Water Baptism

Well, let me invite you guys to turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 6 for our time of study. And the word this morning, it's so good to see all of you here. today. We have been doing a a study through Romans 5 through 8, which is essentially a journey to the heart of the gospel.

And today we're gonna pause in that journey and address a topic that, that is brought up in the verses that we would have been covering today if we were continuing through Romans chapter 6, and that is the subject of baptism. And so the topic I want to address this morning is the subject of water baptism, and the sermon title is Be Ready, this is Creative Water baptism. And we're just do an overview of what we see in the New Testament regarding this this doctrine. Look at Romans chapter 6, verses 3 and 4.

We see the word for baptism showing up 3 times in these two verses. Paul says, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? He's like, regarding this whole sin issue in your lives as believers, let me point you back to your baptism. Do you 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 to the glory of the Father, so We too might walk in newness of life. Paul not only is referring to baptism here, but he actually is pointing us back to our baptism, and he's wanting that to actually serve as something that stimulates us onto the sanctification. if there's a number of people that look at verses 3 and 4, for example, and they're like, man, I wonder what Paul's talking about.

Is it spiritual baptism or water baptism?

And my personal belief is that if you talk to the apostle Paul and said, What are you talking about here, spiritual baptism or water baptism, he would probably look at you funny and say, yes. he's talking about both in these, two verses, and hopefully by the time we're done this morning, you'll see why that's extremely likely, the case. The doctrine of water baptism is an important, it's an important ordinance, and the teaching in the New Testament about it is important because it is a gospel ordinance, and it is connected to the gospel and it conveys and is loaded with rich gospel truth.

And so if we're going to be a living, breathing, functioning, gospel centered church, then an ordinance like this that is all about graphically depicting the gospel of Jesus Christ, is something that we want to know about, be students of, and, and talk about and practice here at Cornerstone.

Now I would encourage you as we begin to look at the text of the New Testament on this subject that you have an open heart to God's word this morning. I'll be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure Cornerstone lives up to what we're going to see this morning. I'm not sure we match up to the biblical picture that we see painted here on the pages of the New Testament. So we need to be open to To growth and to self criticism and just asking ourselves honest and searching questions regarding our beliefs, our practices regarding this ceremony or this ordinance.

We need to always with regard to this topic and any other topic, have an open heart to God's word that's just no matter how long we've known the Lord, just Lord, just show me what you want to show me in your word, and I'll change what I believe. I'll change what I practice in order to conform myself more wholeheartedly to what you're teaching in your word. Regarding this subject, we need to have the attitude of Adeniram Judson, who was a, a wonderful missionary to India back in the early part of the 1800s.

Adeniram Judson and his wife had Basically, felt the call of the Lord.

They, they love the Lord, they were raised in a Christian home, raised in the church, and felt the call of the Lord to go to India to serve as full-time missionaries for the cause of Christ. And while they were, En route, I think it was like a 4 month journey from the United States to India. While they were en route to India over that 4 months, Adeniram Judson and his wife did a study of the subject of baptism in the New Testament. They looked at that Greek word baptizo and they studied the locations where that occurs and just did a thoroughgoing study of the doctrine of baptism together as husband.

And wife and over the course of that 4 months they became persuaded that they're learning something here that's different than what they had believed and practiced up to that point. And that is they begin to see, and this will be one of our points this morning that the New Testament depicts universally believers' baptism. It's always people that believe in Jesus that end up getting baptized. That's universally the picture that we see in the New Testament.

And once they begin to see that, they begin to rethink themselves. Adenaram Judson and his wife had been baptized as infants in the congregational church that they were a part of, but they, after coming to faith in Jesus, had never been baptized in the waters of baptism. But after studying God's word and being molded and shaped by what they learned, they decided we need to get baptized now that we're believers in Jesus. So when they got to India, they looked up William Carey, the great missionary who was there in India serving the Lord there and said, We want to be baptized.

And so he hooked them up with someone else and they ended up undergoing that ordinance of water baptism, this is a man and his wife who had known the Lord for years, full-time service, and looked up to by many, and yet they came to God's word and what an adventure it must have been for them to read God's word and realize, man, this is something different than what we've believed and done. And we want to change to match what God is teaching in His word. We need to have that same attitude here at Cornerstone and in our individual lives regarding this topic and any other.

So hopefully we'll come to God's word this morning with that mindset.

What we're going to do, here's how we're going to break it down this morning is I want to give you 6 observations regarding water baptism in the New Testament. We'll be making some inferences from what we observe, but the bulk of what we're going to do is we're going to just try to observe, make some observations regarding baptism. In the New Testament, I have been observing water baptisms all my life, having grown up in the church, and I'm sure many of you have as well. Most of those baptisms have been completely uneventful but meaningful.

