Untitled Sermon (14)

Baptism

But this morning, I want us to begin by looking at the account in Matthew 3 where Jesus Himself comes to His cousin, John the Baptist and says “I want you to baptize me.”

It’s really the beginning point of Jesus’ public ministry.  The first thing He does before His ministry ever begins.

Let’s read the account in Matthew 3.

But before we read the scriptures, let’s pray.    

The word of God for the people of God.

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee

to the Jordan

to John,

to be baptized by him.

14 John would have prevented him,

saying, “I need to be baptized by you,

and do you come to me?”

15 But Jesus answered him,

“Let it be so now,

for thus

it is fitting for us

to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then he consented.

16 And when Jesus was baptized,

immediately he went up from the water,

and behold, t

he heavens were opened to him,

and he saw the Spirit of God

descending like a dove

and coming to rest on him;

17 and behold,

a voice from heaven said,

“This is my beloved Son,

with whom I am well pleased.”

Amen.  May God bless this reading of His word. 

The grass withers and the flowers fade but the word of our God will last forever.

Let me give you the road map for where I want us to go as we look at this text and other passages that deal with baptism.

I want us to look at the context in which Jesus is baptized – the practice of baptism prior to the ministry of Jesus.

I want us to see the reasons why Jesus begins His ministry by being baptized.

And then I want us to look at the ongoing practice of baptism in the early church, as ordained by Jesus and as practiced by the disciples. 

And finally, we’ll look at what the Bible says about the ongoing practice of baptism for all believers.

Specifically, we’ll look at why we baptize people, who should be baptized (and the disagreement among Christians about that question), and what is and isn’t happening when someone comes forward like Jackson is doing this morning to be baptized. 

So let’s look first at the context for the baptism of Jesus.

The practice of baptism is not something we see highlighted or regularly practiced in the OT.  It’s not something God directs His people Israel to practice. 

But there were some ceremonial or ritual practices that are a precursor to what will become the Christian practice of baptism. 

Let me show you a few.

Exodus 30:17–21

[17] The LORD said to Moses, [18] “You shall also make a basin of bronze, with its stand of bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it, [19] with which Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet. [20] When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to the LORD, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die. [21] They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die. It shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his offspring throughout their generations.”

This is not baptism.  But it is a purification rite for the priests.  A ceremonial cleansing that makes the point that if you are going to approach and engage with the living God, you need to come to him clean.  You don’t bring impurity with you into the house of God. 

These were not “one-time” or inaugural events like baptism is; they were repeated whenever a priest would come before God.  It was an acknowledgment that God is holy and we are stained with sin and need to cleanse ourselves in His presence. 

Outside of what we find in the OT, in years between the return of the Jews to Israel after the Babylonian Captivity, around 500 BC and the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry, it had become a common practice among the Jews to baptize – to immerse in water – Gentiles who were converting to Judaism.

This was a ritual of both cleansing and identification.  It was not simply a symbolic washing away of impurity or sin, but a washing away of their old identity.  This became a one time, inaugural cleansing ceremony.

When we get to Jesus’ day, there is one sect of Jews – the Essenes – who practiced daily ritual washing or immersion.  More than just taking a bath every day.  They were daily, symbolically cleansing themselves, purifying themselves, so they would be ready for the Messiah when He came.

So it’s in that context that John the Baptist begins to practice his Jordan River baptisms. 

John’s spiritual diagnosis of his day is that there is a lot of empty ritualism and ceremonialism and legalism being practiced by the Pharisees and a lot spiritual hopelessness and emptiness on the part of the common Jew who isn’t a Pharisee and who has given up on trying to be right with God because they keep failing at trying to live up to the Pharisees standards. 

John comes and tells them they need to repent, get right with God, turn their lives over to Him and start following Him again. 

He’s telling people that the fact that they are Jews isn’t enough for them to be right with God.

He’s saying “you’re no better than the Gentiles.  You need to be cleansed as well.”

He’s saying that following God is more about having your heart right than keeping all the rules the Pharisees have laid down.

And he’s saying they need to get right with God now because the Kingdom of God is about to come – the King, the Messiah, is coming.  And He will be looking for those who have repented and gotten right with God.

So John’s baptism is a baptism of repentance.  That’s what it’s all about.  It’s a symbolic act that someone does that says “I want to be right with God and ready for His Kingdom to come.”

And the Pharisees aren’t happy because he’s subverting their power and authority and telling people they can be right with God without following all the Pharisee rules.

So it’s in that context that Jesus comes to His cousin and says “I want to be baptized too!”

Of course, the question is, if Jesus is sinless – and He is – then why does He need to be baptized?  If He’s sinless, He doesn’t need to repent.

