Now today being a special day calls for a
special sermon and I am out of my element
today and I'm
in uncharted waters. I will not be doing an
exposition of a particular text today. That is
my normal course of preaching and unusual to
say the least. And also I'm also really in an
uncharted waters because I never do this. I
may have never done this. I changed everything
Friday,
Friday. So okay, now I'm really in uncharted
waters. So you pray for me because this is
what I want to do for you today. I would like
to place a case before you for a biblical
understanding
of what we just did outside in baptism. But I
want to also place an emphasis on what preced
es
baptism, namely Bible repentance and saving
faith in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now to begin with, in the simplest terms, as I
said outside and I said previously,
baptism for the Christian is a command. Now
all the verses that I'm going to give to you
are going
to be here up on the board. Or if you want to,
if you like a little Baptist air conditioning,
as R.C.'s called it, you want to flip pages
around. There's Bibles in the pews in front of
you.
But Jesus himself, in the Great Commission in
Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 to 20, there
right at the
end, look what he says. He's telling the
disciples, "Go therefore and make disciples of
all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit." We just did that
.
"Teaching them to observe all that I commanded
you and lo, I am with you always, even to the
end of
the age, on the day of Pentecost. 3,000 people
believed and 3,000 people were baptized." When
the New Testament church began in Acts chapter
2, we find Peter preaching there in verse 38.
And
look what he says. Peter said to them, "Repent
, and each of you be baptized in the name of
Jesus
Christ." Now there, notice he's speaking to
the individual, each of you who repents and
believes.
So the church is commanded by Jesus to baptize
, and the individual is commanded to be
baptized.
So there's really no lack of clarity with this
subject. In fact, in each of the cases where
the Great Commission is given in both Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, there is an emphasis on
baptism.
So let's start by asking the question. What is
baptism? Well, just from a physical standpoint
,
baptism is a ceremony by which a person is
totally immersed in water. As Christians,
we do this because, as I read earlier, because
it's a command from the Lord Himself that we
are
instructed to carry out. Now, there are two
Greek verbs. The New Testament was originally
written in
Greek that are used to translate or that are
translated baptized. Two, one is "bapto," and
the other is "baptizo." Now, "bapto" is the
much less used. It's only used four times in
the New
Testament, and it means literally "to dip into
." It was a word that was used when they dyed
clothes,
a different color, D-Y-E, and when you immerse
the cloth all the way down into the dye. And
it's best
translated into English by the word "immers."
Now, next, "baptizo," kind of how Greek works,
and I don't know Greek. It's all Greek to me,
but I know John MacArthur does when he tells
me it's
Greek. That's the word. My people know that.
But "baptizo" is an intensified form of "bapto
." Then
"baptizo" is used many times in the New
Testament. It's a verb, and it means "to dip
completely."
It's actually the Greek word for "drowning."
And so that shows you how complete the dipping
is,
potentially. It's the word to "immers" or "sub
merse." Now, the noun form "baptism," "baptism
as," is always
used in the book of Acts to refer to a
Christian being immersed in the water. So this
is in general
what baptism is. It's a ceremony by which when
a person believes the gospel, they are then as
an
act of obedience immersed into the water. In
fact, the terms "bapto," "baptizo," and the
noun "baptismas"
could have all been translated "immersed," "
immersed," or "immersion." In every single case
, and that
would have solved a lot of issues between the
differences of opinion in different denomin
ations
who don't immerse, but who pour, and who
sprinkle. But the translators chose to transl
iterate the
Greek word "baptizo" into "baptized." You hear
how they sound the same? Well, "to translate"
means
to give the meaning. "To transliterate" means
to take the pronunciation of a word from one
language
to another without giving the meaning. That's
why it sounds the same. But because it's
become a
technical term for the ceremony of immersion,
they transliterated it out of the root, the
original,
and left it as "baptized." So, "baptizo"
became "baptized." But that doesn't give us
its meaning.
Its meaning is very clear. Immerse. You could
translate it, again, "immersed" every single
time you find it in the New Testament, and you
would be right every single time. In fact,
the Greeks had a different word for "spr
inkling." A whole different word. And so, we
are never in
any instance that we find "baptizing" or "bapt
ism" in the New Testament talking about sprink
ling.
