The Ordinances: Baptism

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

Why the Ordinances Mattered in Church History

So it's our second last study this week, and we're looking at the doctrine of the ordinances. And I've been really excited as we approach the end of this study, not only because it's been a good study, but I'm excited about what's coming after the study, namely us giving all of our energy, having a single-minded focus, if we want to say it that way, single-minded effort to exalt God through planting a church.

And so tonight we're pressing on to finish the study well. So I want to begin tonight with a story. It's a story that comes out of the 1500s, the 16th century, just after the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

So on March 7th, so just over a week ago, almost 500 years ago, so in the year 1526, so 15 years after Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation with his 95 theses on the castle church door in Wittenberg, the Zurich Council, so the city council in Zurich in Switzerland, passed a new law to curb what they felt was a very, very disturbing trend.

A trend that in fact they considered to be criminal. And the crime was so troubling that they felt the most appropriate sentence was the most severe sentence possible. Kids, what do you think the most severe sentence would be for a crime?

Death, that's right. And so this crime was to be punishable by death, but it wasn't just punishable by the ordinary means. I'll explain that. Not just the usual means like hanging or burning at the stake, but these people were to be punished, they were to be executed by drowning.

And so just short of a year later, on January 5th, 1527, the first person convicted of this crime was set to be executed. So in the middle of the afternoon at 3 p .m., a 28-year-old Swiss man by the name of Felix Mons was taken on a boat.

He was put on a boat. They went out into the middle of the river Limat. His hands were bound behind his legs. They took a pole, put it between his knees, and then lowered him into the water. And he was executed by drowning for his heinous crime.

And his last words were, Into thy hands, O God, I commend my spirit. In the eyes of the Swiss reformers, those who were in charge of the town council, these were Protestant Christians who put him to death, this man was a capricious and unrepentant sinner.

To quote Ulrich Zwingli, he used that term, capricious. He was a heretic of the most dangerous form. Now what do you think his crime was? Worshipping God? Any other guesses? Yeah, you're right on there.

So Felix Mons believed and taught that baptism was an ordinance that was meant for believers. He thought that, that's right. So he denied the validity of paedo-baptism, that's the baptism of infant children, and insisted that baptism was only valid when it's performed as an act of obedience by those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Mons was not alone. So kids, not only did they execute Mons by drowning, but they executed other men by burning at the stake, others by drowning, and by both the Catholics and the Protestants alike.

The Catholics and the reformers didn't have a lot in common. As the Reformation progressed, but one thing that they did have in common was a common enemy, and those were what they referred to as Anabaptists.

Anabaptist is a pejorative term, so it's a negative term that they gave these people who insisted on being baptized again as believers. That's what the word Anabaptist means, to be baptized again. The hatred of these credo-baptists is well documented.

The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand said that the best antidote for Anabaptism was the third baptism, and the third baptism was baptism by drowning. So for believers after the Reformation, the ordinances of the church really mattered.

They really did matter. It was worth studying like we are tonight. It was worth understanding. They were worth obeying. These were not matters of convenience that would be treated with indifference, the indifference that we often see today, but the ordinances were actually a matter of life and death.

And if we were to rewind through history, so kids were getting in a time machine, if we were to travel 1 ,300 years earlier to the second century A .D., we would see that faithful Christian men and women faced the same difficulty for their practice of the Lord's Supper.

So in the second century A .D., Christians were reviled. They were insulted. They were persecuted for their commitment to the Lord's table. On more than one of these occasions, these early Christians were charged with cannibalism, and we get a sense of how Christians were treated when we look at one ancient document that records the words of Cecilius the Pagan.

He must have been named that by the Christians, I'm guessing. But Cecilius the Pagan said this, and some of these words sound familiar, actually, considering the day that we're in. But he said, You Christians are the worst breed ever to affect the world.

You deserve every punishment you get. Nobody likes you. It would be better if you and your Jesus had never been born. And this is why.

He says,.