And John the Baptist recognizes this.  It’s why, when Jesus comes to Him and says baptize me, John pushes back and says “It should be the other way around!  I should be baptized by you!”

John undoubtedly knew Jesus from growing up.  Jesus was his cousin.  He had seen Jesus living a life of devotion and purity. 

He didn’t yet fully understanding that Jesus was the Messiah, although when Jesus comes to the Jordan, John says “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” 

But later, when John was in prison, he sent his disciples to Jesus and said “ask Him ‘are you the One or should we be looking for another.’”

So John doesn’t have it all figured out.  But he knows enough to know Jesus is morally and spiritually superior to him.

But Jesus says to him – and this is key – vs. 15.  “Let it be so now,

for thus it is fitting for us

to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus comes to John to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness.

I think there is a lot going on in the baptism of Jesus. 

I think we see shadows of Jesus signaling that He is stepping into His ministry as the great high priest by doing what the priests did.

He is aligning Himself with John’s ministry and message over against what the Pharisees are teaching.

He is also foreshadowing His death.  Going under the water is symbolic of dying and being raised again.  Jesus is starting His public ministry with this symbol of death and resurrection right at the forefront.

His statement that He is doing this to fulfill all righteousness.  Righteousness is a word that means living life right.  Living life according to God’s plan and His design. 

Jesus says “I’m starting my ministry by doing what God wants every follower of mine to do at the start of their new life in me.  I’m a human being, and I’m doing what God wants all human beings who will follow Him to do at the very start of their spiritual journey.”

The baptism of Jesus is the inauguration of the ordinance of Christian baptism.  Jesus, by being baptized, is saying “this is the right thing to do.  This is what God expects.”

And of course, at the end of His ministry, in Matthew 28, Jesus gives His followers the great commission, and what does He tell them – and us – that their assignment is?

Matthew 28:19–20

[19] 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, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus’ ministry begins with His baptism in chapter 3.  It ends with His command that we make disciples of all nations in chapter 28.  And that command includes baptism. 

Jesus is telling us that baptism is an essential element of making disciples.  It’s the first step a follower of Christ is to take.  When you turn from following self and decide to follow Jesus, and you ask “okay, what now,” the next right step is “you need to be baptized.”

This is what became the practice in the early church. 

Follow this.

In Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, when Peter preaches and calls people to repent and turn to Jesus, and they are cut to the heart and say “what shall we do?” Peter says  “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Later in Acts, Philip is preaching the gospel in Samaria, and people were responding.  Acts 8 says

[12] But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. (ESV)

Later in the same chapter, Philip meets an Ethiopian man, a God fearing Gentile from Africa who is reading from Isaiah and trying to figure out who the suffering servant Isaiah is talking about is. 

[35] Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. [36] And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” [38] And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. (ESV)

In Acts 10, Peter is called by the Holy Spirit to go to Macedonia – Gentile territory.  And he goes to the house of Cornelius and preaches the gospel. 

[44] While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. [45] And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles… Then Peter declared, [47] “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” [48] And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

We could go on, but you get the point.  In the early church, when someone responded to and believed the gospel, the first impulse for the apostles was “we need to get these people baptized.” 

What we see happening in the book of Acts is a picture of what became the normal practice for the church in the decades following the resurrection of Jesus. 

And with that came clarity about what baptism means.  Why do we baptize people?

First, we do it because we are commanded to do it.  Back to Matthew 28.  Go and make disciples.  And baptize them.  If we didn’t have anything other than this, that command of Jesus would be sufficient for us.

But the Bible gives us clarity about what’s happening.  Christian baptism is a visual, symbolic demonstration of a spiritual reality that has taken place in someone’s life. 

In Romans 6, the Bible tells us that when we come to faith in Christ and are united with Him, brought into the family of God, we are united with Him by being buried with Him by our baptism into His death. 

That means that what Jesus accomplished for us in His death on the cross – payment for our sins – when we surrender to Him and trust Him and follow Him, we become recipients of that payment – our debt is paid. 

And we declare that symbolically as we go under the water.  Going under is participating in His death.  We are picturing for ourselves and for everyone else that the benefits of His death have become ours.  We have died with Him.

And then when we come up out of the water, we are picturing and declaring that we are also the recipients of new life – resurrection life.  He was raised from death to life.  We are too.  And coming up out of the water is a picture of that new life.

That’s what Romans 6 is saying.

[4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (ESV)

So when someone is baptized, he or she is publicly declaring that this is what is true about them.  They are saying “I’m making it clear to all of you that I am identifying my life with Jesus.  I am going to follow Him from now on.”

This, by the way, is one reason why we think it’s right for the default to be to baptize by immersion and not by sprinkling.  If you’re trying to picture burial and resurrection, sprinkling doesn’t do it.

