Matthew 3:1-12

Today we want to look at the baptizing ministry of John the Baptist.

This is the New Testament origin of Christian baptism.

Today we begin our series with the baptizing ministry of John the Baptist. This is the New Testament origin of Christian baptism. There is a close continuity between Christian Baptism and John’s baptism. John began baptizing, Jesus continued baptizing, and he commanded the church to keep on with the practice: though now the act would be done in his name. So there are crucial things to learn about baptism from the baptism of John.

There is a close continuity between Christian Baptism and John’s baptism.

John began baptizing, Jesus continued baptizing, and He commanded the church to keep on with the practice:

though now the act would be done in His name and the Name of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So there are crucial things to learn about baptism from the baptism of John.

The most important thing to learn is that when a Jewish person received John’s baptism,

it was a radical act of individual commitment to belong to the true people of God,

based on personal confession and repentance, NOT on corporate identity with Israel through birth.

This is one of the main reasons I am a Baptist, that is,

this is one of the main reasons that I do not believe in baptizing infants, who cannot make this personal commitment or confession or repentance.

John’s baptism was an assault on the very assumptions that give rise to much infant baptism.

So in chapters 1-2, known as the prologue, Matthew introduced us to the subject of his gospel:

Jesus is the promised King.

Now he describes how the King’s coming was announced by John the Baptist and Jesus Himself.

He explains the response that was required, repentance (3:2; 4:17),

and then expounds the nature of the kingdom that has come near: righteousness (6:33).

So, right at the beginning of the Gospel, we are told that this cannot be just another intellectual enquiry.

King Jesus demands a response.

You and I must be prepared to treat this as a matter of the utmost seriousness.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of John the Baptist.

All four Gospels record his ministry. He was, says Jesus, a prophet, but ‘more than a prophet’ (11:9).

He was the appointed herald and forerunner of the King.

Indeed, of him Jesus asserted: ‘I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet’,

he adds significantly, ‘he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he’ (11:11).

Let’s look first of all to 1. GOD’S MAN.

v1. In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea

vv3-4 For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight! Now John had a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

The Bible calls John “a voice” in the wilderness.

Such a voice, speaking so far from the centers of civilization, might have gone unheeded, except that

the Spirit was stirring the people of God and preparing them for the Christ.

John (v3) “is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight!”

John’s food and clothing signified a poverty, a rigidness, and a seriousness.

“John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey” (3:4).

The garb evokes Elijah, another prophet called by God to declare judgment on Israel (cf. ).

His location: the desert.

From the wilderness came the voice of a prophet, a prophet all the more striking

since there had been no prophet in Israel for four hundred years.

John preached far from the temple—the center of organized religion—and far from civilization.

The desert location reminds us of the wilderness

where the people of Israel wandered after they left Egypt and where God purged Israel of her sin.

There he fashioned the people into his holy nation.

Everything about John was startling:

his sudden emergence,

manner of dress,

choice of food,

preaching, and baptizing.

Luke covers the entire period between John’s birth and the beginning of his ministry in

Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew (Vol. 9, p. 196). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

The child grew up and became spiritually strong, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

God’s man in the wilderness had a message.

2. GOD’S MESSAGE.

VV3-4 and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!” For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight!

His burden: “Repent for the kingdom is near.”

This statement implies two things. First, there is a kingdom that people need to enter.

Apparently they are presently outside it; they are in some sense lost or estranged.

Second, to enter this kingdom repentance is necessary.

Yarbrough, R. W. (2013). Sin in the Gospels, Acts, and Hebrews to Revelation. In C. W. Morgan & R. A. Peterson (Eds.), Fallen: A Theology of Sin (p. 85). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

A condition for repentance is acknowledgment of sin, as we see a few verses later:

v6 and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

Yarbrough, R. W. (2013). Sin in the Gospels, Acts, and Hebrews to Revelation. In C. W. Morgan & R. A. Peterson (Eds.), Fallen: A Theology of Sin (p. 85). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

The fiery prophet John recognized sin in his listeners and called on them to confront it.

