Title: Understanding Christian Baptism
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
I often consider the Sundays that we have baptism, it's kind of like the Super Bowl, you know, it's always just the best time of the year for us to be able to rejoice in the new life that God has given through the salvation of Jesus Christ alone. Just what a wonderful time together. And so I wanted to take this opportunity to really teach on this ordinance specifically.
Before the Lord ascended back to heaven after the resurrection, He commissioned the disciples to, in Matthew 28, 19, He said, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. This particular inclusion of baptizing really points to one of two ordinances given to the church, the other one being the Lord's Table, which I intend to talk about next week when we do celebrate the Lord's Table. But we might back up a little bit and say, well, what is an ordinance? It's not really a word that we use very often today.
What are we talking about? Well, very simply, it is a regular church observance that the Lord has ordained. It's been ordained by Christ, therefore ordinance. Now, some of you might come from a church tradition that referred to these things as sacraments.
I don't know if you've come from a Roman Catholic background or a more traditional high church background, it's sacrament. This word sacrament comes from a Latin word sacramentum, which is used to mean that a specific rite which conveys or imparts grace in and of itself. Now, we're going to talk about a little bit later why we don't believe that these rites convey grace to the individual specifically, but it's important to realize that not every tradition that uses this word sacrament believes the same things about it, so that can be a slight bit confusing at times.
Again, not every church that uses the word sacrament believes that these things convey grace, but we, for our purposes, we have adopted, and many, many churches have adopted this word ordinance to refer to baptism and the Lord's table. And as I mentioned, we'll be talking specifically about baptism today. And so, what is baptism, and what does it mean? I think to understand baptism, we have to begin by understanding conversion and regeneration.
What happens when a person is saved? The Bible teaches us that because of the fall in Genesis chapter 3, that all of us are dead in sin because of Adam's transgression. This means that the spiritual state of every single person is spiritual deadness, that we are ruined because of sin morally, but we're also justly condemned by God eternally. And so, we need both.
We need to be forgiven of our sin, but more than just forgiven of our sin, we have to receive and be granted new life by God. It's not enough just to be forgiven and have no new life, because then you're just forgiven and dead, but now you have to have this new life. And so, both of these realities, and much more, by the way, are accomplished through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
It's on the cross that Jesus takes on the sins of His people to Himself. It's on the cross that He is punished by God on our behalf and dies in our place as a substitute. He is then buried in the ground, thus burying our sins and burying our condemnation forever.
And then on the third day, He resurrects. He comes back to life in victory, in glory, accomplishing the full spectrum of the work of salvation. It is brought from condemnation then to glorification in the work of Christ.
And we look at the cross and we say, okay, this is where our salvation was accomplished. How do we receive the benefits of the work of salvation? Ever thought about that? How do we go from viewing the events of the cross to then me, myself, being justified, sanctified, glorified with Christ? How do we receive the benefits of that? Well, the Bible teaches that we must be placed in Him spiritually. And it's one of those things where if you've never really thought about the phrase in Him or in Christ, now that I've said it, you're going to read the New Testament.
You're going to see it everywhere. All throughout all the New Testament, it's this reality of being in Him, in Christ, in the Beloved. This happens through the regenerating and indwelling work of the Holy Spirit.
See, at the point of our conversion, when we're transferred from an unbelieving state to a believing state, the Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, the Spirit of God enters into us and takes up residence within us. That's called indwelling. And He recreates our soul.
He gives us new life. That's called regeneration. That's what Jesus was talking about in John 3 when He tells Nicodemus, you must be born again.
You have to receive new life in yourself. By doing this cleansing, regenerating work, the Spirit of God is binding us to Christ, applying the work of Christ to us and effectively taking us and placing us in Him. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that binds us to Christ in this way.
This is also referred to by the Bible and theologians, we talk about this as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now, some of you came from traditions where the baptism of the Holy Spirit was something very different. It was very extreme.
