The ABC's of the Christian Life (6): Following Jesus Christ Rightly (2) – Baptism by Immersion

🎵 🎵 🎵

Well, in this important series on sermons on the basics of Christian living, we first addressed, of course, matters essential to salvation.

And that was initially how we come to faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.

But not only are we to come to Jesus, but we come to Jesus in order to follow Jesus. And following Jesus is as important and essential to salvation as coming to Jesus.

Following suggests the idea that we are his disciples, and we follow him, even as he leads us out of sin, out of this fallen world, onto our final and full salvation.

But then we began last Lord's Day to address the third division of our study, and that is how we may follow

Jesus Christ rightly. And so what we're addressing now are not essentials.

In other words, you can be wrong in these areas and still have salvation. But when we say that, we are not in any way diminishing their importance.

These are important matters. And a Christian who does not follow

Christ rightly in these matters, I think, will experience a great deal of deficiency in his or her

Christian life. And by the way, I know our time is abbreviated on the first day of the month, and you have 13 pages in front of you.

There's no way in the world we're going to be able to cover it. But I'm increasingly aware that, you know, we're having to put things together for a broader group of people.

And so these have already gone out in many places of the world, and I'm mindful of what would be helpful for them too.

And so sometimes we'll skip over some portions here, but I think it'll bring benefit to them.

In fact, I'm receiving notes every week now, just about from pastors that are saying that they're duplicating these, some translating them and distributing them to other pastors in their churches, and some are following them in their teaching and preaching in their churches.

It's an amazing, amazing thing in today with the technology and the privilege and responsibility the

Lord has given us. And so pray, continue to pray for the Lord's blessing.

Of course, the first subject we addressed last week under this heading of following Jesus rightly was for the new believer to join himself to a local church.

Today, we'll consider, secondly, the manner of entrance into the Church of Jesus Christ, which is believer's baptism by immersion.

But before we consider this topic, I do have a few more words I want to say about last week's topic, because it is so very important that the new believer join himself to a local church.

And so let me assert a few things quickly before we move on. First, we affirm that it's the will of God that every true

Christian is to commit to be a member of a local church. That's a truism. It's not optional.

Now, it's not essential to salvation, but it's important to the Christian life. Every Christian in the

New Testament, if he was able to, join himself to a local church. The Lord added to the church daily those who are being saved.

The idea of a Christian existing apart from a local church is really an idea foreign to the

New Testament. All Christians join local churches. That's a given. Secondly, we affirm that the local church is the only institution identified in the

Word of God through which the work of the Lord is conducted. It is the only divinely instituted organization that we find in the scriptures.

Now, that's not to deny the value of parachurch organizations. We're going to be giving, you know, to needy flood victims through Samaritan's Purse.

It's a good parachurch organization. But many times the local church is looked down upon as though it's not really effective and that there are better ways in which the work of God can be conducted in the world.

And that's just not biblical. God has ordained local churches to be the chief means by which he conducts his work in the world.

And we acknowledge that and recognize that. So we have a very, very high view of the local church.

And it's easy to take potshots of local churches. There's no perfect church because there's no perfect people on this side of glory.

But the local church is the only institution identified in the scriptures through which the work of the

Lord is conducted. And then recognize that the church, local church, is also the primary defender and promoter of the truth of God's word in the world.

And the scriptures describe the local church as a house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

And so where does the truth of Christianity manifest itself? Where is it defended?

Where does it stand forth in the fallen world? It's in the local church. And so the local church is to teach the truth, proclaim the truth, publish the truth, defend the truth.

And the local church is to assure that the truth is delivered to the next generation of churches that will do the same.

And in our own little way, we try to do that through the influence and input we have, let's say, in our

New England Reform Fellowship, of which we're involved 120 or so reform pastors throughout

New England. In which we, I have contact with, I write to them every month and hopefully have contact with them.

We offer the Bolton Conference. But also in other ways, you know, Ross McDonald is preaching this morning because he grew up in this church at an extension of this ministry.

David Bedanza is preaching up in Gardner today. And, you know, he was an elder here for 12 years.

