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G.W. North
George Walter North (1913 - 2003). British evangelist, author, and founder of New Covenant fellowships, born in Bethnal Green, London, England. Converted at 15 during a 1928 tent meeting, he trained at Elim Bible College and began preaching in Kent. Ordained in the Elim Pentecostal Church, he pastored in Kent and Bradford, later leading a revivalist ministry in Liverpool during the 1960s. By 1968, he established house fellowships in England, emphasizing one baptism in the Holy Spirit, detailed in his book One Baptism (1971). North traveled globally, preaching in Malawi, Australia, and the U.S., impacting thousands with his focus on heart purity and New Creation theology. Married with one daughter, Judith Raistrick, who chronicled his life in The Story of G.W. North, he ministered into his 80s. His sermons, available at gwnorth.net, stress spiritual transformation over institutional religion, influencing Pentecostal and charismatic movements worldwide.
Sermon Summary
G.W. North explores 'The Mystery of Faith' by illustrating the profound connection between baptism and communion, emphasizing that water symbolizes the Holy Spirit while bread and wine represent the body and blood of Christ. He explains that baptism signifies forgiveness, cleansing, and regeneration, while communion serves as a personal testimony of this transformation. North asserts that these two ordinances are inseparable, reflecting the essential elements of spirit, body, and blood necessary for life. Together, they encapsulate the mystery of faith, ordained by the Lord to convey a complete and coherent doctrine. The relationship between baptism and communion is essential, as each complements the other in the believer's spiritual journey.
The Mystery of Faith
Water is the element in which the Baptism is symbolised; it represents the Holy Spirit. The experience of baptism betokens the powerful application of forgiveness, cleansing, death and resurrection to the believer, namely regeneration. Bread and wine are the elements by which the Communion is represented. Participation in the act of communion is a personal testimony that the Baptism has taken place, and that the participant is eating and drinking Christ after the Spirit. As truly as the water of baptism represents the Spirit of God, the bread and wine of communion symbolise the body and blood of Christ. In these three, spirit, body and blood, (or if we slightly rearrange the order into one more readily suited to our minds, namely body, blood and spirit) we have the three basic elements without which life cannot exist. Herein then lies the wisdom of the Lord in combining baptism with communion; in reality they are as indivisible as are body, blood and spirit. By the Baptism we are baptised into and made members of the body of Christ (who is) in the Spirit; by the Communion we live in that body which is and can only be in the Spirit. The elements and enactments of these two ordinances set forth in proper relationship the mystery of the faith in clearest symbolism, and this is the reason why the Lord ordained them. The doctrine of their combined typical meaning is so unmistakably complete in itself that nothing need be added to it or them. They are as logically necessary to each other as are two parts of one whole, each of which needs the other to complete it.
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George Walter North (1913 - 2003). British evangelist, author, and founder of New Covenant fellowships, born in Bethnal Green, London, England. Converted at 15 during a 1928 tent meeting, he trained at Elim Bible College and began preaching in Kent. Ordained in the Elim Pentecostal Church, he pastored in Kent and Bradford, later leading a revivalist ministry in Liverpool during the 1960s. By 1968, he established house fellowships in England, emphasizing one baptism in the Holy Spirit, detailed in his book One Baptism (1971). North traveled globally, preaching in Malawi, Australia, and the U.S., impacting thousands with his focus on heart purity and New Creation theology. Married with one daughter, Judith Raistrick, who chronicled his life in The Story of G.W. North, he ministered into his 80s. His sermons, available at gwnorth.net, stress spiritual transformation over institutional religion, influencing Pentecostal and charismatic movements worldwide.