It was very emotional. It was something other. The Bible really does not teach and Christian history does not declare that that is actually the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
It's not some charismatic, ecstatic experience. Rather, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is this work of regeneration in the heart of the believer. This inward spiritual reality that takes place at conversion.
Every single Christian, if you're in Christ, every single Christian has received this spiritual baptism and this is not some other ecstatic experience later. That's a whole other sermon, by the way. We're not going to go there today, but it's important that when we're talking about what is this baptism, we have to be very clear about what it is.
This baptism reality, we see this as a spiritual thing, but it's also demonstrated to us physically, visibly in a religious practice that we then call also baptism. But what exactly is this practice, this ordinance, this rite of baptism? Well, the Greek word in the New Testament is the word baptizo. We quite literally transliterate baptizo in the Greek to baptize or baptism, and this word baptizo has a range of meaning, but primarily it refers to plunging or dipping or immersing.
The first instances of baptism appear in the New Testament through the man John. We call him John the Baptist. He appears in all four gospels.
In every instance, he's calling worshipers to repent of sins and be baptized. Much has been said about John's baptism. Some have connected it to Jewish proselyte baptism, where you would take a person who was not in Israel, not of the Jewish faith, and you would take them and you would baptize them, symbolizing a cleansing or a commission to this faith, and then you would make them obey the Jewish faith.
That would be proselyte baptism. Some have likened John's baptism to something like that. Again, it's a conversion rite for Gentiles.
Now, if that is true, if that really is what John's baptism was, it would explain why all the Jews were offended when John told them that they needed to be baptized also. Again, conversion to Judaism, and he's saying, no, you have to be converted as well. What do you mean we have to be converted? We already are the people of God.
And he would say, no, this is a different kind of a baptism. This is a baptism of repentance, a baptism of spiritual cleansing. And so that's very clear about John's baptism.
He's calling all of Israel, all people everywhere to confess their sins in order to prepare the way for the coming of Messiah, to get your heart ready. And that's a good principle for every single Christian, every single place, especially even today, to confess our sins, to get our hearts ready for the Lord. Matthew 3.11, John said, I baptize you with water for repentance.
But then he talks about the coming of Christ. He says, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I. And he says, and He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And so John's baptism is really a prefigurement and a type of what would come in the future.
It has a very unique purpose. But then we move ahead in the narrative and we see another baptism show up in the Gospels, and that's the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 3.13-17, whereby Jesus now comes to John. He comes to John the Baptist in order to be baptized in the Jordan River.
And John, at first, he refuses. He scratches his head and he says, well, wait a second here. What sins has Jesus done that he needs to confess? The answer, none.
If anything, John's refusal to baptize Jesus is another evidence of the sinlessness of Christ. John doesn't want to baptize Him. You don't need to be baptized by me.
What kind of purification does Christ need? None. He's perfect. And so John says, no, I don't want to baptize you.
If anything, you're supposed to baptize me. But then John told Him, I need to be baptized by you. And he says, and do you come to me? But Jesus recognizes His baptism is different, different altogether.
He tells John, permitted at this time, for it is in this way it is a fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Well, how so? Well, in submitting to baptism, Jesus was aligning Himself with the other sinners in the world, even though He Himself is not sinful. We talked about this quite a while ago when we went through the whole Gospel of John.
When we got to Matthew 3, we talked about this, and there is almost a visible sense in which when Jesus is going down into the water, the waters of baptism, the waters that all these people are confessing their sins, it's almost as if Jesus is dunking Himself into the sins of the people, even though He Himself is flawless in every way. He's identifying with us in baptism, declaring that before too long we would have to identify with Him, and we would. But this is an obedience that Jesus undergoes.
It pleases the Father. He says that in verse 17, we see the Father booming His voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. It pleased the Father for the Son to submit to baptism.
So again, Christ's baptism is a type and a prefigurement of future baptism, but again, it is unique. However, after the cross, after the resurrection, after His ascension, and after the Holy Spirit arrives at Pentecost, He begins to indwell believers. He takes up residence in them because of their faith, and He comes to them in Jerusalem, and then the church begins to do something.