And so we're extending, thank God, you know, extending the word that will continue after our passing,

Lord willing. And then fourthly, and very importantly, a matter which

I want to give emphasis this morning about is that the Lord has purposed the local church to provide a haven of spiritual protection for his people within this fallen world.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Now, I've talked about this many times to many different people, but I don't think

I've ever put it down in notes. And so I wanted to do that this morning. We live and move in a fallen world.

And although the Lord Jesus is the ruler of this world, he is the sovereign king. The fallen world is still the haven of the wicked one, the devil.

The devil is the prince of the power of the air, as he's described in Ephesians 2 .2.

But we need to recognize, and we should be grateful, that he has been deposed from the lofty position that he had before Jesus Christ died and ascended into heaven.

And so the devil is no longer, no longer has the power to defeat the people of God. He tries, but whatever he does ends up strengthening the people of God.

Jesus prayed for Peter, Satan hath desired to sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not.

And so actually Satan's fight against Peter, actually he quipped

Peter to be the apostle. He wasn't prepared to be until that happened. He came forth from that event humble and cautious about the devil, and he wrote about that in his epistle.

And so when our Lord Jesus died upon the cross, ascended into heaven, he was exalted above all spiritual authority.

And a lot of evangelicals, they teach and preach as though Jesus hasn't yet got there, hasn't yet ascended above all spiritual authority.

And some argue all day long that the devil's in control of this world. No, King Jesus is in control of this world.

Paul prayed that new Christians would perceive this, what is the exceeding greatness of God's power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in heavenly places.

That was a position of authority. Jesus is Lord. And then Paul describes this exalted kingly role of Jesus far above all principality and power, might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.

Clearly in this age, King Jesus is over all spiritual authority, and that would include the devil.

And God the Father has put all things under his feet, gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is the body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Jesus himself spoke of the impending demise of the devil, the unseating of his authority.

And so Jesus said, now is the judgment of this world. This is just prior to his crucifixion. Now is the judgment of this world.

Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. He's not talking about his second coming.

He's talking about his crucifixion and resurrection. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, talking about the cross, as well as his ascension to the throne, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples, in other words

Gentiles as well, to myself. The devil is no longer the ruler of this world as he was before the crucifixion and exaltation of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is Lord. Yes, the devil continues to be the great force of evil in the fallen world.

And we're no way diminishing that. But the devil no longer has the authority he once possessed.

Martin Luther wrote about it in the third stanza of his hymn that we sing,

A Mighty Fortress. And though this world with devils filled, demons, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us.

The prince of darkness grim, that's the devil. We tremble not for him. His rage we can't endure, for lo, his doom is sure.

One little word shall fell him. And that little word is not the word from you or me, but the word from King Jesus.

And so the devil's rage is great, but our Lord's authority over the devil is greater. The devil knows his time is finite.

And as a result, he's filled with animus toward the Lord and toward his people. And we read of this in Revelation 12.

And I believe Revelation 12 is misunderstood by most evangelicals who believe most of the book of Revelation is future from our perspective.

I think Revelation 12 describes the course of this church age. Let's read it. John, the apostle.

Now a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun. And this woman would have been

Israel. The moon under her feet and on her head a garland of 12 stars.

Then being with child, she cried out in labor and pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven.

Behold, a great fiery red dragon having seven heads, 10 horns, seven diadems on his head. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven.

Fallen angels probably threw them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born.

Think about King Herod wanting to kill all the infants in Bethlehem, trying to kill off the

Messiah. She bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. Her child was caught up to God in his throne.

When did that happen? Upon his ascension from the grave. Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there 1 ,260 days.

The idea is that God would preserve his people. And war broke out in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.

So the great dragon was cast out. That serpent of old called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.

He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him. And the idea of being cast out speaks of him being deposed of the authority that he formerly had.

Doesn't mean he's powerless. For we read, Then I heard a loud voice say it in heaven, Now salvation and strength in the kingdom of our

God and the power of his Christ have come. For the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our

God day and night has been cast down. His accusations no longer have any weight.

