Why Do We Baptize?

Introduction

God commanded Noah and his family to build a boat. Did the boat save them? No, faith saved them, but God commanded them to show their faith through a concrete action.

God commanded Abraham and his descendants to be circumsized. Did circumcision save them? No, faith saved them, but God commanded them to show their faith through a concrete action.

God commanded the Israelites in Egypt to slaughter a lamb and spread its blood on their doorposts. Did the blood of those lambs save them? No, faith saved them, but God commanded them to show their faith through a concrete action.

God commanded the Israelites to keep 614 commandments in the desert. Did keeping those commandments save them? No, faith saved them, but God commanded them to show their faith through concrete action.

God commanded the Israelites in the desert who had been bitten by poisonous snakes to look at the bronze serpent. Did looking at the bronze serpent save them? No, faith saved them, but God commanded them to show their faith through concrete action.

Jesus commands us to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Does being baptized save us? No, faith saves us, but Jesus commanded us to show our faith through concrete action.

Some of you might not be aware that baptism has been a subject of controversy in this church. We here at Fredericton Christian Church have our roots in something called “The Restoration Movement.” We won’t get into all the details of the movement except for where it intersects with our discussion today. In an effort to bring the church back to its roots in the New Testament, one of the things the movement emphasized was the importance of Baptism upon conversion, meaning that the act of being baptized should be the way that people begin their discipleship with Jesus, not an later act done when a Christian grows more mature.

The issue is that some in our movement are not careful about the way that they talk about this. There is a fine line between salvation and baptism should happen at the same time and salvation cannot happen without baptism. This has led some to fear that we teach salvation by works, or maybe salvation by one work in particular.

You see church history has complicated this conversation. If you had asked Peter or Paul the question, “do you need to be baptized to be saved” they might have given you strange looks, because that’s just not how they do things. Every conversion recorded in Scripture is accompanied by baptism. Peter preached the gospel message and the crowd responded this way:

Acts 2:37–38 CSB

When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This doesn’t mean they taught that the act of baptism itself was what saved a person. For every verse commanding baptism as the response to the gospel you’ll find two about the importance of faith and belief. It’s just that they didn’t seperate those two things. Baptism was an “act of faith.”

Then history unfolded and a terrible idea grew in the church that the act of baptism itself washed away your sins. This led to people putting off baptism for as long as they could to get the most benefit from it, and is why emperor Constantine waited until his deathbed to be baptized. Then over time the view shifted, the church taught that everyone was guilty of Adam’s sin and that Baptism is what saved you from the sin of Adam, and confession and works are what saved you from your own personal sins. This eventually led to infant baptism, since if baptism itself is what cleansed from sin, and the sin in question was the sin of Adam, then it makes perfect sense to baptize infants right away, so that if they die before they are old enough to be held accountable for their own sins that way they wouldn’t have to be punished for Adam’s sin because of a lack of baptism.

All of that stuff is extrabiblical, heretical nonsense that misled and shackled Christians for hundreds of years, and understandably was rejected by a lot of the people involved with the Reformation when many followers of Jesus rejected the authority of the Pope. Yet as the saying goes I believe they threw out the baby with the bath water. In an effort to, correctly, emphasize that we are saved by grace through faith and not of our own merit many shied away from baptizing new converts.

This however led to a bit of a vacuum. What did the new convert need to do in order to assure themselves that they were now adopted as children of God? By the nineteenth century the most popular way for new believers to “get saved” or “become Christians” was to pray a simple prayer, admitting that you have sinned and asking Jesus to save you based on your faith.

Now is there anything wrong with asking someone who is ready to follow Jesus to pray for their salvation? Everything I know about the character of God and His grace tells me that He likely honours the sincere belief of those who truly mean those prayers, as it says in Romans 10:9-13

Romans 10:9–13 CSB

If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Yet I cannot in good conscience ignore the fact that leading people in a prayer is not the Biblical way that people were saved. Baptism was the way Paul Himself began his discipleship to Jesus in Acts 9:17-18

Acts 9:17–18 CSB

Ananias went and entered the house. He placed his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road you were traveling, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” At once something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized.

And this was the same in all the places in Scripture we see people coming to Christ, and the Epistles are full of places where they write to Christians showing that they assume all Christians share in their experience of baptism. So it seems to me that the intended method of bringing people to Christ has always been to have them repent, call on the name of Jesus, and be baptized.

