What is Baptism?

Introduction

Let me give you a scenario...

You are sharing talking about the Bible with someone

Family member, friend, coworker...

This someone you’ve identified as someone who needs to hear the gospel

They are not only interested in talking about the Bible, they seem to have some prior knowledge!

They have some level of church experience or Bible exposure

They don’t necessarily have deep knowledge, but they know some passages and certainly know some concepts.

You start big picture and you talk about sin

It starts with how all of mankind has sinned against God and how there is a punishment for that

Eventually, you’re able to make that personal...about you and them.

That’s a problem not just for everyone in general, but for me and you.

You then get to talking about what God did about that problem.

He sent His Son to die for our sins.

Now, through that death, people can come back into a relationship with God.

You are getting hearty amens.

Then you get to talking about the human side of that

What does it look like to come back into fellowship and you’re careful to cite or even read verses.

You might bring up belief or faith. No problem.

You bring up repentance and the commitment to change that needs to be present. Mostly no problem.

Then you bring up baptism....and there is major pushback

For those who have had those conversations, you know it feels like there are only 3 things that can happen next.

Bible wars

Some appeal to a family member who wasn’t or hasn’t been baptized

Or someone is going to say “let me talk to my pastor”

All of those paths at least feel like they’re going to inevitably lead to the end of the study

This is one of the most frustrating feelings in the realm of evangelism

Everything seemed like it was going so well!

You had high hopes, especially if this is someone close to you, whom you already love.

You were in agreement that the Bible is what we need to be going by.

You were doing what God wants you to do which is lovingly approach the lost as bring the good news to them.

Baptism is a major part of what we need to be communicating to others

A lot of times you can be made to feel like you’re making too big a deal of baptism

Sometimes people try to say that’s just your opinion or your congregations doctrine on the matter.

Ephesians 4:4-6 - The Ones Passage

Paul is talking about the things or people that unite us. (Body, Spirit, Hope)

You know what’s right there with everything else? One baptism.

Imagine if someone said they were saved, but were serving a different Lord...would you correct that?

Imagine if someone said they were being saved, but they had their faith in someone else?

Baptism was important enough to the Spirit to have it included, so we need to figure out what’s going on.

What I’m going to do today is I’m going to give you some tools to help have those conversations.

These tools are going to come from real conversations that I’ve had with people about baptism.

As per usual, I’m going to give the caveat that this is not a magic bullet.

Our goal is to present God’s word lovingly and accurately.

There are a lot of things that are said about baptism that have varying degrees of truth.

Some are flat out wrong and others are right, but improperly applied.

I’ve heard baptism is a celebration of the removal of your sin.

I’ve heard baptism is just a symbol.

I’ve heard it is an outward display of an inward faith.

We are going to rely heavily on the Scriptures because we have to test these things.

It’s very easy to get distracted and end up in a rabbit hole

We have to have a standard to appeal back to.

I think what’s most important is to be able to talk through what’s going on in these Scriptures to prevent the Bible wars

What I like to do is methodically work through “this is what the Bible says about baptism.”

Body

The Bible says baptism is for the forgiveness/washing away of sins.

Remember the big problem?

Sin and the consequences of sin have taken people away from God.

That’s why God sent Jesus.

Jesus was God’s solution.

If the Bible connects baptism to and says it is for the forgiveness of sins, then that means it is part of that solution.

Acts 2:37

Feel free to go all the way up to verse 14 and down through the end of the chapter for the whole context.

Peter is telling that redemption, gospel story, and mentions that Jesus was the Messiah or the Savior aka the solution.

But they killed Jesus and now stand opposed to God.

They realize that they need to be saved from their sins and they ask Peter this question.

You can hear the desperation.

Acts 2:38 - This is Peter’s response

Peter could have said, just believe.

Repent and be baptized to receive the forgiveness of sins. That fixes the problem.

This is actually very straightforward and it’s important to get the person to acknowledge this. (Even if there are other verses that give them pause)

Notice, Peter doesn’t say be baptized to celebrate the sins that have already been forgiven.