They begin to practice something. They begin to practice this ordinance of baptism. Just like with the baptisms of John and with Jesus, a new believer would go down into the water and be immersed, baptizo, and come back out of the water again.
We might ask, what does this signify? What does it mean? Romans 6, 3, and 4 explains the significance of baptism. Paul says, or do not know, that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death. Therefore, we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
Now, in the passage, in the context of the passage here, Paul is describing our spiritual union with Christ at regeneration, at new birth, new life. We died and were buried with Him spiritually, and then we were resurrected in Him spiritually. There is an identification with Christ in our new life, in our regeneration, whereby spiritually we are linked with Him.
So, every single believer is connected to the cross through this spiritual baptism. That's what Galatians 3, 27 says, as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. We are in Him.
But Romans 6, 3, and 4 also prescribes the image of physical water baptism as well. It paints the picture for us, what we're seeing when we baptize a person in the water. Because in the Bible, water is a symbol of both death and cleansing, death and cleansing.
We think about just lots of images from the Old Testament, the flood, Genesis 6 through 9. All of you know the story of the flood. It's God's judgment of death for the world. He drowns the world in judgment, but it is through that, the waters of judgment and death, that Noah and his family are saved.
We think about the Red Sea crossing. It pictures the Israelites escaping death, literally through the waters of death here. They pass through the sea on dry land, and then the judgment of God swallows up the Egyptian soldiers behind them.
Even we think about Jonah. We know the story of Jonah being swallowed up by the whale. He's swallowed up inside this whale that essentially preserves him on some level, and he's dragged down to death at the bottom of the ocean, only to be resurrected three days later.
Water pictures death, but it also pictures cleansing, cleansing, God's promise for regeneration offered in the New Covenant. In fact, Ezekiel 36, it's one of two passages in the Old Testament prophets that figures or shows the New Covenant. The other one's Jeremiah 31, but I just want to read to you from Ezekiel 36 here, where God tells the people, promising them this New Covenant.
He says, then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My commandments. That is Holy Spirit baptism prophesied by Ezekiel. It's as clear as day.
That's why when Jesus talks to Nicodemus and He says, you must be born again by the Spirit, Nicodemus says, I don't know what you're talking about. He says, you don't know. You're the teacher of Israel, and you don't understand these things.
This has been here all the time, so this image of water and cleansing, purification, and then this giving, this new heart that's being given, and the Spirit being given to believers. Again, we receive all of this in salvation through the new covenant. Titus 3.5, God saved us, not on the basis of deeds done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, listen to this, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.
It's right there. And so, water baptism, it symbolizes our identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. We see the picture, and we do this all the time.
We've done dozens of these, and a person will stand there, they profess their faith in Christ, they go down into death. It looks like from the outside looking in, they have died in the water, and then they resurrect and come back out of the water as if out of the grave. It is a picture of resurrection, as well as a picture of spiritual cleansing and renewal by the work of the Holy Spirit.
And that's what we see all through the book of Acts as well. New believers who are coming to faith in Jesus Christ, and then they're being baptized as a sign of their faith. Over and over again, we see this consistent pattern in the book of Acts, the first sermon of Peter in Acts chapter 2. He tells the Jews who are there, he says, repent.
Repent. That means a change of mind for the purpose of changing direction. Repent of your sins.
Turn away from your sins. Repent and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. And then he says, and then you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2.38. And then verse 41, so then those who had received His Word were baptized.
And then he says, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls. Acts 8, the preaching of Philip in Samaria, same kind of a thing. Verse 12, Acts 8.12, when they believed Philip preaching the good news of the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, men and women alike.
Again, all believers, doesn't matter, male, female, what the situation. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are to be baptized. Acts chapter 10, the conversion of Cornelius and his house, those who were in his house, it says, they heard the Word of God, they received the Holy Spirit, and they were baptized, Acts 10.48. Again, this pattern is repeated over and over again.
