The Pickle Principle

Good morning, church.

What a morning it has already been. We have just watched [insert number] people step into that tank behind me, go down into the water, and come back up. We heard the splashing. We saw the joy. We saw the tears.

But I want to ask you a very direct theological question about what we just witnessed. What exactly just happened?

If you asked the average person on the street—or even the average person sitting in an American church today—what water baptism is, you would get a lot of very confusing, and frankly, very dangerous answers.

Some people would say, "Well, they just washed all their sins away." Other people would say, "They just officially joined the church and got their membership card." And tragically, millions of people believe that the water in that tank contains a saving grace—that you cannot go to heaven unless a pastor physically dunks you in water. That doctrine is called Baptismal Regeneration, and it is a complete violation of the Gospel of Grace.

So, if the water doesn't save you, and if the water doesn't wash your sins away... why did Jesus command us to do it? Why did those people just get their hair wet in front of a room full of people?

To understand the beauty and the gravity of what we just witnessed, we have to look closely at the Word of God. And specifically, we have to look at the original Greek language of the New Testament. We are going to do a little bit of history, a little bit of Greek exegesis, and a lot of Gospel truth.

Open your Bibles to the book of Romans, chapter 6.

The Danger of the Bath (The Old Testament Context)

Before we look at the New Testament, we need to understand the cultural mindset of the first-century Jewish people who were reading Paul's letters.

The Jews were very, very familiar with water rituals. Under the Old Testament Levitical Law, God instituted a series of ceremonial washings. The Jews built special, stepped pools of water called mikvahs.

If you touched a dead body, you were ceremonially unclean, and you had to go wash in the mikvah. If a woman had her cycle, she washed. If a man had a skin disease, he washed. If the High Priest was getting ready to offer a sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, he had to completely immerse himself in water before he put on his holy garments.

But there was a massive, glaring problem with the Levitical washings: They were temporary.

You could go into the mikvah on Tuesday, completely immerse yourself, come out totally ceremonially clean... and on Wednesday, you might accidentally brush up against a dead animal in the marketplace. And guess what? You were dirty again. You had to go right back to the water.

The water could never permanently change the person. It was an external bath dealing with external defilement. It was a repetitive cycle of dipping, getting dirty, and dipping again.

And if we are not careful, we will drag that Old Testament, works-based mentality right into the Age of Grace. Some of you might be looking at the people who just got baptized today and thinking, "Wow, they are perfectly clean right now. I hope they don't mess it up tomorrow."

But the New Testament introduces a brand new concept. When Jesus commands the church to baptize believers, He is not telling us to build a Christian mikvah. He is not instituting a temporary bath. He is pointing to a permanent, irreversible change of identity.

Under the Old Testament law, the Jews used ceremonial pools called mikvahs.

The problem with these washings is that they were temporary. You had to keep washing because you kept getting dirty.

The Greek Kitchen: Bapto vs. Baptizo

To prove this to you, we need to look at the Greek language.

The New Testament was written in Koine Greek. And in the Greek language, there are two words that sound very similar to our English ears, but they mean two entirely, radically different things. Those two words are bapto and baptizo.

To understand the difference, I want to introduce you to a man named Nicander of Colophon.

Nicander was not a pastor. He wasn't a theologian. He wasn't even a Christian. Nicander was a secular Greek physician, a poet, and a grammarian who lived around the year 200 B.C.—about two centuries before Jesus was born.

Nicander wrote a recipe. It wasn't a recipe for spiritual salvation; it was a recipe for making pickles. But in this secular recipe, Nicander gives us the absolute best linguistic definition of what happened in that tank behind me today.

In his recipe, Nicander says that if you want to make a pickle, you must take a cucumber and do two distinct things to it.

Step 1: He says you must first bapto the cucumber in boiling water. Bapto simply means "to dip." You dip the cucumber into the boiling water for a few seconds to blanch it, and then you pull it right back out.

Listen to me: when you bapto the cucumber, it is a temporary action. You put it in, you pull it out, and it is still just a hot cucumber. Its fundamental nature has not changed.

Step 2: Nicander says after you bapto it in the boiling water, you must then baptizo the cucumber in a solution of vinegar and brine. Baptizo does not mean to dip temporarily. Baptizo means to totally immerse, to submerge, and to leave it there until the object takes on the qualities of the element it was placed into.

When you baptizo that cucumber in the vinegar, something miraculous happens. The vinegar permeates the cellular structure of the cucumber. It changes its color. It changes its texture. It changes its flavor. It completely changes its fundamental identity.

Church, you can take a cucumber out of the vinegar, put it on a plate, and let it dry off. But it will never, ever be a cucumber again. It has been permanently, irreversibly changed. It is now a pickle.

Bapto is a temporary dip. Baptizo is a permanent change of identity.

Around 200 B.C., a Greek writer named Nicander wrote a recipe for making a pickle that perfectly illustrates the New Testament word for baptism.

Bapto: Means to dip temporarily (like blanching a cucumber in boiling water). It does not change the nature of the object.

Baptizo: Means to permanently immerse (like soaking it in vinegar). It completely and permanently changes the identity of the object. It becomes a pickle!

The Theological Reality (Romans 6:3-4)

Now, hold that secular Greek recipe in your mind, and look at the theological masterpiece of Romans chapter 6.

The Apostle Paul is writing to the church in Rome. He is explaining the sheer, scandalous magnitude of the Grace of God. And he asks them a rhetorical question.

Look at verse 3: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?"

Romans 6:3 KJV 1900

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

When the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write this verse, He had a choice of Greek words. Paul did not use the word bapto. He didn't say, "You were dipped into Jesus Christ for a little while."

