SS: Infant Baptism

Well, we'll just go ahead and get started. I am glad that every one of you is here today, because I have something for each one of you. I think this what we're going to look at is applicable to each one of you.

So you just want to hang on because we'll get there kind of thing. So we're going to look at infant baptism circumcision in the Bible. Now, you might think, why on earth are we going to talk about infant baptism? Because we already know that's not what we do.

Baptist church, that's not something that I really need to convince you on, I would suppose. And yet we're going to look at a particular passage of scripture that talks about baptism. But it's a passage of scripture that not many Baptists really want to get too far in, because it also mentions circumcision.

And this passage is used by many to justify infant baptism. But actually, I think when understood in its proper context and proper meaning, it's a wonderful passage to use about baptism, and it actually teaches us about an aspect of baptism that probably perhaps we need to be emphasized just as much as the other parts about baptism are. Baptism is I've got a definition of it, so I'm not going to say the whole thing quite right, but baptism is identification with a death, burial and resurrection of Christ, but it actually expands on that much better.

So we can understand what does it mean we're an identification with a death barrel and resurrection of Christ. And why is that important? Okay, but there is something, no matter what your age is, and I see a young person or two back there, no matter what your age is, there's something here for you. So keep that in mind.

I'll be a little bit while before we get there. All right, let's start with prayer. Thank you, Father, for opportunity.

We have to just study Your word and look at various passages of Scripture that will be helpful to us to understand an aspect or to clarify and emphasize an aspect of baptism that you intend for us to know about. And for this, we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

Now, if you're talking about baptism, romans six is a great passage of Scripture. All throughout the Gospels, you can see people getting baptized and even in the Book of Acts as well. So those passages give us good examples of how baptism should be done.

And like I said, I don't think there's going to be a real big question in our mind about the fact that baptism should be done by believers and that there's also a passage in one Peter three that is a little bit tricky, too. But there's also one other passage, and that's what we're going to look at here. But first of all, what do I do? I'm not as technical as many people are.

Slide it down. Okay, there you go. Problems with infant baptism, I push and I turn at the same time.

That gives me two things to do, and that's not easy for me. But anyway, infant baptism is not scriptural. And this is why I'm looking at it from an aspect of the passage that we're going to look at, is used as the number one passage to justify infant baptism, especially in the baptism circumcision analogy.

And yet I'm saying that it's not scriptural at all. Infant baptism displays a strong reliance on a certain theological system, actually several theological systems and tradition than on God's word. And that's a problem because and by the way, that's really easy for us to fall into, too, not necessarily in this particular application, but we need to be careful about relying too much on tradition, too, and we have to always guard against that.

But certainly it's true of Reformed and Presbyterian people who believe in a covenant theology. But also, I had a student that told me once that in her Lutheran church, she was told that the fact that she should be baptized because of circumcision and this is the passage that does that. Of course, in the Lutheran tradition, they're much more strong on baptism.

Baptism is the time when you're justified. Baptism is the act of regeneration because you're baptized, your sins are forgiven. And you think, wait a minute, Martin, what happened to justification by faith? So anyway, kind of it's hard to reconcile that anyway, infant baptism creates an unbiblical church that is unsafe people as members.

It was never God's intention for his church, for unsafe people to be part of the church. And as far as membership in the church, and yet that's what you have, because when you're baptized, that's your entrance into the church. And since the person doesn't actually have any say in the matter because they're done as a baby, so they have to have another ceremony to show that a person actually wants to be a member of the church when they get a little older.

Does anybody know what that ceremony is called? Anybody know what's that? Confirmation. That's right. My wife comes from a Catholic country, so they have Confirmation, but also so do many other different churches.

But why do they have that? Well, because Confirmation is a time when the person says, I want to go ahead and be a part of know and be a Christian and whatever. Apparently, I mean, it's kind of more of a traditional thing anyway. But the point is that that's actually what baptism is supposed to do.

