Understanding Baptism
Selected Scriptures
The Lord has left only two ordinances for the church, the Lord's table and baptism. We teach much about the Lord's table because we come to the Lord's table very often and we speak of its meaning very often. But largely the subject of baptism is untouched. And perhaps even in my own case I've been unfaithful in maintaining a balance so that you would understand the significance of baptism and its meaning.
Frankly, it is somewhat of a non‑issue in the church today. We don't hear very much about it. It has been years since anyone has written a book emphasizing baptism. It has been years since I have heard any preacher or any teacher emphasize baptism. Radio, television kinds of religious programming give no thought to baptism. Grace To You, our daily radio program, is the only radio program in America that puts baptismal services on the air. And we broadcast the baptismal services here periodically across the nation.
But there doesn't seem to be much concern about baptism. Largely it stems from the fact that there seems to be such a wide diversity of opinion about what it means and how important it is that everybody has sort of relegated it to an archaic antiquated sort of ecclesiastical discussion level and there's little concern for its spiritual importance.
I would even go a step further, not only considering somewhat the rather indifferent attitude toward baptism, but I would say that it is probably true that the greatest number, the majority of people who call themselves Christians have never been baptized according to New Testament baptism. Probably the majority of people who claim to be Christians have not been baptized according to New Testament baptism. I can't necessarily verify that but that's a perception that I think may well be accurate. Frankly there exists an unbaptized church and it includes some of you. Some of you perhaps have never even seen a baptismal service, not coming on a Sunday night when this platform is dramatically changed and the parts that are under me go up on a hydrolic lift and reveal a baptistery here as we will do tonight, as we do every Sunday night now. Some of you have not only not been baptized, you've not even experienced a baptismal service.
I would like to take this thinking a step further and also say that I believe that this failure to take baptism seriously in the church, a failure to follow baptism biblically in the church is very likely at the root of some of the immense problems in the church because it betrays people's unfaithfulness to the simple direct commands of the Lord. And the bottom line question is if you cannot be obedient in the matter of the simple act of baptism which the Lord has specifically commanded every believer to do, is that not indicative of a less than obedient life? Which explains a lot of things about the weakness of the church in our day.
When Jesus said, "Go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them," when He said that He gave a command to the church to baptize, clearly that is the great commission. When the Holy Spirit said, "Repent and be baptized," Acts 2:38, He gave a command to the individual believer to be baptized. Christ commands the church to baptize, the Holy Spirit commands the individual believer to be baptized. And when all 3,000 who believed on the day of Pentecost were immediately baptized, they set the example for the church. So we are under the commanding words of Christ as a church to baptize. We are under the commanding word of the Holy Spirit as individuals to be baptized. And we follow in the line of the pattern and example established on the day the church was born when every believer was immediately baptized.
Now as clear as unmistakable as these scriptures are there is still a widespread non‑compliance to this simple command. Now let's get it down to where it really fits us. There are only five general reasons why a person who professes Christ would not be baptized. Okay?
Reason number one, the person is ignorant, does not have the benefit of proper teaching, has been ill taught about baptism or not taught at all. It is possible that ignorance could be the reason. You just have not been properly taught.
A second reason is that some people are proud. It becomes a matter of spiritual pride not to be baptized. You say, "How so?" Because you have gone so long without a proper New Testament baptism and to be baptized would be a public confession of a long term of disobedience or a long term of ignorance. And such would then be a humbling experience. One would be greatly humbled stepping into the baptismal waters to say "I know I should have been baptized but I have been disobedient for years." Some people are not willing to be humble and they're not willing to admit their disobedience and they're embarrassed to acknowledge the failure in this area. And it's really a form of spiritual pride. And as I noted a few weeks ago, they would rather be ashamed at the judgment seat of Christ than before the church.
A third reason why some people would not be baptized is because of indifference. They're indifferent. In other words, they just can't be bothered. They understand it. They're not against it. They may believe in it. It's just not important, it's not a priority. They never get around to it. It's...they're not able to come when they have it. They have to go somewhere when the preparation takes place. They always get their hair done on Saturday and who wants to get it messed up on Sunday night? It just is not a major issue. It's indifference.
Ignorant, proud, indifferent, there's a fourth reason why some people don't want to be baptized, let's just say they're defiant. They just flatly refuse. They rebel. Usually it's connected with the fact that if they did it it would be hypocrisy and they know that. They rebel against baptism because they're courting sin in their life and they're not about to get up in front of a congregation of people and publicly acknowledge their submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ and the joy of knowing Him when they're harboring sin in their life. It's their hypocrisy that makes them defy the command to be baptized and when you see a person who refuses to be baptized it is either ignorance, pride, it is indifference or it is defiance.
