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BAPTISM - I
Bob Bonner
May 16, 2010
In our present study of Acts, two weeks ago we worked through Acts 2:37-41. In 2:38, 41 the subject of baptism was mentioned. Then we did not have the time to address the subject of baptism, but we need to now for three reasons. First, the reference to baptism in 2:38 has been misunderstood for years, and as a result, this misunderstanding has lead to much errant teaching and confusion concerning the necessity of baptism. So we need to look closely at this verse and do what we can to clear up the confusion.
A second reason we need to address the subject of baptism is that many of you were not here seven years ago when we taught on this subject, and because of some of your recent questions and comments, I felt it prudent that we revisit the topic. Allow me to elaborate. Recently, these questions concerning baptism have arisen:
1.) Does infant baptism save or have any positive effect upon a child? Do I need to have my baby baptized?
2.) If I have not been baptized and I die right now, will I be saved and thus go to heaven?
3.) What about the Mormon teaching concerning baptism for the dead? Does the Bible teach that you can be baptized in the place of a deceased relative and thereby insure their salvation?
4.) Isn’t baptism an ancient ritual? If so, does it profit anyone to be baptized today? Is baptism necessary?
Furthermore, because we are going to come across the subject of water baptism several times in Acts, it would be helpful for all of us to be reminded as to the who, what, when, where, why, and how of baptism. Understanding baptism will better help us understand the importance of the time of transition these followers of Christ walked through for the first 50 years after His ascension.
A third reason that now is a good time to revisit this subject is that on the morning of June 6 during our service we are planning to have a baptism for any who wish to be baptized, and we want to make sure that all of us in this family understand just what we are doing.
Allow me to set the direction for our study. Our basic approach will follow this outline:
- What does the term “baptize” mean and how is it used?
- What has been the historical purpose behind baptism?
- What is the proper “mode” of baptism? Is there a mandatory manner in which one is to be baptized? Can one only be baptized for real if they are immersed, or are there other manners by which a person can be baptized, such as sprinkling or pouring of water on someone?
- Why is baptism important or necessary?
- What are the steps that lead up to one’s being baptized?
- Important questions concerning baptism:
- Does baptism lead to the forgiveness of sins?
- Does baptism save you? Is baptism necessary for salvation?
- Does baptism “wash away” sin?
- Is there Biblical support for baptism of the dead?
I. What does the term “baptize” mean and how is it used?
The place to begin our study is with a definition of what baptism or the word “baptidzo” in the original language means. According to Greek scholars, the word has a primary meaning and several secondary meanings.
A. Primary meaning= to dip, plunge, or immerse
Its primary meaning, or its normal usage in everyday life, was simply to dip, plunge, or immerse something, like dipping or plunging or immersing your hand into a pool of water to check out if it’s too cold for swimming. This understanding of the primary meaning will become important to you next week as we answer the question, “What is the proper ‘mode’ of baptism?” But this morning we need to understand what the secondary meaning of “baptidzo” is if we are going to grasp the historical significance and importance of the rite of baptism.
“Baptidzo” takes on a meaning that reflects the result of dipping or plunging or immersing something. For instance, when a person takes a bath or washes clothes, since the person or the clothes were “baptized,” or immersed in soap and water, they came out clean. Hence, the secondary meaning of “baptidzo” came to mean “washing and cleansing or the removal of something.” It was the idea that something had been changed through washing, cleansing, or removing something. In the Christian sense, this is where we get the idea that baptism, not water baptism but spiritual baptism, washes away or removes sin.
Here’s another secondary meaning that came to be as a reflection of the result of dipping or plunging or immersing something. It is in this secondary meaning that we want to invest the rest of our time this morning. This term baptidzo was used to describe the process of dying a garment. If someone wanted to dip a white garment into a scarlet dye to change its color, he was said to have “baptized” the garment for the purpose of changing its color. Certain colors had certain meanings to different people, or were used to identify something. Blue and white are the traditional colors that identify the nation of Israel. Purple was often used to identify royalty. Furthermore, purple dye was so rare and costly, the process of dying something white to purple changed the value of the material. Hence, a secondary meaning for baptidzo is that by dipping something or plunging or immersing it you change the identity or value of the thing being immersed.
