Why the Water? [B]

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Transcript:

Acts chapter 8, we’ll start out here in just a moment. And I know a couple of you were not here this morning. So just to bring you up to speed, we’re still in our series on the most, or some of the most misused passages of Scripture.

And this morning we weren’t able, we didn’t have the luxury of having just one Scripture to look at because it was more a topic and a series of Scriptures that are taken out of context, I believe, to support the idea that we have to be baptized in order to be saved, in order to be born again. And we looked at about three different passages that I thought were the most often cited, and why really they don’t say that you have to be baptized in order to be born again. When you get right down to it, they either don’t say anything at all about people who’ve believed and not been baptized, or they don’t make a clear statement one way or the other, actually, on whether we have to be baptized or not in order to be saved.

In the case of Acts 2. 38, it really could, depending on which form of the Greek word ice you use, which context you have, it could go either way. And so we look at the things that are clear in Scripture.

And we looked this morning at the very essence of the gospel and how the idea of baptismal regeneration, the idea that we are saved or born again through baptism or partially through baptism, how that undermines the very essence of the gospel, being salvation by grace, being justification by faith, and being the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. And we looked from the Scriptures at how it undermines all three of those teachings. And some may wonder, why are you making such a big deal about baptism?

Because people treat it as a secondary issue. Well, it’s not a secondary issue. Anything that is added to the gospel becomes a vital issue.

It becomes a hill that we have to fight and die on. And I don’t mean literally fight and die. Well, maybe die I do mean literally.

There have been some people who have refused to submit their children to infant baptism and have been martyred for it, but I don’t mean we go out and fight with our Church of Christ friends and kill them because they don’t agree with us. But in figurative terms, I mean it is a hill that we fight and die for because it is the very essence of the gospel. Is it salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, or do we begin adding religious rituals into the mix in order to obtain salvation?

Folks, it is an absolutely essential teaching that we know that baptism is not a part of salvation. It’s something that happens afterwards. So if we’ve established, and I believe we did this morning, if we’ve established that baptism is not part of salvation, that it’s not a requirement or a prerequisite to salvation, then what is baptism for at all?

That’s what we’re going to talk about tonight. Why the water? What’s baptism for at all if there’s nothing about it that saves us?

And as I’ve tried to make very clear this morning, nothing I said should be construed as me telling anybody not to get baptized. As a matter of fact, I believe everybody, every person who’s born again who believes should be baptized. It’s a step of obedience toward Christ. And just because I say it’s not essential to salvation doesn’t mean I think it’s not essential toward a Christian life.

To follow Christ, I believe we need baptism. Baptism is important. So if it’s not for salvation, what is it for?

Why the water? That’s what we’re going to talk about tonight. We’re going to look at two passages, two passages and three things that I believe the Bible teaches that baptism is for.

We’re going to start in Acts chapter 8, starting in verse 35, and look at about three or four verses. Acts chapter 8, verse 35. You know what, let’s start in verse 26, because I don’t want to be accused of taking anything out of context.

Let’s look at the whole story. And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, and eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot, was returning, and sitting in his chariot, read Isaiah the prophet.

Some of you, your Bible may say Esaias or something like that. That’s the Greek form of Isaiah. That’s who it’s talking about.

Read Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit, verse 29, said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?

So what’s gone on up to this point is Philip, he was one of the deacons of the early church, and he got up and the Spirit led him to go out into the desert. God didn’t necessarily, from what we know, God didn’t tell him what he was going to do there. God just told him, go to the desert.

And I’ve told you before, sometimes God tells us to do things that don’t make sense to us, but yet we’re to do them anyway. As long as they’re in line with what God’s Word has already revealed, you know, we listen to it. Because, not that I’m saying ever don’t listen to God, but God is not going to tell us anything that is not in line with what He’s already revealed to us.

So he heard what God said and got up and went out to the desert. And he finds the Ethiopian eunuch, who was one of the highest ranking officials of the Ethiopian court, finds him sitting out there. He’d been to Jerusalem to worship because they even now teach that some of the people in Ethiopia were descended of the union between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

And they were practicing Judaism for years, for centuries down there. And so this man had gone up from the court of Ethiopia, and he’d gone up to Jerusalem to worship at the temple. And as he’s returning, he’s out there in the desert, in the middle of the desert, in his chariot, and he’s reading from the prophet Isaiah.