Or there's one other possibility, they're unregenerate. They're not really a Christian at all and so there's no moving of the Spirit of God to compel them to obedience. They have no desire to make a public confession, they just want to hang around the church, be thought of as Christians but that's not genuine and they're not about to stand up in a public place and affirm the reality of their faith in Christ which is not a reality at all.
So if you have not been baptized, you fit into one of these categories or another. And you need to ask yourself the question: if I have not been baptized, is it because I don't understand its importance? If that's the case, you will leave this morning have eliminated that option and you will be left with the remaining ones. Am I indifferent to its importance? Am I proud? Am I being defiant because of sin in my life? Obstinate toward God, unwilling to obey? Or is the truth that I'm not really a Christian at all and I have no particular desire to be baptized because I have no particular compulsion to confess Jesus publicly?
Now to help us understand what we need to understand about baptism, I want to pose several questions and then endeavor to answer them from the Word of God, all right? Question number one: what is baptism? When we talk about baptism what are we talking about? Let's assume we don't even know what we're talking about, let's start at square one, what is baptism? Simply this...from a physical viewpoint it is a ceremony by which a person is immersed, dunked or submerged into water. That's what it is. It is a ceremony by which a person is immersed, dunked, or submerged into water. That's what baptism is. That's the physical act of baptism
Now there are two verbs in the New Testament which affirm this simple definition of baptism. And we're only talking about the actual act or ceremony itself, not its meaning, we'll get to that in a moment. The two verbs that are used in the New Testament are bapto and baptizo. Bapto is only used four times, it always means to dip, to dip into, to dip into to dye, d‑y‑e. And so in all those cases it means to submerged or immerse...to dip into. A stronger word than bapto, an intensive form of bapto is baptizo from which we get baptize. Baptizo is used many many times in contrast to the four times that bapto is used. The more intensive word is used many many many times. It always means "to dip completely" and is the word "to drown." Totally submerging, immersing, dunking into water. The noun that is used is baptismos, baptismos always in the book of Acts refers to a Christian being immersed into water. So linguistically the terminology always refers to immersion or submerging in water. In fact, baptism became a technical term for immersion so that it was transliterated rather than translated...to translate means to give the meaning, to transliterate means to take the pronunciation of a word from one language to another without giving its meaning. In other words, baptizo became baptize, that doesn't give it the meaning, the meaning is immerse. And you could take every use of bapto, baptizo, baptismos and translate it "immerse or immersion." Because that's its meaning. But because it has become a technical term for the ceremony of immersion, they transliterated it out of the original and left it baptize. Even in English that word has come to mean immerse, or plunge into water.
You could go through the entire New Testament and wherever you found the word "baptize" translate it immerse and you would have the meaning properly understood. So every New Testament use of these terms, bapto, baptizo, baptismos either requires, demands or permits a translation of immerse or immersion. In fact, this is so obvious and so air‑tight that even John Calvin who really is at the heart of the Presbyterian church that sprinkles rather than immerses, even John Calvin said, "The word baptize means to immerse," I'm quoting, "it is certain that immersion was the practice of the early church." That's what the word means, that's what they did.
Further it is interesting to understand that the verbs, bapto and baptizo are never used in the passive sense, never used in the passive sense. In other words, water is never said to be baptized on someone. Did you get that? Always someone is baptized into water, never is water baptized on someone, such as sprinkling, pouring or putting water on your finger and dabbing it on someone's head. Never is water baptized on someone, always someone is baptized into water. Baptism always means an immersing, submerging, dunking into water.
Now the New Testament occasions on which baptism occurs support this very obvious meaning. Let me give you a few illustrations. In Matthew chapter 3 and verse 6 we see the ministry of John the Baptist, and we'll say more about it a little later. But talking about John the Baptist, it says the people were coming out to him, verse 6, and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River. They were being baptized in the river. In fact, he was way out in the wilderness by the river as the place that was necessary for baptism. Obviously if they were baptized in the river, they had to be immersed. You don't need a river if you're just going to dab a dot of water on someone's forehead or pour a little on them in some way.
Verse 16, it says, "After the baptism of Jesus, after being baptized," verse 16, "Jesus went up immediately from or out from the water." Jesus had been down in, He went out from. And so again we note that John baptized in a river. Jesus was in that river and came out of that river.
Now the gospel of Mark chapter 1 speaks further regarding the ministry of John and says the same thing. "All the country of Judea," Mark 1:5, "were going out to him and all the people of Jerusalem and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River." You don't need to be in the river if all you're doing is sprinkling.