How many of you have ever seen a tie-dyed t-shirt? Now you can take a blue t-shirt and you want to add purple, yellow, dark blue and green, you dip baptize, not the whole shirt, but portions of it. When you pull it out it has a new identity, and it has increased in value because of the efforts of the artist who did the baptizing. So whether it is dipped or plunged or immersed or sprayed or sprinkled or whatever you do to it, it will change the identity and value.
It was from this secondary meaning of baptidzo that, historically, all who were baptized, both for religious and non-religious reasons, realized this meaning. As it concerned the rite of baptism, it came to refer to the changing of a person’s status and/or identity. Not only did a person’s life change before God, but their value did as well. During New Testament times, all people realized what few today grasp--that when someone chose to be baptized, it was an outward public declaration that something had changed concerning that person’s status and/or identity.
II. What has been the historical purpose of baptism?
There is an entire history of baptism built upon the foundation of this meaning of baptism, “to change a person’s status and/or identity.” Unfortunately, the understanding of the meanings of this term has been lost to most people living in our times. And in turn, it explains why many Christians today do not truly understand the purpose of baptism. Furthermore, it helps us to better understand why individuals often seek after baptism and get baptized for the wrong reasons. As well, I believe this is one of the main reasons why over the past 30-40 years so many people believe they are Christians simply because they were baptized as an infant.
It also explains why so many people who have been baptized on Sunday can go out the next day and have no sense of conviction that their lying, stealing, getting drunk, slandering of others, or their committing sexual immorality is wrong. It all stems from a lack of understanding of what it means to participate in being baptized. This is the main reason why I personally am not in favor of quickly baptizing people. Only when a person understands what baptism is all about should that person be baptized.
Some pastors want to follow the New Testament model of immediately baptizing someone who comes forward and says they want to trust Jesus. However in doing so, it’s my opinion that these pastors fail to take into consideration that, different than in our day, everyone who lived during the first century New Testament times understood the meaning behind the social and religious practice of baptism. It was a common institution which all Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Israelis understood. But today, it is not commonly understood by the average person on the street. It’s my belief that we do candidates for baptism a disfavor by not first educating them in the meaning of baptism and what a significant step it is before they get baptized.
For some, they assume that baptism began as a dubious religious rite that started with the church in the first century. As a result, baptism gets treated as though it is irrelevant, meaningless, and thus unnecessary. But the fact of the matter is that the practice of baptism can be traced back to before 400 BC, and it can be shown that the everyday practice of baptism played a very significant role in the lives of the average Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Jews. By the time we read about baptism in the New Testament, everyone alive at the time that lived in Asia Minor, North Africa, Egypt, and Israel understood its significance. But that is not true of our people today.
Approximately 400 years before Jesus was born, baptism was practiced by the Greeks as a rite of initiation. Its purpose was to identify an individual with a political cause, a philosophy, a trade union (plumbing, carpentry, pottery making, or leather working), or to be identified with a significant leader. For instance, if you were a follower of a philosopher like Socrates, who was born in 469 BC, and you wanted to be identified as his disciple or student of philosophy, one who supported his teachings, you would be baptized or identified with Socrates through being immersed in the waters of baptism. This was a public event, not a private or secretive one. You were making a statement about your life, your values, and to what you were to be identified. When baptized, others in the community would hold you accountable to your commitment as a follower of Socrates. If you were to teach something counter to what Socrates believed, you would have been corrected. If you spoke against Socrates or lived your life in a manner that was not consistent with the philosophy of Socrates, you could expect someone would stop you and ask why.
If you were going to join a trade union, like brick masonry, copper smithing, or carpentry, you would be baptized into that trade union. You would be saying to those around you that you took this craft seriously and that you were going to go to a school or guild and learn as an apprentice under a certain mentor. Hopefully, your mentor or the one who would teach you was a skilled craftsman himself. This baptism told people that this apprentice was committed to and belonged to a specific mentor and that others were not to try to steal this student away. In those days, one didn’t hop from one career to another. It was a serious decision to choose a career. Baptism was a step of commitment to a person or direction that you were expected to stay with for your whole life.