But I have seen a few fiascos when it comes to water baptism, and one of my memories, I'll just tell you one of them. I was up in Hammond, Indiana at a youth conference and there were a number of people being baptized and they'd come down, literally there were probably like 20 people being baptized that day and one guy would come down and the pastor would baptize them and he'd go out the other side and then another person would come down and one guy came down, looked totally normal, came down, stood in the baptistery.

And the pastor went to dunk him under the water, and I don't know if this guy had a fear of water or what, but he fought the pastor and would not let his head go under the water. And the pastor, stood him back upright and said, Now you agreed to this, right?

He's like, Yeah. He says, Alright, we're going to do this, right? He said, Yeah. And so the pastor tried to dunk him again and water literally was flying everywhere.

This guy's feet came in the air and splashing his hand was holding the side of the baptistery facing the audience. You could see his white knuckles just clutching for life. And the pastor made 3 attempts and could never get this guy's head underwater. In fact, jokingly, the pastor just gave up, said forget it.

And as the guy was walking out, he said, just make a note that all of this guy will get to heaven except his head. he was joking there, but Anyway, that's neither here nor there. It's just something I've observed on one occasion. What we're going to do today though is we're just going to observe multiple baptisms that take place in the New Testament and try to sweep some of them together into some observations.

So you guys ready? Observation number one that we can make from the New Testament regarding water baptism is that water baptism is a command that the church should take seriously. It's a command. It's not an option.

It's not something that Christians came up with and brought it to God and said, Hey, what do you think? Can we do this? No, God is the one who essentially invented the idea of baptism, and he commands the church to baptize. We see this in what we often call the great commission.

In Jesus says to the apostles and by extension to all of us, because he says, I'm going to be with you to the end of the age. So he's not just speaking to the audience that was gathered in front of him, but speaking to them as representatives of all disciple makers throughout church history to come. And he says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He's saying, I'm commanding you to make disciples, and as a part of that process, I'm instructing you to do baptizing, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son.

And the Holy Spirit. Not only is the church commanded to baptize, but we find places in the New Testament where individual believers are commanded to be baptized. We see this in Acts 2:38, where Peter says to the multitude on the day of Pentecost, repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. In Acts 10.

Verse 48, Peter speaks to the people gathered at Cornelius's household, the Gentiles who were there, and observes that they were believers, and it says, and he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. That word order Is the Greek word that would be used to speak of a general delivering a command or an order to one of his subordinates. Peter wasn't like, Hey, can I leave a thought with you, the possibility of maybe getting baptized? No, he commanded these new believers to be baptized.

In Acts 22:16, Ananias is speaking to Saul of Tarsus after Saul had a run-in with Jesus on the road to Damascus, and Ananias said to Saul, Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized. So we have. is where the church is commanded to baptize and where individual believers are commanded to be baptized.

And so we see that baptism is not an option. It is a command to the church and the believers in Jesus Christ. And so we should take it seriously for that reason alone. Another thing we can observe, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but we can observe in the New Testament that it seems by all indications that water baptism is by immersion.

Water baptism is by immersion. I don't personally want to quibble with those that would say that it, that it means something different. This isn't a major doctrine of the faith, but it does seem like when you look at the New Testament that the feeling that you get from the meaning of the Greek word baptizo and just some of the descriptions of the phenomenon of baptism that, the most natural way of understanding that is to speak of immersion. The Greek word baptizo means to plunge, to immerse, or to dip in the sense of submerging.

Just to give you an idea of the word baptizing, James Montgomery Boyce talks about a guy named Nicanor, who was a poet and a physician, a Greek poet and physician in 200 BC. And Nikandor was talking about he was giving instructions on how to make a pickle out of a vegetable, and he basically in his instructions, he says that you need to have boiling water. Take the vegetable and babto it in boiling water, and then after having done that, he says, you baptizes it in vinegar. And clearly he's not just saying sprinkle some vinegar on it, no, you submerge that thing and you put it in vinegar and that vegetable actually will come forth from its time submerged in that vinegar, different or changed or transformed, clearly having the idea of immersing.

Or submersing that vegetable, and that is the idea almost universally whenever baptism is used in the New Testament, it does have that idea. There might be a couple of times where it's open to question, but it does seem like this is the meaning of the term by and large. And then you look at some of the language like in Mark, it speaks of those that were being baptized by John the Baptist and it says in Mark 1:5 they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. So it wasn't just water brought from the Jordan River.

