There are many, for example, who even when believers are baptized, don't realize that what God is doing in that act and see only the human side. Some see it as a wet witness kind of thing, or some others simply as an act of obedience. You'd be amazed how many pastors of believer baptizing denominations that I speak to who can't answer the question, what is God doing for a believer when they're baptized? They see it purely as a human act.
[00:01:09]
So from time immemorial there has been a ritual meaning to washing in water, and not just a physical. In fact, in a Middle Eastern marriage to this day, in a Muslim marriage, the bridegroom is taken by his friends, not for a stag party, but they take him and give him a bath to wash away all his bachelorhood, and to present him clean to the bride. so that washing in water for other than a physical cleansing is not unknown in human society.
[00:03:46]
Now in the New Covenant all believers are priests, so all believers have those two things, a washing in water and an anointing. These are the two steps we're now to consider in this talk and the next. So to be consecrated as the priest that we now are, the priesthood of all believers, we also have a washing in water and an anointing not with oil but with the Holy Spirit who is represented by oil, but that's the next talk.
[00:04:34]
So that the baptism in water was doing something to the repentance they were already in, bringing it to a climax and a completion, a consummation. That's what baptism does. It brings what you are already in to its climax and consummation.
[00:06:45]
I may already be repenting of my sins, but baptism in water brings that repentance to its completion, a final settlement, a final break with the old life. I may already be believing in Jesus, but baptism brings me into the consummation of it. that faith by so identifying me with his death and burial and resurrection that that has settled it.
[00:08:07]
It doesn't matter who baptizes you. That's not the point. So Jesus wouldn't do it, so nobody could say, I had a better baptism than you. Jesus baptized me. Peter wouldn't baptize Cornelius. He told others to, so that Cornelius would never say, I had Simon Peter baptize me. If you ever say, Mr. So -and -so baptized me, you've misunderstood the whole thing. In fact, some of you here from churches where I've been pastor know that I always baptized with someone else, so that two of us did it, so that nobody could say, he baptized me. The important thing is not the person, it's the act.
[00:09:18]
There was no such thing in the early church as an unbaptized Christian. It would have been a contradiction in terms. How could someone say, I've accepted Jesus as Lord, if they haven't done the first thing he told them? It's just nonsense. How can someone say, I believe in Jesus, when they don't obey him? It's nonsense.
[00:10:06]
The very first act of trust and obedience is to be baptized. And it would have been astonishing to the apostles in the New Testament that people could consider themselves disciples of Jesus without it, because that's the very first expression of your repentance and faith.
[00:10:51]
Now why should it be so important to be in water than have water on you? I'll tell you why. Because baptism in the New Testament has a double meaning. It has the cleansing meaning, it has the meaning of being a bath. It also has the meaning of being a burial. And the two things that baptism means in the New Testament, it is a bath for those who are dirty and it is a burial for those who are dead.
[00:15:22]
Being immersed in water, out of sight, under, is a burial as well as a bath. And it is these two meanings that are brought together in Scripture. It's not just a sign of cleansing, it's a sign of being buried.
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From the day of Pentecost onwards, it was assumed that a person responding to the Gospel would start with a bath and a burial rolled into one. One, two, one, two, one, eight, four, five. with the most common material or medium available on earth, namely water.
[00:16:36]
But there's more to it than that. Why was it done? If you read the New Testament, there are 31 passages which tell you why they baptize people. In almost every case, the answer is not in terms of what man is doing for the Lord, but what the Lord will do for people in the baptism. The emphasis, hear this carefully, the emphasis is on instrumental language. The New Testament doesn't treat baptism as a symbol, but as an event.
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All the apostles treat baptism as an event in which God is doing something, and they liken it to events connected with water in the Old Testament where God also did something for his people.
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What crossing the Red Sea was to the Jew in relation to Pharaoh, baptism is to the Christian in relation to Satan. Romans 6 says that once you've been buried with Christ in baptism, sin has no more dominion. You're on the right shore of the Red Sea. You are literally delivered from the territory of Satan. Now that makes baptism a deliverance, and I want you to realize that a lot of Christians wouldn't need a ministry of deliverance if they saw what their baptism had actually done.
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As Pharaoh's troops were drowned in the water of baptism, Satan's demons are drowned in the waters of baptism, and sin has no more dominion over it. of you. You can actually say, Satan, go to hell. You're talking to a dead person. You attended my funeral. That's where burial comes in. It marks the final goodbye.
[00:25:01]
That is why Satan hates baptism, because he knows that's the burial. When my wife and I were in Arabia, when Muslims got baptized, they signed their death warrant. They were murdered, they were knifed, they were poisoned. Some had their homes burnt down with their families inside. The Muslims didn't mind them coming to church, reading their Bibles, saying they were Christians, but when they got baptized, they knew that's the end. We can't touch them now. Satan knows that too.
[00:27:06]
Peter likened it to Noah's flood. He said, just as the water of Noah's flood marked the complete end of the world he'd lived in and brought him through to a new beginning, so baptism does for you. It is a bath and a burial.
[00:27:39]
You see, being a Christian is not just saying, I believe he was crucified for me. It is to be able to say, I have been crucified with him. It's not just enough to say, I believe he was buried for me. I need to be able to say, I have been buried with him. It's not just enough to say, I believe Jesus rose from the dead. We need to be able to say, I've been raised to a new life.
[00:30:41]
In other words, those historical facts on which our faith is based need to become my own experience and history, so that I now know them to be true because they've happened to me. I know he was crucified because I've been crucified. I know he was buried because in his name I've been buried. I know he was raised because the same power that raised him from the dead is now mine.
[00:31:04]
If baptism is a bath for dirty people, how can it be a bath for a baby who's not yet dirty? If baptism is a burial for someone who's dead, how can it be given to a baby who's not dead? There is no point in baptism until someone is dirty and dead.
[00:32:51]
If baptism actually is for the forgiveness of sins, what's that got to do with a baby? If baptism is for the washing away of your sins, what's that got to do with a baby? Listen, baptism has nothing to do with getting you out of hell and everything to do with getting you cleaned up.
[00:37:11]
You do feel clean inside and out. God is bringing your forgiveness to its consummation, bringing your repentance to its consummation, bringing your faith to its climax. As a marriage brings the love between two people to its consummation, which is yet the beginning of the marriage, so baptism brings my repentance and my faith to its climax.
[00:37:50]
If God was the kind of God who'd send my baby to hell because it hadn't had a few drops of water and a magic formula said over it, I couldn't love that God. That God's an arbitrary tyrant.
[00:38:56]
What I do believe is that in the context of a penitent believer coming into that water, that water is a means of grace and is going to have a spiritual effect on them by bringing their forgiveness, their cleansing, their break with the old life to its climax and consummation, and is part of their being saved, not from hell but from their sins, part of enabling them to live a clean, righteous life here.
[00:40:22]
If you're only interested in being safe from hell, you will not see what baptism does for you or how it fits in. If you're concerned to be cleaned up from your sins, you will see this as God's amazing offer of his grace to start you clean.
[00:41:12]