So then the question is “Why?” Yes this has all been the introduction of sermon 7 of our “Why” series. And today we are asking ourselves “Why Do We Baptize?” I believe that we baptize those who come to believe because Jesus gave baptism its significance through participating in it Himself and then commanding His followers to continue to baptize people into discipleship. We baptize those who believe so that we can all be united as one, sharing in a common experience that ties us together as the body of Christ. I believe we baptize because it is an unavoidably public declaration of our desire to follow Jesus and to obey what He has commanded us to do.

Because Jesus Did It First and Commands It

Illustration: I hope we all know by now that the saying “do as I say not as I do” is a foolish one. History and statistics tell us that the people we lead and especially our children tend to do what they see us doing more than what we tell them they should do. So if those two things don’t match, which one wins most often?

That means of course that we should do what we say if we want our kids to do what we say. God is of course the master of this, having come to earth as Jesus to model the righteous life He wants us to lead. So Jesus did not only tell us to be baptized, but participated in baptism Himself. Consider Matthew 3:13-17

Matthew 3:13–17 CSB

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” Jesus answered him, “Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John allowed him to be baptized. When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”

Now knowing that baptism, and especially John’s baptism, is supposed to be about repentance, why would the perfect Son of God get baptized? I believe He did so for a number of reasons, but one of the most important was so that when we are Baptized we can say that we share the same baptism as Jesus. And to serve as our example in obedience, since John the Baptist was a prophet sent by God who was calling the people to baptism.

But most importantly it’s through His participation in baptism that gives our baptism special significance. So when we see later Paul talking about us all sharing in one baptism we can include Jesus as one of those sharing in this one baptism.

Yet when I say that Jesus did baptism first, I don’t just mean that He was baptized, but He actually oversaw baptisms before the cross. In John’s gospel he’s careful to explain that it wasn’t Jesus personally immersing people in the water, but His disciples baptizing on His behalf and with His authority. We read about this in John 3:22-26, just after Jesus explains to Nicodemus that we need to be “born of water and the Spirit” to enter the kingdom of God.

John 3:22–26 CSB

After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the Judean countryside, where he spent time with them and baptized. John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water there. People were coming and being baptized, since John had not yet been thrown into prison. Then a dispute arose between John’s disciples and a Jew about purification. So they came to John and told him, “Rabbi, the one you testified about, and who was with you across the Jordan, is baptizing—and everyone is going to him.”

John’s response of course is the famous “He must increase, I must decrease,” but the point is that Jesus didn’t wait until after the cross to institute Baptism for repentence through His disciples. This is very interesting to me. Even before Jesus atoned for our Sins on the cross and therefore paid the penalty for our sins and enabled us to actually be made clean through His death, Jesus was teaching the disciples to baptize those who believe and want to follow Him. And of course after the death and resurrection Jesus commanded the disciples to make more disciples. How were they to do it? Let’s read the great commission found in Matthew 28:18-20

Matthew 28:18–20 CSB

Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So then the intention was that people would be welcomed into the body of Christ with baptism. That was the intended physical act through which a new believer demonstrated their faith. Now I’m not saying that it’s not important to talk about the relationship between faith and baptism and where the line is where it becomes “baptismal regeneration,” but can we all agree on one thing? Jesus clearly demonstrated and commanded baptism for believers. So even if we get into disagreements on what exactly it means, we can all agree that we should be doing it.

To Be United as One Body

Illustration: Bonding through shared experience, especially difficult experiences.

Now speaking of the disagreements Christians throughout history have had over baptism, this is supposed to be one of the key shared experiences that we can look to as disciples of Jesus that unites us. What is true of both Paul and Josh Elliott? We were both baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is why when Paul is urging the Corinthians Church to be united as one he says this in

1 Corinthians 12:12–13 CSB

For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink.

Despite all our differences, we share in baptism. Which I’ll remind you is supposed to represent a few different things. The most obvious being the image of being washed by water, being made clean of our sins and starting over. The second Paul points out in Colossians 2:12

Colossians 2:12 CSB

when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

So we were all through baptism raised from the dead together. How’s that for a bonding experience? Again Paul says in Ephesians, in case you missed it before, that we are united by many common things including our common Baptism.