And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

And therefore rejoice, O heavens, who dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and sea. Why? For the devil has come down to you having great wrath because he knows that his time is short.

Yes, he's still in the world. In fact, he's prince of the power of the air. And he hates people, especially

God's people, Christians. And so, in my opinion, for what it's worth, contrary to the popular view that this is an event that will take place in a future seven -year tribulation period just prior to the second coming, this passage described the spiritual realm of this entire church age.

Israel gave birth to the promised Messiah, the male child, who upon his resurrection and ascension from the dead was caught up to God on his throne.

And upon the enthronement of Jesus as Lord, the devil was cast out of heaven. That is, he was deposed of his uncontested authority over the nations that he had formerly possessed.

That's why the gospel goes out into all the world. And the Gentiles come within the kingdom. The devil could no longer blind them because King Jesus calls forth by his power that the gospel would be effectual to the

Gentiles. But upon losing his seat, so to speak, in the heavens, he's come down to you having great wrath because he knew he had a short time.

But thankfully, the Lord protects his own from the devil. And what we're asserting here, what

I'm asserting, is that it is within the local church that the Lord protects people best from the rage and wiles of the devil.

You've heard me say it before, and this is after 43 years of pastoral experience,

I've never known a Christian disconnected from a local church to be mature and well -balanced.

And moreover, when you find Christians, and from time to time you do, who think, who have the attitude as me and Jesus and my

Bible and maybe my Christian radio, generally their lives have been ravaged by sin.

And I would argue the devil because they do not have the spiritual protection that the

Lord provides for his people within the local church. Now, I believe we can substantiate this by considering 1

Corinthians 5 and how the Lord would have the church deal with a sinning member of this church.

This guy was sinning egregiously in an unrepentant way. 1 Corinthians 5, 1 and following, it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and such sexual immorality not even named among the

Gentiles. I mean, that had to be pretty gross if it was worse than anything the

Corinthians did. Because Corinth was known to be kind of like the San Francisco of the ancient world, as it were.

That a man has his father's wife, probably stepmother, and you're puffed up. See, the church was puffed up, having not rather mourn that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

In other words, removed from membership. For I, this is Paul the Apostle speaking, as absent in body, of presence, spirit, have already judged as though I were present.

Him who has done so, this deed, has so done this deed, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power that is the authority of the

Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the

Lord Jesus. And so this professing Christian, who was a member of the church at Corinth, had been committing egregious sin, and Paul was concerned about the adverse effect of this man within the church.

Don't you know a little leaven leaven's a whole lump? He would reason later. But he was also concerned about the salvation of this man.

This man had to be weaned of this sin. And this man had not been suffering the consequences of his sin, as he should, which might have brought about his repentance.

And so his membership in the church protected him from the devil, who apparently was unable to afflict him, because he was in the church.

And so Paul told the church, basically, that you are to excommunicate him.

And the very action of removing him from the church made him susceptible to, and vulnerable to the devil, that he would suffer the consequences of his sin, perhaps even death, but hopefully to bring him to repentance from his sin.

And so those outside of the local church are vulnerable and susceptible to the devil's power and wrath.

Those in the church are preserved by the Lord from the devil's rage. That's one of the greatest benefits of a local church, spiritual protection of its members.

You think you're having a bad, if you're not, you know, not a part of a local church, you're going to have a much, much worse.

Now, before we pass on from this very important reason to be a member of a local church, let's consider one more dimension to this matter.

Different local churches are able to afford different levels of spiritual protection for their members.

Not every local church provides the same level of spiritual protection for its members.

We may see this to be true based upon our Lord's addressing the seven churches of Asia Minor in Revelation 2 and 3.

The revelation opens with John having a vision of Jesus as a high priest, as though he were in the temple, trimming the lampstands.

There were seven of them, and each of these lampstands represented a local church in Asia Minor.

And then in Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus dictated individual letters to each of these seven churches.

And in these letters, the Lord Jesus either condemned the church for its defections and deficiencies, or he blessed the church for their faithfulness and their obedience.