We hear that you are all cannibals. You eat the flesh of your children in your meetings. What an accusation, right? If that accusation was true, it would be truly abhorrent. But despite this reviling, despite these false words being spoken against the Christians, they did not refrain from holding to and practicing the Lord's Supper.

And this is why. This is what I think is the reason why. It's because these believers, sorry, I believe that some of these believers that went before us had a right understanding of the inestimable value of the ordinances of the Church.

To put it simply, these Christians knew that the ordinances really mattered. They really were important. Now let me ask you, this is just a rhetorical question, is this true of you? If you think about your understanding of baptism, is it true of you that baptism really matters?

If you think about the Lord's Supper, do you rightly esteem the Lord's Table? And if so, why? Why is it that you rightly esteem it? I fear that many believers, many professing believers, many people in the modern Church don't rightly esteem these ordinances because they simply do not understand them.

And so that's what we're turning our attention to tonight. We're going to give our attention to the study of the Lord's Supper and the ordinance of baptism. Now, when we were looking at the doctrine of the Church, I mentioned briefly why baptism and the Lord's Supper are called ordinances.

Does anyone remember, why do we call these two practices ordinances and not maybe ceremonies or sacraments?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. You used the word, or you said those which Jesus Christ has commanded, right? He has ordered them. He has ordained them. And so that's why we practice them. So ordinances are anything that the Lord Jesus Christ has ordained, that he has ordered, that he has commanded, that he has passed down to the Church.

And how many ordinances are there? I know I've already given it away. Nicole says two ordinances.

That's right.

Within the Protestant tradition, typically, and certainly within our church plant there, we recognize two ordinances. That is baptism and the Lord's Supper. Does anyone know how many ordinances the Catholics have?

Seven, yeah. So the Catholics would see ordinances as being baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, which is the equivalent to communion or the Lord's Supper, reconciliation, which is confession, anointing of the sick, holy orders, and marriage.

So we recognize two, they recognize seven. But the reason why we recognize two is because if we look at what Jesus Christ has ordained, what he has ordered, we see that Jesus Christ did not ordain the act of confirmation.

That when a child, after they've been baptized and become a teenager or a preteen, they go through a confirmation class and confirm their faith. We don't see that Christ specifically ordained the confession of sin.

As helpful as that is, he didn't ordain the confession of sin or confession of sins to priests. He didn't ordain marriage, specifically. He didn't ordain the holy orders, and so that would be those who are ordained to the office of bishop or priest or deacon in the Catholic Church.

And we use the term ordinances as a term of preference, I would say, over the term sacrament. Just like what you said, Steve, because while we would see these ordinances as a means of God's blessing within the right context, as a means of God's grace, not salvific grace, but his sanctifying grace and a grace in our experience as we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not see them as a sacred act that God uses to bring about regeneration or to bring about salvation.

The Biblical Basis for Baptism in the Great Commission

So, we'll turn our attention first to baptism. So I want to start with this question. What is the biblical basis for baptism? Why is it that baptism is an ordination, or, excuse me, an ordinance, thank you, an ordinance in the church?

Does anyone know biblically where we would find reference to that? John the Baptist, or the ministry of John the Baptist, we see that at the beginning of the Gospels. Jesus Christ was baptized himself.

So in Matthew chapter 3 and verse 15, we see that Christ was baptized, he says, to fulfill all righteousness. Christ recognized the ministry of John the Baptist, and he often contrasts his recognition of that ministry against the Pharisees and the Sadducees who rejected John the Baptist's ministry.

And then, most specifically, there's one we haven't named yet. It's at the end of the Gospel. Can you think of what that might be? Matthew 28, that's right. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And so Christ ordained baptism. He brought that about as an ordinance of the church. And unlike some of the Catholic doctrines, baptism is undeniably ordered by Christ during his earthly ministry. Now kids, I'm gonna ask you guys a question, okay?

Who should we baptize? Believers? That's a great answer. Any other thoughts? Any other answers? Does it matter how old those believers are?

No?