Ephesians 4:1–6 CSB

Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope at your calling—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

So then it makes me deeply sad when we have disagreements that break relationships over baptism. One of the things that was supposed to bring us together has instead driven us apart. That’s the kind of thing that tragedies are written about. Instead we should be proud to say to one another that we share in one common discipleship to Jesus and one baptism in His name.

To Make A Public Declaration

Illustration: Playing poker with no money on the table.

Now consider recent trends in evangelism, and by recent I mean the last couple hundred years. “Recent” is a relative term. Christianity as a whole has been plagued by something called “easy believism” where we try to lower the bar as low as we can for people to come to Christ. I respect the desire to see as many people accept Jesus as possible, but the problem is that often we make really shallow converts who don’t really know what they are getting into.

It is my conviction that Jesus chose baptism as the normative way to demonstrate a new believers faith in part because it is a bit of a barrier to entry. In order to be baptized you have to let someone else dunk you in water publicly, and in most cases the person baptizing you is going to ask you to make a public statement that you believe in Jesus and intend to follow Him. It’s the kind of thing that you can’t really deny that you’ve done, the kind of thing meant to be a public declaration of what you believe and your allegiance to Christ.

This used to come at a more readily obvious cost to the early disciples. Many of them would have been shunned by friends and family over this decision, potentially even arrested and killed. Consider what Jesus says in

Matthew 10:32–39 CSB

“Therefore, everyone who will acknowledge me before others, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever denies me before others, I will also deny him before my Father in heaven. Don’t assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. The one who loves a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; the one who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever doesn’t take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it, and anyone who loses his life because of me will find it.

Jesus is making a big ask of people here. He’s not just asking them to bow their head quietly and privately and repeat a prayer in their mind. This isn’t meant to be an insult to those who’ve done that or led others to, the point is the contrast. Jesus is asking for a public declaration from His followers that could cost them their relationships with their family members and maybe even their life.

This is what Jesus is getting at with this short parable in Luke

Luke 14:28–30 CSB

“For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man started to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

He’s talking about considering the cost of becoming His disciple. What does it cost to follow Jesus? We like to talk about the benefits. Eternal Life, having Joy to the Full, sharing in relationship together, but Jesus didn’t shy away from asking His followers to give up everything. Remember yet again that baptism is meant to be a picture of dying and being raised to new life. Jesus is asking us to give Him everything. This is a concept that took a long time to sink in with me personally. (Share brief testimony about this)

Conclusion

So I hope here at the end of this sermon that you’ve listened with a charitable ear, and that I have done the job of teaching what the Bible teaches about baptism. That Jesus led by example in being baptized Himself and overseeing the baptism of others. That Baptism is meant to unite us as a body of Christ. That Baptism is meant to be a costly public declaration of laying down our lives for Jesus.

Now I want to address two kinds of people in particular here in the conclusion for a particular application. First, if you are here in our church this morning and you have not yet become a disciple of Jesus, but you have come to believe that Jesus is truly the Son of God who died for our sins and that He truly raised from the dead, than I want to encourage you this morning to put your faith, in other words your strong trust, in Jesus and demonstrate your faith by being baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The baptistry is already full of water. We are ready as the body of Christ to welcome you with open arms to share in the unity of the Spirit with us.

Second, if you are someone who has been following Jesus but have not yet been baptized than I want to challenge you to come up for baptism today. Not because your faith and trust in Jesus is invalid if you weren’t baptized, but because Jesus is calling us to obedience as well as faith. By not being baptized you are ignoring a clear command that Jesus gave us as disciples, and we can do something about that this morning. I urge you not to be distracted by the debates people have about this. Not to think about what other people in this church are going to think about you getting baptized, how they might misinterpret what you do or so on and so on. Think about Jesus, about your loving savior who is calling you to demonstrate your death to the old life and birth into the new.

Maybe you’re someone who was baptized as an infant, I would encourage you if that is the case to come up here and be baptized again, to make your own personal declaration that you are a follower of Jesus. Maybe you only have one change of clothes. I would say do it anyway. Come get your clothes wet for the sake of obeying Jesus.

At this moment I would like to invite William Kolada to come up with me on stage. He has expressed prior to this service his desire to show his faith in Jesus publicly to all of us by being baptized.