Check me out if you don't believe me. There's
no such thing as a ceremony of sprinkling or
pouring in the Bible or any application of
water to the individual. Every time you find "
baptism"
in the Bible, the word is "immersed," which
means putting the person under the water, even
John
Calvin. Those many consider him the father of
Presbyterianism, who do infant baptism by
sprinkling
or pouring. He wrote this, "The word "baptized
" means to "immersed." No linguist can come up
with
anything else." And then Calvin wrote, "The
word "baptized" means to "immers." It is
certain that
immersion was the practice of the early church
." Now, that's a hand-scratcher. Like, "Come on
,
Johnny C. What are you doing? Why are you not
immersing?" Well, we were not here to make
that
debate. There really is no debate. So, the
actual meaning of the word is what I'm trying
to get
across to you. And the verbs, watch this, "b
apto" and "baptiza," they're never used in the
passage.
That is to say, water is never said to be "b
aptized" on someone, like sprinkling or pouring
water on
someone. They sprinkle, they pour, they dip,
they touch the water on the forehead.
Never are those verbs used that way in the New
Testament. Always, always in the sense of
somebody
being placed and immersed down into the water.
Now, let's look at some New Testament examples
.
Matthew 3-6, John the Baptist. Notice, not
John the Presbyterian, Methodist, or any other
,
just a joke. "And they were being baptized by
him in the Jordan River." You can't say that?
The river wasn't taken to them. They were
taken to the river. I know a band that used to
play that
song, "Take Me To The River," right? Look at
Matthew 3-16. "After being baptized, Jesus
came up immediately
from the water." So Jesus went down into the
water, just like everybody else, and then he
came up
out of the water. Look at it. Look what it
says. "After being baptized," there's the
Greek word,
"baptizo." You could say, "After being
immersed, Jesus came up immediately from the
water," and
doesn't that make perfect sense? Now, next we
have a showstopper. John 3-23. John was also
baptizing in Aeonon near Salem because there
was much water there, and people were coming
and being baptized. The water was deep there.
You don't need deep water in order to pour
our sprinkle. It has to be deep enough to dunk
, okay? Acts 8. "My man Philip, he comes across
the
Ethiopian eunuch. He preached the gospel to
the eunuch," and look at verse 36. "As they
went along
the road, they came to some water, and the eun
uch said, 'Look, water! What prevents me from
being
baptized? Baptizo! What prevents me from being
immersed?'" Look next, verse 38. "And he
ordered
the chariot to stop him, and they both went
down into the water, Philip, as well as the e
unuch,
and he baptized him. Baptizo! Literally, he
immersed him." Folks, what I'm trying to get
across to you is this is the only kind of
baptism that the New Testament knows anything
about.
That's why I'm a Christian by faith, and I'm a
Baptist by my profession through doctrinally
understanding that this is the proper way we
baptize. We never find, again, sprinkling,
pouring,
dipping, touching with water, and there's not
one verse anywhere about baptizing of infants.
Now, listen, I don't have time to get into
that debate. That's a second-level argument.
We fellowship
with Presbyterians who baptize infants. That's
not a first-level thing that we all believe
the
same. Like, my guy over Stuart Amidon and the
guy we had Brandon Leany, it was a Presbyter
ian,
he preached at our conference. We agree on,
like, 90% of stuff. We just don't agree with
this,
and that's a disagreement we can have in-house
. We can have that debate, and there's lots of
debates right about that. However, even though
I know I am not the sharpest knife in the
drawer,
even though in the late 80s and early 90s, I
burned so many brain cells up that to never
return,
from functioning at a very low level right now
, shouldn't the fact that never, in one
instance,
anywhere in the New Testament of an infant
being baptized give us a clue that that should
never be the case? In the New Testament, in
every circumstance, an adult was placed down
into that
water as a believer, and that leads us next as
to why. Why do we do this? Which brings us
from the
physical to the spiritual significance. And to
me, this right here, what I'm fixing to give
you
is the heart of the disagreement between those
who hold to believers only baptism by
immersion,
that's our position, and those who hold to
infant or adult, for that matter, baptism by
pouring,
sprinkling, or dipping. Now, follow my logic
here. Baptism is a command, and as I've shown
you,
if in the New Testament, in every case,
immersion is the mode of baptism, that's not
debatable,
even John Calvin said so. Let's ask the
question next, why immersion? Well, there's a
very important
reason for that. In my view, baptism by
immersion is an object lesson. It's a
depiction. It's a picture.