They were baptized in. They would come down into the Jordan River. Even Jesus, when he was baptized, it says after his baptism, Jesus coming up out of the water. Clearly he was brought into the water, standing in the water, and then the meaning of the term just that he was submerged and then he came up out of the water.

In Acts 8, Philip is witnessing Jesus Christ to the Ethiopian eunuch, and the Ethiopian eunuch says, Look, there's water. What prevents me from being baptized? And so look what it says in Acts 8:38. They both went down into the water and when they came up out of the water, speaking of what happened afterwards, so clearly they stepped into this body of water and a baptize, as it were.

took, took place. And so that's all the time I want to spend on that, but just it seems like immersion is the mode of of baptism as we observe it in the New Testament. There's a third observation, and that is that water baptism always happened soon after belief in Christ. Universally, I don't know of any exception in the New Testament that water baptism, whenever there's any description of the sequence in which things took place and what was happening in the heart of a person, water baptism always happens soon after belief in Christ.

And what we can observe from that is that in the New Testament, universally, it's always believers baptism. There's no example in the New Testament of infant baptism that we find there. There are godly people who love the Lord that I have tremendous respect for and learn much from who would advocate infant baptism, and they have a line of thinking. To lead them to that conclusion.

Personally, we're unpersuaded by that line of thinking, and one of the things that's very notable to us is we just don't find any examples of that in the New Testament. It's always believers' baptism. People make a choice to believe in Jesus. God saves them, and they are baptized.

We also observe not only is it always believers' baptism, but the pattern that we observe is that People are baptized quickly after they place their faith in Jesus. It seems like the norm is that water baptism happens the same day. As someone making a profession of faith in Christ. Look at this in chapter 8, verse 12, Philip goes to Samaria preaching the gospel and says, and when they believe Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike.

So they believed and they were baptized. In Acts chapter 8, Philip is spending time with the Ethiopian. who was on the road to Gaza, and who's studying Isaiah 53 and Philip just begins to expound that text of the Bible speaking about Christ and His suffering and His atoning death, and it says, and Philip opened his mouth and began from this scripture, beginning from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. And as they went along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, Look, water, what prevents me from being baptized?

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. So the eunuch is hearing the message of the truth about Jesus. He's obviously believing it, and the first point where he sees a body of water, he's like, I want to get baptized today. Right now.

In Acts 10, Peter observes Cornelius and his household, they've received the Holy Spirit, they put their trust in Christ for salvation. And There's clear evidence that they have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so Peter says, Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did. Can he?

And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. So they're believing in Christ. Peter's like, Let's get them baptized right away. Baptism happened the very day of their Conversion.

In Acts 16, Paul is speaking the gospel to a small group of people included in which was a woman named Lydia in the city of Philippi, and as he preached the truth, look at this Acts 16:14, and the Lord Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us to stay on. So the Lord opens her heart, she believes, and she gets baptized and then is pleading with, in fact, essentially demanding that Paul and Silas stay with her and enjoy hospitality in her home.

Paul and Silas are thrown in prison in Philippi.

They're singing hymns of praise to God. No doubt they were gospel centered lyrics about Jesus Christ, that they were singing these songs of praise to God. And then an earthquake occurs, right? And the doors open and the prisoners can escape and the jailer's like, I'm a dead man.

I'm losing all the prisoners here. They're going to take my life for allowing the prisoners to escape. But Paul says, Don't harm yourself. We're all here.

Everything's OK. And when the jailer realizes this, he comes to Paul and Silas and look what he says, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house, and he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.

He hears the gospel, he believes, and he's like, I got to get baptized. But what, let me take care of your wounds first. And now that I've taken care of your wounds, baptize me. So it happened just in the, just moments or maybe hours, the same day after he and his household had believed in Christ and called on his name for salvation.

So we have these kinds of examples throughout the New Testament of faith in Christ, always preceding baptism, and baptism, following it and not only following it, but it seems like always quickly following their belief in Christ. I'm not so much inferring anything from that. We're just making observations at this point, that is undeniably a pattern that we see in the New Testament. And and that leads to a 4th observation that I'm going to make here, but I want to warn you guys not to freak out on me.

OK. This might, this might seem a little bit unusual, but just try to really hear out what's being said here. But here, here's the fourth observation, water baptism in the New Testament, you can often observe that water baptism and confession of faith were sometimes virtually simultaneous. Water baptism, like a person being converted and calling on the name of the Lord, doing that and being baptized in the waters of baptism.

We often see in the New Testament that those two events happened almost at the same time. If we look honestly at the text, it's unavoidable in terms of observing this. in Acts 2:38, we have an example of this. Peter's preaching to the multitude gathered there.

The truth about Jesus, and they realize this Jesus whom they have crucified is the approved Messiah of God. They're pierced to their hearts. They're like, What shall we do? They ask in profound conviction over their sin.