Well, that's right. You're exactly right. We believe and we teach at Grace Fellowship Church that we are only to baptize believers. So what I'd like to do, for the sake of clarity, I'll contrast a couple of different views.

So we'll look at a few different views of baptism, of who, of the subjects of baptism, the who of baptism, and then we'll look at what we believe and why we believe it. So the Roman Catholics, they would teach that infants should be baptized, that baptism should be administered to infants.

And they would teach this because they would teach that baptism is necessary for salvation. And so apart from baptism, a person, I should say apart from Catholic baptism, a person cannot be saved. And so if you hear about young children, for instance, that are born at the hospital, baptism is one of the ordinances that priests do not have to perform necessarily under emergency circumstances.

So if you were to have a child and they're born and they're just clinging to life, mom and dad or the doctor or just any normal lay person can baptize them in that moment to ensure that they go to heaven.

And the reason they believe this is because they believe in a doctrine called baptismal regeneration. Baptismal regeneration would teach that a person is born again when they are baptized. And it's not until they're baptized that they are born again.

And Catholics believe that every individual must be baptized to be saved. So a Catholic author, this is one that I found, he wrote this,.

He said,.

Baptism by water is, since the promulgation of the gospel necessary for all men without exception, so without exception, for salvation. So justification is not possible under the Catholic view unless a person has been baptized.

Another view that we would find is what's called the Protestant paedobaptist view. So there are those amongst the Protestant traditions that would baptize their infants. And does anyone know why a Protestant that doesn't believe in baptismal regeneration would baptize their infants?

Do you guys know? So a Protestant who does not believe in baptismal regeneration, why would they baptize their infants, do you think? They certainly would do it in obedience to the scriptures, and we certainly could have a fellowship with them, seeing how they hold to a biblical meaning of baptism.

But the reason why they would typically baptize infants is because those particular traditions would hold to a covenantal view. So they would be covenantal theologians at the core, and they would see baptism as replacing, under the new covenant, they would see baptism as replacing the act of circumcision.

So just as a child would be circumcised in order to enter into the covenant community. So if you were a Jewish boy, you'd be circumcised.

On the eighth day.

As your entrance into the covenant community, in the same way Anglicans or Lutherans or Presbyterians or other Reformed denominations would baptize their children to welcome them into the covenant community.

And they would look at texts like Colossians 2 in verse 11 to 12, where Paul makes this connection between circumcision and baptism, where it says, in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

So they would look at passages like that Colossians 2 passage in support of their view. We do not agree with the Catholic view. We don't agree with the subjects of baptism. We don't agree with the mode of baptism.

We don't agree with the means of baptism when it comes to our Catholic friends. No disrespect to them, but we believe that those practices are unbiblical. When it comes to our Paido-Baptist Protestant brothers and sisters, certainly we count them as brothers and sisters, while we may disagree on the subjects of baptism, those who are baptized.

We may disagree with the modes of baptism. We agree overwhelmingly with the meaning of baptism, at least usually, and for that reason we can have fellowship and unity with them, even though we differ on this view.

Our view here is what's known as the Baptist view, or some might call that Anabaptist view, I suppose,.

If people are getting.

Baptized again, but more specifically the Baptist view or the Credo-Baptist view. And we believe this because we believe that it's biblical that people were baptized because they were Christians. They weren't baptized solely because they were entering into the covenant community as infant children, but we believe that they were baptized because they had a profession of faith, they had saving faith in Christ.

And so, we'll look a little bit at the biblical basis for this. So Acts chapter 2, verses 38 to 41. If you guys remember, Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost, and nearing the end of his sermon he said, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord, our God, calls to himself.

And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them,.

Saying,.

Save yourselves from this crooked generation. Verse 41 is the verse I want to really highlight here. So those who received his word, those who believed and responded to it, were baptized. And there were added that day about 3 ,000 souls.

So corresponding to that belief was baptism, corresponding to that baptism was the addition of souls to the church. If we go a little bit further to Acts chapter 8 and verse 12, you might remember Philip who had an interaction with the Samaritans.

