teach the same thing. However, most Baptists of my acquaintance do not view baptism as being essential to salvation from one's alien sins (sins committed before becoming a child of God). They see it as a testimony and witness of their commitment to follow Christ (sometimes expressed as an outward sign of an inward grace, or some variation thereof), but they believe that one is saved by faith alone, before and without baptism. If this is a misrepresentation of their teaching and belief, I will be pleased to be corrected. (Note: Nothing said here is intended as a personal attack on Baptists. We are simply looking at a contrast between Baptist doctrine and practice and what the New Testament teaches concerning salvation from sin).

It is sometimes said, “We are saved by grace through faith, not of works. Baptism is a work, therefore it has nothing to do with our salvation.” It is certainly true that we are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). It is also true that we are not saved by human works of meritorious righteousness (Ephesians 2:10). But faith without works is dead (James 2:20, 24, 26). Someone says, “But James was talking about works that a saved person, one who is already a Christian, does.” So, let me ask, “Will faith only save an alien sinner but it will not save a Christian?”

The truth of scripture is that the alien sinner must render obedience to the gospel to be saved and such obedience involves certain works of righteousness (works which God Himself ordained). At the household of Cornelius, Peter affirmed: “But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him” (Acts 10:35). Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21) (Emphasis mine in both quotations, hf). According to Christ, salvation involves doing something. What is that “something”? Christ is the “author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (Hebrews 5:9).

Salvation is “by grace through faith,” but significantly faith itself is said to be a work. Jesus said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (John 6:29). Repentance is also a work that accountable men and women must do in order to be saved (Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 17:30). Salvation by grace through faith does not remove the obligation to repent of one's sins, neither does it remove the need to believe, nor the necessity of a person being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the remission of sins! (Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 2:38). The Lord told Saul of Tarsus that in the city of Damascus he would be told what he must do (emphasis mine, hf). What was Saul told to do? Read it for yourself: “And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). Salvation by grace through faith does not remove the necessity of baptism from God's way of salvation, any more than it removes the necessity of faith and repentance!

Baptism is a divine act in which God performs spiritual surgery (circumcision) on the heart “by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh” (Colossians 2:11). This “surgery” takes place when one is “buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working (operation, KJV) of God, who has raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12). I remember quite vividly as a boy hearing Willard Willis, an outstanding gospel preacher, say, “When we are baptized, God performs an 'operation' on us in which the sins of the flesh are cut away and removed.” The Great Physician tells us that we must have this “surgery” (Mark 16:16). The “operation” is absolutely necessary, otherwise the “cancer” of sin will not be removed from our lives! Have you submitted to this surgery by the Great Physician?

Having set forth the above, it is refreshing to know that some in the denominational world are coming to have a more biblical view and understanding of the place of baptism in the Lord's way of salvation. Several years ago, I wrote a “News & Views” in which I referenced Titus 3:5: “...not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” I received a note from my good friend and fellow preacher Sellers Crain in which he said:

“On the Titus 3:5 passage, when I was going to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, Dr. Douglas Moo was one of my professors. He is considered to be one of the premier NT scholars in the country. He wrote a Commentary on Romans that is about 1200 pages and a NIV Application Commentary on Romans about 500 pages. He was my teacher on the Pastoral Epistles, and he said on Titus 3:5, 'Fellows, I think that applies to baptism, and I think there is more to baptism than we are willing to admit.' I said, 'I am willing to admit it,' and he allowed me all the time I wanted to explain what I believe the Bible teaches, after which he said, 'Fellows, that is biblical.' When I read his NIV commentary in the excursus on Romans 6, he said he was baptized for the remission of sins. He said, 'Baptism is the point at which we come into Christ and the point at which our sins are forgiven.'”

Let us continue to preach and practice the truth on baptism! Let us continue to press the offensive on going back to the New Testament and just being the church we read of there—in doctrine, practice, and life! No one has the right to make things any different from what they were in the apostolic age (Galatians 1:6-9; Revelation 22:18-19).

Hugh Fulford