People hear the message of the gospel, they receive the Holy Spirit spiritually, they believe on Christ, and then as a sign of that faith, they are baptized. So, to define it, baptism in terms of water baptism is the outward sign of the spiritual transformation that has taken place within the heart of the believer. That's what it is.
Now, having said all of that, I'm sure you are aware that baptism has also been the subject of strenuous debate. Some of you have been part of some of these debates, and up to this point, we've been talking about what is called believer's baptism or credo baptism. But there is another practice, and I do want to talk about it today, known as infant baptism or pedobaptism.
And there are several traditions that do this, and they're not all the same. I want to be very clear about that, they're not all the same. But the Roman Catholic Church practices infant baptism, and it regards it as one of the seven sacraments of the church.
In other words, it's an outward sign that confers grace. And I know quite a few of you in the room, as recovering Catholics, you are baptized as infants, okay? You are baptized as infants in the Roman Catholic Church as one of these seven sacraments. And the Roman Catholic dogma teaches that by baptizing infants, they are cleansed from original sin, cleansed from original sin.
As I mentioned earlier, these are sacraments, including baptism, works that they believe are conferring specific kinds of grace, regardless of the faith of the person who is experiencing it. Theologically, we call these sort of rites, this is ex operae operato, which is essentially translated as the work of the work, or the work performed. In other words, it's the rite itself, it's the baptism itself that provides the spiritual blessing, regardless of the faith of the individual, or regardless of the actions of the person or the family receiving it.
It has nothing to do with anything outside of itself, it's the actual physical work of the baptism itself that conveys the grace, that's the concept. But of course, Scripture knows nothing of this, nothing. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith.
This is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, including baptism, not as a result of works so that no one should boast. Even John 1 verses 13 and 14 talks about how that we are made children of God, not by the will of man, not by the will of flesh, not by anything. We don't produce this in and of ourselves, God does.
We are saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. However, Roman Catholics will oftentimes appeal to verses like 1 Peter 3.21 that explicitly says baptism now saves you. You've heard maybe this verse before.
In fact, the context of that verse, it misses their sentiment completely. It's not teaching what they think it teaches. The context of the verse is talking about the saving power of Christ, and all of verse 21 says this, corresponding to that, baptism now saves you, then Peter continues, not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If anything, it's the strongest verse not for the rite of baptism, but actually for faith completely. The verse is not about the saving power of the water baptism, it's about the earnest faith which accompanies spiritual baptism. He says not the removal of dirt, not the washing itself, it's what's happening inside of the heart.
In that way, the infant that's being baptized is not making an appeal to God for a good conscience. They're not even aware of what's happening. They're merely undergoing a religious rite, and they do not understand.
Instead, what we see here in the New Testament, again, is when a person hears and understands the gospel, they believe it by faith, and then they're baptized. It is their faith in the finished work of Christ that saves them. But what about Protestant paedo-baptism? So, now we're moving away from the Roman Catholic tradition completely.
We're moving away from that. This is a very different thing now. This is the practice that many Reformed and Presbyterian churches practice.
Now, I want to be very clear here about this, that when we talk about the differences in view on baptism, that we have most of the agreement with the Reformed and Presbyterian churches, in fact, on most major points of doctrine, including the nature of the Scriptures, the nature of God, sin, Christology, the gospel, the doctrines of grace. I mean, there's a large amount of agreement that we have. In fact, it almost feels silly to split hairs on something like baptism when there is so much we agree on.
And so, we disagree, however, in this point of baptism, but I want to be very clear and very gracious here that this is a disagreement amongst friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. This is not something that we're going to go to war over, but we would see it somewhat differently. So, I want to talk about this this morning a little bit here.
What is the rationale for baptizing infants? The first thing that's important to note here is that there is no command in the New Testament to baptize infants, nor is there any example of it either. It is primarily a theological and traditional argument. It is not strongly a biblical one.