It's a symbol. It's a physical analogy of a
great spiritual truth that is profound,
and it's crucial if you understand what
baptism signifies to stick with the New
Testament mode
of immersion. Because if you change the mode
of immersion over to sprinkling, pouring, or
dipping,
guess what you do? You completely wipe out the
symbol of what baptism symbolizes. And what is
the symbol? Well, this ordinance of baptism is
what God has designed to teach us all the most
wonderful truth that there is, the truth of
personal salvation. That's what the symbol of
baptism represents. Personal salvation by
grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ
alone,
through the glory of God alone, and you don't
have to be a Bible student for very long to
know that
God teaches us with symbols of all kinds in
the Old Testament. There are symbols and
analogies and
types and pictures, and they depict a
spiritual truth in some kind of physical way,
the most
significant of which always point to the
personal work of Jesus Christ. Like, for
example, the Jews
in the Old Testament sacrificing a spotless
lamb. That's a picture. That's a symbol of the
one true
spotless lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, being
sacrificed on the cross for our sins. That's
just one example. Jesus taught with parables,
analogies. Paul taught with illustrations.
So we have long seen God dispense his truth
this way, and baptism
is certainly one of the biggest and most
important symbols that there are. Now, let's
drill down on
this. How and why is believer's baptism by
immersion a fantastic symbol of salvation?
Well, before I get to the answer of that
question, first maybe we need to say and ask
the question,
what is salvation? What does it mean to be
saved? In America, you can't get away from
that phrase.
You've all heard it. Save from what? Well, to
answer that question, you have to first deal
with the question of what is the gospel?
Because the gospel is what tells us what
salvation is.
The gospel tells us what we are saved from.
And first, let me tell you what the gospel is
not.
The gospel is not you believe in God according
to however you choose to define God.
You say, "I think God is this way." Well, as
soon as you do that, really what you're doing
is saying
you're God because you're making up a God, and
that's a God that doesn't exist. And this God
that
you've made up in your mind, and you make up
something like this, "Well, if I live my moral
best,
and when I die, if my good outweighs my bad,
God is going to be fair with me,
and I'm going to go to heaven when I die." Let
me tell you, that don't even smell like the
gospel
right there. Sadly, some version of that is
what most Americans believe. But let me show
you one
thing that's not debatable. One thing you do
not want from God is for God to be fair with
you.
When it comes to this notion of you doing your
best and your good outweighing your bad, if
God
is fair with you in that interaction, you will
lose big time. Because there is a massive
difference,
folks, between God's definition of good and
our definition of good. And none of us ever
lives up
to his definition of good. So, no, you don't
want fair from God in his dealings with you.
What you must plead for is grace from God. And
what grace is, is unmerited favor. There's
nothing
you can do to earn grace. Grace is unearned.
And now we're getting into what the gospel is.
When a person presents themselves as a
candidate for baptism, as I've already said,
they have already gone through the process of
believing the gospel with saving faith.
The gospel literally means good news. And it
is the best news that there is.
It is a specific proclamation of biblical
realities laid out for us in Scripture
concerning the person and the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ and our response to his person
and work. When a person at some point in their
life is drawn by the Holy Spirit and what we
call
the effectual call, in that process, somewhere
along the way, it's different timelines for
everybody. They are brought under the
presentation of the gospel, the proclamation
of the person
and work of Christ, defining what that is. And
that could happen in a number of ways.
That could happen in a sermon, like you're
hearing today. That could happen by somebody
individually witnessing to you. That could
happen to you simply by reading your Bible.