Baptism is supposed to show, hey, I want to be a follower of Christ. I want people to know about me being a follower of Christ. I want to act upon the fact that I'm a follower of Christ.

And so there's a problem with that when you have to make up a ceremony that takes the place of a biblical one. So I think there's challenges there infant baptism diminishes justification by faith? Certainly very much so in the Lutheran tradition. But also you would have I remember growing up hearing evangelists and others talk about the fact that you're not saved just because your mom and dad are Christians.

And I thought, okay, I'm not saved because my mom and dad are Christians. But that is so compelling for other people because they would say, you're in the covenant community, your mom and dad's a Christian, you're a Christian, too. And with the infant baptism, it just kind of slides right in there, and people can say, why am I a Christian? Well, I got baptized as a baby, and my parents are Christians.

I've always been a Christian, at least since I was two or three or months old or whatever it would be. But anyway, infant baptism destroys the truth of baptism and following and identifying with Christ the public profession of faith. And that's why they've had to invent a new ceremony.

Now, that's not a very it's not recent. I mean, confirmation goes back thousand, 500, 600 years. But they had to come up with that because they've already kind of missed the public profession because they don't baptize a person who has believed first.

A baby can't really believe first, so that they kind of get the order wrong there. So anyway, infant baptism gives a false sense of security, of salvation. And again, you'll hear people say, you were baptized.

Now, you may not feel saved today, you may not feel saved tomorrow, maybe you have something go wrong, but you can trust your baptism. You're baptizing your savior? That's more of a Lutheran flavor there. But you should trust your baptism because it happened, and you can know that it happened, and it's not based on your feelings or anything.

But again, that's the wrong order, and it's not what Christ intends for us to be pictured there. Infant baptism turns the ordinance of baptism into a sacrament. So in the sense that now God is doing something, god is placing that baby into the covenant of faith or placing or performing justification or regeneration on that baby, depending on which faith tradition you're following.

But anyway, so now God's at work. When we say that baptism is an ordinance, we mean that we are doing something God wants us to do. Why? Because God already did the work.

He already sent his son to die on the cross for our sins. And we're just acknowledging that we've believed, we've trusted in Christ to forgive us of our sins, and we put our trust for our salvation in the fact that Christ died on the cross for our sins, not because we were baptized. So it's a response to us.

But when God is active, okay, he's like in the Lord's Supper, he's forgiving sins or he's cleansing or he's infusing someone with grace or in baptism, he's justifying them or something like that. That makes it a sacrament that makes it that God is active and that the priest or the shaman or the witch doctor or whatever, the holy man is manipulating the elements to get the gods to do what we want. And that's more the sacramental flavor that you see in some.

Then, lastly, baptism violates the regulative principle, which doesn't mean a whole lot to me, and maybe not to you either, but in, say, the Reformed or the Presbyterian tradition, they would say anything that's not specifically stated in the Bible, we should not do. Now, Martin Luther was not that way. Anything that's not prohibited in the Scriptures, we can do.

So it doesn't say anything against candles. We can have candles, or it doesn't say anything against incense. We can have incidents.

Whereas on the other side of the Reformation, in the Reform tradition, they would say, if it doesn't say to do it, we don't do it. And that's why Zwingli, interestingly enough, locked the organ in the Zurich Munster, the cathedral there, and it stayed locked until 1973. It didn't say that you have to have an organ, so they locked it for several centuries.

So anyway, that's example of but since infant baptism is nowhere commanded in scriptures, I mean, this is the principle that they have that they say they go by, it really doesn't fit anyway, there's a theology to support it. Yes, and anybody can make up a theology that's consistent and all the rest. The question is, does it reflect the Scriptures? Is it based on the Bible? And that's key.

So I just want to get in this here. All right? I want to talk about the baptism circumcision analogy. And the analogy is from physical circumcision and water baptism.