The case for infant baptism is based on what one scholar calls a string of pearls, whereby it's a series of logical and theological inferences that are strung together to arrive at the position. I want to quote from Presbyterian scholar John Murray, who's written a book on baptism that basically typifies the position of the Presbyterian church. This is what John Murray writes, quote, there is no express command to baptize infants and no record in the New Testament of a clear case of infant baptism.
The evidence for infant baptism falls into the category of good and necessary inference, end quote. So, while there is a string of arguments that can be made, and there are a lot of arguments, and I think when you talk to Presbyterian brothers about this, there's a lot of different arguments that can be made, a lot of places in Scripture that they appeal to, theological arguments, historical arguments, but there is one principle that undergirds the entire position, and that is that baptism is the New Testament counterpart of circumcision in the Old Testament. Way back in Genesis 17, God instructed Abraham to carry out the circumcision of infant males as a sign of the Abrahamic covenant, and so every faithful family in Israel from that day forward, they circumcised their sons on the eighth day as a sign of the covenant, and that was even carried forward into the Mosaic covenant as well.
Even Jesus, the disciples, the apostle Paul, they were all circumcised in obedience to the covenant. But now, in Christ, we are no longer under any old covenant, certainly not the Mosaic covenant, rather we are under, as we mentioned earlier, the new covenant, one of faith and regeneration. And the question is, well, what is the sign of that covenant? Every covenant has a sign.
What is the sign of that covenant? Biblical scholars agree that it is baptism. We would concur with that, baptism. John Piper, a Baptist scholar, writes this, just as circumcision was administered to all the physical sons of Abraham, so baptism should be administered to all the spiritual sons of Abraham.
In fact, there's a connection in Colossians chapter 2 verses 9-12, Colossians 2, 9-12, this is the apostle Paul writing, for in him, talking about Christ, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in him you have been made complete, and he is the head over all rule and authority, verse 11, and in him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. In the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. And so, Paul is making this connection here, union with Christ, regeneration, Holy Spirit and dwelling.
He says things like, in him you have been made complete. Again, this union with Christ, in him you were circumcised. He talks about not a circumcision of physical means, but a spiritual one, with him you were buried in baptism.
But again, Colossians 2, 11 and 12 are speaking not of physical circumcision, but a spiritual one, a consecration of the heart. It's almost as if you're taking a razor, slicing off a corner of your heart and offering it to God. That's essentially the imagery here.
It's made without hands. It's a spiritual thing. Again, these are clearly heart realities here.
But nowhere in Colossians 2 does Paul make the argument that baptism is the replacement sign for circumcision. I went to William Hendrickson, who's a Presbyterian scholar who I revere greatly. I use him every single week in my expositions.
If I don't consult Hendrickson, I'm wrong, except on this, okay? I went to Hendrickson on Colossians 2 and I says, all right, what are you seeing here? And he says the exact same thing. He says, this is merely an inference. He says it's a strong one, but it's an inference.
It's not a direct connection. And while, yes, they are connected in some way, it is not correspondent. What do I mean by that? In other words, the Bible does not teach a one-to-one from one to the next.
In other words, the circumcision of infants in the old covenant does not equate with baptism of infants in the new covenant. The Bible does not make that case. Furthermore, I believe it can't make that case because of the nature of salvation, because salvation has nothing to do with the family you're born into or the right you undergo as a child.
Salvation comes when you hear and understand the gospel and respond in repentance and faith. Now, to be very clear about this, Reformed, Pedobaptists don't believe that their children are regenerated or saved eternally through baptism. I want to make that very clear.
Baptismal regeneration is a very different doctrine. Some traditions hold that, but I believe it's incorrect also. That's not what most of our Presbyterian brothers and sisters hold on to.
Rather, they believe that the children of believing families are to baptize them in order to bring them into the covenant community. Covenant community. It is in this covenant community that they are to be nurtured, discipled, catechized, and evangelized toward saving faith in Christ.