However it happens, it's going to happen only
and always on the basis of words explained
from the Word of God. That's the only way it
happens. Look at Romans 10 and verse 17.
So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the
Word of Christ. And again, that Word of Christ
comes from the Scripture alone and it's a
thorough explanation of the person and work of
Christ.
So let's do that. Let me start with who Jesus
is. Jesus is the main character of the Bible,
both the Old and the New Testament. And every
single human being must do something with
Jesus.
After you can accept Him, you can outright
reject Him, you could be indifferent towards
Him. But one thing that you cannot do is you
cannot totally ignore Him. And here's why.
No man who has ever lived has ever impacted
this world with his one life the way Jesus has
.
You want to debate me on that? You will lose,
guaranteed. For example, time itself on earth
is measured by his entrance into this world.
All human beings on this planet have lived or
will live either BC or AD. What other
historical figure has that kind of cloud? Also
, every year,
on December 25th in 195 countries across this
globe, every bank, every government office,
and most non-essential businesses are shut
down to honor the day of His birth. The same
is true.
195 countries around the world on Good Friday,
government offices, banks, and most businesses
shut down to honor the day of His death. What
human being in all of human history comes
anywhere
close to having these kinds of distinctions
made of them, especially over 2,000 years
since they
were here, and a Jewish carpenter at that in
Israel 2,000 years ago, not a prince of any
earthly kind, not a prime minister, not a
president. He was from Poduk, Nazareth, and he
died as a
criminal's death on a Roman cross. Nobody has
impacted the world even anywhere close to the
historical reality of Jesus Christ, and every
person has to make a decision with their life.
About who Jesus is. Many say, well, he was a
great man. He was a wonderful religious leader
.
He was a prophet who founded one of the world
's great religions, and he was all those things
when he walked this earth. But infinitely
beyond all that, every person has to make a
decision
about who he claimed to be. Jesus told his
disciples in John chapter 14, verse number 9,
"He who has seen me has seen the Father." He
said in John chapter 10, verse 30, "I and the
Father are
one." Starting in John 1-1, the Bible says in
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God,
and the Word was God, verse 14, and the Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us. That's
Jesus.
The man that no historian, secular, or
religious denies existed with complete clarity
claimed to be
God in human flesh, and every person must make
a decision about his claim. And as C.S. Lewis
taught
us, there are only three options that you have
when it comes to Jesus. Either he was a liar,
and he lied about who he is, either he was a
lunatic, and he was out of his mind like so
many
others who claim to be God, or the man who
impacted human history more than any other man
ever
is Lord. Liar, lunatic, or Lord, you have to
make the call in your life. And if you choose
to believe
his claim, there are clear and definite ram
ifications that you are forced to deal with,
like the fact
that out of all the magnificent attributes of
God that Jesus possesses as God, the one that
stands
out above all the rest is the crown jewel of
his attributes, and that is his holiness.
Jesus,
the God-man, is absolute purity with a
holiness that is transcendent. What that means
is he has
far beyond just moral purity, far beyond what
our finite minds can comprehend. He is
completely
other from us as God. We are just frail
creatures of dust. And if you come to believe
in Jesus'
claim that he is God, then by necessity you
have to believe that the Bible is his word
because
he himself makes very clear in his word his
view of the Holy Scriptures. And in the
Scriptures,
not only do we learn about the holiness of God
, we also learn that because of his holiness,
look at Psalm 711. It says that God is a just
judge and God is angry with the wicked every
day.
Now that's a verse that doesn't sit well on
the modern man's ears, but you cannot escape
the
reality that it's there. And we also know
because of the holiness of Christ that there
will never,
ever, ever be any sin allowed into the
presence of God in heaven. And because of that
, the Bible
presents to us a standard for all of us to
enter into heaven, to be able to go to heaven
when we
die, a standard that is absolutely staggering.