He was proclaiming Christ in Samaria. And in Acts chapter 8 and verse 12 he says,. But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

And so it was, again, believers who were baptized, believers who responded to the gospel. Fast forward a bit further to Acts chapter 10, verse 44 to 47. So Peter in this particular context was preaching to the Gentiles.

And it says in verse 44,. While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word, and the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles, for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God.

Then Peter declared, Can anyone withhold water for baptizing from these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? So he sees the regeneration that takes place and the logical next step after seeing the infilling of the Holy Spirit was baptism.

There are other sections in Acts. We won't go to all of them, but another example might be Acts chapter 16. You'll remember this Sunday we heard about Lydia who came to Christ. What happened immediately after she came to Christ?

She was baptized. The Philippian jailer, after he came to Christ, he was baptized. In that case, it says his whole family was baptized. A paedo-baptist view would say that well because his family was baptized, that actually proves our point.

I respectfully think that's an argument from silence. There's nothing there that says that his family became believers nor is there anything that says that his family didn't become believers. So it's very possible that his family did become believers in that same instance.

We'll look there because he asked the question. So let's go to Acts chapter 16. So in Acts chapter 16, at the end of that particular section,.

It says this,.

And he took them that same hour of the night in verse 33, so Acts 16, 33, and washed their wounds and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. So it doesn't say whether they were believers. It doesn't say whether they were unbelievers.

But all I'm saying is that if someone believes that this passage teaches paedo-baptism, it's an argument from silence or from ambiguity rather than a clear argument. I don't know that you're understanding that exactly right now, but we can talk after, okay?

So like I said, we don't divide over these issues, but we believe that the Bible teaches that baptism happens for believers, just like Felix Mons who was willing to die for this view. We believe that it's a believer that's to be baptized.

The Mode of Baptism and Why Immersion Matters

Now the mode of baptism, we'll cover this one rather quickly, but how should believers be baptized? So, Noah, if you wanted to be baptized, how would we baptize you? In a pool? And would we take a cup of water from the pool and dump it on your head?

How would that look? Grab you and dunk you, that sounds. Chokeslam into the water. Not quite, but that's a good guess. So what we would do though, you're right, we'd take you into a body of water, something that's deep enough that we could immerse you, right?

So we would submerge you into the water, put you all the way under the water, and then bring you all the way back up out of the water. There are many people that don't believe that. Some people think that we should sprinkle with water.

Other people think that we can pour water over people's heads. And again, while that's not a hill that we would die on by any means, we believe that the most biblical way, the most pure way of baptism, is baptism by immersion.

And so a couple arguments for that quickly. The word baptism is kind of an interesting word in the English language. And the reason it is, is because it's a transliteration from the Greek. So unlike many other words, like the Greek word charis, we translate into English as grace.

The word baptizo has been transliterated simply to mean baptize, simply baptize. But that Greek word, baptizo, means to immerse or to dip, or maybe like you said Noah with the chokeslam, to plunge, to plunge into the water.

And so the actual definition, the Greek definition of the word, whether you look at the Bible's usage or you look at usage outside of the Bible, baptizo always referred to immersion in water. Does anyone know why do we do baptism?

Where did baptism come from? When John the Baptist was at the Jordan River and he was baptizing people in the water, was that a brand new concept to the Jews or is that something that you think they would be familiar with?

You're exactly right, something that they were familiar with. So one of the things that Jews took in prior to John the Baptist and prior to the new covenant was a practice that they called mikvah. And mikvah is a Hebrew word that means immersion to purify.

So they would have almost like a purifying bath and so it was to help with ritual impurity. So mikvah was immersion for Jewish ritual washing and during this a person would be immersed in the bath so they would be put down.

Under the water.

And then brought back up out of the water to be made clean. And so this was done to those who were new converts to Judaism, much like a believer coming to faith in Christ. It was also done to clean them of any impurity so if there was a woman that was dealing with her menstrual impurity after her menstruation they would put her in the bath, in the mikvah and they would do a ritual washing and that was also by immersion.