The Greek rite of baptism eventually found its way into Egypt, at least as early as 100 BC, about a hundred years before Christ’s birth. According to an article I read in Biblical Archaeological Review (p.2, Jan/Feb, 1987) written by a Professor Emeritus at Fuller Theological Seminary named William Sanford La Sor, archaeologists have dug up Jewish baptismal baths in Egypt. The cause for these baptisms by the orthodox Jews was that too many Jews were compromising their faith by mixing it with Greek or Hellenistic views of life. Hence, these Jews in Egypt were calling fellow Jews to repent or to change their thinking about how they viewed the practice of their religious life and to return to the orthodox faith of Judaism. Hence the practice of baptism was the manner of identification that one was committed to the orthodox Jewish faith. Furthermore, when these Jews baptized others, they did so by immersion.
130 years later, when John the Baptist was baptizing in the waters of the Jordan River, he had a message from God to his fellow Jews. The message was basically this: “The Messiah is coming and bringing His Kingdom. Before He arrives you had better repent and turn away from your godless, rebellious, sinful lifestyles or risk bringing upon yourself the wrath of God.” Because the Jews knew that many of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the coming Kingdom had been fulfilled and thus the Kingdom was almost upon them, thousands of Jews admitted their need to repent or to change their minds about their sin and to turn away from their wickedness so that they could be forgiven and made right before God. Knowing this, they chose to identify themselves with John the Baptist and his message concerning the coming Kingdom of God. And the way they identified themselves with John the Baptist and his message was that they humbled themselves by submitting to his baptizing them. From that point on, they were making a public commitment to live godly, morally upright lives and to seek to serve God’s Kingdom.
Later, when the Apostles began baptizing the Jews and the Gentiles, they were challenging these Jews and Gentiles to first change their thinking about the crucified Christ. Rather than believing that the crucified Christ was a phony, they were now publicly declaring that Jesus was indeed their Messiah and that they were committing their lives to following after Jesus. In short, by submitting to Christian baptism, these early followers of Christ were publically stating that Jesus was now their Master and that they would follow after Him and that they were committed to His Gospel. For them, this baptism declared that everything about their lives had changed.
A. Baptism points to a personal “commitment” to Jesus Christ as one’s master, which leads to an understood change in one’s “identity,” which in turn leads to a change in one’s behavior.
Hence, the first century believers understood the purpose of Christian baptism to be an act whereby the individual chooses to make a public declaration that he/she has chosen to “commit” himself/herself to Jesus Christ as master. And as His servant, the Christian was to make it their priority to fulfill their new Master’s Kingdom agenda.
This commitment would also result in a change in personal identity. From the moment they committed their lives to Christ, they would no longer be the same or see themselves as being the same. They were changed people. They were no longer free to do whatever they wished, but they were under new orders as slaves to serve their new Master. This change in identity would soon be observed by outward changes in behavior.
Maybe the chart below will help you to understand how they viewed the new identity that came with commitment to Christ. This chart contrasts just some of the differences between the Christian’s previous state, the old identity of a non- believer before committing to Jesus Christ, and the Christian’s new identity that became a reality the moment of commitment to Christ. If you have committed your life to serving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, these very changes are true of you as well.
The Apostle Paul speaks of one contrast between the old identity and the new in 2 Corinthians 5:17. There we read, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” In other words, something about you radically changed the moment you were saved. It is so special, that at the very moment this part of you changed, more new changes began to take place in your life as a result of this first new change. What was it that changed about you? I’ll show you in just a moment.
Old Identity New Identity
Old creation New creation
First physical birth: Second (new) birth:
born spiritually dead reborn spiritually alive
Sinners Saints
Children of wrath Children of promise
Children of the devil Children of God
Slaves to sinful self Slaves of Jesus Christ
But first let’s look at some more contrasts concerning your changed identity. The Bible says that you were born spiritually dead, and that when you came to Christ you were reborn or born again and made spiritually alive. Jesus tells us in John 3:3-7:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the
kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born
when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb
and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless
one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of
the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born
again.’”
Then the Apostle Paul later adds this explanation in Romans 6:11-13.
“Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in
Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that
you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your
body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to
God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of
righteousness to God.”
Notice how Paul challenges us to remember that with our being spiritually alive, there are expected changes in the way we live.