In fact, the Lord Jesus said in one instance regarding the church of Pergamos, you people either repent or I myself am going to come and fight against you.

Think about that. The Lord Jesus coming to fight against the church. And there's a lot of local churches that are not churches in the sight of the

Lord, but that's a whole other matter. Now, if you read

Revelation 2 and 3 carefully in these seven letters, you'll actually see that there's two areas in which the

Lord Jesus addresses these local churches. First, the

Lord either pronounced his approval or his disapproval based upon the purity of the doctrine of the church. You have that doctrine of the

Nicolaitans, that thing I hate. You better repent. And then secondly, aside from doctrine, our

Lord either pronounced his approval or disapproval based upon the holiness of the members of the church.

You know, you permit that Jezebel, you know, to be in your midst to entice as many to commit adultery, spiritual adultery.

And I won't go into any detail about that. But a local church, depending on its doctrine and depending on their members, whether they're striving to live holy lives or either the churches that the

Lord promised to bless and preserve or curse if they were not right in these two realms, in these two areas.

And this underscores the importance of a church to be confessional in nature. A church ought to stand for doctrine, biblical doctrine, true doctrine.

It ought to be stated. And frankly, most local churches today have these little, skinny little confessions that don't even take up a single page.

This is what we believe. And they're just the most generic kind of generalizations about what it is believed.

Their concept understanding of the truth is so watered down so that it's an umbrella that just about anybody and everybody can embrace.

I think it weakens the church. And makes their people vulnerable. And they forfeit the

Lord's blessing when this is the case. And then I would also argue, not only does this underscore the importance of a church to be confessional in nature, confessing and proclaiming sound biblical doctrine, but it means that a church should attempt to maintain a regenerate church membership.

And not everybody does. You know, a lot of churches think, you know, the bigger, the better. Whatever we have to do or say or offer to make the church bigger in numbers means better.

And the Lord's blessing is upon us. No, no, no. As I've, you know, said in the past,

I'd much sooner pastor a church of a hundred people that are devoted to the Lord than a thousand people.

And only a hundred of them are devoted to the Lord. That church is going to have problems. They're going to have issues.

And so what's very important is that we maintain a regenerate church membership, which implies and suggests that church discipline is an important matter.

And a church should have sound doctrine. And to the degree that the church does will be to the degree that the

Lord will bless that church and preserve the members of that church from error. He'll give the church blessing and grace to keep them from trial and difficulty.

And so we see how critically important it is to not just be a member of a local church, but to be a member of a local church that is grounded and sound in these areas.

We never arrive, but we certainly should strive toward this end. And we do. Well, now in the time we have remaining, let's address this second matter in following the

Lord Jesus rightly. And that is believers baptism by immersion. Important matter.

Not all reformed people believe in baptism by immersion of believers only. Pato Baptist who baptized infants.

Pato is taken from the old Greek word referring to child or infant.

They baptize infants or children. And there are many good reformed men that do this. My best friends in the ministry are

Pato Baptist ministers who preach the gospel, who hold the reformed theology, but we and they would differ very much on this matter of the nature of baptism.

We're advocating that the Bible teaches the mode of baptism to be immersion only.

And this can be demonstrated. The believer is to be immersed in water, not sprinkled with water, not having water poured on him or her, but immersed.

And so, although many churches practice baptism by the mode of sprinkling water on the one being baptized, they call it baptism.

Some practice baptism by pouring water on the head of those baptized. The Bible neither commands nor illustrates baptism except by immersion only.

I can argue this from Christian history, church history, and even

Pato Baptist themselves. Many of them will acknowledge this. John Calvin, who is one of the greatest men of church history, he's one of my heroes, but he was a

Pato Baptist. What it was, of course, you know, the reformers came out of Roman Catholicism that practiced infant baptism, who taught that children were born again by baptism.

And the reformers came out and they sought to reform the doctrine and practice of the Roman Catholic Church.

And that's why they became Protestant churches. But we would argue that many times the Protestant reformers did not reform the matter of baptism, but rather they took infant baptism, which had been commonly practiced for centuries, went to the

Bible to try and find justification for it. Calvin, himself a

Pato Baptist, wrote some very hard things against people like us who hold to baptism by immersion.