And Peter says in Acts 2:38, Here's what to do repent and let each of you be baptized literally upon the name of Jesus Christ into the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift. Of the Holy Spirit. Now this verse right here is like a hobby horse to people that believe in baptismal regeneration. It's, it's interesting sometimes you see people that have their big, the things they're real passionate about.

Some people are real passionate about the Sabbath, and that's like the first thing they want you to know about them, and that's what their bumper sticker says or or whatever. And then some are passionate about the King James Version of the Bible, the 1611 King James Version. And I occasionally see bumper stickers that say KJV 1611, and you can infer a lot about a person by just seeing that bumper sticker. Not only do they believe that King James is the inspired word of God, word for word, but that's like the most important thing they want you to know about them.

And Acts 2:38 is in that category in the minds of some. I've actually seen bumper stickers that say Acts 2:38. And exactly what the point is that they're trying to make. Anyone who is sporting that verse.

On their bumper is a believer in baptismal regeneration, and that's like the most important thing that he or she wants you to know about them. They believe that this verse is teaching that you need to be baptized in order to be saved. And then there are ways that people on our side might try to get around this, and the preposition that's literally that I translate as into you can do some gymnastics with that and make it mean because of so forgiveness of sins precedes baptism, so you get baptized because that happened.

There are things that people do to make this fit with our theology.

But for me, when you have to work really hard to make a verse fit into your theology, you want to begin to be a little suspicious. Honestly, I think we can just let this verse say what it's saying. Repent, and let each of you be baptized upon, that's the literal preposition upon the name of Jesus Christ, into the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You say, well, as Peter saying here that we have to be baptized in water to be saved?

Well, not so fast. In this same sermon that Peter is preaching, he's already told his audience what they need to do to be saved. Earlier in this sermon, in chapter 2, verse 21, Peter says, and it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, will be saved. So his audience would know based on what he has said that if they want to be saved, and have their sins forgiven, and receive the Holy Spirit, they need to call upon the name of the Lord, in order to experience that salvation, right?

Well, knowing that, Peter then says what he says in Acts 2:38, and what he says earlier can serve as the backdrop through which we can actually see what he's saying in Acts 2:38. Let's paraphrase it this way, Peter's saying, repent and let each of you be baptized, calling upon the name of Jesus Christ into the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Quite literally, what Peter is saying is you guys want to know what to do. What I want you to do is I want you to come from where you are right now.

And I want you to come down into whatever body of water there was. And while you are in the waters of baptism, I want you to call on the name of the Lord. And we'll baptize you. And so their moment of baptism and calling on the name of the Lord was just literally seconds apart.

It just so happens that the baptistry, the baptismal pool, the waters of baptism was the location where these people stood when they prayed and called on the name of the Lord for salvation. This is literally what Ananias says to Saul of Tarsus. in Acts 22:16, listen to what Ananias says to Saul, who later became Paul. Ananias says, Now why do you delay?

Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins. Look what he says next, calling on his name. Get up, be baptized, get your sins washed away while calling on his name literally is the idea. He's like, Get up, Paul.

I want you to stand in this little body of water, and while standing in this water, I want you to call on the name of the Lord for salvation, and I'll baptize you and you're going to get your sins washed away. When Paul called on the name. Of Jesus Christ for salvation. He was standing in water as he did so, just like when John baptized people, it says he baptized them while they were confessing their sins.

They came down in the water confessing their sins as they stood there and then were baptized. What's happening here is standing in water and in that location, calling upon the name of the Lord and then undergoing baptism. We have this in Acts 19 also, although not quite as explicitly. Paul comes into Ephesus and he runs into some disciples of John the Baptist who don't know a whole lot, but they're very open and responsive to what they do know.

And he said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said to him, No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. So there's a lot these guys don't know. And he said, Well, into what then were you baptized?

And they said, into John's baptism. And so look what it says then. Then Paul said John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is in Jesus. So he's pointing to Jesus now.

And when these few disciples in Ephesus, who had been disciples of John heard this about Jesus, they were immediately baptized in the name. Of the Lord Jesus, it's like instant. It's like, well, we, we want to undergo this baptism. One other verse regarding this.

First Peter chapter 3, verse 21. A very interesting verse. Peter is talking about water baptism, and he says, corresponding to that baptism now saves you. Water baptism now saves you.

let's not do any gymnastics. Let's just let Peter say what he's saying here. Baptism now saves you. He's saying what he means and means what he says.

But then notice Peter is not content to stop right there and move on to some other topic. He wants to qualify what he has just said. Look what he says. When I say that baptism now saves you.