It has to be these two things. Physical circumcision, which, I mean, they're saying that because the Old Testament people of God circumcised their babies without them knowing why or anything like that, then baptism is justification for us to baptize our babies, even though our babies don't know anything about it, which doesn't explain why they baptize female babies. But anyway, this just pointing that out.

But anyway, so physical circumcision involves a knife. It involves cutting, okay? And water baptism, I'm talking about literal water baptism, whether that's an immersion there or that would be a Greek Orthodox one, they actually take the whole baby and dip the whole baby under the water three times really fast. And what's really interesting about that, when you watch the parents, because they're so especially the mothers when they're doing that, because they're all so happy when the baby's there and they're getting baptized.

But the first time that baby goes under the water, you can see the look of horror on her face, because that's my baby here. And they do it really fast. One, two, three.

So that's what they do. And I'll tell you, those diapers can get heavy once they're underneath there. I'm just saying, I know that I've experienced that with my daughter.

We didn't baptize her, but boy, she got in the bathtub once when she shouldn't have and boy, that thing and of course they're slippery. Anyway, this is the analogy. It's physical circumcision, a real life cutting and water baptism, okay? That's really key for us to understand because we know we have a spirit baptism, too.

But I'm talking about this is what the analogy here would be a more sprinkling situation. So the most significant Old Testament or New Testament passage, I don't know if you've can you see that I don't think it's a real phone, but anyway, it is a real baby. So it's Colossians chapter 211 through twelve.

And I think sometimes us as Baptists, we want to shy away from this passage because it mentions baptism and it mentions circumcision and we think, oh, wait a minute, that's what the justification for others are. And we've missed the whole point, a very important point of what this passage is all about, how it can inform us about our baptism. And that's too bad.

That's the why here. Why is this the most significant baptism passage for those who believe in infant baptism? Because it's the only passage in the New Testament that mentions both circumcision and baptism. And if you look at the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Synod of Dort and those kind of older confessions that the reformed use, they'll have lots of passages that mention baptism.

Some of them mention circumcision, some of them doesn't mention either one, but they're used as justification of infant baptism, especially the Westminster Confession of faith. And yet there's only one of them that mentions both. And so they think this is their trump card.

But let's take a look at what that passage says. Says in Colossians, chapter two in whom ye also are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ buried with him in baptism where also you are raised with him through the faith through the faith of the operation of God, which hath raised him from the dead. And you being dead in your sins and uncircumcision and flesh has he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses.

I think the key points I'm wanting to point out here is if this is a physical circumcision because remember, that's what the analogy is. They're taking their analogy all the way back to Genesis 17. Genesis 17 is with the initiation of circumcision that involved a knife, a real cutting, okay? But look at what kind of circumcision is this? If you have a knife, you're going to need to use what, your hands? But it specifically says here a circumcision made without hands.

What kind of circumcision is that? I want to answer that question, okay? Because that's a really key. And then buried with him in baptism. Here's the section here where it connects baptism and circumcision, wherein you also are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God.

How does a baby experience faith in the operation of God? They don't know anything about it. They're either a little bit irritated because they get some cold water sprinkled on their forehead or they get really upset. In the Greek Orthodox tradition when they're getting immersed.

Several times I've got one picture of a baby. His hands are on both sides of the thing and his feet are on the other side, and he doesn't want to go down anyway. But anyway, something is unusual here.

But again, in some Reform, people say, well, that's obviously some sort of spiritual thing. No, it's not. It has to be a physical circumcision if you're going to take it back to Genesis 17.

And it has to be water baptism because that's what we're doing here. That's what they recognize as baptism. How do you circumcise someone without using your hands? I want you to think about that.

You can see in your notes I'm not actually telling you all if I'm missing some blanks or if you're missing some blanks, let me know. Number two, understanding the analogy, physical circumcision and water baptism, the most significant passage here is Colossians two. And then why? Because it mentions both physical circumcision and baptism.

