Walking
in Newness of Life[1]
By
Pastor Matt Black
19
March 2006
Lord's Day morning
Baptism
of Leticia Carranza
Matthew 3:1-17
Introduction: Open your Bibles to Matthew’s
Gospel chapter 3. Here we have in this
passage John the Baptist calling people to a baptism of repentance. The title of the message this morning is “Walking
in Newness of Life.”
One of
the last commands that Jesus gave before He ascended to heaven was to go and
teach all nations “baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). It is such a simple command; in fact baptism
ought to be the first step of obedience in a believer’s life. This morning we have Leticia Carranza who was
saved in January, and she has come to be obedient to the Lord. We have several others in our congregation
here today who have requested baptism, and we will be having another baptismal
service in three weeks on April the 9th for them.
The Bible tells us that the church
began at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 with 3000 baptisms. What was happening there? That is what we are going to find out today.
Before we do that, you need to ask
yourself, have I been Scripturally baptized?
If you have not, you fit into one of following categories:
1. One, it could be ignorance—that is, they’ve never been taught about baptism. You may have made a profession of faith when
you were young, and you were baptized, but later you realized that you had not
really been saved. So you truly became a
Christian. And you may think that you
have already been baptized, so it’s sufficient.
Unless you have
been baptized since you have become a believer, then you have not been
Scripturally baptized.
Some people think because they were
christened when they were young, that that counts as some sort of baptism. Since no infant has ever repented and
believed and made a conscious decision to put their faith in Christ, that
cannot be Scriptural baptism. But most
of the time, if someone has not been baptized, it is because it has not been
brought to their attention. Once a true
believer understands that the Lord has commanded us to be baptized, it is his
highest desire to be obedient to the Lord.
2. Secondly, pride can be an issue. People who have allowed a long period of time to go since their
conversion—they’ve named the name of Christ for a long time, they are involved
with the church, they are known as Christian people, they have never been
baptized—
it’s a little bit
embarrassing to acknowledge that failure and that disobedience for such a long
time and so they’re not willing to humble themselves, admit they’ve been
disobedient, and be baptized.
So, it could be ignorance, it could
be pride.
3. It could be indifference. There are plenty of people who just can’t be bothered—they can’t
find a spot in their daytimer for it, it doesn’t fit into their schedule, it’s
not a priority. They know it’s commanded in the Bible, but obedience isn’t the
main thing with them—they have other priorities. That’s a sad situation—to be
apathetic toward a specific command, to be indifferent toward a very direct
command from our Lord, Himself, which brings honor to Him and blessing to the
one who is obedient. But, there are people who are just indifferent—they just
can’t get around to it. They know they
need to do it, but it’s just not been a priority.
4. And, then fourthly, there are
those who are defiant—those who basically aren’t baptized
because they are just rebellious—they refuse to obey. Usually those kinds of
people are sinning…they’re in a pattern of sin and it would just sort of
elevate their hypocrisy if they were to have to come up and give a testimony of
their faith in Jesus Christ and celebrate His wonderful redemption on their
behalf. So, people who are defiant and rebellious and just won’t be baptized,
generally are in a pattern of sinning. I
would say if a person is unwilling to be baptized, they are not just in sin,
they are most probably in this fifth category.
5. Then, fifthly, it’s possible that
you’re unregenerate—you’re just not a true Christian,
you have no desire to make a public confession of faith in Jesus Christ because
you don’t want to be identified with Him in a public way. You may come and you
may like to kind of hang on the edges and on the fringes here, but you’re not
about to take your public stand with Christ.
Those are the only reasons I can
think of. Either you have not been taught correctly, you’re too proud to humble
yourself and be baptized, you’re apathetic and indifferent toward that matter
of obedience, you’re defiant, or you’re not a believer. That puts the issue
squarely where it belongs—it is the responsibility of each believer to be
obedient to the Lord in this area.
There is much confusion about baptism
today, and many wrong things are taught about baptism. We need to ask ourselves several questions
this morning so that we might be able to see the meaning behind the Lord’s
command. Before we get into our text in
Matthew 3, let’s ask ourselves the question:
Simply, it is an outward picture of an
inward reality. More specifically, it is
a ceremony where a person is immersed in water.