If you recognize that your sins are a problem, Peter says through baptism, that problem can be resolved.

Acts 22:16 is another key passage.

This is Paul recounting when he goes to meet Ananias.

Ananias tells him to be baptized to wash away his sins.

He’s already heard and believes in Jesus at this point, yet he still has sins.

Why does Ananias say to be baptized to wash away his sins?

Get an answer to that.

It’s because baptism is the moment when the sins are washed away.

This is one of those “we don’t move on until we’ve established this” concepts.

If someone won’t read these passages and at least come away with baptism is connected to the removal of sins...

Depending on how close you are to the person, it may be a good time to challenge whether or not they’re really thinking with the Scriptures.

A few genuine questions that this might bring up is “well what about faith?” or what about Jesus?

Baptism is an act of faith.

This is where I struggle with the phrase “outward display of an inward faith”

The phrase is true by itself.

Unfortunately, this gets used to say baptism isn’t related to salvation as in you don’t need to do the outside thing because it’s really the inside thing.

Israel walking around the walls of Jericho was an outward display of an inward faith, but if they don’t walk, the walls don’t fall.

It’s important to acknowledge that faith and baptism are connected and not in opposition to each other.

Colossians 2:11-12

Paul brings up OT circumcision first because that was the OT way of identifying the Lord’s people.

You would cut away part of the male’s flesh.

Now, you have something greater - Baptism into Christ

Instead of old flesh dying, an old man died.

A new man was raised.

Paul says all of this happened through faith.

It’s important to acknowledge Paul, because he’s probably who people will appeal to for faith only stuff.

Paul didn’t see a contradiction.

How is this faith?

Are you seeing the old man dying? Are you seeing the new man being raised? No, you’re trusting God.

Specifically, you’re trusting in the work of God. (Jesus and now you)

Another important point from this passage comes from the next 2 verses. (Colossians 2:13-14)

You were dead before you were baptized, now you’re alive.

You were guilty before God, but now you’re forgiven.

The certificate of debt has now been cancelled. (That was the big problem!)

He nailed that debt to the cross through the death of Jesus.

Paul says that is good news for those who have been baptized because we were buried with Him in our baptism. (Connected to His death)

Baptism is an act of faith that connects us to Jesus’ death where true forgiveness is found.

Baptism is also connected to new life

Romans 6:3

Just like we were saying before you are being baptized into His death which is where the forgiveness is found.

I’ve tried to make the adjustment to specify that I mean baptism into Christ

Romans 6:4-5

Baptism mirrors the D/B/R of Jesus

The hope of living better moving forward comes from the fact that we’ve been raised like Christ was raised.

That’s the issue with calling baptism “just” a symbol.

Paul didn’t think it was just a symbol, He connected it to why things are better in Christ.

I mean think about the rest of the passage!

That old body was ruled by and enslaved to sin.

The new body lives for God forever, just like Christ.

Now does that mean the new man never sins?

But there is a fundamental change that happens when someone is baptized that makes Paul say this new man is different!

That’s not just a symbol guys.

All of this language highlights the final resurrection too.

Remember, Jesus’ new body is not ruled by death. His resurrection demonstrated that.

We are no longer ruled by death either.

That promise is for those who have been baptized into Christ and His death.

Baptism is immersion in water.

There are other baptisms mentioned in the Bible.

Baptism of fire, baptism of the Holy Spirit

Sometimes you’ll get pushback and folks will say the baptism Paul was talking about wasn’t water.

Some of that is remedied by again connecting the baptism to the D/B/R

There are other passages that help make it clear that water was a part of the conversation when discussing not just baptism, but the gospel in general

Acts 8:35-36

Philip is led by the Spirit to talk to the Ethiopian eunuch

V35 tells us that he preached Jesus to him; he shared the gospel

After a little while they come across some water and the eunuch wants to be baptized

Where does the eunuch get that idea from? Get an answer to this.