And Philip, I guess at that point, realized what God sent him there for and said, do you understand what you’re reading? And verse 31, he said, the Ethiopian said, how can I accept some man should guide me? And he desired, Philip, that he would come up and sit with him.

How can I understand if nobody explains it to me? The place of the Scripture which he read was this, He led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened not his mouth. Opened he not his mouth.

In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. Now this goes back to Isaiah chapter 53.

And if you remember way back a year ago, I don’t expect that you remember everything I preached on a year ago, But if you remember back at all to a year ago when we were in the series on the prophecies of Christ’s first coming, Isaiah 53 is so explicit in its description of Jesus Christ that I can’t imagine how anybody looks at it and concludes that it refers to anybody but Him as the Messiah. So clear is the picture painted of Jesus Christ in Isaiah chapter 53, and really throughout the book of Isaiah that I’ve heard preachers who refer to it instead of a prophecy as the gospel of Isaiah. Now, not that we’re wanting to move it into the New Testament and add it among the four, but I mean, it just testifies so clearly of Jesus Christ and His coming as the Messiah that we could call it the Gospel of Isaiah.

That’s what he’s reading is from Isaiah chapter 53. And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this, of himself or of some other man? So Philip has read to him from Isaiah chapter 53 what he’s been reading.

Philip finishes reading to him. And the Ethiopian said, is the prophet writing about himself or somebody else? I wish you’d tell me.

And Philip opened his mouth and began at the same Scripture and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized?

So the eunuch at this point had asked him, is it talking about himself or somebody else? Who’s he talking about? Being led as a lamb to the slaughter.

And Philip opened his mouth and began to preach to him Christ. You could preach through Isaiah chapter 53, where it talks about his wounds and his stripes and the fact that he’d been crucified for us and for our sins. And he was a suffering Savior. And he gets to the point where he preaches Jesus out of the book of Isaiah and the eunuch believes.

The eunuch trusts Christ. And sometimes you get to those people that God has just so prepared that, folks, all they need to do is be. . .

You don’t have to convince them of anything. All they need to do is be asked the right questions and they’re just ready to trust Christ. Folks, we got to see that last Sunday night. I know some of you weren’t here Wednesday night.

This has nothing to do with the message, but some of you weren’t here Wednesday night to hear it announced, so I want to make sure everybody knows. We had a young lady get saved after AWANA last Sunday night. And I got to talk to her and got to lead her to that, and Carol Goff was with me.

But she can testify to you. I didn’t have to convince her. I didn’t argue her.

It wasn’t my brilliance. I walked in, I asked her two questions about whether she knew where she was going and why God should let her into heaven, and she was ready to get saved. She was ready before we got there because God had already been working on her.

And folks, sometimes we just run across those people. That’s what that article was about in your bulletin this morning, by the way. That it reminded me the gospel is so simple.

We make it so complicated and so convoluted. The idea of, well, you have to do this and you have to think this. Folks, if they can understand that they’ve sinned against God and that Christ died to pay for that sin and He died to pay for all of it and they trust in that, that’s what they need to understand to be saved.

And some of you don’t witness. some of us don’t witness because we say, well, I don’t know what to say, or I don’t know how to explain it, or they might have a question I can’t answer. Folks, they’ll have questions we can’t answer.

They don’t have to understand where Cain’s wife came from in order to get saved. If you’ve been saved and know how to tell somebody they’ve sinned against God, just like you have, I would recommend saying it that way instead of you’re a sinner, say we’re sinners. If you can explain to them that we’ve all sinned against God and that Jesus Christ died to pay all of the penalty that was due, and he purchased our forgiveness.

Folks, you can lead somebody to Christ. I just want to encourage you with that. This man was ready. And after he preached, he believed.

He was ready. And as they went on their way, verse 36, they came into a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized?

There’s water right there. Is there any reason why I should not be baptized? Verse 37, Philip said, And if thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus, and passing through, he preached in all the cities until he came to Caesarea.