And right in front of me, we have a pool of water where we baptize
people. Any time someone requests to be
baptized, we have a service like we have today.
Christ commanded that we baptize in
His Great Commission to us. We learn at
Pentecost that
Two Greek Words
There are two
Greek words for baptism.
One is baptizw (baptizo): to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge
baptw (bapto): This is used four times in the New Testament, and was
used of people who dipped garments into dyes.
Baptizo is used many, many times in the New Testament; many, many times.
It means "to dip completely" and it’s the Greek word for
"drowning’; that shows you how complete the dipping is, potentially. It’s
the word "to submerse" or "immerse"—in fact, the Latin
equivalent is immersio (sp.) or submersio (sp.).
This word is used always in the book of Acts to refer to a Christian being
immersed in water. It’s always used to
refer to a Christian being immersed in water. So, that is what baptism is: it’s
a ceremony by which a person believes the gospel and is then immersed into
water.
In fact,
in our King James Bible, if they would have translated the word baptize as “immerse”
it would have solved a lot of problems.
Because some of those who translated it were Anglicans who sprinkled
babies, they decided to actually create a word—they should have used immerse,
but instead they created the word “baptize.”
Baptism is NOT Sprinkling
There is
a word for sprinkling in Greek, but it is a different word altogether. If they wanted to tell us to sprinkle, there
was a word that was very common they would have used, but it is clear that what
Christ was commanding was the total immersion of a believer into water. Even John Calvin, who sprinkled infants said
this: “the word ‘baptize’ means ‘to immerse’; it is certain that immersion was
the practice of the early church.” So
there really is no debate here.
Baptism is never Passive
It is
also important that the verb baptizo in the NT is never used in the passive
sense. What that means is, water is never said to be placed on someone for
baptism, like you would see in a sprinkling ceremony. It is always that the person is the one being
baptized into the water. The water is not put on them, they are put
into the water. So whenever you read
the word “baptize” in the New Testament, it means to immerse. Immersion is the only possible meaning.
Main Text: Now let’s turn to Matthew
chapter 3 and look at this in action.
Here we see John the Baptist in the
The Bible
says in verse 16 that after Jesus was baptized he “went up straightway out of the water” (Matthew 3:16). Jesus went down into the water and literally
came up out of the water. He was immersed.
The Bible says in John 3:23 that
“John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there.” Of all the spots on the
You remember in Acts, chapter 8, when
Philip came across the Ethiopian eunuch, you remember the statement in verse
36, “they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is
water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?”
And then we see in verse 38, “he commanded the chariot to stand still:
and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he
baptized him.” Here you see they had to
go down into the water and the eunuch was immersed.
So, Baptism is a ceremony by which a
person is immersed into water. That is the only kind of baptism the New
Testament knows anything about—it doesn’t know anything about sprinkling,
pouring, touching with water, and particularly doesn’t know anything about
baptizing infants. Baptism is immersion.
There is a spiritual significance that is pictured in baptism that can only be
seen in immersion. We will get to that
in a moment.
Dry Baptisms
There are a few places in Scripture
where we find “dry baptisms”—that is there is immersion in something other than
water.
1. A Baptism of the
Holy Spirit
Matthew 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto
repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am
not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
Here in verse 11 John speaks of the
spiritual baptism that gives meaning to the ordinance of baptism. He says Christ will baptize people in one of
two ways:
But there is also a baptism of fire
for those who do not trust in Christ!
2. A Baptism of Fire
(Judgment):
The Picture of Water Baptism
What water baptism is a picture of
the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is
something that God is teaching us in this baptism by water. It is that we are immersed into the Holy
Spirit, but there is also more to it than that.
The baptism itself also proclaims the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and
if you change the mode of baptism from immersion to anything else, you deny the
picture of the resurrection! That is a
pretty serious error.
Now that we’ve seen what baptism is,
let’s ask ourselves another question.