I'm not talking about the removal of dirt from the flesh. I'm not talking about the literal water and the water molecules touching your body and having any cleansing effect upon your body. I'm not talking about the literal water of baptism. that and the cleansing that might happen, that saves you.

But I'm talking about an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What he's saying is it's not the waters of baptism that save you. It's what you do when you're in the waters of baptism that save you, as you're appealing to God for a good conscience. Peter is envisioning individuals standing in the waters of baptism.

And while standing there, They're calling on the name of the Lord and appealing to God. They're praying to God for a good conscience. And he says that's what saves, and that occurs often. In the very waters of baptism.

So you have a number of passages that seem to indicate that often, not always, and I'm going to show you an example where it doesn't happen this way, but that oftentimes the baptismal pool served as the location where someone stood when they called on the name of the Lord for salvation. And so they call on the name of the Lord and then they're baptized, and those two events were very close. together, do you understand why now going back in your mind to Romans 63 and 4, Paul's talking about your baptism, you're baptizing to Christ, and so forth.

Why if you said to Paul, what you're talking about spiritual baptism or water baptism?

See, we ask that question because nowadays someone makes a profession of faith in Christ. And maybe 6 months later they get around to being baptized. those two events, their baptism and their conversion or profession of faith are often divided up by many days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years. And so we're more prone to even ask Paul that question.

But in Paul's day, baptism often happened almost simultaneously with someone calling on the name of the Lord for salvation. And Paul would say, I, I don't, I'm talking about both spiritual baptism and water baptism. Well, there's a 5th observation that we can make regarding water baptism in the New Testament, and that is that water baptism is not a prerequisite for salvation. It's not a prerequisite for salvation.

We need to make sure we're balancing our thoughts like, OK, this is affirmed, and, but then there's something else that's affirmed, and however we do our theology, we want it to develop from what we observe in the text of the Bible. Salvation. We actually observe in the New Testament that salvation actually happens prior to water baptism. or even apart from, and we've got the example of the thief on the cross putting his trust in Christ and Christ says today you'll be with me in paradise.

You've got the tax collector in the temple who says, God be merciful to me, the sinner. So he's confessing his sin, pleading his need for God's mercy, and Jesus says, I'm telling you that man went home justified. He experienced justification and righteousness apart from any ordinance. He just prayed.

He just put his trust in God and put himself at the mercy of God, and he was a saved man going home. We see this illustrated even more explicitly in the New Testament era, like in the in the church age in Acts chapter 10. Peter goes to the home of Cornelius, who was a Gentile, and God had essentially spoken to Cornelius and said, I want you to call for a guy named Peter. And so Cornelius does that, and while some of Cornelius's messengers are on the way to Peter, God's doing a work on Peter to begin to open his heart to the possibility of ministering to.

to Gentiles. Peter was a Jew. Never would ever go into the home of a Gentile or commingle with them. But God prepares Peter's heart to where when the messengers arrive from Cornelius' household, Peter's ready to go with them.

And so he shows up at Cornelius' household, and here's this Gentile centurion and family and friends all gathered in In this Gentile home, and Peter's looking at them going, God's an amazing God for me to be standing right here. how unusual this is for a guy like me to be hanging out with people like you, but God has shown me that he does not show partiality or favoritism and that his salvation essentially is available to all Jew and Gentile. And so he begins to speak to them about Jesus.

And look at how the narrative unfolds.

While Peter was still, while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. So Peter preaches, they listen, the Spirit falls, and all the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were amazed. By the way, I was reading a commentary a few years ago where the commentator mentioned that Peter was amazed, but if you read the text carefully, Peter's not amazed. The Jews who were with him are amazed, but I don't think Peter's amazed, and Luke doesn't tell us that Peter's amazed.

I think Peter's like, yep, this is. This is amazing, but this is knowing God. This is what I expected to happen. Look at why Peter's companions are amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles also, for they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God.

Then Peter answered, Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he, and he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus. So they had received the Holy Spirit, right? The baptism of the Spirit. Romans 8.

If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to the Lord. If someone does have the Spirit, they're a saved person. And so these are saved people. Peter observes that they're saved and then commands them to be baptized in response to the salvation evidences that he observes in them.

I remember a number of years ago, oh my goodness, probably like 20/20 years ago, listening to a debate. Between a guy who believed in baptismal regeneration, that baptisms required for salvation, and a guy who was more in our school of thought, and the guy in our school of thought pointed to Acts 10 and said, Look at what happened here. Clearly, Cornelius and his household got saved. They received the Holy Spirit prior to actually undergoing water baptism.