I could show you several more verses about your being made spiritually alive as a result of committing your life to Christ, but our time does not allow us to do so. Therefore, let’s look at another understood difference in their new life that these New Testament believers clearly understood when they came to Christ. God’s Word taught them that before they met Christ, they were called “children of wrath.” Because of their sin, they were rejected by God. But after they met Christ, they were called God’s “beloved” and “children of promise.”
We read about this in Ephesians 2:3. God’s Word says, “Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” And then in Galatians 4:28, the Apostle adds this truth about our new identity in Christ. He writes, “And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.”
Another contrast of the before and after concerns who one’s spiritual father is. Before we met Christ, scripture teaches that our spiritual father was not God but the devil. But after we come to Christ, the true believer’s spiritual father is God. In John 8:44, Jesus was debating the religious leaders who were rejecting Him. As unbelievers at that moment, Jesus declared of them, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.” But in John 1:12 the Apostle John tells us, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.”
Finally, the most often used term by the Apostles Paul, Peter, James, and John to describe their present identity after having come to Christ is “slaves” of Jesus Christ. Before we came to Christ we were our own masters, servants of ourselves
You may remember last year in June when we were studying Titus, I taught on this subject of a Christian’s identity in Christ. Allow me to go back and revisit what we already covered in hopes that this will help crystallize in your mind the reality that your true identity in Christ changed the moment you were saved. When we are baptized, we declare this to be true.
The following circles represent the evolution of the human condition. This first circle represents human life before the Fall. We are made up of a body, soul (our personality), and spirit. The spirit is the control center or the engine of our being. It is where the living God attaches Himself to our lives. It is what makes us different than animals. Animals have a soul, a personality, but they do not have a spirit.
In the beginning, before the Fall, we were united with God, who enabled us to live righteous lives. But when Adam and Eve chose to rebel, God’s spirit was removed from our spirits, leaving us spiritually dead or separated from God. That void has been influenced and in some cases filled by our spiritual enemy Satan. That is why Jesus mentions that the unbeliever’s spiritual father is the devil. The devil is the influencer of the life of the unbeliever.
Another result of sin and the Fall was what the Bible calls the flesh, and it masters us at the very control center of our being. As a result of this, by ourselves we are unable to overpower the flesh and our sin in our own strength. Thus, in the very control center of our spirits we become slaves to sin. We are helplessly held captive.
But when Jesus Christ redeemed us, and when we turned over our lives to Him, this flesh was removed from our spirits and the void was filled with Jesus Himself. As a result, Jesus’ resurrection power enables our spirits to live free from sin when we consciously submit the control of our lives to His Spirit’s leading.
In showing you these contrasts in identity between the old life before Christ and the new life with Christ, I am not implying that all the New Testament Christians realized all of these truths the moment they were saved. What I am saying is that the first century Christian, upon their commitment to Christ, realized immediately that at least one, if not more, of these changes was true of them. How many they understood to be true depended upon the individual and his/her religious upbringing at the point of their committing their lives to Christ. At the very least, they all knew that they were no longer servants of self but slaves of their new Master, Jesus Christ. Furthermore, with baptism, they and their audience knew that they were committing to seek after the Lord’s agenda for their lives, not their own. For instance, from that point on they were declaring that how they dispensed their monies; how they invested their free time; how they lived within their marriages; how they treated their neighbors, friends, and enemies; and how they responded to an evil and secular government was all determined by their new Master’s instructions.
I dare say that today few Christians understand these things about baptism unless they have been taught. The understanding and significance of baptism, which was common to those living during the first century, is not common today. Hence, we need to teach these things to those considering baptism beforehand so that they understand the seriousness of what they are doing. Baptism wasn’t just some simple statement or public declaration that says, “I want to follow Jesus,” or “I want Jesus to be my savior so that I can be forgiven and go to heaven.” Rather, it is a radical public declaration by the individual that their entire lives have been restructured. They are now living for a different purpose, because they are different persons. They are now committed slaves of Jesus Christ.
The rite of baptism is a message of something special and something to be remembered by each individual who participates. The significance of baptism needs to be lifted up, rather than cheapened or undermined. When clearly understood, water baptism can become the mental and emotional bedrock event of one’s new life in Christ upon which they can build their future lives in Christ.
Have you been baptized? Why or why not?
Describe in your own terms what the purpose of baptism is.
What have you recently learned about baptism that has been significant to you?
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