And that standard is lifelong perfect
obedience to
the law of God, the Ten Commandments. And you
say, "Whoa, brother Philip, what Galatians 310
,
for as many as are under the works of the law
are under a curse." That's all of us,
for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who
does not abide by some things written in the
Book of
the Law." Is that what it says? Cursed is
everyone who does not abide by all things
written in the
Book of the Law to perform them. Jesus made
the standard clear in Matthew 548. Remember
what He
said? "Therefore you are to be perfect, just
as your Father in heaven is perfect." God's
standard
of goodness is not ours. God's standard of
goodness is never sinning. Perfect
righteousness
for the whole duration of your life. That is
the standard for entering into God's presence
when we die. And that, as you cannot help but
know very well, sitting right here in this
little
building on Hooper Road presents all of us
with a huge, very urgent problem.
We don't have a perfect righteousness. None of
us do. In fact, according to God's measuring
right, we don't have any righteousness. Isaiah
said, "Our righteousness, filthy rags." Look
at
Romans 3, 23, "For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God." Romans 310, "As it
is written,
there is none righteous." Just in case you
didn't get that, no, not one. Romans 311,
"There is none who understands." Look at this.
"There is none who seeks after God."
What a man. Brother, what about all the other
people around the world, all these religions?
Let
me tell you something. There are people who
seek after the God that they make up in their
own mind
as imagination, and that's not God. That's
probably the most, again, the most popular in
America.
Many seek after the God of false religions.
Many seek after the benefits that they can get
from
God, like meaning and peace and purpose. But
the Bible is very clear right here that none
seek naturally after Yahweh, the God of the
Bible. You know what we all naturally do?
We all run as fast as we can away from Him.
And because of our condition,
our sins have separated us from a holy God.
Look at Isaiah 59-2. The prophet says this,
"But your iniquities have separated you from
your God, and your sins have hidden his face
from you
so that he will not hear." That's a
frightening verse. Sin is the breaking of God
's law, the 10
commandments. And when Jesus came, He taught
us the full understanding of that breaking God
's law
is not only done outwardly, it's also done
inwardly where only God sees. And so that
means we have all
broken all of God's commandments many, many
times over. And he just shouldn't think, "Oh,
I think I
got a couple of them. Well, you need to talk
to me after church. And I can prove to you
real quickly.
You've broken everyone up and so have I many,
many times." R.C. Sproul says this, "If you
really
understand the greatest commandment," Jesus
said, "the greatest commandment is to love the
Lord your
God with all your heart, all your soul, all
your mind, all your strength. If you really
understand
what all means there, you know that none of us
have ever done that for five seconds in our
life."
We never love the Lord our God with all our
heart, mind, soul, and strength.
And Scripture makes the standard of law
keeping very clear. Look at James 2-10.
"For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet
stumble in one point,
he is guilty of all." So God's law and our
inability to keep it demonstrates to us
that left to himself, man, is in a helpless,
hopeless, precarious situation because the
consequence and the penalty for our law
breaking is not just missing out on heaven,
but also spending an eternity separated from
the gracious presence of God in the outer
darkness
of hell. Now, the modern man's ears doesn't
like to hear that. Oh, the Phillip.
You don't really believe there's a hell. Only
weak people and ignorant hillbillies believe
in
hell. This is 2025. I mean, even in many
churches today, they stopped talking about
hell.
But I'm here to tell you, I believe my Bible.
And no one can escape the fact that Jesus
speaks
more about hell in the pages of Scripture than
he does about heaven. Go check it out for
yourself.
This means, folks, unquestionably that the
most important question in all of the human
experience
has to be this. How in the world can a sinful
person be made right with a God who is holy
and go to heaven when they die? And that is
where the hero of our story
enters into time, God himself, the God man,
the main character of the Bible. Jesus Christ
comes
to our rescue. You want to know what two of
the most beautiful words in all of the Bible
are?
Look at Romans 5.8 with me. Those first two
words. But God demonstrates his love toward us
and that while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. What Christ accomplished in his
life, death,
and resurrection, I'm telling you today, is
the only hope that we have to be made right
with God.
No mere man could come up with the gospel plan
that God himself, under no obligation
whatsoever
to sinners like us, out of pure love for
sinners, became a man in the person of Jesus
Christ
to be, important word here, a substitute for
all who believe. Remember, remember,
we need a perfect lifelong righteousness to
enter into God's heaven and we've all blown it
.