This is true not only of the masses but even of the social and religious leaders:

Yarbrough, R. W. (2013). Sin in the Gospels, Acts, and Hebrews to Revelation. In C. W. Morgan & R. A. Peterson (Eds.), Fallen: A Theology of Sin (p. 85). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

To avoid this wrath people must not only repent but “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (v. 8).

This implies abandoning certain wrong attitudes and actions and adopting others.

Repentance is thus a character quality of the regenerate,

Yarbrough, R. W. (2013). Sin in the Gospels, Acts, and Hebrews to Revelation. In C. W. Morgan & R. A. Peterson (Eds.), Fallen: A Theology of Sin (p. 85). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

a supernaturally inwrought dispositional attitude

that finds expression in a constant flow of heartfelt penitent acts—‘fruit in keeping with repentance’, as John the Baptist put it ().

Packer, J. I. (1990). A quest for godliness: the Puritan vision of the Christian life (pp. 173–174). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

As a dispositional dynamic, repentance involved humiliation

(conviction of guilt plus contrition of heart for offending God) and

conversion

(a shunning from sin and returning to God), and

finds expression in confession of sin and petition for pardon at the throne of grace.

The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ specifies that faith must express itself in

a life of continual contrition, confession, and conversion.

Some view repentance as a feeling—sorrow for something we did or failed to do.

Without these habits of the heart there is no genuine repentance, and

where there is no genuine repentance there is no genuine faith either.

It implies forsaking sin and replacing it with what is right.

It implies forsaking sin and replacing it with what is right.

Throughout Matthew’s Gospel there is a stress on repentance, not only in John’s preaching but even more so in that of Jesus.

For Jesus as for John, sin is a major issue.

Jesus preaches repentance as his ministry gets underway (4:17).

He targets not only individuals but towns such as Chorazin and Bethsaida (11:20-21) with this message:

Then he proceeded to denounce the towns where most of his miracles were done, because they did not repent: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes long ago.

And several more times in Matthew we’ll hear the call to repentance.

Some view repentance as a feeling—sorrow for something we did or failed to do.

Others have heard that the New Testament word for “repent” means “to change the mind.”

hew & 2. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (Vol. 1, pp. 48–49). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

This is roughly true, but repentance involves more than the mind.

The change of mind is part of a complete personal change, a change of mind, heart, and hands.

Most fundamentally, to repent is to return to God, to His covenant, to loyalty and obedience.

Repentance is a way that you gain assurance that you’ve been born again.

Along with some other marks such as:

Belief in true doctrine. You’re not a Christian just because you like Jesus.

**Belief in true doctrine.

Hatred for sin in your life. You’re not a Christian if you enjoy sin.

You’re not a Christian just because you like Jesus.

**Perseverance over time.

You’re not a Christian if you don’t persist in the faith.

**Love for other people.

You’re not a Christian if you don’t have care and concern for other people.

**Freedom from love of the world.

You’re not a Christian if the things of the world are more valuable to you than God.

John gives a reason for repenting.

Doriani, D. M. (2008). Matthew & 2. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (Vol. 1, pp. 48–49). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

John gives a reason for repenting.

The kingdom is coming, the Lord is coming, and he brings judgment with him.

The Lord will do something new. He will send someone who is far greater than a prophet (3:11–12).

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to remove his sandals. He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. But the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.”

To be ready for this, says John, we must be faithful to what we already know.

If we have been unfaithful, we must return to the Lord.

The Lord may have great things in store for an individual, a family, or a church.

But before we move on to new things, we should be faithful to the old—faithfulness, love, and mercy.

John’s message wasn’t wordy and lengthy but pithy!

Not soothing but soul-searching.

Not flattering but frightening!

He was a preacher of imminent doom (see verses 7 and 10), a catastrophe that could be avoided only by a, radical turnabout of mind and heart.

v7 When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew (Vol. 9, p. 196). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

v10 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Why should we repent? Why should we be converted?

v2 says, “because the Kingdom of heaven has come near!”

Doriani, D. M. (2008). Matthew & 2. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (Vol. 1, p. 48). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

We’ll certainly discuss this more fully in chapter 4 but summing up John’s statement here, he means that

THROUGH the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies God’s reign in the hearts and lives of men and women

would begin to assert itself far more powerfully than ever before, was about to begin.