While cleansing from sin is a part of what is pictured in baptism, the primary meaning of baptism is identification with and participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Which brings us to the question of who should be baptized.

And this is where there is divergence and disagreement between faithful followers of Jesus.  People who love the Lord and believe the gospel and affirm the authority of scripture disagree about who should be baptized.

It’s not our purpose here this morning to do an extensive study of the different views on this.  Let me try to cover this dispute quickly.

The two views are known as paedobaptism and credo baptism.

Generally, the paedobaptism view is held by the RC church, along with Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox and others.

The credobaptism view is held by Baptists and many non-denominational groups.

Our paedobaptist friends, like our Presbyterian and Anglican brothers and sisters with whom we share a common understanding of the gospel, believe that baptism is a sign and seal of God’s covenant with His church. 

They see baptism as the NT replacement for the OT practice of circumcision.

They believe that when a child is born into a family with a believing mom and dad, by virtue of the fact that God has placed that child in a believing home, God has already demonstrated grace toward that child. 

And when we baptize a baby, we are simply saying “God, we see what you’ve done here and we are declaring that you have set apart this child in a special way by placing them in the covenant community of faith.”

This is what Kevin DeYoung, who is a Presbyterian pastor and someone for whom I have great respect, tells his congregation whenever he performs a baptism.

We do not believe that there is anything magical about the water we apply to the child. The water does not wash away original sin or save the child. We do not presume that this child is regenerate (though he may be), nor do we believe that every child who gets baptized will automatically go to heaven. We baptize infants not out of superstition or tradition or because we like cute babies. We baptize infants because they are covenant children and should receive the sign of the covenant.

It is this premise, that baptism is a sign that a child is a recipient of God’s covenant blessing to that child by placing them in a Christian home that is at the heart of what our paedobaptist friends believe about what baptism is and what it signifies.

And their key scripture for this is Colossians 2.

Colossians 2:11–12

[11] In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, [12] having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

They see this as the passage that links OT circumcision with NT baptism. 

I see the passage as describing two different realities. 

Circumcision in the OT was intended by God to picture the need to have your heart circumcised.  It was intended to be a physical picture for everyone, including the child himself, of what would ultimately need to happen spiritually in the life of every person.

But these verses in Colossians are again pointing to conversion as what is being pictured in baptism  Spiritual death and spiritual resurrection. 

Not uniting someone with a covenant community or family.  But uniting them with Christ.

And the key is in vs. 12 – the two words “through faith”

having been buried with him in baptism,

in which you were also raised with him

through faith

in the powerful working of God,

who raised him from the dead.

A baby can’t be raised with Christ through faith. 

John Piper says This is not something infants experience.

Faith is a conscious experience of the heart yielding to the work of God. Infants are not capable of this, and therefore infants are not fit subjects of baptism, which is “through faith.”

So based on how we understand the meaning of baptism, along with the biblical record of how baptism was practiced in the early years of the church,

we believe the right way to understand this matter is to see baptism as the first step of obedience made by a new follower of Christ to publicly demonstrate his or her identification with Jesus in His death and resurrection.

That’s our practice as a church.  We joyfully celebrate as a church this ordinance with all who come ready to publicly declare through baptism their union with Christ.

Which is what we’ll be doing here in a few minutes.

Let me wrap up this morning by just making sure we all understand what baptism isn’t.  What’s not happening when someone is baptized.

First, baptism doesn’t save anyone.  No one is getting saved here this morning.  Baptism doesn’t save anyone.  It’s what saved people do in response to what Jesus has done for them.

Second, we don’t want anyone to see baptism as a ritual or a formality – some hoop you have to jump through. 

Think of it like a wedding.  You don’t have to have a big wedding ceremony in order to be married.  A wedding ceremony isn’t a hoop you jump through so you can be married. 

Just as a wedding ceremony is a joyful celebration of what is happening when to become one before God, so we should see baptism as an opportunity to joyfully celebrate of what God has done in our lives and to share our joy with others.

And third, baptism is also not optional for a believer. 

Yes, it’s not necessary for someone – like say the thief on the cross – to be baptized in order to be saved. 

But for someone to say “I have decided to follow Jesus,” and then when Jesus says “first step is baptism” and we say “not for me,” we have to pull back and say “why is this person unwilling to take this first step of obedience?  And what other steps of obedience will you decide to opt out of?”

For someone to say “I am a follower of Christ and I have chosen not to submit myself to the ordinance of baptism” – that’s a problem. 

We don’t want to over-state or over emphasize the significance of baptism and make it more than the Bible says it is.  But we also don’t want to understate or under emphasize baptism and make it less significant than the Bible says about it.