But he wrote these words, whether the person baptized is to be wholly immersed in that, whether once or thrice, the

Greek Orthodox baptized by immersion. The Greek Orthodox, they know what the Greek word means.

They, you know, an infant, they baptize infants, but they baptize by immersion three times in the name of the

Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And that's what he's alluding to. Whether he's only to be sprinkled with water is not of the least consequence.

Well, I would differ from that. Churches should be at liberty to adopt either according to the diversity of climates, although it's evident, now notice, although it's evident that the term baptized means to immerse and that this was the form used by the primitive church.

That's quite an acknowledgement, isn't it? But yet he says it doesn't matter. Well, we would say, you know,

John Calvin, you know, who are you to say it doesn't matter if the scriptures lay out in the early church's practices baptism by immersion?

How can you say it's immaterial? We are bound to conform our belief and practice to the holy scriptures, yet even

Calvin acknowledged that the practice of apostolic churches was baptism by immersion. And this is a common acknowledgement among even

Paedo -Baptists. And so let's consider some arguments for baptism by immersion. First, the

Greek word baptizo means to dip or immerse.

That's what it means. And this can be substantiated fully from citing ancient writings, both in and outside of scripture.

One described the Greek word baptizo, the clear and simple meaning of baptizo in the New Testament when describing the physical baptism of disciples is to dip or immerse.

This understanding is based on consistent etymology. That's the history of a word. Historic usage in Josephus, a

Roman historian of the first century and the internal grammar, both the Old and New Testaments.

Now, many Paedo -Baptists resist this argument, saying that the Greek word does not mean to dip or immerse, but their efforts are really quite futile because clearly it does.

In fact, most Greek lexicons will translate and use their definition of baptizo to either dip or immerse.

Interestingly, and this is important, when the Greek Testament was translated into English, take the King James, for example.

Rather than translating the word, the Greek word baptizo as immerse or immersion, as they should have done, because the translators themselves were in the

Church of England, say the King James translators, who practiced infant baptism by sprinkling, instead of translating the

Greek word baptizo, they transliterated it. They took the Greek word and made it into English.

Thus, you have the word baptize. It's like they invented a new word in English. And thereafter, when somebody read the word baptize, they just assumed sprinkling was covered by that.

Rather than translating the Greek word as it should have been, to immerse, they made a new word, baptize, and then they extended that to apply also to sprinkling.

And so it was really a way to perpetrate ignorance on the part of English readers of the

Bible, not knowing the meaning of the Greek word. But there are many internal arguments in the scriptures to show that immersion was the mode.

Take John the Baptist, when we consider what is said of him in John chapter 3, 22 and 23.

After these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea, and there he remained with them and baptized.

Now, John also was baptizing in Enon, near Selim. That would have been on the

Jordan River. And then it says why he baptized there, because there was much water there, and they came and were baptized.

That only conforms to the idea of baptism by immersion. Why did John the

Baptist need much water unless he was immersing the ones who were returning from sin?

If John were baptizing by sprinkling, you know, pull out the water pouch, and that would have been sufficient, wouldn't it?

Clearly, he was baptizing by immersion. Now, it's important to recognize

John's baptism was not Christian baptism. He baptized people as they confessed their sins with view to the impending kingdom of God, the appearance of the kingdom of God.

After the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, of course, that baptism was infused with new meaning.

Immersion came to reflect the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. John did not preach the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He preached the need of cleansing or washing from sin. And the Jews had previously practiced baptisms when

Gentiles became Jewish proselytes. They're unclean. They needed to be cleansed. They needed to be washed.

And what was unique about John the Baptist is he was telling the Jews they needed to be cleansed just like Gentiles needed to be cleansed.

They needed to be baptized. They needed to be washed. But again, the idea of baptism through the course of Jesus's ministry, particularly the death, burial, and resurrection, it was infused with new meaning.

And so Christian baptism is performed, of course, in the name of the Trinity, to be baptized in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. John did not baptize with that Trinitarian formula. Now for the apostles, of course, they didn't have to be rebaptized.