And the guy who believed in baptismal regeneration when it was his turn to speak, said in the verse, verses you read in Acts 10, nowhere is it saying that this audience believed. It just says Peter started talking, and they listened, and the Holy Spirit fell. No belief is mentioned here. And so he says, I don't think you can say that this group of people is saved at, at this point.

And the guy who was in our school of thought, when he got up to speak, turned to Acts 11, where Peter is fortunately recounting. To the Jerusalem leadership about what happened and listen to how Peter recounts this. He says, as I begin to speak, and when you look at the context, he was telling them about Jesus, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as he did upon us at the beginning. What happened to us on the day of Pentecost was happening to these Gentiles.

And as I observed this, I remembered the word of the Lord, how he used to say, John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So Jesus used to tell us disciples that we're going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Those words came true, and now I'm remembering those very words as I'm looking at these Gentiles because they're receiving the same baptism that we received on the day of Pentecost. Now look at what Peter says.

If God therefore gave to them the same gift as He gave to us after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in his way? So you put all that together and here's the sequence. They heard the preaching of the gospel, the truth about Jesus. They believed, there's no way around that.

They believed in what they heard. They believed in Jesus. They were so ripe and ready to be believers in Him. And then they received the gift.

They received the gift. Of the Holy Spirit. In fact, they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. Peter observes this and then commands them to be baptized in the waters of baptism.

Salvation clearly occurred prior to them undergoing water baptism, which teaches us that salvation happens actually prior to water baptism. And that water baptism in and of itself is not a prerequisite for salvation. It's important and it is commanded, but it is not a prerequisite for salvation. There's a 6th and final observation that I want to make, and then hopefully we'll have time to address a couple practical.

issues, and that is that water baptism is a credal and experiential confession of gospel faith. It is a credal and experiential confession of gospel faith. Big words there. But I sound smart when I say them, don't I?.

Creedle, what's that? It's just, it's what we believe. when someone's being baptized, what baptism conveys is, is a creed. Someone being baptized, the ceremony itself, the ordinance itself is proclaiming a creed, a set of doctrinal, historical truths that I'll show you in just a quick second.

And it's an experiential confession. It's not just a confession of doctrinal truth, but the experience of the person being baptized with that doctrinal truth, their faith in those doctrines, in those historical facts, and their participation. In those realities regarding Jesus Christ and his work on the cross and in the tomb. Basically, let me try to make this real succinct.

There's two things that someone being baptized is saying. Just in the eloquence of the ceremony itself. Number one, they're saying, I have believed in Jesus and called on his name for salvation. They don't even have to necessarily say a word, just by being willing to be baptized, they're making that statement.

I put my trust in Jesus. I've called on his name. Acts 8:12, those who believe the gospel were being baptized. So you're making that statement by undergoing baptism that you are a believer in the gospel, a believer in Jesus, and that you've called on his name for salvation.

But there's a second thing that's being said. This is so dense with gospel truth. The ceremony of baptism, someone being baptized is making this statement. Christ died.

Christ was buried, and Christ was raised, and I have died with Him. I've been buried with Him, and I've been raised with Him to walk in newness of life. That's the statement. The doctrinal and experiential statement that someone being baptized is making affirming these cardinal truths of the gospel, Christ died, he was buried, he was raised, and I have entered into the experience of that death.

I have died with him. I've been buried with him, and I have been raised with him to walk in newness of life. That's why in Romans 6:3 Paul can point us back to our baptism and say, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore, we've been buried with Him through baptism and death in order that as Christ was raised up from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

There you have it, Christ's death, burial, resurrection, central historical truths of the gospel. But through baptism, what you're conveying is that you have died with Christ. You've been buried with Christ, and you have been raised with Christ. Essentially someone being baptized is, is, is saying, look at me, I'm standing here.

This represents my old self, my old way of life, and, and, and in Christ I have died in my old way of life. So watch me, Pastor Milton's taking me down underneath the water. I'm dunked completely submerged under the water, and this represents my burial with Christ and And now watch. Lord willing, Pastor Milton's gonna bring me up out of the water, and this represents my identification with Christ in His resurrection.

I am a participant in the actual resurrection life of Jesus Christ Himself. The resurrecting power of God that was exercised in Jesus to raise Him from the dead is continuously Ephesians 1 streaming towards me and into me as a believer in Jesus. I have died with him to my old way of life. I've been buried with him.

My old way of life is dead and buried with Jesus in the tomb. And I have been raised with him to now walk in newness of life. Christ died, he was buried, he was raised. I'm a participant in those historical realities.

My life has been changed. And I'm walking in newness of life. This is why we love baptism. It's, like the Lord's Supper.

