Why Is Baptism Important?
00:00:00.000 | Today we have a basic but really important question we have yet to address on the podcast.
00:00:08.820 | It comes from a listener named Matthew.
00:00:10.600 | "Hello Pastor John, and thank you for this podcast.
00:00:12.840 | I'm a relatively new believer who was saved through a very faithful Bible preaching ministry
00:00:17.220 | on my college campus.
00:00:18.640 | I have since graduated and am now looking for a home church to become a member.
00:00:23.840 | In every case, I have been asked if I have been baptized.
00:00:27.320 | I have not been baptized.
00:00:28.440 | I need to, and I plan to.
00:00:30.720 | But I was wondering if you could explain to a newer believer like me why do I need to
00:00:34.680 | be baptized?
00:00:35.960 | What does it mean, and why is this an essential step for me to take?"
00:00:41.600 | Thank you, Matthew.
00:00:42.600 | I love the question.
00:00:44.280 | It's an honor to try to answer it.
00:00:46.320 | Let me start by just reading a definition of what baptism is from our church affirmation
00:00:54.240 | of faith, and then I'll try to unpack it and explain it.
00:00:58.680 | We believe that baptism is an ordinance—I'll come back to that word—we believe that baptism
00:01:06.120 | is an ordinance of the Lord by which those who have repented and come to faith express
00:01:14.360 | their union with Christ in his death and resurrection by being immersed in water in the name of
00:01:23.280 | the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
00:01:26.280 | It is a sign of belonging to the new people of God, the true Israel, and an emblem of
00:01:35.320 | burial and cleansing, signifying death to the old life of unbelief and purification
00:01:44.760 | from the pollution of sin.
00:01:46.480 | Now that's a long definition.
00:01:48.280 | Sorry.
00:01:49.280 | But it'll make more sense if we just take it one piece at a time.
00:01:53.240 | First, we believe that baptism is an ordinance of the Lord.
00:01:58.120 | What we mean when we say that it's an ordinance is that the Lord Jesus commanded it.
00:02:06.120 | He ordained it.
00:02:07.720 | The word "ordinance" comes from "he ordained it."
00:02:10.000 | He planned it.
00:02:11.000 | He said we should do it in a way that gives it an ongoing practice in the church.
00:02:16.840 | And the part of the Bible where it says that is Matthew 28, 19 and 20, "Go therefore and
00:02:23.120 | make disciples," Jesus said, "of all nations, baptizing them."
00:02:28.720 | So Jesus told us to do this until he comes back, because he keeps going and says, "baptizing
00:02:35.520 | them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and lo, I am with you always
00:02:41.220 | to the end of the age."
00:02:43.820 | So as long as this age exists before Jesus comes back again, we are to be making disciples
00:02:50.700 | for him by teaching what he's taught us and baptizing them in the process.
00:02:58.480 | Second, baptism, we believe, expresses union with Christ in his death and resurrection.
00:03:08.100 | And the clearest teaching on this is found in the book of Romans 6, verses 3 and 4, where
00:03:13.300 | it says this, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ"—so
00:03:21.300 | you hear the idea of unity there—"baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?
00:03:30.660 | We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was
00:03:38.720 | raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."
00:03:47.260 | Now in the wider context of Romans and the rest of the New Testament, I think it would
00:03:52.460 | be a mistake to say that water baptism, the actual going into water, is the means of our
00:04:02.520 | being united to Christ.
00:04:04.460 | I think that would be a mistake to say that.
00:04:06.380 | In Romans, it's faith in Jesus, faith, Holy Spirit-given ability to love and trust and
00:04:16.700 | treasure Christ.
00:04:17.980 | It's faith that is the means by which we are united to Christ and justified by him.
00:04:27.740 | But we show this faith, we signify this faith, we symbolize it with an act of baptism.
00:04:36.340 | Faith unites us to Christ.
00:04:39.700 | Baptism portrays the union with Christ.
00:04:44.660 | An analogy would be saying something like this.
00:04:48.700 | When you're standing before the pastor getting married and you say, "With this ring I thee
00:04:57.180 | wed," what do you mean when you say that?