That is “Where did baptism come
from?” Well, let’s go back, before the
New Testament and we’ll get at least a portion of the history of baptism. There
were a number of washings in
Before the New Testament…let’s say a
Gentile had come to the knowledge of the true God. Some Gentile had heard the
prophets or he had heard the testimony of a faithful Israelite or he’d come to
1. First of all, the first phase was CIRCUMCISION.
Because circumcision was a God-ordained
sign, any male who came in, even in an adult, would need to be
circumcised. He would need, therefore, to identify himself with the people of
God by this unique circumcision ceremony.
This of course was a picture of his heart being circumcised. The hard layer of unbelief had been removed
from his heart—he was born again by the Holy Spirit-a believer in the one true
and living God.
2. Secondly, there was BAPTISM BY IMMERSION.
He would be dunked in water,
submerged in water, in order to demonstrate this—this is what they said—it was
to demonstrate that they were dead as to their old life. They were dead
as to their old customs, their old habits, their old traditions, most of all
their old idolatry, and their old iniquity. That was now gone; they were
burying it. That submersion into water depicted the death of that old life.
They would come out of that water, having arisen to walk in a cleansed and new
life with God’s community—God’s family.
3. Finally, there was the giving of an ANIMAL SACRIFICE.
They were to bring an animal to be
slaughtered and the reason for the slaughtering of the animal was to remind
that Gentile that their forgiveness—the forgiveness of their sin…they were
coming into the community of God’s people…they were repenting and confessing
the true and living God—that forgiveness of sin which God would grant to them
would only come to them through death.
In a very real sense they were
depicting the coming LAMB OF GOD who would take away the sin of the world.
So, any Gentile who wanted to come
in, would be circumcised, would be immersed, and would have to offer a blood
sacrifice which was an open confession that their sin was going to require the
death of a substitute. That, of course, looked forward to the Messiah who was
that substitute.
Main Text: Now lets get into our text in
Matthew 3. Now, into this Jewish
community comes John the Baptist and John comes preaching, and he comes
preaching repentance, and then, he comes baptizing. That’s not surprising.
That’s not surprising that John would come baptizing; they were used to that;
they had gone through the ceremony; they were used to seeing people baptized.
A SHOCKING CHANGE!!
But what was shocking—what was
devastating, what was remarkable—was that John the Baptist was asking Jews
to be baptized. Why was that remarkable? It was an amazing thing. He was in
effect saying to them, you are as what? You’re as lost as the Gentiles.
He was saying,
You’re outside
the covenant, you’re without hope in the world, you’re without God, you need to
be immersed as a symbol that you have died to the old life, been washed, and
brought into the cleansed family of God.
Now, for a Jew to admit that he was
equal to being a Gentile was a stretch. I mean, it was a huge stretch. For the
most part, they hated the Gentiles. The Gentiles had been their oppressors; the
Gentiles were non-covenantal people. The Jews ridiculed the Gentiles in many
ways, called them the uncircumcised.
But, here comes John the Baptist and
he says to them, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (verse
2). He’s saying—you Jews need to
repent! You Jews need to be
baptized! And he’s treating them as if
they are in the same condition as Gentiles outside the covenant.
He was a powerful preacher because he
was very convincing and people began to repent, didn’t they? They really began
to repent; this is a powerful man. He may have been the most powerful of all
preachers…in fact,
Matthew 11:11 tells us:
“Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater
than John the Baptist”
Up until Christ, the greatest prophet
ever—I would love to have heard him preach; he must have been something fierce,
they chopped his
head off for it and served it up on a
platter at a party just to silence him.
But, all Israel was coming out there
and here were all these people who basically were being redefined as if they
were Gentiles—outside the covenant, outside the promise, outside the hope,
outside salvation, and needing to repent of their sin—died of the old life of legalism
and self-righteousness
and all the Judaistic trappings, and to come to the true understanding of their
sin and cast themselves on the mercy of God, and go into this baptism as a
symbol that they wanted a new life and they wanted to be ready for the Messiah.
So, he preached repentance and righteousness and he called for people to turn
from iniquity to holiness, from the old life to a new one.
In order to symbolize it, in the plan
of God baptism was selected, and Matthew 3 shows him, in the first 6 verses,
baptizing people. "They were confessing their sins," it says, and
they were confessing that they were worthy of death, they were worthy of
burial, and they needed a new life, and that was depicted in their immersion.