It’s because Philip preached Jesus, and that was a part of the message.

If the eunuch wants the gospel to be good news for him, he knows he needs to be baptized.

This is also a good place to illustrate the immersion aspect.

So not sprinkling or pouring, but being submerged in water.

Why does he wait until there is this big body of water to ask the question? Surely he has some water on hand if pouring would have gotten the job done.

v38 - They both actually go down into the water, so we know this is a deep pool of water.

v39 - When they come up, the Spirit carries Philip away...why? Because the eunuch has now responded to the good news.

Not when he heard, not when he believed, but when he was baptized and received the forgiveness available through Christ’s death.

Another good passage to see that this is water baptism is 1 Peter 3

v18 we see that same death and resurrection language that we’ve been seeing.

Noah and his family were saved through the water (death to life; mankind was cleansed)

Corresponding to this...i.e. similar to or matching this...baptism now saves you.

Through baptism, we pass through the water and go from death to life while being cleansed by God.

Notice some really key things here.

Baptism now saves you..can’t be much clearer than that.

If the Holy Spirit through Peter says baptism now saves you, we need to speak that way too.

Not as the removal of dirt from the body...i.e. we don’t have special holy water.

No this is the Lord working through the resurrection of Christ to provide that forgiveness and cleansing that only He can provide.

The result? Now a person has a good conscience before God, because He cleaned them and He did that through their baptism.

So now what you want to do is you just want to list what we’ve established about baptism.

And emphasize that you didn’t make these things up...this is scripture.

Baptism is for the forgiveness/washing away of sins.

Baptism is an act of faith.

Baptism is connected to new life.

Baptism is immersion in water.

If the person you’re talking to is still saying baptism has nothing to do with salvation, kindly ask them to harmonize these ideas.

Can you be saved without having your sins washed away?

Can you be saved without having the hope of newness of life?

Get answers.

Hopefully you can get people to see that they’re doing one of two things.

Either one, they’re creating a middle ground that the Bible doesn’t speak of. (Someone who is saved, but hasn’t been forgiven by God)

Or two, they have a very cheap idea of what salvation is.

Much like we saw in Colossians and Romans, salvation is being saved from sin and it’s consequences and being reunited with God.

Matthew 1:21, that’s why Jesus came.

1 Timothy 1:15 - It is to save sinners from the consequences of their sins.

Forgiveness does that, destroying the certificate of debt does that and those things happen at baptism.

Taking baptism out of the salvation plan puts you in a position where you have to do some serious mental gymnastics about straightforward teaching.

Or you could just say what Peter said.

Conclusion

File these verses away.

Read through them later. Study them.

It’s important that we don’t just fight verse with verse.

We need to know these concepts well enough that we can explain what’s going on.

People are going to have questions, as they should!

This is especially true if they have been exposed to faith-only teaching.

Baptism is something done on the human side, therefore it’s a work, and can’t be accepted.

Again, it is good they’re asking questions as we don’t want people blindly accepting things.

This means we need to be reading and willing to have the conversations.

We’re also going to need to be leading by example.

If baptism is supposed to be this transformational moment where someone goes from dead to alive then we should be a testimony to that.

Especially if this is someone who knew us before we were baptized, they should be able to spot the difference.

What can’t happen is we can’t know all of these passages that speak about baptism and yet we look just like everyone else.

1 Timothy 2:3-4 gives us 2 foundational truths.

The Lord wants everyone to be saved.

That includes you.

It’s awesome because no matter what your background is, God cares about you.

Is there any other circumstance where you can say that?

He wants everyone to be saved so bad He sent His Son.

The Lord wants everyone to know the truth.

You’ve heard that today.

Mankind sinned. You sinned.

That brought with it eternal consequences.

God sent His Son to pay the price to allow forgiveness and avoidance of those consequences.

Now, through Jesus, we can be forgiven and be right with God.

We receive that initial forgiveness at baptism.

You can be raised to be new today

Even if you’ve already done that, but you’ve fallen back into sin...

Stand and sing