They were all baptized by John. And they continued in the church era that baptism was legitimate.

But if anyone was converted after the resurrection of Christ, then they had to be baptized with the

Trinitarian formula. And there's an instance in Acts 19, we won't go into great detail about that, about some who

Paul encountered, Gentiles who had been baptized, but they had only been baptized informed of John the

Baptist's baptism. And Paul asked them, did you receive the

Holy Spirit when you believed? We haven't even heard there was a Holy Spirit. And Paul baptized them, even though they had been previously baptized because their previous baptism, according to John's baptism, was illegitimate.

And so Paul didn't rebaptize them, but rather he baptized them legitimately for the first time.

And you read about that in Acts chapter 19. Clearly, you see some development there.

The Christian baptism grew out of John's baptism.

Right in the middle of page six, we're skipping over some material because of the time. Right in the middle of page six, we can see the mode of baptism by immersion when we consider the way

Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. In Acts 8, Philip was preaching the gospel to the

Ethiopian eunuch. You recall, the Holy Spirit sent Philip there in a miraculous way. He came up to the chariot, and the eunuch is reading from Isaiah 53.

And he asked Philip, who's he writing about? And Philip took from that same passage and preached to Jesus.

And then we read in verse 36 of Acts 8. Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water.

And the eunuch said, see, here's water. What hinders me from being baptized? He knew baptism had to be by immersion.

Well, here's a sufficient body of water. Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may.

There's believer's baptism. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God with all that's suggested by that.

So he commanded the chariot to stand still, and both Philip and eunuch went down into the water. That wouldn't have been necessary if he just needed to sprinkle the eunuch or pour some water on him.

And he baptized him, and they both came out of the water. Clearly, immersion is being suggested here.

No other mode can be placed upon this context.

They both went down into the water. Third, we could argue that baptism by immersion reflects what

Paul said of baptism in Romans chapter 6. What shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

For do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ, Jesus were baptized into his death?

Therefore, we are buried with him through baptism unto death, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

Father. Even so, we also should walk in newness of life. Paul took baptism, and he described, depicted the believer's union with Jesus Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection by his baptism.

Clearly, only immersion portrays this idea. This union with Christ, identification with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.

Sprinkling carries the idea of cleansing, maybe pouring too, but not death, burial, and resurrection. Only immersion points to this truth.

Fourth, in Colossians 2, Paul makes the same association between the mode of baptism in Christ's death and burial.

There we read, In Christ, in him, you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Now notice, circumcision and baptism are found in the same context in these two verses.

It's the only place in the Bible where circumcision and baptism are linked together, are found in the same context.

Now, our Paedo -Baptist friends argue that baptism in the New Testament is the

New Testament counterpart to circumcision in the Old Testament. And so they argue just as the

Israelites would circumcise their male children on the eighth day, so Christians are to baptize their children, both male and female, by the way, as infants, they are to baptize them.

They say baptism is the New Testament equivalent of circumcision in the Old Testament.

And they base it on Colossians 2, 11 and 12. But if you look at Colossians 2, 11 and 12, it says no such thing.

The circumcision of the Old Testament, the physical circumcision is not linked to baptism, but rather it's linked to a spiritual circumcision of the heart.

That's the New Testament counterpart to what physical circumcision pointed to in the

Old Testament, not baptism. And again, Paul identifies baptism here with the burial with Christ, the union with Christ.

It's not linked to circumcision, baptism. And so this argument based on this passage is just a knee -jerk reaction and response that Paedo -Baptists, well -intentioned, will provide, but it's ill -founded.

It's not here in these verses. And then fifthly, Paul associates the idea of baptism by immersion with the

Red Sea crossing under Moses in 1 Corinthians 10. Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that our fathers were all under the cloud and the shekinah glory of God by day, protected them from the heat of the sun.

All passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. It was like they were immersed, sea on either side, the cloud above, and it identified them with Moses.

All the same spiritual food, all drank the spiritual drink, for they drank the spiritual rock that followed them.