So it's very similar to what we would believe to be the biblical form of baptism. It's like a symbol,.

That's right,.

We're going to get there. And then perhaps the most important evidence for the whole idea of baptism by immersion is right out of the Bible. So we won't go to each of them but I'll just give examples quickly.

So Mark chapter 1 and verse 5, Jesus was baptized. And in chapter 1 and verse 5, it doesn't say that Jesus was baptized by, it doesn't say that he was baptized near, it doesn't say that he was baptized next to, but it says that he was baptized in the Jordan River.

In Mark chapter 1 and verse 10, an even more compelling case, it says that when Christ came up out of the water, in order for him to come up out of the water, that would mean that he would have to be down in the water.

John chapter 3 and verse 23, it says that John was also baptizing at Anon near Salim because water was plentiful there and people were coming and being baptized. They needed plenty of water because it takes a lot of water to immerse someone.

If you wanted to sprinkle someone, you wouldn't need much water at all. You could have a bucket of water, you could do that anywhere. But they had to go somewhere where there was plenty of water. And then in Acts chapter 8, when Philip met the Ethiopian eunuch, he shared the gospel with him.

And after he shared the gospel with him, the eunuch said, in verse 36,.

It says,.

As they were going along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? The eunuch was traveling from Jerusalem, conceivably back to Ethiopia.

They would have had drinking water on board his chariot, no doubt. Philip could have asked, well, if you want to be baptized, I have a water bottle. Do you have a water bottle on the chariot? And they could have baptized them right there on the chariot.

But seeing that there was a body of water, seeing here is water, what prevented him from being baptized? And then later on in that same account, in verse 38 and 39, it says,. And he commanded the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized them.

And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing. Now, that is the subjects. Those are the subjects of baptism.

Believers. The modes of baptism. Immersion. Now, what is the meaning of baptism? Noah used a word just a few minutes ago, that was the word symbol. We're going to get to that. What are some other possible meanings for baptism?

Why are you baptized? Why do we baptize believers? As an act of obedience? Okay, yeah.

Absolutely.

Those are good guesses. Well, Noah, we're going to talk first about what you said. A symbol. So baptism symbolizes. When someone is baptized, it symbolizes their union with Christ. So their having been joined with Christ in his death, in his burial, and in his resurrection.

So it's an outward and a physical sign of a supernatural, of a spiritual reality that has already taken place. So unlike the Catholics that believe that baptism actually initiates, that it is actually the catalyst for regeneration, when we baptize someone, we baptize a believer because we are saying this is what has happened in a spiritual reality that we have not seen like the Apostle Paul, that you have been crucified with Christ and that you have been raised up to newness of life.

It is no longer Paul that lives, it is no longer Shane that lives, it is no longer Steve that lives, but Christ that lives within me. And so we see this taught in the Bible in a number of ways, in a number of places.

So Romans chapter 6 is one place where we see that. There, the Apostle Paul writes to the Romans, he says, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? What do you think? Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?

That's right, he says, By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? So in union we're baptized into His death.

We were buried, therefore, with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. In Colossians chapter 2 and verse 12, Paul says, Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

So in baptism, the believer participates in a physical representation of a glorious spiritual reality. I remember hearing a story about a man that had another form of demonstrating this reality. I can't remember the name, but I think you guys would appreciate the story that he rented a hearse.

What does a hearse carry? Dead bodies, that's right. He rented a hearse and he had the hearse drive around the city and he announced to all the people in the city, This man is no longer dead, or sorry, is no longer alive.

He has died and he has been raised and he is a new man. And so he had this hearse go around the town to demonstrate to everyone that I am not the same man I once was. I have died to my sin. The old Shane is dead and the new Shane, for the glory of God, by the grace of God,.

Is alive.

I've been raised to newness of life. I'm not sure if he was baptized, but that would have been the perfect symbol for that reality. Certainly if you want to rent a hearse, you can, but it's even better.