But this is a baptism sorry, circumcision made without hands. And I want us to think about that because we're going to relate this to another passage, very clear passage in the New Testament on baptism, and it's going to work out real well. All right, promises in this Abrahamic covenant, this is where I'm talking about Genesis 17.

So it's a misapplication of the analogy. But what are the promises in the Abrahamic covenant? If you read the Bible now, there's what many we would call a covenant of grace. And there's all kinds of stuff in the covenant of grace.

But if you're going to look at Genesis 17, let's see what that says. The promises in Abrahamic covenant were to bless Abraham, to make his name great, to make him a great nation. This is the Jewish people to give him and his descendants the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession.

That's what's going on in the covenant of grace there, and to establish a relationship with Abraham's descendants and to bless the nation through Abraham's seed. And so since they performed a circumcision on babies without asking them and stuff, they say, well, it's okay for us to do it there, too. But interesting, Romans chapter four talks about Abraham being justified before he was for circumcision.

Okay? So that's a key point to make as well. And actually, he trusted in God by faith that God was going to fulfill these promises, even though he didn't have much evidence of anything going to work out. Why? Because Sarah couldn't have.

So that's why he had to trust in God. So anyway, you see that there and it's bold in these are places where the Abrahamic covenant is talked about, but particularly in chapter 17 here, okay. There's a prevalence of circumcision in North America and Africa and Australia, and not so much in Europe, actually.

Interestingly. Or South America? Apparently not. All right? So my idea of this is that this is a spiritual circumcision.

Now wait a minute. I'm a literal interpreter of the Bible and I'm saying this is a spiritual circumcision. So I need to justify that and that needs to be very clear.

So is there a precedent for this? Is this a novel view that this is a spiritual circumcision? Well, first of all, it's an OD kind of way to describe a circumcision made without hands. If it's going to be a physical circumcision, if that's what the analogy is all about, I think that's really important. But let's look in the context of Colossians Two.

Whenever you're looking at a passage of Scripture, the context is the key. And what many people would say, and these would be people that aren't necessarily Baptists, they would say this actually isn't really a sacramental passage. And that means you're talking about the sacraments, the Lord's Supper of baptism.

I remember talking with a lady at work and she was reading her Bible at work, and this was a secular place, so I talked to her about it. Hey, that's great, what are you reading about? And she says, oh, I just love it that I'm reading about the Lord's Supper in John Six. And I thought to myself, and I'm thinking, I'm not really remembering John Six being a major passage on the Lord's Supper.

I don't quite get what you're talking about. So I was kind of stumped about that. Oh yeah, Lord Supper is right here and this is just how it all works out.

And I'm just thinking, I don't know what you're talking and I was a seminary student, I should know this, right? John six. Lord Supper, right. No, that's the Catholic understanding of Lord's Supper because Christ is talking to his disciples about eating my flesh and drinking my blood.

And yet the whole thing that's in the, say, verse 51 through 59. But if you look at verse 41 and through 49, you're saying talking about, hey, I am the bread of life, and he that believes on me shall never hunger and never thirst and all that stuff. He's talking about believing on him.

This is the passage of Scripture where he starts with multitudes of disciples and at the end of the passage he's only got twelve left. So this was a major, major time. But it really is not, again, a sacramental passage.

It's not talking about the Lord's Supper, it's not talking about the ordinances at all. They're missing the analogy. But anyway, let's talk about the context of Colossians Two.

And really it's a doctrinal passage. And the Colossians Church had been enamored with certain heresies about the doctrine of angels about worshiping God on certain days, eating certain foods and stuff. And he says, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

For in Him, here is what he's saying Christ is sufficient. Christ is enough. When you have Christ, you don't need anything else.

For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Christ is everything that God is. And when you trust in Christ, you don't need these other traditions and philosophies and other things that they were led astray into.

That's the whole point of the past is what Christ is enough and ye are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and powers. And so these spirit beings that you are enamored with, that's not what you need. You don't need to put your trust in them.

You have Christ. And this is verse ten. And right after that comes verse 1111.