It's sort of placing them into this protective nest where they can be nurtured in the faith. And I want to tell you, there is much to commend to that. Would the Baptist equally be committed to nurturing and training up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord as well? I think principally that is marvelous.
You can't just bring your kids along, have them sit there and hope that eventually they listen to the preacher and they get saved. Now, we have to do some work at home as well, praying for our kids, teaching them, instructing them, walking with them through this. And so, yes, that is a wonderful principle, and I commend that to you and to any believer.
But the question is, should they receive baptism? Again, not if baptism is a sign of the new covenant of regeneration. In every single case in the Bible, baptism is only granted to those who have professed saving faith in Christ. What about Acts 2.39 that says, the promise is for you and for your children? Well, what is the promise he's talking about there? The promise is if they repent, they can receive baptism for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
He's talking about spiritual salvation realities here, salvation for believers, to which verse 41 says, those who had received the Word were baptized. He's not talking about biological, literal children. He's talking about generational.
This is for not just you, believers. This is for your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. This is a promise that will extend forever.
What about the Philippian jailer whose whole household was baptized in Acts 16? That's an argument we hear a lot. Well, the first thing about that is there's nothing in the text that says there were infants in that household. Household involved a lot of different people.
But secondly, if you look at the text, they're only baptized by the disciples after the Word was preached to them, and it says in Acts 16.34, they believed in God. They believed in God, and then they were baptized, and they greatly rejoiced in that. Again, physical baptism as a sign of regenerate faith alone spiritual baptism, not a hopeful potential salvation in the future, but an actual inward new birth that has occurred in the heart of the Christian, whereby they had been united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.
Ephesians 4, 4 and 5 says, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were also called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. 1 Corinthians 12.13 declares, for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body. He's talking about the body of Christ, believers together.
And so, before we finish up this morning, I want to look at one of the most powerful testimonies of baptism in the New Testament. Turn your copy of Scripture with me to Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 8. It feels weird not to hear pages flipping before this point in the sermon, but as the nature of the sermon going to lots of places, I think you'll understand why we've done it this way, but I do want us to look together at a passage. The Lord used the ministry of Philip the evangelist in a powerful way.
He was a strong, powerful evangelist because of His gifting of the Lord, but because of the gospel He preached. But the Lord determined to send him to a place that Philip didn't understand. He's in the middle of the action preaching everywhere, and then God says, Philip, I'm going to pull you out of that.
I'm going to go stick you in the desert. Curious. And so, He sends him into the desert, but He does so to preach the gospel to one man, the Ethiopian eunuch.
So, Acts chapter 8 verse 26, but an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is the desert road or a desert road. So, he got up and went, and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candacy, the queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure, and he had come to Jerusalem to worship.
And he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the spirit said to Philip, go up and join this chariot. Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, well, how could I unless someone guides me? He invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
Now, the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this, he was led as a sheep to slaughter and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will relate his generation for his life is removed from the earth? The eunuch answered Philip and said, please tell me of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning from this Scripture, he preached Jesus to him.
And they went along, or as they went along the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, look, water, what prevents me from being baptized? I want you to pay attention to this, believers. What prevents me from being baptized? Now, there is verse 37.
Some Bibles don't include this. This verse is not in every ancient manuscript, but the New American Standard does include this. Verse 37, and Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he ordered the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.
And so, we see this amazing, endearing encounter between a gospel preacher and an earnest seeker. Philip explains the Bible to this man. He wants to know.
And then he preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ to him. And what is his response? He wants to be baptized. But why does he want to be baptized? He has kind of the cart before the horse here, right? He wants to be baptized.
Why does he want that? Because something's happening inside of him. And he says, well, what do I need to do to get baptized? And Philip tells him, he has to believe in the saving work of Christ. He has to believe who Christ is.
And verse 37 records that confession, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And they find this small pond, and it says they both went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. Remarkable.