00:05:00.500 | When we say that, we don't mean that the ring, putting on the ring, creates the marriage,
00:05:09.420 | makes us married.
00:05:10.420 | No, no, no.
00:05:11.980 | It shows the covenant.
00:05:14.100 | It symbolizes the covenant.
00:05:16.780 | But the covenant, the actual marriage moment and event and union was the covenant vows
00:05:23.620 | that we made to each other in marriage.
00:05:27.200 | That would be a comparison of the vows being faith in Christ and the putting on the ring
00:05:35.020 | being baptism.
00:05:37.260 | When we trust in Christ, his death counts as our death.
00:05:42.260 | His resurrection counts as our resurrection.
00:05:46.660 | And then in baptism, we dramatically portray what happened spiritually when we received
00:05:54.780 | Christ.
00:05:55.920 | Our old self of unbelief and rebellion and idolatry died.
00:06:04.140 | And our new identity, a person of faith and submission and treasuring Christ, came into
00:06:10.860 | being—all of that through faith.
00:06:13.180 | And that's what we confess, and that's what we symbolize when we go down into the
00:06:19.700 | water as though we were being buried with Christ and come up out.
00:06:24.500 | Which is the third point, namely, I'm a Baptist.
00:06:29.420 | If you ask another kind of Christian, like a Presbyterian or some others, they wouldn't
00:06:35.060 | say this necessarily.
00:06:38.340 | I believe that we should immerse people in water.
00:06:43.380 | Baptism is an immersion as opposed to sprinkling water on the head.
00:06:50.140 | Romans 6 is my reason for that, and there are others.
00:06:53.880 | It describes the portrayal of death and burial and resurrection through going down into water
00:07:03.160 | as into a grave and then coming back up out.
00:07:08.440 | So we were buried, therefore, with him by baptism, Romans 6.3.
00:07:14.320 | In order that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we might walk in newness of life.
00:07:20.380 | But it's not only the imagery that points to immersion.
00:07:26.000 | So does the word itself.
00:07:28.520 | The word baptizo, baptize, in Greek means dip or immerse.
00:07:35.040 | It means that.
00:07:36.040 | It doesn't mean sprinkle.
00:07:37.880 | And most scholars agree that this is the way the early church did practice baptism, and
00:07:42.960 | sprinkling came in later, maybe because it was hard to find enough water or gather it
00:07:48.880 | in a place for it.
00:07:51.000 | And there are other pointers to the fact that immersion was the way they did it.
00:07:55.040 | For example, the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, verse 38, when he became a Christian, while
00:08:00.800 | he was traveling back and talking with Philip, it says, "They went down into the water to
00:08:07.120 | be baptized."
00:08:08.120 | He said, "Here's water.
00:08:09.460 | What keeps me from being baptized?"
00:08:11.160 | And it didn't say Philip went down and got a jug of water and poured it on his head.
00:08:15.240 | It says, "They went down into the water."
00:08:17.480 | Same thing in John 3, 23, where baptism is happening in Anon near Salem because there
00:08:24.440 | was plentiful water there.
00:08:27.480 | So all of that to say the third point is baptism is an immersion in water.
00:08:34.320 | Fourth, baptism means doing this immersing in the name of the Father and the Son and
00:08:42.440 | the Holy Spirit.
00:08:43.800 | Matthew 28, 19, "Go make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
00:08:50.520 | Son and of the Holy Spirit."
00:08:52.540 | This means that not just any immersing is baptism, like diving into a swimming pool
00:08:58.840 | is not baptism.
00:09:00.440 | There is a holy appeal to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit to be present
00:09:09.360 | in this act and make the portrayal true and real in what it says about the work of redemption.
00:09:18.800 | There's no salvation without the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity,
00:09:25.320 | one God in three persons.
00:09:28.660 | When we call upon their name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we're depending upon them,
00:09:33.760 | all of them, and we're honoring them and we're saying that this act of baptism is
00:09:40.520 | by them and for them.
00:09:43.480 | Fifth, baptism is an expression of faith and therefore only for believers, which is why
00:09:50.840 | we don't baptize infants who are not able to believe.
