Can an unsaved person participate in the 1 Corinthians 12 baptism?
No, a lost person can have no part in the 1 Corinthians 12 baptism. This is the only valid baptism for this age of grace, one that human hands cannot touch. In contrast to water baptism, where a person's salvation cannot be certain, this baptism excludes the unsaved.
Les explains that in 1 Corinthians 12 there is the only valid baptism for this age of grace, and it is a baptism that human hands cannot touch. A lost person can have no part in it. He contrasts this with water baptism, where we can never be sure as to a person's salvation. Les recalls being brought up in a congregation that thoroughly examined candidates for baptism, but he later concluded that no group of men, pastors, or ecclesiastics can truly determine a person's salvation. We can hear a testimony and draw human conclusions, but we cannot look on the heart—only God can. He notes that Scripture says, 'judge not,' and that we cannot judge whether a person is a child of God. Only God knows.
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.