That rock was Christ. And so this depicts, again, the idea of baptism by immersion.

And I actually was sitting in a seminar on a well -respected Paedo -Baptist minister who was a

Baptist in his early years and became Paedo -Baptist. He said, and don't think that this in any way talks about immersion.

And my response is, what do you mean? Don't think in any way it speaks about immersion? Clearly it does. And just to argue that it doesn't make it so, clearly this is the identification that the

Apostle Paul was making. In other words, the New Testament in many ways points to the mode of immersion as that practiced by the churches of the first century.

Paedo -Baptists back during the days after the Reformation, you know, there were those who practiced immersion were called

Anabaptists. That was a negative term applied by Paedo -Baptists. Anaree, you're re -baptizing people, and they saw that as an egregious sin, and they were often persecuted and drowned.

Ulrich Zwingli, who was in many ways a reformer there in Zurich, had

Greek classes with friends when he was growing up, taught them Greek. They studied the New Testament together.

They came to baptistic convictions and taught immersion. He continued with Paedo -Baptism in conjunction with the leadership of the town,

Zurich. And ultimately he had those men, his former friends, chained up, taken out in a rowboat into the river.

You want to be baptized? We'll baptize you. And they were drowned. And this is oftentimes how these

Anabaptists were treated. Now as Baptists, we don't identify a link. The Anabaptists are not necessarily our forefathers.

We identify our Western English American Baptist heritage with the separatists, the

Puritans of England, disconnected from the Continental Anabaptists. The Continental Anabaptists would be more in conjunction with the

Mennonites today. They're the true Anabaptists. But I don't know how

I go off on that. But we owe our origin to English separatists,

Puritans. And then we would argue, but we're not going to have time to argue it now, biblical teaching respecting the subjects of baptism, and that is disciples only.

Let me just read a couple quotes here I find interesting. Many Paedo -Baptists have acknowledged that the

Bible never directly commands or illustrates the Baptists of infants by sprinkling. B .B.

Warfield, who is a great man of the 19th century, Presbyterian, good man.

I have his 10 volumes. Excellent. The foremost defender of the inspiration of the scriptures that you have in print is

B .B. Warfield. I had a liberal seminary professor, a professor of New Testament, New Testament Interpretation, say that B .B.

Warfield's argument for inerrancy was logically unassailable, but he didn't believe it anyway, which was incredible to me.

If you want to read about inerrancy, read B .B. Warfield. But he was a Paedo -Baptist and he wrote this.

It is true that there is no express command to baptize infants in the New Testament, no express record of the baptism of infants, no passage so stringently implying that it must infer from them that infants were baptized.

If such warrant as this were necessary to justify the usage, we would have to leave it completely unjustified.

You imagine what that statement is saying? There is no biblical warrant for infant baptism.

I heard R .C. Sproul, one of the greatest men alive today, Reformed theologian, who's

Presbyterian, baptize infants, acknowledge when he was debating Alistair Begg, who's a

Reformed Baptist, that infant baptism is not taught in the

New Testament. You have to derive it from one's theology, not from the

Bible, which to me is an incredible acknowledgement.

We Baptists are often accused of not being genuinely Reformed. I'm looked upon as a secondary kind of Reformed guy because I don't practice baptizing infants by sprinkling.

I don't back off. It doesn't come up most of the time because we're in agreement with the gospel and so much and whatnot.

But clearly this is an issue. And some of our Paedo -Baptist friends kind of look down on us as Reformed Baptists as not really being

Reformed because we don't embrace infant baptism. But I would argue that we are the ones who are being true to the

Protestant Reformation principle, Sola Scriptura. They are not.

They acknowledge the scripture does not teach baptism of infants, but it must be based on a theological drawn conclusion.

And I would say it's an illogical conclusion. But the question we ask, who is it that's attempting to hold to the scriptures?

It's us. We would argue, who is it that's violating a principle of the Reformation? We demand biblical evidence for any practice.

And they cannot produce it. And so Baptists, we are bound to the truth of the scriptures.

I want to conclude with this little reading here on page eight. It's taken from a book that's republished.