John's gospel chapter 3 and verse 23, here again referring to the ministry of John the Baptist, a very important statement, John 3:23, it says, "And John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salem," which is along the Jordan River, "because there was much water there." Why did he need much water? Because he had multitudes of people who needed to be submerged into water, much water was essential for baptism.
Then we go to the book of Acts chapter 8, a familiar story of Philip and the Eunuch. Philip preached Christ, the eunuch believed. And as a result of his faith he said, "What prevents me from begin baptized?" Down into verse 38 after his confession of faith, "Philip ordered the chariot to stop, they both went down into the water." Philip as well as the eunuch and he baptized him. He immersed him, he submerged him. He dipped him into the water. "And when they came up out of the water," there again the implication is absolutely crystal clear that this is a submerging ceremony in which a person goes down into the water, is then dipped into the water, dunked into the water, immersed into the water, lifted back out.
Now one other note on this technical matter of what is baptism is this, only immersion fits the reality of which baptism is the picture...only immersion fits the reality of which baptism is the picture. The reality is that the believer at salvation is united with Christ in His death and resurrection. Only immersion symbolizes death, burial, into the water and resurrection of new life coming out. Only immersion maintains the picture, the image of the reality baptism signifies.
Now just as a footnote. There are some baptisms in Scripture that we're not going to talk about this morning. One is the baptism with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ, 1 Corinthians 12 tells about it. Another is the baptism of fire, the fiery judgment of God on unbelievers, Revelation 20:15 tells about it. And by the way, John the Baptist in Matthew 3:11 and 12 prophesied both of those when he said that there was one coming greater than him who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And we're not going to talk about Spirit baptism. We're not going to talk about fire baptism in judgment. All we want to focus on is water baptism...this wonderful ordinance.
Now water immersion is commanded of every believer. And it is very important not only for its own sake because it demonstrates one's obedient heart, but because of the picture that it presents. You see, baptism is a teaching aid. Baptism is an object lesson. Baptism is a physical analogy of a profound spiritual reality. And any student of Scripture knows that God likes to teach with symbols, pictures, illustrations, parables, and analogies. In fact, you go back to the Old Testament, follow my thought on this because it's very important, you go back to the Old Testament and you will note that God gave them many pictures, many ceremonies, many object lessons. All the major events, for example, of the history of Israel were commemorated by some kind of object lesson, some kind of memorial. And all of the major spiritual truths were basically illustrated by some kind of symbol, some kind of analogy, some kind of picture. And these basically were for teaching aids.
For example, let's say you have a couple of little children in a family, they're ages 5, 6, whatever, they have a little brother. On the eighth day after that little brother has been born it is time for the family to circumcise the little brother. And so their little brother is circumcised and the older brother and sister say, "Daddy, why do you do that?" That is precisely the purpose of that ceremony, to pass on spiritual truth to the next generation. And the spiritual truth is this, there is innate in us sin. It is in our nature. And all we can do is procreate sinners. And so man at the very point of his procreative organ must recognize that he produces wickedness and is in desperate need of a spiritual cutting away cleansing. And so what you have, you say to your children, is a demonstration of how the heart and the soul of man needs desperately the cleansing from sin.
When a little child would go with mother and father to the temple and see the bloody animals being sacrificed, they might say, "Mother, why do they do that?" To which the mother would reply, "Well, you see, our sins demand death and so someone, something must die for sin. And God has graciously permitted us to offer an animal to die in our place. And so this is a picture of the substitute." And then that parent could say, "And some day God is going to send the real Lamb, the final substitute and all these other sacrifices will be over with. But sin is so bad that it brings death, bloody death." A little child standing in the temple would literally be shocked at the hundreds and thousands of animals being slaughtered and would get a vivid picture of the sinful sin of one's life and the ramifications of that sin.
And when God established the Passover, a little child would say, "Why do we do this?" The father would say, "To remember that God is our great deliverer and that He delivered us from Egypt."
Everything they did was a teaching tool to produce a godly generation. That's how spiritual truth was passed on in vivid terms. Beloved, all of those ceremonies are gone. With the ending of the old covenant, all those pictures are gone and the Lord only left us with two...the Lord's table and baptism. They must be His two most important pictures.
The Lord's table is a physical picture of the death and sacrifice of Christ. And baptism is a physical picture of the death and burial of the new birth that occurs when one puts his faith in the Savior. It is an object lesson. It is a visual representation of a spiritual reality. That is the meaning of baptism.