It would begin, and in a sense, had even now arrived!

Great blessings were in store for all those who, by sovereign grace,

would confess and forsake their sins and would begin to live to God’s glory.

On the other hand, doom was about to overtake the impenitent.

As sovereign Lord, God was about to assert himself most emphatically both for salvation and for damnation.

Salvation and damnation are both in this text.

Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew (Vol. 9, p. 197). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

Damnation

vv7-8 When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance.

vv10-12 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to remove his sandals. He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. But the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.”

Salvation (in v12) in that He is going to gather the wheat into the barn.

This is GOD’S MESSAGE “Repent”!

The practical process of repentance works like this:

I used to believe in myself and this world and consequently I lived a certain way.

Now I have come to believe that was not the right way to live.

Therefore, I renounce the lies I have believed that resulted in my living that way; I do an about-face and start walking the right direction based on the truth of God’s Word.

If I choose to believe the truth of God’s Word, then complete repentance demands that I also make the choice to not believe the lies of this world.

I can’t believe both the truth and a lie and make progress in my walk with God.

Then look at GOD’S MOVEMENT.

Anderson, N. T. (2008). The Path to Reconciliation: Connecting People to God and to Each Other (p. 71). Ventura, CA: Regal.

Then look at GOD’S MOVEMENT.

vv5-6 Then people from Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the vicinity of the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

“all

Doriani, D. M. (2008). Matthew & 2. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (Vol. 1, pp. 52–53). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

People from all over and coming to the wilderness to hear preaching on salvation and damnation!

God is moving upon the hearts of the people.

When people are coming forward confessing and repenting, you know that true, God-sent revival has come!

And God sent revival through a man who wasn’t a compromiser and had a devastating message.

John was neither common nor compromising, and he didn’t hold back his message from anybody.

In , when all of the religious leaders visited him, he had his big moment of opportunity to play to the crowd.

But in verses 7–10, rather than coddle them, he delivered the short, sharp shock of biblical truth: “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.”

Then he went on to talk about a judgment of purging and burning and unquenchable fire

—a devastating diatribe against those religious leaders.

Later in Matthew we’ll see the whole leadership of Israel had let Herod’s sin of adultery and his illicit marriage go unchallenged.

But John faced him, nose to nose, and told him it was a sin.

That’s why Herod imprisoned John, who was soon to have his head chopped off and brought into a party on a plate.

John was a man who well understood the idea that

Right is right even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong even if everyone is for it.

When God is in it, the preaching of repentance from sin will be there!

So in our world people come to faith by believing in Jesus.

They pray to receive Christ, and if they are sincere, they are born again.

But if that is all that happens, then salvation would look more like addition rather than transformation, which is what salvation should be

since we are new creations in Christ.

At salvation we were rescued out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of His beloved Son (see ).

Believers are no longer “in Adam”—they are now alive and free in Christ.

We can believe in Jesus and still believe everything we believed before, which means we haven’t really repented,

and that is probably one reason why we are not seeing much difference between the lifestyles of believers and nonbelievers.

Nobody can fix our past, but by the grace of God we can be free from it if we repent. says,

The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

says,

Therefore, since we have this ministry because we were shown mercy, we do not give up. Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone’s conscience by an open display of the truth.

Paul flees those secret and shameful things, he doesn’t act deceitfully nor does he distort the word of God.

But this is what Paul pursues!

Commending himself before God and to everyone’s conscience by how?

By an open display of the truth!

So we have GOD’S MAN, MESSAGE, AND MOVEMENT.

Why is this passage important? Because in some sense the Baptist’s words speak close to home.

He’s telling the religious folk to flee from God’s wrath through repentance!

Then he let’s us all know that repentance has certain fruits that hang from its tree!

That’s the fearful part for a lot of us. We look under the fruit tree and we’re struck with fear because you don’t see any fruit!

You plant a grape vine and by golly you’re going to expect to see grapes from the vine.

God seeks fruit from His people. And, fruit is not a luxury: It is a necessary byproduct of saving faith.

3:10 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Jesus adds this in , “Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.”