1213. That's what we just read. So that's really the key of the passage, is that they were being enamored by things that weren't focusing them on focusing themselves on Christ.

And now in fact, they were going away from Christ. They were actually not being dedicated to Christ. I want you to keep that in mind.

They were losing their dedication to Christ alone. That's really key. And then he makes this you are circumcised with a circumcision, not made with hands.

Okay? And I want you to keep that in mind too. So let's take a look at is there anywhere in the Bible that talks about circumcision that's not like a real, actual, physical circumcision? Well, there is now. This is talking about being loyal to God, being dedicated to God.

I want you to keep this in mind. That's the context of the passage we're here in, and that loyalty, that dedication to God is important. So let's take a look at this.

Okay, we've already talked about that. I'm going to go here. Is this a novel view? Is that a precedent? That's supposed to be the circumcision there anyway, what about literal interpretation? And I think that's important.

So let's look at the Old Testament precedents for the idea of spiritual circumcision. So let's take a look in some of these passages. We're going to read them through.

I might just do that from the back of the room because it's a little easier for me to see that. So let's take a look. Note Deuteronomy 30 was written some 700 years or so after Abraham, and the circumcision of Genesis 17 took place.

That's really helpful to understand because they've already been doing circumcision for a long time. The Jewish people have. Okay, so then it says, the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thou thy fathers possessed and thou shalt possess it.

Now remember Abraham sorry, Moses is writing to the children of Israel who have not yet passed into the left Egypt and passed into the promised land. Verse six. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live.

And the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thee and all the rest. But notice there he's going to circumcise their heart. Now, if you take a knife and cut away part of the heart, that's probably not going to end up in anything really good for the person.

They're going to probably die from that. So you really can't cut I mean, if you were trying to think of this in a literal way, and it's clearly not that the Bible can give us analogies and give us understandings and picturesque language, but what is he really wanting here? What's the whole point of this passage? Bring you into land you need to obey. He will do thee good, multiply thee above thy fathers.

But I want you to circumcise your heart. To do what? To love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul, that thou mayest live. The idea is what being dedicated to God and blessings will come.

Be dedicated to God. That's the whole point. I want you to be dedicated to God.

Now it's going to get even more clear. This is Deuteronomy ten. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.

Therefore, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no more stiff necked. Are they being loyal and dedicated to God here? No, they're not being loyal and dedicated. They're actually turning away from God and they're being stiff necked about it.

And he's saying, circumcise the foreskin of your heart again, what's he talking about? What would they understand? That is the Lord thy God. For the Lord your God is a God of gods and a lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and terrible, which regardeth not purses nor taketh reward, doesn't take bribes. So he's saying you need to be dedicated to God.

There are the themes. There purification and dedication to God. Now, does that have anything? I just want you to keep it in your mind.

Colossians, chapter two. And sticking with Christ and being loyal to Christ. Then Jeremiah four.

Four. Circumcise yourselves, Lord. Now, this is written in the prophetical times.

This is Ad, or right around the time that the southern kingdom gets captured by the Babylonians. And he's saying, Circumcise yourselves to Lord and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury come forth like fire and burn, that none can quench it because of the evil of your doings. What's he saying? They have become impure.

They've been worshipping other idols. They've been pursuing foreign alliances. They haven't been relying on God to protect them.

He wants them to come back to Him. He wants them to be dedicated to Him. Question you might ask is, okay, this spiritual circumcision stuff, does the Bible ever make a distinction between physical circumcision and spiritual circumcision? I want you to keep that in your mind here just in a second, okay? So Leviticus 26 40 41, they shall confess their sin and the iniquity of their fathers with their trespass, which they trespass against me, that they also have walked contrary unto me, and that I also excuse me, walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies.

If then, if their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and then they accept the punishment of their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac, and I'll remember my covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will remember the land he's saying there. After you go into the promised land, don't turn away from me. If you do, I will accept it.