It's biblical. To go into the waters of baptism in obedience to the ordinance, to the command of Christ, and to say, I have died in Christ. I have been buried with Him. And now, by His power, I've been raised to newness of life.

I referenced Galatians 2 .20, right? Paul said, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live, and the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Not only that, but baptism demonstrates our safe passage through the waters of baptism. And this is,.

Sorry,.

Through,.

Sorry,.

I'm going to repeat that. And not only that, but baptism demonstrates our safe passage through the waters of God's judgment. And this is a less known idea about baptism. Baptism is a symbol of this spiritual reality.

But it also demonstrates that we have passed through the waters of God's judgment. Did you guys know that water is often used to depict judgment in the Bible? I know a guy that's named after a guy that endured judgment by a flood.

Do you know what account that is? Noah, that's right. Noah and his family, they went into an ark and what happened? God flooded the world. What was that flood? That was an act of God's judgment, right?

Think about the Israelites. When they left Egypt, they got to the Red Sea. What did God do to that Red Sea? He parted the sea and they went across the Red Sea,.

It says,.

As on dry land. What happened to the Egyptian chariots as they followed behind them through the Red Sea? The water came crashing down on top of them. The water of God's judgment. And there's so many different accounts.

If you look through the Bible, all these different accounts of the water of God's judgment. Well, just as Noah and his family were delivered safely through the waters of God's judgment on the ark during the flood in Genesis 7, God demonstrates our safe passage through his judgment, but not in an ark, but in Jesus Christ.

In 1 Peter 3, we see this. So this isn't just some conclusion that I've come to, but it's taught in the Bible. 1 Peter 3, verse 18. It says,. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water.

So they were brought safely through the waters of God's judgment. And then listen to what Peter says here. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you. So he's not teaching that we are saved from the wrath of God by baptism, but rather, baptism, which corresponds to this, saves you as a removal of dirt from the body.

Not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. When we pass through the waters of baptism, it demonstrates that we are saved from the judgment of God.

Just like Noah and his family passed through the waters of God's judgment, we too have passed.

Through the waters.

Of God's judgment, and guess what? We come out unscathed. And so it really is something that we can praise the Lord about when we see someone and they go into the waters of baptism. When we watch a baptism and we see a man or a young man or a young girl or an older woman, and they go into the water, and when they come back up out of the water, praise God, they come out alive, not having endured the wrath of God.

I really appreciate what Wayne Grudem says about this passage.

He says,.

The waters also remind us of the waters of God's judgment that came upon unbelievers at the time of the flood or the drowning of the Egyptians in the Exodus. Those who go down into the waters of baptism really are going down into the waters of judgment and death, death that they deserve from God for their sins.

When they come back up out of the waters of baptism, it shows that they have come safely through God's judgment only because of the merits of Jesus Christ, with whom they are united in His death and resurrection.

And this ordinance, this physical sign, if we really understand it, ought to be a continual source of blessing and rejoicing in the local church. Baptisms should excite us. We should look forward to baptisms.

We should rejoice at baptisms. It's a public demonstration of the gracious and glorious work of God in the life of each and every one of His saints. As the birth of a child is the cause of great celebration, so baptism, the baptism of a believer, ought to be an occasion marked by worship, by thanksgiving, by shouts of loudest praise.

To quote Wayne Grinham again, he says, the amazing truths of passing through the waters of judgment safely, of dying and rising with Christ, and of having our sins washed away are truths of momentous and eternal proportion, and ought to be an occasion for giving great glory and praise to God.

If churches would teach these truths more clearly, baptisms would be the occasion of much more blessing in the church. So if Christians really understood what baptism was, what it really means, that we don't deserve baptism, and yet it is a blessing given from God, if we would really begin to understand this, it would be an occasion, as he says, for much more blessing in the church.

I think we'll do this in two parts, because I've already been speaking for 45 minutes. So we'll look next time at the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. But we'll conclude with that. Does anyone have any questions about baptism?