So that was the story. Philip wanders around in the desert because God told him to, and there’s the man reading Isaiah, doesn’t understand it. Philip turns to that wonderful passage of the Old Testament and preaches to him Christ and he says, I believe.

Because Philip says, he asked, can I be baptized? And Philip says, if you believe, if you believe, you can be. And he said, I believe Jesus is the Son of God.

And it said, they went down to the water. And incidentally, didn’t mention this this morning, but every instance I see of somebody being baptized in the scripture, they are being baptized. The sprinkling or pouring, but every time it’s used the word to immerse or submerge somebody.

And even in the English, it says these people went down into the water and they came up from the water. Proper scriptural New Testament baptism is to be fully immersed. And that’s what he did.

And he did so. He did so as a profession of faith. So why the water tonight?

What is baptism for? First of all, it’s a profession of faith. You notice he didn’t say, well, if you want to join the church, you can be baptized.

Although I do believe that’s a prerequisite to church membership. He didn’t say, if you want to have a better life, be baptized. If you want to be saved, be baptized.

No, he said, if you believe, you can be baptized. And the man responded, I believe. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

And Philip here ties this just as everybody else did in the New Testament, ties this to their belief. You notice there’s not an instance, I don’t see a single instance in the Scriptures where somebody is baptized for any other reason than they have expressed faith in the message that was preached. When John baptized, it was because people had expressed faith in the fact that he was called to call them to repentance.

And they believed in that message and they were baptized. Well, later on, when it came time to baptize in this time, it was because they believed in the Word that was preached about Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter 2 that we looked at this morning, these people were baptized. It said those who gladly received the Word, those who believed were baptized.

It’s always something that happens after faith. It’s something that is in order to identify us as people who believe. Does baptism make you a believer?

No, it doesn’t. But it’s a sign that we are. It’s a sign that we believe.

We were talking about cremation on Thursday night, not as part of disciple way, but just afterwards. And the question was asked of me about cremation and burial. And we went back and forth. And not that we were arguing, we just discussed back and forth.

And I talked to him about the ancient pagan practice of cremation versus when Christians started to bury people. And it was because we believe in a resurrection. And I told them, you know, I don’t believe it’s a sin if they’re cremated, and it doesn’t mean God can’t resurrect you.

But the cremation doesn’t point to the resurrection. Being buried points to the fact that we believe in a resurrection. Does burial make you get resurrected?

No. But it’s a sign that you believe in the resurrection. We as Christians believe in a resurrection.

That’s why. And by the way, if some of you are planning to be cremated, I’m not telling you that you’re horrible people. My own father wanted to be cremated, And my mother and I put our foot down collectively.

And she said no because she didn’t like fire. And I said no because of the old pagan practice. Anyway, I’m not saying it makes you a terrible person.

Just drawing a parallel here and saying they started burying people because it was a picture. It was a symbol. It was a profession that we believe that there’s something to come.

God’s not through with us yet and there’s going to be a resurrection. By the same token, when we’re baptized, it doesn’t make us saved. It’s a profession of the fact that we believe what God has said and that we trust Christ as our Savior.

That’s why when somebody gets saved, we talk to them about baptism. This girl, I told her, I said, I’m not going to pressure you because I do want to make sure that she also understands what baptism means. And I also know that sometimes kids are scared of the water.

I didn’t get baptized for about six months after I got saved because I was terrified of the water. But then I realized God expected it, and so I did it scared or not. But that’s why when somebody gets saved, one of the first things we start talking to them about is baptism.

Because it’s a way of telling the world, I believe that Jesus Christ died for me. And it was a serious profession of faith, especially in this day. We treat it really flippantly in today’s culture.

We’ll baptize anybody at the drop of a hat. In this day, whether they show evidence of being born again or not, in this day, to be baptized, to profess faith in Christ, would make you, at some points in Christian history, would make you an enemy of the state. Because they were in the middle of a Caesar cult where everybody’s religion was tolerated as long as you were willing to add Caesar to your pantheon of gods and you’re willing to worship him too.

And the Christians were the ones saying, no, we will not bow down because we worship Christ alone. We trust Christ alone. We believe in Christ alone.