If you come back to me, if you become dedicated once more to me, if you be loyal to me, then I will remember my covenant with you. And again, there the uncircumcised hearts be humbled. Okay? Again, the themes there is repentance and dedication.

Then Jeremiah 25, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will punish all them that are uncircumcised, all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised. So it doesn't matter where you're from. If you're disobedient to God, you'll get punished.

So Egypt and Judah. Oh, wow. That's like putting it right there.

And Edom and the children of Ammon and Moab and all that are in the uttermost corners that dwell in the wilderness, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart. Now, everybody knew that the heart of Israel, they're already circumcised because they got circumcised as babies, but now he's declaring them as uncircumcised in the heart. Is there a difference between physical circumcision and spiritual circumcision here? Yeah, all these people, except for the Judas, are all uncircumcised, and the house of Israel are uncircumcised, not necessarily physically, but in the heart.

I want you dedicated to me. I want you loyal to me. I want you to realize that I'm all you need.

There again, clear distinction between physical and spiritual circumcision there, and the theme is repent and be dedicated to God. Okay, let me just get you this one here too, Ezekiel. So I want you to see this is all over the Old Testament, okay? And in that, you have brought into my sanctuary strangers.

So this is Ezekiel writing during the exilic time period when they're in exile. And this is rehearsing some of their shortcomings and why they deserve the punishment. So they brought non Jewish people into the temple area where they shouldn't have uncircumcised.

In heart and uncircumcised in flesh. Again, very clear distinction there to be in my sanctuary to pollute it, even my house, where when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations. And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things, but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves.

Thus saith the Lord God no stranger uncircumcised in heart nor uncircumcised in flesh shall enter my sanctuary of any stranger that is among the children of Israel. So again, here you have even more so, I think, than the last passage. A clear distinction between physical and spiritual circumcision.

Okay? So what I'm saying in Colossians one is not something that's unusual for the Bible. Again, the theme there is repent. He wants his people to return to him, be dedicated to him, respect God's holiness there.

Now, it's not just in the Old Testament, too, because I went past this one, Jeremiah six, to whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised. Okay? Now we thought of the heart being uncircumcised. Now their ears, they will not listen to God again.

If you take a knife to someone's ear, that's probably not going to work out well, look like Spock or something anyway, and they cannot hearken. Behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach. They have no delight in it.

Therefore I'm, full of fury of the Lord, I am weary withholding him. I'll pour it upon the children of abroad and upon the assembly of the young men together. For even the husband with the wife shall be taken the age with him.

That is full of days. Again, the theme there is repentance dedication to God. So this is not something just in the Old Testament.

It's in the New Testament, too. This is Stephen's speech right before he was martyred and he's rehearsing the history of Israel, how they had persecuted the prophets. And it says, you stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so did you.

Now, right after this, it gets stoned. So he's not ingratiating himself to his audience, but he's telling them that you deserve the punishment that has come upon you. Which of the prophets have your fathers have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them, which showed before the coming of the just one, of whom you are now the betrayers and murderers.

So it's in the New Testament. It's also in Romans chapter 22. But a Jew is one inwardly he's talking about verse 27.

Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law, will condemn you, who have the written code and circumcision, but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely when outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. The circumcision was a mark of the sign of the covenant.

Yes, but it doesn't mean that you're now automatically going to serve God the rest of your life. Why? Because the whole history of Israel doesn't prove that that's not true. But a Jew or someone who is really dedicated to me is one inwardly.

And circumcision is a matter of the heart by the Spirit, not the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. So here's that same distinction, then again, that we saw in the Old Testament.

So here we are back in our New Testament passage, ye in whom you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. I think that again the theme is the same of what's in the Old Testament because of what God has done for you in Colossians 213 through 23, be dedicated to God in Colossians, chapter three and following as is pictured in baptism here he's talking about in whom you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hand. That is, the putting off of the body of sins of the flesh with the circumcision of Christ.