00:09:56.800 | And let me just give you one verse for why you should seriously consider the fact that
00:10:01.800 | it's only for believers and that it is an expression of faith.
00:10:06.920 | When I was in Germany studying with nothing but Lutherans, all my classes, I was the only
00:10:12.200 | Baptist and studying at the University of Munich, and we went away on a retreat and
00:10:16.960 | talked about baptism, and they all turned to me and said, "So why don't you baptize
00:10:21.440 | babies?"
00:10:22.440 | And I took them to Colossians 2.12, and I'll tell you what they said, but here's the
00:10:26.600 | verse.
00:10:27.600 | It says, "Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with
00:10:34.640 | him through faith."
00:10:36.920 | Did you get that now?
00:10:40.600 | Burial and resurrection in baptism, the symbol of baptism there, the symbol of burial and
00:10:47.440 | resurrection in baptism is through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him
00:10:53.320 | from the dead.
00:10:55.000 | And the professor, who's also a Lutheran, said, "Well, I think you're right in the
00:11:01.000 | way you interpret that verse, but the verse isn't addressing the issue of families; it's
00:11:07.960 | addressing the issue of evangelism."
00:11:10.120 | So I appreciated that much of concession, but my point was, I think there is a principle
00:11:16.680 | being mentioned here that covers all the cases.
00:11:19.720 | That's what baptism is.
00:11:22.040 | It is a demonstration of the burial and resurrection with Jesus which happened through faith, and
00:11:30.000 | so we should only do it to those who can believe.
00:11:34.060 | So baptism is very important.
00:11:36.480 | It was uncompromisingly commanded and ordained by the Lord Jesus until he comes.
00:11:42.920 | It was universally practiced and administered by Christians in the early church and has
00:11:48.040 | been all through the centuries.
00:11:50.120 | Paul took it for granted.
00:11:51.520 | There are no unbaptized Christians in the New Testament, and it was uniquely connected
00:11:57.760 | to conversion as an unrepeatable expression of saving faith.
00:12:04.080 | We're only justified once.
00:12:06.560 | We only die and are united to Christ once and permanently.
00:12:12.940 | And one last comment.
00:12:14.320 | It was closely connected to being a member of a local church.
00:12:21.240 | In the mind of the apostles, to be united to Christ by faith through baptism was to
00:12:28.640 | be united to the body of Christ, and local churches are the manifestations of the universal
00:12:36.440 | body of Christ.
00:12:38.280 | To be a Christian, therefore, is to belong to a local church.
00:12:44.120 | It's right and fitting that you belong to a church.
00:12:48.600 | Baptism wasn't a fun climax to beach evangelism with everybody going their separate ways with
00:12:55.120 | no reference to the church.
00:12:58.240 | Baptism was a sacred expression of faith, a faith that unites you to Christ and his
00:13:05.160 | people, a particular people in a particular church where you can be nurtured and held
00:13:13.160 | accountable as the New Testament teaches.
00:13:16.440 | That's very helpful.
00:13:17.440 | Pastor John and Matthew, thank you for the great and simple question.
00:13:20.600 | A lot of times the most important questions on the podcast are really not all that complex
00:13:25.080 | at all, so we appreciate those questions into the inbox.
00:13:29.040 | And coming up on Wednesday, we return to look at the doctrine of God's providence, the
00:13:32.640 | theme of Pastor John's new book by that title, Providence.
00:13:36.800 | The glorious truth that God governs over everything that he makes is gloriously true.
00:13:43.320 | And when we see it and embrace it as true and glorious, this doctrine will make a deep
00:13:48.120 | and definite impact on how we live our lives, our attitudes, our outlook, our priorities,
00:13:54.040 | our affections, our actions.
00:13:56.240 | Everything changes when we see and embrace the providence of God.
00:14:00.360 | We'll look at implication number six in our series of 10 that's coming up on Wednesday.
00:14:04.280 | I'm Tony Reinke, and we will see you then.
00:14:06.680 | Thanks for listening.
00:14:07.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]