And so to be baptized was a way of publicly identifying with this belief and with this outlaw religion and could very well cost you your life. In some places today, it could still cost you your life to publicly identify with Christ this way. And it was not a decision that was taken lightly.

To be baptized was and should still be a very serious, I’m not trying to talk anybody out of it, but should be a very serious decision as it is a public profession of our faith in Christ, just as it was for this man. Second of all, baptism is a proclamation of our change. Baptism Romans chapter 6, and that’s where we’ll be for the rest of the message tonight.

Romans chapter 6, starting in verse 1, Paul writes, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.

How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? There was this idea. There was this idea that, hey, if grace comes whenever there’s sin, because grace is needed to deal with sin, why don’t we sin more?

And then there’s more of God’s grace abounding. And Paul said, that’s ridiculous. God forbid.

Sounds like a silly idea until we realize that people do that all the time. Hey, I’m forgiven. I’ve got my fire insurance.

I’m going to go live how I want to now. Oh, my. God forbid.

How shall we that are dead to sin? He’s talking to Christians, talking to born-again, blood-bought believers in Jesus Christ. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us, as we’re baptized into Jesus Christ, we’re baptized into His death.

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. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. Paul, writing to the believers at the church at Rome, tells them there’s no reason to think that we as Christians should go out and sin as much as we can and that it’s okay.

And he points them back to the time when they were baptized as a symbol of their turning point in their life. Not that it was baptism that changed their heart, not that it was baptism that had them born again, but baptism as something that is a public picture of the change that takes place within us. When we are saved, ladies and gentlemen, we are not just saved, we don’t just believe we are born again.

God takes what we were and changes us into something completely different. Now this change happens for people it seems like at different paces. And some people go from just wicked, reprobate lives to saint-like overnight.

God just changes them 180. And some of you have seen people like that. Some of you may have been people like that when you first got saved.

For some people, there’s a change of heart where God immediately begins to change something inside them, but they grow a little more slowly. But for everybody who is saved, the Bible says that we have passed from death into life. It says that we’re born again.

There should be, there must be some kind of change within us at the time of conversion. That’s why it’s called conversion, or used to be called conversion. I wish we’d go back to calling it conversion instead of asking Jesus into your heart.

Because we can ask Jesus into our heart and He’s just an addition to our lives, but conversion means something radically different. Now again, we don’t get salvation by being good, but He makes us good as a result of salvation. And when we’re saved, we should be born again.

And there’s no outward indication necessarily, no physical indication that, hey, I’ve been born again. There’s not a red light that goes off on your forehead. It’d be nice.

It’d be a lot easier to tell the guys in the white hats from the guys in the black hats if there was a little light on our forehead that God lights up when we’ve been born again. But again, it’s a way of publicly identifying that, hey, there was a turning point right here. The baptism that takes place is a way of professing to people that, hey, something has changed in my life.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that we are going to be perfect after that, that we’re going to be sinless after that. It doesn’t mean that the baptism is what changed us. but to go being born again and then to submit to the waters of baptism as a symbol that the old man is gone and raised to walk in newness of life, as it says here.

Even so, we also should walk in newness of life. Folks, it’s a proclamation that there’s been a change that has taken place. Now, unfortunately, that standard is not always lived up to.

I’ve seen, as you have probably as well, people who have made a profession of faith, they’ve prayed a prayer, and they’ve undergone baptism, And then they disappear from the church, and you find they’re living even more a worldly lifestyle than they were before the supposed conversion. And that undermines everything that baptism is supposed to be about. But I’m not talking about what does happen.

I’m talking about what is supposed to happen, what baptism is supposed to be when we don’t treat it as such a lax thing, when we treat it with the seriousness with which I believe God intended. It is supposed to be a sign to the world that, hey, things are supposed to be different now. Again, not as something that makes us different, but as a picture of the death we’ve experienced.

That when we’ve been converted, when we’ve been born again, the old man is dead and the new man has been raised to walk in newness of life. So baptism doesn’t save. It’s not for our salvation, but baptism is a profession of faith.