Someone want to read Romans chapter six, verses three through five? Romans six is a great passage on baptism. Okay. Therefore we were buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised with or do you not know that many of us that were baptized Jesus were baptized into the death, therefore we were buried with him through baptism, into death.

That just as Christ was raised to a dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also shall walk in newness of life. Okay, yeah, that's fine, keep going. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection.

Okay? So baptism is death. Many people would see death. Martin Luther saw this too.

Baptism is death. That's what it pictures. It's death.

And as Christ really, really did die, I mean, he suffered a physical death. There's no question about it. He died.

We should be attempt as much as we can to live our life free from the control of sin in our lives, because he says even so we should walk in newness of life. And let's not forget the whole context of this passage Paul is talking about. Can we continue in sin that grace may abound? Absolutely not.

That's verse one. And so our baptism is to show one of the aspects of baptism is show that we're dedicated to God. I want to show that people, that I'm going to be a follower of Christ and that just as Christ died, I need to show as much as I can that I'm dead to my sins, that sin does not have that control over me.

Of all the reasons Paul could talk about why we shouldn't continue in sin that grace may abound, he brings up our baptism. Why? Well, it's supposed to show that we're dedicated to Christ. And I think that's an aspect of baptism that is important for us to keep in mind.

Maybe so, because we don't emphasize it that much, but it is supposed to. I mean, we're not going to live free from sin, but we should be fighting it all the time. And I'm going to make an analogy of my own here.

But anyway, so spiritual circumcision is a legitimate interpretation of Colossians Two and corresponds with best with a context and thrust of the passage. Baptism is an act of dedication to God, picturing the death, burial and resurrection, which leads to the new life, a life of dedication to God, which means putting away the sins of the flesh. Now, you might be saying here, I've already been baptized, this really doesn't really matter a whole lot to me because I'm baptized.

And we know that baptism doesn't save us, so what, does it have any effect on us? Now, and here's my own analogy. My wife and I were invited to a wedding of good friends of ours in England, and we went and we went there, and I thought, you know, while we're in the wedding, it's interesting, British wedding, you gotta wear a hat if you're a woman and all that. I mean, it's a big deal.

My wife got a hat, she liked that. And they had me pray at the service and I thought, that's fine, that's good. And I thought to myself, okay, so I'm coming all the way to this wedding, and I like the couple and we really love the family and stuff, so that's good.

And we were glad and privileged and honored to be there. But I thought the only role I have here is basically I'm just a witness that I'm there and that they made these vows before God. And that also reminded me the fact that if I knew the couple very well, and any couple that get married, and if you knew them really well and you saw that, wow, the husband is not treating his wife the way he should be treating her.

And I love that guy so much, and I'm really close to him so that you had that relationship. You could speak into his life and say, look, I was there when you made a vow to your wife that you would be dedicated to her and that you would treat her well and stuff. And you're not living that way now.

Now take that over to baptism. We do those publicly. Now, interestingly enough, most of church history, baptisms were not done publicly.

They were done by the midwife in the Middle Ages, and nobody would know about it and nobody was there. And an emphasis more recently in the 20th century is to make baptism much more of a public or a church type activity. So they're trying to work on that.

But our baptisms are public. Why? Because we're showing we were witnesses to the fact that someone wanted to be called and to be known as a follower of Christ, someone to be dedicated to Christ. And so if I have a relationship with that person and I could speak into his life and say, look, hey, the life you're leading right now is not what you vowed or not what you showed when you got baptized.

You're not living your baptism here in that sense. That not that he's going to get you saved, no way, but that you showed that you were dead to your sins just as Christ died. You died to your sins, and you're supposed to fight that, and you're not living that right now.

And you need to change your ways because I was there when you got baptized. That's, I think, a good analogy to show that this is an aspect of baptism. So therefore, does your baptism mean anything to you today? No, it doesn't mean anything.