It's available today. It's called Baptist Thorough Reformers. It was written in the 19th century by a man named after one of our presidents,

John Quincy Adams. It was required reading in Spurgeon's Pastors College. And in this book, where he advocates baptism by immersion, he cites an

American track society track of the 19th century. And John Quincy Adams recited it in his, republished it in his book.

And listen to the simplicity. And we would acknowledge, we as Baptists are just simple folk.

We take the Bible for what it says. And what it doesn't say, we say, sorry, we're not going there.

Mick had been a strict Roman Catholic for 50 years. One day he accidentally found a Bible and commenced reading it.

The more he read, the more he neglected the Roman services. The priest at length heard of it and visited

Mick and sought to get the Bible from him. And I put in parentheses, remember Roman Catholics were forbidden to read the

Bible before 1963. It was on the list of forbidden books. Failing in this, he began to expostulate with him.

He told him he must not read it anymore. And reminding him that he had not been to confession for a long time.

He told him he must come and confess for it's his duty. Mick held out the Bible to the priest and said, will your reverence please show it to me in the book.

Now, this is just what we say to all the arguments of the Paedo -Baptists. They tell us that all Christian parents should have their infant children sprinkled.

We say, will you please show it to us in the book. They tell us that sprinkling will do us as well as to go down into the water and be buried with him in baptism and come out of the water.

We say, will you please show it to us in the book. After some time, Mick united with the

Protestant church and regularly attended Sunday school. The children used frequently to gather around him, put questions to him to hear his answers.

Well, Mick, why don't you now pray to the Virgin Mary? Because it's not in the book. Why don't you confess your sins to Peter and Paul, Mick?

Because it's not in the book. Why do you believe the Bible to be sufficient to make you wise unto salvation without tradition?

Oh sure, it's all in the book. Must everything in religion be proved by the Bible, Mick? Yes, whatever is not so is only moonshine.

Now, our Paedo -Baptist friends ask us why we do not sprinkle infants. We reply, it's not in the book.

They wish to know why we go down into the water and immerse those who believe and come up out of the water. We reply with Mick, oh sure, it's all in the book.

They ask why we do not admit to the Lord's table with us those who are unbaptized. We reply, because it's not in the book.

And whatever is not in the book is moonshine. We aim to be Bible Christians and to make our churches

Bible churches. In upholding Baptist sentiments, we simply aim to perpetuate primitive

Christianity. John Quincy Adams wrote, again not the president, show us an instance of the baptism of an infant in the primitive churches and we will then baptize infants.

But until you do, we will oppose infant sprinkling as an innovation of man, having no divine authority and therefore sinful.

And they say that we are sinning by refusing baptizing our children. That's in the

Westminster Confession of Faith. And we would argue, no. That the scriptures command us to baptize disciples and them only.

Go into all the world, make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And to our paedo -baptist friends who are covenant theologians, the one question

I ask or would ask for them to ponder, according to our covenant theology, either one is in Adam or one is in Christ.

You can't be both in Adam and in Christ. You're either in Christ or you're in Adam. And yet they argue that children of believing parents are in a covenant relationship with God.

I asked them, are you saying that they are in their covenant with Christ? No, no, no. We're not saying that because we don't know that they have salvation.

Well, are you saying that they are in Adam? Then why are you baptizing them? They're either in Christ or they're in Adam.

And there may be infants that are saved. God saves infants. John the Baptist, you know, was filled with the

Holy Spirit from his mother's womb. But as far as a local church, we cannot know that person is in Christ until they've been shown evidence of repentance from sin, a love for Christ, a love for God's people, a love for righteousness, a hatred for sin, a sensitivity to know

God and walk with him. Then we determine, yes, here's a disciple. We'll baptize him or her.

And we believe this is what the scriptures teach. Let's pray. Father, help us to take to heart these matters.

And we know our God that your scripture says, and we affirm, may you be true and every man a liar.

Ultimately, our God, your word governs what we believe and what we practice.

At least that's our desire. And so we pray, Lord, that you would affirm us, give us courage, compassion as we attempt to affirm the truth.