Baptism is a proclamation of our change. And third of all, and I think probably most importantly, baptism is a picture of Christ’s death. I struggled for a while with, you know, I didn’t believe that foot washing was an ordinance, but I struggled with the idea of why not?

Because all the arguments I had heard, well, it was given by Christ. Well, yes, the ordinances were given by Christ. Well, so was foot washing. You know, they were given by Christ as a command. He told them to do that.

He told them to do that about foot washing too. It was given to the church. Well, what were the, you know, if they were the church when they were taking the Last Supper, were they not the church?

Did they suddenly stop being the church? Every, you know, it was the same instance. Every argument I heard about foot washing and why it was not an ordinance of the church didn’t make sense to me until I got to studying and realized that baptism in the Lord’s Supper, as wonderful and as good a thing, I think, as foot washing is, baptism in the Lord’s Supper are a picture of the same thing.

And foot washing is not. Foot washing is a picture of servanthood, and it’s a good thing. And every time I’ve seen it done in a church, it’s always a spiritual and emotional thing.

but it’s not an ordinance of the church because it’s not a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And that’s one of the few things. You know, I’ll tell you all the time, I’m not that smart. I didn’t come up with that.

That’s one of the few things I’ve stumbled into on my own. I don’t remember anybody telling me that. But studying these, I realized these two things, these two ordinances that we hold as the church, He didn’t just tell us to do these things so we could have our own rituals and start a new organization with its own culture and rituals.

He instituted the baptism and the Lord’s Supper for us because they are pictures, they are reminders of what He did for us. When it talks in Romans chapter 6 about being buried, it’s not just burying the old man on our part. It’s a picture of the fact that Jesus Christ died and was buried.

That He died, He gave His life for our sins, and that He rose again, He resurrected from the dead. Both of these things are pictures of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Folks, I think as much as it’s important that baptism is a profession of our faith and a proclamation of our change, I think it’s even more important that it’s a picture of Christ’s death because that kind of gets us out of the way where baptism is not about us. Even baptism, ladies and gentlemen, is about Jesus Christ. Certainly our decision to follow Him, but even more importantly, it’s a way of pointing to the world that we still believe that this took place.

It’s a way of professing to the world what took place 2,000 years ago when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came and walked around in human flesh and for our horrible sinful selves, took that sin on Himself. He who knew no sin was made to become sin for us. And He went to the cross and He suffered and endured the punishment that you and I deserve, paid the penalty for our sins, and died.

And then, and then was raised again from the dead. Folks, that’s what baptism is a picture of. He could have instituted anything He wanted as a sort of initiation to the church.

He could have instituted any kind of practice for, hey, if you believe in me, go out and shave your head and dress in orange. If you believe in me, you need to walk on your hands and bark like a dog. He could have set up anything for us to go out and make some kind of statement.

But what was instituted was this picture of what He did for us. And honestly, I don’t want to attack anybody. I don’t want to run anybody down.

But to take a practice that is designed to picture the all-sufficient sacrifice Jesus Christ made for us. To take a practice that is designed to remind people and to profess to people what He did for us and use it as a ritual that we think we need in addition to what He did for us, I believe, is to make a mockery of the practice that Christ instituted. And maybe I’m being too harsh to see it that way.

But ladies and gentlemen, it is ultimately a picture of what Jesus Christ did. Everything that we do as a church, everything that we do as individual believers needs to be a picture of what Jesus Christ did for us. I’m not saying we need to go like the people that you’ll see in the Philippines on Good Friday and they’ll be on world news and they’ll have nailed themselves to crosses or tied themselves to crosses.

And there are groups even in this country that do that because they think it makes them closer to Christ. I’m not saying when everything needs to picture what He did for us that we need to go nail ourselves or tie ourselves to a cross on Good Friday. But our lives need to be oriented around the testimony of the gospel. and with our words and our deeds, telling people, reminding people, warning every man that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus because we’ve told them about the life-changing truth that He died on the cross for us so that they too can believe, so they too can trust Him.

Ladies and gentlemen, for whatever else this practice is for, why we go in the water ultimately, I believe, is a picture of His death. He doesn’t just say we are buried. He says 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.

Everything about this is a picture of what Christ did.

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