Because it doesn't save me. Well, no, it doesn't save you, but it was a time that you said, I want to be known as a follower of Christ. So does your baptism matter to you today? Well, it should in the sense that you pictured you were going to fight sin in your life, not just give in to it, no matter what.

And it does matter to you today, not for salvation, but it matters to you because of what you vowed, what you promised in front of other people and certainly for God. So I don't think it has any salvific evidence, nothing sacramental about it, but it is something important that we ought to think about of what we were actually trying to show in front of everybody when we do get baptized. And then the second application I think is for us too, is if you haven't been baptized and there are churches I know of, one pastor showed me, he was kind of distressed about it.

He says it said in the doctrinal statement, baptism shall be urged on every member. It didn't say it would be required. And he had a deacon in his church that was never been baptized.

Well, how does that work? I mean, something's broken there. It wasn't the Baptist church, but similar church, a conservative one, not liberal by any means, but they didn't have a really high view of baptism there. And again, we don't have a high view of it either, as far as anything salvation.

But it is supposed to show that someone is wanting others to know with the accountability of a local church that they want to be a follower of Christ. I think that's what's important for us to remember about baptism is how it affects us, can even affect us even today. Any questions you might have on that? Does that make sense? Yes.

Lynn. Earlier, when I was younger, I went to the church up there. I got saved and I felt, can't work your way to heaven, you can't religious things of church that's really good.

That's right. Maybe some of you have been confirmed at some point in your life, realize that's not quite right. Yeah.

Somebody else? Any other comments? Yes, dedicating a child. That's interesting. And that's a very common thing in Jamaica, too.

They will dedicate a child, and that is it's not really for the child, because it's not going to do anything for the child, but it's saying, I want everybody to know, and even in the context of the local church, even asking for help, I suppose, in raising this child to be dedicated to God. And that means if the kid grows up and wants to be a missionary to the snake poison capital of the world is Australia. They got more poisonous snakes in Australia than anywhere else.

If they want to be a missionary to Australia, well, that means we're never going to see them, not very often. That's literally on the other side of the world. You say, Wait a minute, I dedicated them to God.

God can do with them what they want. So I think there might be value in it, but certainly not for the baby. And you can pray over the baby and stuff.

Some people do that, some people don't. I think it's modeled after Hannah, perhaps in the Old Testament. And I think we should dedicate everything we have to God.

We got a brand new photocopier in Jamaica, and you know what? We had a prayer around that copier and asked God to rededicated this, that he would keep it working, and that it would help the ministry of the know that it wasn't like sacramental about that just we're just praising the Lord. We have this Jamaica has heat, dust, and humidity, and those are the things that break down these things. And so we were just praying that God would use this for his glory.

So I'm not equating a photocopier to a baby, but I am saying that we should dedicate everything we have to God. And you know what? Sometimes that accountability is not a bad thing, because you know what? Family connections are close, and they should be nowadays. We got ways that I remember the first time I saw my mom on Skype when I was a missionary.

That was so awesome. I mean, I can't describe it the way it was, but it was amazing. It just was so wonderful to see her.

Now, that's not as good as hugging her, I know, but it was something, so that's good. All right, anybody else? Okay, well, let's just close in prayer. We'll be done.

Thank you, Father, for the opportunity. We have to look in your word and see some things that I think are helpful to us. Especially in this analogy that sometimes we don't want to look at Colossians Two in regard to baptism because of what other people think about it.

But helping us recapture really what the point here is that show ourselves dedicated to Christ that we don't need anything else than Christ. Christ is all we need. We are complete in Christ.

Christ the representation is the fullness of the God bodily. And we just thank you for that. And thank you for even directing the word to be written in such a way that we could have this analogy that would be helpful for us to understand even in Romans six and other places.

And for this we pray in Jesus name, amen. Yes. Oh, I missed the blank, did I? Okay, point.

It's not a sacramental passage. Sacramental passage, right. It's a doctrinal passage, not a sacrament.

Thank you, Matthew. Did anybody else miss one? All right.