The necessity to be fruitful is serious business.

Second, this parable teaches us the importance of patience. Most taproots descend slowly.

I have known people who were Christians for thirty years, and they are just beginning to enjoy a deeper taste of this faith.

Remember, the intensity of the grape’s flavor doesn’t peak until the vine is 30 to 50 years old. Be patient with God and yourself.

The intensity of the grape’s flavor doesn’t peak until the vine is 30 to 50 years old.

Be patient with God and yourself.

Third, God does things in our lives to deepen our roots.

Drought will stretch the natural vine’s root.

If there’s an abundance of water on the surface, the root will feed there.

But drought sends the root deep in search of moisture.

So what’s God’s drought?

() Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

God seeks fruit but be patient. And when God causes fruit, there’s going to be a drought in the form of a trial.

So what can you do?

Obey God in the small things.

The man who obeys builds his life on rock. Neither wind, rain, nor storm can shake him. ().

Also, 2. Immersion in God’s Word will send that root down.

describes the man immersed in God’s Word as “a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither.” ().

Lastly, 3. Ask God to flood you. Expect it. Look for it.

Be like Jacob. Wrestle with God and don’t let go until He gives you this quality of life for your own.

Unless there is a yearning within us for that which is eternal, we shall turn to that which is temporal for sustenance when the day of trouble comes.

If you have been born of God a yearning for the immutable, unseen river of life will grow in you. Yield to it.

Don’t quench it. God will extend your taproot deeper with testing. When these trials come—“consider it all joy.”

God is good. God is sovereign.

God loves even you, and He means it all for good.

This is the confidence that can make every believer self-irrigating and unshakable in good times and in bad.

Let me try to explain and show you what I mean from .

First of all, get the picture in vv1-2.

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!”

According to verses 1–2, John comes into “the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ”

He is the promised prophet who would come and prepare the way of the Lord:

make things ready for the Messiah.

It’s important to realize that John’s ministry was to Jews, not primarily to Gentiles.

The reason this is important is that the Jews are already God’s chosen people in an outward, ethnic sense.

So this means that John’s radical call to repentance was being given to Jews who were already part of the historic people of God.

These are the people John was telling to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins.

These were people who were part of God’s covenant and they had the sign of the covenant:

at least the men did: namely, circumcision.

To these people, who were ethnic Jews, part of God’s covenant people, having the sign of the covenant, circumcision, John said, in effect,

“Confess your sins, repent, and signal this with baptism, because God’s wrath is hanging over you like an axe over the root of a tree.”

To these people, who were ethnic Jews, part of God’s covenant people, having the sign of the covenant, circumcision, John said, in effect, “Confess your sins, repent, and signal this with baptism, because God’s wrath is hanging over you like an axe over the root of a tree.” Look at verse 6: “They were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.” This is why his baptism was called “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (). He called for the Jews to admit that they were sinners and needed to get right with God, and to admit that being Jews was no guarantee of being saved. In other words baptism was a sign that they were renouncing their old dependency on ethnic Jewishness and were relying wholly on the mercy of God to forgive those who confess their sins and repent.

Look at verse 6: “and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.”

This is why his baptism was called “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” ().

He called for the Jews to admit that they were sinners and needed to get right with God, and to admit that being Jews was no guarantee of being saved.

In other words baptism was a sign that they were renouncing their old dependency on ethnic Jewishness

and were relying wholly on the mercy of God to forgive those who confess their sins and repent.

You can see this even more clearly in verse 7: “When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”

That’s the issue: the wrath of God.

Not just on the nations who are uncircumcised, but even on God’s own people.

In other words, Jewishness was no guarantee of salvation.

Being born into a covenant family was no guarantee of being a child of God.

Baptism is John’s new sign of belonging of the true people of God:

not based on Jewishness or being born into a covenant family,

but based on radically personal, individual repentance and faith.

They got baptized one by one to show that they were repenting as individuals, and joining the true people of God:

“We Have Abraham as our Father”

the true Israel, not simply the old ethnic Israel, but the true remnant of those who personally repent and believe.

Merely traditional Jews were become true spiritual Jews through repentance: at least that was John’s aim.