As long as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, Paul says, we proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. When we celebrate baptism, we're proclaiming Christ's death, his burial, and his resurrection, and a person's participation. And unification with Christ in that and the change that that is bringing about in their life. That's why we love baptism because it preaches the gospel to the person being baptized, and the person being baptized is preaching the gospel through the eloquence of the ceremony itself to any, to all who observe.

Those are 6 observations we can make about. Baptism in the New Testament. I know there's more observations we can make, but, but here's 6. Can I, can I address maybe 3 practical questions about baptism?

OK. OK. How about this one? Who should baptize?

There are some people who believe that only ordained members of the clergy are qualified to baptize. You need to be ordained. You need to be a man of the cloth to baptize, and the privilege of baptizing is not available to the rest of the body. And if someone else baptizes, it's not official unless a pastor or a member of the clergy does it.

we actually would say that that violates the priesthood of the believer that's affirmed in, in the New Testament. And it's actually not consistent with what we see in the New Testament. We do have Paul baptizing. He was an apostle.

We've got Peter, baptizing. He was an apostle. The apostles no doubt baptized. They're told to baptize in the Great Commission.

But we also have examples of Philip, who was a deacon in the Jerusalem church, who was baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch and people in Samaria. And we also have the example of Ananias, who baptized Saul of Tarsus. Ananias was just a disciple. was not identified as like some member of the clergy class.

It's also not consistent with what we see in the Great Commission. In the Great Commission in Matthew 28, the main verb, many of us know this is make disciples, right? That's the main verb. And would we say that that main verb applies to every believer?

Yeah, every believer is to be a disciple maker for Jesus Christ. If we all would take that main verb as applying to all of us, then logically the three participles that are subordinate to that main verb and are tied to that main verb, we would logically take those to be applicable to all of us. The participle going and teaching and baptizing. Are the prerogative of all disciple makers.

And so at Cornerstone, we believe that if you are a disciple maker, a mature believer, disciple making, making disciples as you're commanded here, then the privilege of baptism is something that is available to you. When someone comes to me here at Cornerstone and wants to be baptized, I don't automatically assume they want me to do the baptizing. I'll ask them, who would you like to baptize you? And sometimes they want me to, other times they want another elder.

Sometimes they say, I would like for the person who led me to Christ to do that. And so we've had people who are just, and what when I say just, they're just disciples in this baptistery baptizing someone that they've led to faith in Christ. Sometimes someone would say to us, I would like for my dad to baptize me, and we absolutely love that. We've had dads in this baptistery.

Baptizing their children who have come to faith in Christ, and we believe that's wonderfully consistent with the picture we see in the New Testament. So just know that that those options are available, and that it's not just Pastor Milton who gets to do all the baptizing. I love the fact that the scripture releases the rest of the body to be free, to be engaging in baptism. That leads to another question, that is where should baptism take place.

We have a baptistery here right behind me. Many churches feature a baptistery in their auditorium, and there are some who would say for a baptism to be official, it needs to happen in the sanctuary. And then there are others who would very strongly feel like, no, you should never baptize inside of a cloistered environment of the church where it's all believers. You need to be out in public so that the world and the lost can see you.

So go to the beach and some public swimming pool or some lake where anyone can see the baptism taking place. a couple things regarding that. Here at Cornerstone, when we baptize someone in our services, inevitably that person invites family and friends. Many of whom often don't know the Lord to come and witness the baptism.

So, so often we have nonbelievers that are present in our services that are witnessing the baptism who are loved ones of the person being baptized, and in a crowd this size, there's always no doubt nonbelievers that are present that are hearing the gospel and seeing the gospel preached through this. This ordinance. Having said that, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being baptized in a public place. That's, that's great.

We baptize people in swimming pools in a care group gathering. good night. The eunuch got baptized by a little body of water by the side of a road. so I don't, it doesn't seem like something that God obsesses over.

Ultimately, who the primary audience of baptism is. God, God, yeah, it's the path of wisdom to let other people see what's happening, but ultimately, it's the appeal to God for a good conscience. God is the most important member of the audience of a baptism that is taking place. And so let's keep that in mind and, and let's, let's enjoy the latitude that we actually find in the New Testament regarding locations where baptism can, can take place.

I remember a couple came to me a number of years ago here and it was a Wednesday and they wanted to get baptized, so we filled up the baptistery and they had invited a couple of people to come watch and there were a few people milling about the campus and we invited them to come in here and we baptized this man and his wife in front of just a small handful of people that were watching and I, I think that's, that's great we could have done that, somewhere else. It did not have to be.

To be here, and then one final question. how old?