And so why? Why do we do this? Why do we gather together, have a big huge cookout, have a dunk tank? Why do we do all this? Why do we baptize? After all, it's not necessary for salvation, right? The thief on the cross wasn't baptized. It's not a requirement that if you're not baptized, you won't go to heaven. That's not anywhere said in the Scriptures, at least in terms of the physical sign.
So why do we do it? We baptize, number one, as an obedience of faith, because Jesus commanded it. He said, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, and in doing so, we're to baptize them as well as new believers. So if Jesus tells us to do something, we don't really need anything more than that, right? He says, I want you to do this.
He doesn't ask a whole lot of us liturgically here. We have baptism, we have the Lord's table, and then we have a life of faith in Him, right? But he wants us to do this because it serves a purpose, because number two, it's an opportunity for us. It's an opportunity for us to make a public declaration to the whole world.
He institutes this ordinance to give us an opportunity, every new believer an opportunity, to stand up and say, I believe in Jesus. He saved me. This is a declaration of faith.
It's a celebration of new life. We read in Romans 10.9, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be what? Saved. Now, it's with the heart that a person believes, resulting in the righteousness of Christ being credited to them, right? So something has to happen in your heart, but there's also accompanying your faith an opportunity to profess, to confess Christ, to declare your faith, to declare publicly, yes, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins, that I was buried with Him in the spiritual baptism into death.
I was raised with Him to new life, and He has sustained me. He has saved me. He has justified me, and one day when I die, I will see Him face to face, and I'll be glorified with Him forever.
What an opportunity for especially new believers. Jesus didn't say, wait 40 years and then get baptized when you're at the end of your faith, right? He says, do it at the beginning. Well, I'm nervous.
I'm scared. I don't know if I really, I don't know what to do. Well, that's why the church helps you along, right? We help you prepare your testimony.
We ask you questions. We want you to be sure of your faith, and when a person has a testimony and they say, yes, I believe, I'll tell you, it energizes the faith of a new believer to say, I believe in Jesus, and then you're baptized, and you come alive in Christ. Now, that reality probably happens months or even years before, but there is something about the ordinance.
It invigorates. It gives life to the church, not the water, the faith. The faith invigorates the church.
The confession invigorates the church, and so that's why we're honored and rejoicing to baptize believers as a sign of their faith in Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, what a wonderful day for us to come together in baptism, Lord, to celebrate new life, and Lord, even as we're gathered together here as believers, we recognize, Lord, that we don't all read the scriptures in the exact same way, and Lord, we do have differences with other believers on some of the interpretation of these verses.
Lord, I would ask you, even in this context, in this setting, because I know that there's folks even here who are together with us who might not see it the exact same way in terms of the mode, the exact meaning, but Lord, we can identify. We can celebrate together the work that Jesus Christ has done in the heart of believers. That doesn't change, O Lord.
I pray that even though we've delineated certain things, Lord, I pray that you would still bind us together by the ministry of the Spirit, that we would still preserve the unity of the Spirit and rejoice together, that we would rejoice that you have plucked people out of the world. You've set aside them for yourself, Lord. You have redeemed them, regenerated them, given them new life, and now they want to confess you as the Christ, as Lord.
Lord, help us to join together to celebrate the sovereign saving work that you've done in the hearts of these people. Lord, thank you for regeneration. Thank you that it is nothing of ourselves that we can do, but only a work that you have done to redeem.
Lord, I pray that today would be a strong encouragement for the body of Christ, Lord, that we would celebrate the work that you've done in the hearts of believers, but Lord, for the people who are being baptized this morning, I pray, Lord, that you would strengthen their conviction, that you give them boldness to declare, that you give them confidence in Christ, and Lord, give them immeasurable joy. Not that the waters themselves are the agent of salvation, but Christ, you are their salvation, and this is their opportunity to declare their love for you. Bind us together in your love.
Bind us together in this ordinance today. We love you, O God, and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.