So, the baptism of John the Baptist really did mark a turning point in the heart
of a sinful Jew who wanted to be ready to face the Messiah and knew he wasn’t.
The Baptism of Jesus Christ
On one particular day, however, an
incredible thing occurred—Jesus showed up. He had showed up before and John had
said, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."
So, John knew who he was and John had identified him as the Messiah, the One
who would die for sin, the true Lamb who would be the final and full sacrifice.
We read in Matthew 3:13
13 Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to
John tried to prevent Him, saying,
" I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" This
doesn’t make sense! You don’t need to reject Your old life. You don’t need to
repent of anything—You’re sinless, holy, and undefiled. You don’t need to say
no to the past and yes to the future. You don’t need to have some death to the
old symbolized, and some resurrection to the new dramatized—that doesn’t make
sense. This doesn’t fit You." But, Jesus answering said to him, " Suffer
it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”. He’s saying “Permit it at this time, for this
is just for now—it needs to be done, for in this way it is fitting for us to
fulfill all righteousness."
Then he permitted him. Why did He do
this? Well, He says it: "to fulfill all righteousness."
Now let’s ask a third question:
What is the specific meaning of
Christian baptism? And, you already kind of known it, but let’s dig a little
deeper into the text of the New Testament. All throughout the New Testament,
Christian baptism is clearly identified for us. It’s really not hard at all.
It’s—in fact—it’s crystal clear. Look at Romans, chapter 6 and I want to show
you a couple of verses, so you can turn there and we’re not going to spend a
lot of time there, but just a couple of thoughts and it will be very obvious to
you.
When you come to Christ as a
nonbeliever and you put your faith in Jesus Christ and you believe and you
repent of your sin and you’re wonderfully saved, regenerated, born again; there
is a spiritual miracle that takes place. I can’t explain all of it in its
actual reality—I can only tell you what the words are in the text that describe
it to us. When you come to faith in Christ, you are literally immersed into
Christ. You’re literally immersed into Christ. His life becomes your life—it
even reaches backwards so that He died bearing your sins so in that sense, you
were there dying. He rose again for your justification, therefore you were
there rising with Him. He was your substitute. He died and rose again for you,
so in a real sense,
He went to the cross carrying your sins and He comes out
of the grave bearing your new life.
And it is in BAPTISM that we identify
with the Saviour who died, was buried and rose again!
Look at Romans 6:3-4
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ
were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried
with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead
by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
1 Corinthians 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one
spirit. We are joined to Christ in Regeneration, and we depict that in
baptism.
Paul says in Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I
live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." So, here I am inseparable from
Christ, as it were. Here is Christ living in me and I am in Christ. I am in
Christ; Christ is in me. My body is the temple of the Spirit of God—if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. Christ dwells within me. So,
I am now in this inseparable, indivisible, unity with the Lord Jesus Christ. I
am in an ongoing, constant, shared life—I possess the life of God, as it were.
I am a partaker of the divine life. Christ dwells within me; the Holy Spirit
has taken up residency in my life.
What gives us this union is NOT the baptism itself! Baptism is only the picture.
The baptism that saves me is the
SPIRIT baptism at salvation.
Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have
done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration,
and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
That renewing of the Holy Ghost. Don’t you remember that day you repented of
your sins and you were washed! What a
difference. Now water baptism is a
declaration to all that you have been baptized in the Spirit, in other words,
you’ve been regenerated by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the
Holy Ghost.
So back in Romans 6—we realize that
baptism is a picture of spirit baptism!
Romans 6:3-4
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ
were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried
with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead
by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
So, that’s the symbolism. The
symbolism is of dying, being buried, and rising again. That symbolism can only
be depicted in water baptism. That is the meaning of Christian baptism. It is a
physical illustration—it is a physical symbol, a physical ceremony, intended to
depict this reality. Whenever a person goes into the water, it symbolizes the
death of the old life—they come out of the water…it symbolizes that they are
now new creations.