Now let me talk a little bit about what has been the history of baptism. That's the second question. Where does it come from? How did we get it? Where did it start? Well we go back before the New Testament and God has His people Israel and they were the people who received the law, the promises, the prophets, the covenants. They were God's people. They worshiped the true God. They had the true revelation of the true God. But there were a lot of other nations around them called Gentile nations. And frequently the Gentiles would want to identify with Israel. They would want to worship the true God in the true way. They would want to become Jews, as it were, not racially, that's impossible, but religiously, spiritually. So they would desire to enter into Judaism. In order for a Gentile to do that he was therefore called a proselyte. And so they developed a system of proselyte induction into Judaism. It had three parts. Okay? And this is where baptism first appears in the traditions of Judaism related to Gentile proselytes. This is where baptism really begins to appear in this matter of proselyte baptism, Gentiles coming into Judaism.
Now the proselyte ceremony had three phases. And I think these are fascinating, listen to them. There was melah(?), tebela(?), and korban(?)...melah, tebela and korban. And each Gentile proselyte coming into Judaism with a heart to worship the true God would go through these stages.
Number one, melah, this was circumcision...circumcision. No matter how old the men were they were circumcised. Why? This unique sign of the people of God was to demonstrate that they were sinful at their very nature level, that they were sinful at the very level of their life organ. In other words, sin begets sin, as in Adam all died and the whole race was polluted. And so they were circumcised as a confession that they had an innate depravity that needed purging and cleansing and was thus symbolized by that purging cleansing act of circumcision. So a Gentile was affirming his root sinfulness...not just superficial acts of sin but a very nature that was defiled and could only produce defiled beings. A great admission for a Gentile to make, that was melah.
The second stage was tebela. Tebela was immersion into water. Having been circumcised, the Gentile proselyte was then immersed in water. Why? Because they said it identifies a Gentile as dying to the Gentile world. The old life is dead, the old life apart from God, apart from the promises of God, apart from the knowledge of God, apart from the truth of God, that is dead and he comes forth a new person with a new life and a new family and a new relationship to the true God. And so they said nothing illustrates that better than immersion and so it was in proselyte Gentile immersion that baptism first appeared in redemptive history.
The third step was korban. And this was an animal sacrifice. There was circumcision, immersion and sacrifice. And when the animal was sacrificed on the altar, the blood was sprinkled on the Gentile, on the proselyte symbolizing...follow this thought...that he needed cleansing for his daily sins. Not only did he need cleansing for his wicked nature, but for his daily sins, not only for his sin as depravity but his sins as conduct. So the major...major note in this proselyte ceremony was an admission of sinfulness, at the nature level, deep down, and at the behavior level on all the actions of life and the desperate need to die to all of that and rise in a new family with a new relationship to the true God. So that's where immersion got started. And it symbolizes the death of the old and a new life.
Now let's follow its history a little bit. This is fascinating to me. The last Old Testament prophet that comes into the world is John the Baptist. And his job as the forerunner of Christ is to come and make the people ready for the coming of Christ. How is he going to do that? Well, he knows that the coming Christ will be holy. He knows that the coming Christ will demand righteousness. So he preaches repentance and holiness and righteousness. And he calls everyone to repent for the kingdom is near, repent for the King is coming, turn from your sin. And then he baptizes them as an illustration, as a visible symbol of that inward turning.
Now follow this, this is amazing. So here comes John the Baptist asking Jews to be immersed in water. This is a humbling thing because in the mind of a Jew he's a child of the covenant. In the mind of the Jew he doesn't need to be brought through some kind of proselytizing ceremony to be inducted into the people of God. But the fact of the matter is, the people were flooding out to John, according to Matthew 3, and they were being baptized in large numbers willingly...why? Because they were admitting that Jewish though they were racially they had been disobedient, ungodly, sinful and apostate in terms of a right relationship to God and they need need be washed, they need to have something die and they need to be brought into a new relationship with God.
So John preached repentance. He preached righteousness. He preached holiness. He called for people to turn from iniquity to holiness. And he immersed them in the Jordan River as a visual symbol of what was going on in their repenting hearts. No better outward symbol could be found than immersion to testify to an inwardly transformed heart. That's a perfect illustration. There's also a cleansing, a washing symbolized. And so John came with that wonderful baptism, that wonderful picture of a repenting people. And that's why Acts 19:4 Paul says, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe on Him who was coming after him," that is in Jesus. So he called the people to believe in Jesus and then to turn from sin and turn in faith to Christ and to symbolize that in a willingness to publicly affirm that they needed a w