We've all blown it big time. That's why Jesus
came to be our substitute in two ways. First,
in his perfect sinless life, he was our
substitute. What did he do? How did he do it?
He lived the
perfect sinless life that we can't in our
place. And secondly, in his death, he was our
substitute.
The Bible says that the wages of sin is death
and Jesus paid that penalty for all the sins
of all
believers for all time by his sacrificial
death on the cross. Look with me at 2
Corinthians chapter
5 and verse 21. Maybe that is the greatest
explanation summarized of the gospel in the
Bible.
Look what it says. He made him, God made Jesus
, who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so
that we
might become the righteousness of God in him,
in Christ. So the Father poured out all of his
just wrath for sin that we all deserve on his
sinless Son who took our place as a substitute
.
And I'm going to get to the second part of
this verse in a minute. But first, what is it
that
connects us to Christ's substitutionary work?
We see there in Scripture that that's what it
is.
Well, there's two things. Bible repentance and
saving faith. And repentance means more than
just sorrow for sin. It includes that. But it
also means this, to turn around, to change
direction,
to change your evaluation of who Jesus is, to
turn your will around, to stop living for
yourself.
Providence has heard many times, man, when
life was lived up to me to live
and for me to be in control of it, what a
train wreck that I made of my life.
Repentance means going away from your own way
of living life and going God's way.
It's a complete turnaround and it's only
according to Scripture alone. And then you see
yourself
as you've never seen yourself before. You see
yourself as a lawbreaker in rebellion,
running from God, not wanting to live God's
way, but wanting to live your own. And then
saving faith
is more than just intellectual ascent to these
gospel facts I've been preaching to you today
because the Bible says, the Bible says, the
devils believe and they tremble.
They know they have intellectual ascent. They
have better theology than all of us.
Saving faith is a faith that surrenders all of
our hearts, minds, souls, and wills over to
the
Lordship of Jesus Christ and who He is and
what He's done and says, Lord, take my life
and do what
you want with it. I'm following you. Look at
Romans 9, Romans 10, 9 through 10, that if you
confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and
believe in your heart that God raised him from
the dead,
you will be saved for with the heart a person
believes resulting in righteousness and with
the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation.
And when you have come to Jesus on His terms
of
repentance and faith, realizing that salvation
is all of grace and not by any good works that
we
could possibly do because we don't have any,
let me tell you what happens. It's the
greatest thing
that you'll ever hear. There's a remarkable
transaction that takes place whenever you
believe
in Christ. Go back to 2 Corinthians 5, 21
because I want to tie it together for you.
Look at it again. He, God, made him Jesus who
knew no sin to be sin on our behalf
so that we might become the righteousness of
God in him. You know what that's called? The
Great
Exchange. As I said earlier, when we believe
on Christ's terms, our sins are placed upon
Christ,
punished in Christ, imputed in Christ,
punished in Christ on the cross. And that's
what, look at
this verse, that's what it means when it says
Jesus was made to be sin on our behalf. That's
what that means, but that's not all. We're not
done. At the same time, when you believe with
saving faith, you are then justified in the
sight of God, that perfect righteousness that
the Bible
says you need to enter heaven. Guess what? It
's imputed to you. That means that Jesus'
perfect
righteousness that he attained when he walked
this earth fulfilling all of the law's demands
perfectly
as a substitute for our believers is then that
very righteousness is reckoned to you. Look
again
in this verse, that's what it means when it
says so that we might become the righteousness
of God
in him. Listen to me. You're not made
righteous. You're declared righteous with the
righteousness
of Christ, with the righteousness of another.
Even though you have no righteousness of your
own,
by sovereign grace, Jesus' perfect
righteousness is put on your account. The best
way I've ever
heard this summarized is by my good friend who
's now in heaven with Jesus, Ed Lacey. Listen
to what
he said. "The Father treated Jesus as if he
had lived my sinful life so that he could
treat me
as if I had lived Jesus' perfectly righteous
life." That's the great exchange. So that
again,
the righteousness by which anyone will enter
into heaven will never be their own. It can't
be. We
don't have a perfect righteousness. It must be
Christ's righteousness put on our account,
never ever being able to be based upon
anything we've done, but totally based upon
who he is
and what he's done. Look at Ephesians 2, 8,
and 9. "For by grace you have been saved
through faith
and that what? Not yourselves. It is the gift
of God, not as a result of works." Why, Paul?