Galatians 3:27 “For as many of you as have
been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
There’s a good parallel. What he is saying…he’s trying to figure ways to
illustrate this union. He’s saying, "You been literally submerged into
Christ. You’ve been literally immersed into Christ." Another way to say it
is: you have been clothed with Christ. In other words, you are wrapped in
Christ; Christ covers you. You are underneath Him; you are contained, as it
were, in Christ. He envelops you. And, there is neither Jew nor Greek…you sort
of lose your identity here. There’s neither slave nor free man, neither male
nor female…you’re all one in Christ Jesus and you belong to Christ,
verse 29 says. That’s the idea.
Colossians 2:12-13 says that those
who are Christians are “Buried with him in baptism,” that’s right—same idea.
You were there dying in Him—you were immersed into Him in His death.
It goes on to say “wherein also ye
are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath
raised him from the dead. 13 And you,
being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened
together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses”
You put your faith in God, you
believe that God raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 10, "If you believe in
your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you’ll be saved."), you
believed that God raised Him from the dead and by faith, in God, raising Jesus
from the dead, which affirms all about the cross and all about His bearing
sin—all the way through to the resurrection…you affirm that, therefore you were
buried with Him, immersed into Him, in that death and in that resurrection. You
were placed into union with Christ, participating in His death, His resurrection
…spiritually.
This is
the baptism that saves. Peter talks about a baptism that saves—that’s
the baptism that saves…the spiritual immersing into Christ, not the water. This
is the true washing of regeneration of Titus 3:5, not the H2O. This
is the real washing away of sins, Acts 22:16. Water is simply the symbol. It’s
simply the parable. It’s simply the analogy.
Baptism depicts the miracle of the
spiritual birth. When a child asks, "Why do you do that?
What is the meaning of baptism?" It’s a very graphic illustration…it makes
it very clear in helping to explain to a child. When an unbeliever comes and
sees a baptismal service, they’re literally seeing an object lesson of the
spiritual dynamics of new birth.
That
leads to a fourth question.
That’s
what I just said, basically. It is a symbol of salvation already received. Acts
2:38 says, "Repent, and be baptized for the remission of sins." Some
people think, "Well, that means you can’t have your sins forgiven or
remitted unless you’re baptized." Is that what it’s saying? It could be
translated, "Repent, and be baptized because of the remission of
sins." That’s a construction that is used, for example, in Matthew
12:41—the same construction translated that way. But, even it says,
"Repent, and be baptized for the remission of sins," the baptism
doesn’t save you. The baptism is evidence of genuine repentance and an obedient
heart—it’s just a way to demonstrate the genuineness.
Because,
you see, when a Jew was…if you were listening to Peter preach on the day of
Pentecost and you were going to go and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ,
you were going to be baptized in the name of the one who was probably hated
more than anybody else by the Jewish leadership. You were going to wind up
losing your family, your social status, your job, your right to attend the
synagogue…everything. You would become immediately indigent and homeless. The
price was very high…you would become a pariah, a social outcast. But, true
faith will pay the price, count the cost.
So, when
Peter says, "Repent and be baptized," he’s saying, let’s see, if the
repentance is real, you’ll take the stand. If the repentance is real, you’ll
respond in obedience no matter what the price.
We’re not
saved by the water—that’s not going to save you.
Ephesians 2:8-9
8
For by grace are ye saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in
them.
Finally, we need to realize that Baptism is a command. It doesn’t save, Baptism is a command. It is the purpose of God. It is the command
of Christ. And, if you say, "No!" it can’t be ignorance; we’ve
eliminated that category, if you were listening. Pride, indifference, defiance,
or you’re not a Christian. Jesus said, "How can you say, "Lord,
Lord!" and do not the things I say?" Jesus said, "If you love
me," you’ll what? "Keep my commandments." Don’t bring yourself
under God’s chastening because of disobedience in this most simple act of
obedience, which will bring upon you God’s favor and your own joy.
Conclusion: Let’s make it practical.
On April 9, we are going to have another baptism Sunday, so if you need
baptism, you need to obey the Lord immediately.
That means you will come to me after this service, and take my hand and
say, I need to be baptized.
At this time, Leticia Carranza comes today for baptism.
Closing Hymn: 38 How Great Thou Art (verse 4)
Hymn before baptism: 109 Great is thy Faithfulness