Paul used the word baptizo.

He says, "Do you not know that when you believed the Gospel, you were baptizo'd—you were permanently immersed—into Jesus Christ?"

Listen to me very carefully, because this is where dispensational theology gets razor-sharp. Romans 6 is not primarily talking about a tank of water. Water cannot save you. Water cannot forgive your sins. H2O has no atoning power.

Romans 6 is talking about Spirit Baptism. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body."

1 Corinthians 12:13 KJV 1900

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

The exact second you believed that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead, the Holy Spirit took you, and He baptizo'd you into the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

Look at the end of verse 3. What exactly were you immersed into? "We were baptized into his death."

Romans 6:3 KJV 1900

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

When Jesus Christ was hanging on the cross of Golgotha, taking the wrath of Almighty God, you were not physically there. But spiritually, legally, in the accounting ledger of heaven, God the Father placed you into Christ on that cross. When He died, your old sinful identity died with Him. The penalty was paid in full.

Now look at verse 4: "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."

Romans 6:4 KJV 1900

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

You didn't just die with Him; you were buried with Him. And you didn't just stay in the tomb. When the stone was rolled away on Sunday morning, and the Son of God walked out into the cool dawn air with a glorified, resurrected body, you were baptizo'd right there with Him! You were raised with Him!

You went into the cross as a dead, condemned, guilty sinner. But because you were immersed into Christ, you came out of the empty tomb as a fully justified, fully forgiven, completely righteous saint.

The grace of God permeated your cellular spiritual structure. He took out your heart of stone and gave you a heart of flesh. He clothed you in the righteousness of Christ. He completely, permanently changed your fundamental identity!

And church, just like the pickle, you can never go back! Once you have been baptizo'd into Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, you can never be an unregenerate sinner again. You might stumble. You might have a bad day. You might sin. But your identity is secure. You are sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption. You belong to Him.

Romans 6 is not primarily talking about water; it is talking about Spirit Baptism (1 Corinthians 12:13).

The moment you believed the Gospel, you were baptizo'd into the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You went into the cross as a dead sinner, and came out of the empty tomb as a completely justified saint. You can never go back!

The Application (The Meaning of the Water)

So, if all of that happened spiritually the moment we believed the Gospel... what in the world did we just do in that tank?

If the water didn't save them, why did the pastor just dunk them?

Because God knows that we are visual creatures. God knows that we need physical, tangible realities to help us grasp invisible, spiritual truths.

The water in that tank is not a magic potion. The water in that tank is a grave.

When those brothers and sisters walked down those steps into the water today, they were preaching a visual sermon to every single person in this room. They didn't need a microphone. Their bodies were doing the preaching.

When the pastor laid them backward under the surface of the water, they were painting a picture of Romans 6:3. They were saying to their family, to their friends, and to the angelic host watching from heaven: "I am testifying that my old self is dead. I have been crucified with Christ. My old identity of sin and shame is buried."

But praise God, the pastor didn't leave them under the water!

When he pulled them back up out of the water, and they took that deep breath of air, they were painting a picture of Romans 6:4. They were visually declaring: "Just as Christ was raised from the dead, I have been raised to walk in newness of life! I am not who I used to be. I am in Christ!"

Water baptism is the outward, physical declaration of an inward, spiritual baptizo.

It is the equivalent of wearing a wedding ring. This gold band on my left hand does not make me a married man. If I take it off and set it on the pulpit, I am still legally married to my wife. The covenant was made at the altar. But I wear this ring proudly, in public, to declare to the entire world that I belong to her, and my identity is tied to her.

The people who got out of that tank today were putting on the wedding ring. They were publicly identifying themselves with the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The water in the tank is not a magic potion; it represents a grave.

Water baptism is the outward, physical declaration of an inward, spiritual reality. It is like putting on a wedding ring to show the world who you belong to.

Have You Been Changed?

As we wrap up today, I want to address two different groups of people in this room.

First, to those of you who were just baptized: Welcome to the family. We saw your testimony today. But I want to remind you of the end of Romans 6:4. Because you have been raised with Christ, Paul says you "should walk in newness of life." You are a pickle now. Stop trying to live like a cucumber. Stop going back to the old habits, the old addictions, and the old mindsets that were buried in that watery grave. Walk in the freedom and the victory of your new identity in Christ Jesus. When the devil tries to remind you of your past, you point him to the cross and remind him of your baptizo. You remind him that you are dead to sin and alive to God.

Second, I want to speak to the person in this room who is dry. I am not talking about whether or not you have been in a tank of water. I am asking: Have you ever been permanently immersed into Jesus Christ?

Some of you have spent your entire lives treating church like a bapto. You treat it like a temporary dip. You come in on Sunday, you sing a few songs, you dip your toe into religion to make yourself feel better, and then you go right back out into the world on Monday and live exactly like you did before. Your fundamental identity has never changed. You are just a wet cucumber.

Listen to me: A temporary dip into religion will not save you on the Day of Judgment.

You do not need a bath; you need a resurrection. You need your dead, sinful heart to be permanently transformed by the grace of God. And that only happens one way. It doesn't happen by trying harder. It doesn't happen by giving money. It doesn’t happen by being baptized even. It happens by looking at the cross of Jesus Christ, recognizing that He died for your sins, and putting your absolute faith and trust in His finished work.

If you have never done that, do not walk out of those doors today. The Holy Spirit is ready to permanently change your identity right now, right where you sit. Stop trying to earn your way to God. Admit your need for forgiveness, and place your absolute trust in the fact that Jesus died and rose again to pay your penalty.

Let's pray.