Why is it works earn you to heaven so that no
one may boast, so that no one may get to
heaven and
say, "Well, here's why. I'm here. My good. I
'll wave my bad." No. All your good is bad. And
only
Christ's righteousness is what gets you into
heaven. That church is the only gospel that
there is.
That's the only gospel that will save your
soul. Now, let's go back quickly to the
subject of
baptism. We're going to close this out. After
a person believes God's gospel with Bible
repentance
and saving faith, as I said, it's a command to
be baptized of public profession to all the
world
that you have been redeemed. But not only that
, again, the reason why immersion under the
water
is the biblical mode of baptism is because of
what it symbolized. And that's best explained
to us.
Look at with me at Romans 6, verse 3 to 4. "Do
you not know that all of us who have been
baptized
into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His
death?" Now, here, this is a dry baptism. This
is an
illustration. You have been buried with Christ
as if you died, buried into His with Him
through
baptism. 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, number one, you see, that's clearly
talking about a believer, right? Number two,
not only is immersion all the way under water
correct linguistically, immersion is the only
symbol of the different modes of baptism that
works to describe what happens when a person
is
saved. Now, I promise you, I could preach two
more hours on those two verses right there.
And maybe I should because I'm pretty good at
running people off. That's probably the best
thing I'm best at. But I'm going to spare you
because there's a lot more exegesis that needs
to be done on those verses by the summary. And
I just want to close by saying this.
What you have witnessed today with the baptism
of Eric Helfen, again, is an outward
manifestation
of a real, genuine inward reality. Eric has
repented and believed person in work of the
Lord Jesus Christ with saving faith. And as an
act of obedience, he has followed Jesus'
command
today to be baptized. In the ceremony that we
just performed out here under the oak tree,
Eric publicly professed his faith in the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and at the same time, his being immersed under
the water, symbolized being buried with Christ
in his death and being united by faith with
Christ under that water, literally being
immersed in Christ. And oh, Eric is gone. He's
gone because he's then raised up out of the
water.
And that symbolizes that he's been united with
Christ in his resurrection and looked there in
verse four. So we too might walk in newness of
life. That symbolizes, folks, that he's raised
out of that water to walk as a new creature
with a new nature, with a new life, with new
desires.
There is nothing more crazier to me to this
day that my desires change. I was wild, man,
okay?
And it all changed over 25 years ago, and I
hadn't got over it yet, okay?
We no longer live life for self when we become
Christians. We now live life for Christ. We
now
live life for his glory. We want nothing more
than to serve him. And I'm here to tell you,
folks,
there's just no better way to live than the
Christian life. As Huey Moke used to say,
peace and purpose while we're here, a home in
heaven when we die. You can't live better than
that.
Now, if you're here today and you've never
placed your faith and trust in Christ and
his gospel in the way that I just explained it
, and you are convicted about that reality,
do not leave this building without coming to
talk to me about it because it's my favorite
subject.
Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity once again to
preach
your gospel. It's your gospel. It's all of
your grace. It's all of your mercy. There's
nothing,
nothing that we could possibly do to earn our
way to be right with you. We must have Jesus'
righteousness. There's simply no other way.
And our good works, Lord, those are simply the
result
of the fact that we have been saved. That's a
whole separate sermon. So Lord, we thank you
for the witness of Eric today in making a
public profession of faith,
buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk
in new lists of life as a new creature.
As I said, peace and purpose while we're here,
a home in heaven when we die.
It just don't get no better than that. And we
thank you, Lord, for your grace to us. Again,
if there's any here who have not bowed the
knee to Jesus Christ in saving faith, I pray
you would
draw them with your spirit and bring them to
yourself just like you did for every believer
here and all to your glory. In Jesus' name we
pray. Amen.