One of the things that parents agonize over is the baptism of their own children. Like how old should our children be when we encourage them to get baptized? And, I've seen children baptized as young as 5. I underwent my first baptism when I was 4.5 to 5 years of age, and, and then I got baptized again when I was 15, a freshman in high school, and, and then when I was 17, I went to my pastor because I thought when I was 17 I really got saved this time at summer camp.

So I went to my pastor and said, Could you baptize me again because I think I'm really saved now. And he politely, graciously declined, but, parents agonize over at what age should the child be baptized. If they want to be baptized at 7, do they really understand what's going on? Are we robbing them of a richer experience that might come to them a little bit later if they wait until they're 13 or 16 to To be baptized, these are hard issues, and I'm probably going to disappoint every one of you because I don't have a firm and dogmatic answer either way.

When I talk to parents who are telling me their rationale for wanting to have their child wait to the age of 13 or even later, it's very compelling to me. And resonates with me. I'm like, man, that makes sense. And when I'm talking to a parent that is telling me about the faith of their child and the fruit they're seeing in their child's life, even though they may be 8 years old or whatever, and their child's wanting to be baptized and, and they give their rationale for that, I find that compelling as well, and that I essentially try to live up to the prerogative of the parents and maybe just give them some things to think about on both sides of Of the equation in terms of waiting a little bit later to be baptized, parents, just keep in mind and remind your children of this that water baptism is not a prerequisite for salvation.

You're not harmed by not undergoing this, this ordinance, until, maybe a particular age a little bit down the road. And also waiting allows time for the fruit of salvation to manifest itself in the life of the child. And if you're a child and your parents are wanting you to wait, A little longer to be baptized. Don't resent that.

Actually embrace that. God, I believe, wants to use that. This is a time for you to grow. I love what Schriner and Wright say in the book Believers Baptism that this this waiting time allows time for the child to be better taught to evidence humility while waiting and to mature and to better remember, cherish and use the experience of his baptism.

What your parents are after and having you wait is they want your baptism to be the richest experience possible. And so they're fighting for your pleasure and your joy as they're watching over you and nurturing your soul and trying to nurture this experience in this way. Having said that, what makes parents agonize over that, that's not an easy thing for a parent to do because the thought is, I've got an 8 year old child who Has professed faith in Christ and, and I'm seeing some fruit in their life, and they're feeling like Jesus is commanding them.

God is commanding them to be baptized, and, and if I'm saying no to them, is that a violation of their conscience maybe?

And, and I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying these are the kinds of questions that parents agonize over as they're trying to figure out, the appropriate time. You've got the words of Jesus, allow the children to come to me, don't forbid them. He's not talking about water baptism there, but, something of that sensibility in the heart of Christ might make a parent be inclined to think about allowing their child to be baptized a little earlier and to not delay it too long.

And also, if a child is excited about their faith and they're wanting to be baptized and publicly make a statement of their faith in Christ, to have them prolong that, does that have a discouraging effect upon Them. These are, these are complicated kinds of issues and parents land in different places. By the way, we asked this question on your care group discussion, sheet. So have fun tonight, but be gracious as you talk about this with each other.

What is required biblically, let me wrap it up with this, is that your child be a believer in Jesus. They give evidence that their faith is their own and not mommy and daddy's. They have faith because they love mommy and daddy and mommy and daddy believe in Jesus. No, they're giving evidence that this is their own faith.

And they display an understanding of the gospel and an ability to articulate that and a willingness, they want to be baptized, they understand what baptism means, what it does not mean, and they want to give testimony of their faith in Christ and the stand they're taking with Christ, publicly. if you see that in your child, then just, just try to stay flexible with them. Every parent's going to land in different places, but don't lock yourself in a box either too early or too late.

Just be praying about it, seeking counsel from other people and talking it over, praying it through with your child.

And I believe if you're doing all of those things with the right heart, God will lead you to the right place, OK? Well, why don't we bow our heads, and as you're bowing your heads, guys. The one thing I want to say is that if you're here today and you have not been baptized, we'd be very interested in talking with you and And setting something up for you to be baptized, you can indicate that on your registration card. Or, or call the office, talk to one of us on the pastoral staff.

But what a, what a rich ordinance this is. And so at Cornerstone, because we love the gospel, we want to make a big deal out of this. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for the cross.

We thank you for the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thank you for baptism that portrays these realities so wonderfully, so beautifully. Thank you, Jesus, for giving yourself for us. And allowing us to respond to your regenerating work in us and believing in you.

Lord, as we give of our offerings to you at this time, we, just ask that you would enable us to abound back to you as you have abounded to us with your grace. You would do much with the money that we give in this offering for your glory. for the spread of your gospel. We give ourselves to You, Lord, at the same time in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said,