We see even more deeply into John’s position when John responds to the Pharisees and Sadducees.

He says in verse 8, “Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance.”

And then he reads their minds, it seems, and says in verse 9, “And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.”

Now what were the Pharisees and Sadducees really saying with the words, “We have Abraham as our father!”?

They were saying, “Don’t talk to us about the wrath of God.

Wrath belongs to the gentiles, not to the descendants of Abraham.”

In other words, they were saying that physical descent from Abraham guaranteed the security of their salvation.

There was no threat of wrath! “We have Abraham as our father!”

What was their reasoning? Well, John shows us by the way he responds.

In verse 9b he says, “I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

In other words, what they were thinking was that God had made a promise to the children of Abraham

that they would be blessed, not just with temporal blessings, but with eternal blessings

(he would be their God and they his people) and that God would always be for them as His covenant people.

Since God cannot lie, the children of Abraham are safe, no matter what,

because if God destroyed his own people, then there would be no one left of fulfil the promises to, and

He would prove to be a liar.

So they use the faithfulness of God as their warrant for security.

To this John has a stunning response: he says, you are right about the faithfulness of God,

but you make a terrible mistake in thinking that, if you perish in his wrath, he can’t fulfil his promises.

He can, and he will.

God can, if he must, raise up children to Abraham from these stones (or from Gentiles!).

In other words God is not boxed in or limited, the way you think he is.

He will be faithful to fulfill his promises to the children to Abraham,

but he will not fulfill them to unbelieving, unrepentant children of Abraham.

And if all of the children should be unrepentant and unbelieving, he would raise up from stones children who would believe and repent.

God Can Raise up Children Who Believe and Repent

Now what does all this tell us about baptism? Three things:

1. It tells us that John’s baptism is not simple continuation of circumcision.

This is important because those who defend infant baptism often appeal to circumcision

as the old sign of the covenant and say that baptism is the new sign.

The one was given to infants and so should the other be.

Circumcision was the sign of belonging to the Old Covenant people of God.

Every Jewish male received it.

If you were born Jewish, you received the sign of the covenant as a baby boy.

So at least some of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to see circumcision as the sign of God’s favor and of their security as the covenant people.

But John’s baptism was a radical attack on this false security.

He infuriated the Pharisees by calling the people to renounce reliance on the sign of the covenant that they got when they were infants,

and to receive another sign to show that they were not relying on Jewish birth,

but on the mercy of God received by repentance and faith.

A new people within Israel was being formed, and a new sign of a new covenant was being instituted.

It was not a simple continuation of circumcision.

It was an indictment of a misuse of circumcision as a guarantee of salvation.

Circumcision was a sign of ethnic continuity; baptism was a sign of spiritual reality.

2. John’s baptism was a sign of personal, individual repentance, not a sign of birth into a covenant family.

It is hard to overstate how radical this was in John’s day.

The Jews already had a sign of the covenant, circumcision.

John came calling for repentance and offering a new sign, baptism.

This was incredibly offensive, far more offensive even than when a Baptist today says that baptism is not a sign to be received by infants born into a Christian home,

but a sign of repentance and faith that a person chooses for himself,

even if he already has been christened as an infant, the way the Jews were circumcised as infants.

John’s baptism is the beginning of the radical, individual Christian ordinance of baptizing those who believe.

3. John’s baptism fits what we are going to see in all the rest of the New Testament, and

indeed in all the first two centuries of the Christian era until A.D. 200

when Tertullian mentions infant baptism for the first time in any historical document, namely, that

all baptism was the baptism of believers, not infants.

And the reason was that baptism was the sign of belonging to the new people of God

who are constituted not by birth or ethnic identity, but by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

The way of salvation is repentance and faith in Christ, not ethnic identity or birth to Christian parents.

God calls us today, no matter who our parents were, and no matter what ritual we received as infants:

God calls us today to repent and believe on Christ alone for salvation and to receive the new sign of the new covenant of the people of God:

the sign of repentance and faith, baptism.

So I call on every one of you who has not followed Christ in this way, “Repent and be baptized” (). This is the call of God. This is the path of obedience and life.