The Baptism (Part 4) — Ron Bailey

Strengthening What Remains

Some of the brothers got together on Saturday morning and we were talking about different things, seeing where the conversation took us and I just commented that for some months now, in fact about 18 months, I've had a burden on my heart that comes from the Book of Revelation and the word to the church at Stardust where the Lord spoke to them and said that they were to be watchful and to strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die.

Now I don't think I mean something which is ready to die by the sound of the singing but sometimes God trusts things to us and it's really good to revisit those things that He has entrusted to us and see how we're dealing with them and consequently what I've wanted to do this weekend is talk about the baptism and although we are talking about the baptism of the Spirit I've taken a more sort of unorthodox route.

I haven't gone through most of the most familiar texts. I've gone in another direction because what I wanted us to do was almost start all over again and say well, what does it mean? What are we talking about?

Biblical Words and Their Histories

And what I did for the first couple of sessions was talk about baptism and what that really means, what it meant to the people who heard that word. The thing about us is that we are conditioned by our experience, we're conditioned by our history.

If I say baptism to a Baptist he thinks I know what you mean, it's this. If I say baptism to an Anglican he says I know what you mean, it's this. But in fact they mean two quite different things. So it's really important to have a look at the Bible and see how God uses His words.

What I was saying the first couple of times we were together was that the Bible don't really need dictionary definitions. They don't have dictionary definitions. What they have is histories. And God has used them constantly in the experience of His people and He enshrined these things not just so that we would have a meaningful explanation of them but so when we heard the word it brings to mind a whole wealth of things.

I was saying the other day, I don't know how long I've been here now I was saying I smell coal smoke in the air and it always brings back amazing memories for me. Some years ago I was in the south of Poland which is the industrial part of Poland and I was spending a little time with some of the churches down there and they kept on apologizing for the pollution.

They said we're really so very sorry. It's not like other parts of Europe. Things are being let run and it really is so bad. I said please don't apologize for anything. It's wonderful. I said I breathe in these smells and I'm transported back to when I was five or six sort of walking to school.

Because I come originally from North Staffordshire in the potteries part of the world that there sometimes occurred to us smoke on stench. And it really was pretty polluted when I was a boy growing up.

But the consequence is that with those smells come all kinds of very warm memories. Memories of being safe and memories of being carried by my father's back. All kinds of wonderful things. It's like that.

Scents bring back memories. Words bring back memories. God knows how we're built. Let me show you just before we pitch in. Let's turn to the Song of Solomon. Song of Songs. And there's a little phrase here that we sing from time to time and it's one of those phrases that you almost need to pause and look at and think What's being said here?

What is all this? This is Song of Solomon. Chapter one and verse three. I'll read from the beginning to come up to this point but it's verse three we're heading for. The Song of Songs which is Solomon's.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is better than wine. Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointments poured forth. Therefore do the virgins love thee. Now it really is such an obscure verse that for people who don't have a Bible background they come across a verse like this and they don't know where to make a start of it.

There's hardly an image in this that really makes sense to modern life. But what it says here because of the savour, that's the sweet smell, because of the sweet smell of your ointments your name is like ointments poured forth.

Now what does that mean? It's a picture really of Solomon and more than Solomon but it's a picture of Solomon at a time when he would be in a triumphal procession maybe going to one of his weddings or something like that and there would be perfumes that were used, unique perfumes which would be so identified with Solomon in the minds of the people who stood by the way and listened to it that whenever they smelled that they thought of Solomon.

And the consequence was that later on whenever they heard the name Solomon they could smell anything. It's amazing how things become linked together and related. There's a wonderful story about a man named Paget Wilkes.

He was a missionary to Japan and for a time he lived in London and on one occasion he had been there for a little while and some Japanese visitors came to the house and as they stepped into the hall one of them stopped and said you have a member of the Japanese royal family here.

And Paget Wilkes said well, and he hadn't exactly, he was a fairly minor member but it was, and he said well how did you know? And they said well there's a scent that only the Japanese royal family is allowed to use.

And when I came in through the front door I smelled it. It's amazing the sweetness, this name that we say is sweet, the name of Jesus. That's what it is because of all that's associated with it. That someone has worked in the business place and in the world of work where the name of Jesus is used constantly and it has no sweet smell for the people who use it.

The name is empty, it means nothing, it has nothing associated with it. It's because of the association, it's because of what's linked with the word that the word has power, it charms our breath, it gives us comfort, it encourages us.

So Bible words are very important and what we should do is not go immediately to the dictionary to find out what they mean. In fact it's the last thing you should do if you really want to be a student of the Bible.

Don't go to the English Oxford dictionary, they have no idea what Bible words mean. Then they'll always lead you astray somewhere else. What we need to do is see how God used it, see how he used the word, the associations that are with it and see what it means.

Christ’s Baptism in the Cross

And that's what we've been doing the last couple of days and we began by referring to the time when the Lord Jesus used this word baptism. And he used it in a context that it becomes familiar to us now but initially it must have been really quite an amazing surprise to the people who heard it.

Because Jesus had been speaking about the last times and about his coming and about some of the consequences and then he says I've come to cast fire upon the earth and I'm... what will I if it is not already begun, he said, if it's not already kindled.

And then he says this, I have a baptism to be baptised with and I'm straightened, I'm narrowed in, I'm shut into this thing until that is accomplished. There are things that he wanted to do but he couldn't do them until this baptism had been accomplished, until this thing had been finished, that's what it really means.

And what we said, I think the first night we were together, that accomplished really is the word finished and it all links in with the time when Jesus from the cross cried, it is finished. Listen to the word carefully, I have a baptism.

The cross was the baptism of Jesus Christ, it was his baptism, it wasn't anybody else's baptism, it was his. He said, I have a baptism to be baptised with. It's his baptism, it was his uniquely, no one else will ever experience what he experienced at that particular time.

You know how in the bible, hopefully you've heard people talk about the cross in the life of the Christian. And sometimes it is a puzzle for you people who hear this and say, well what does this mean?

Well the cross is used in two different ways in the bible. There is his cross, there is the cross of Jesus, no one else could carry it. On that cross he died for our sins, uniquely, once and for all, never to be repeated, never to have anything added to it, that was his cross, it was once for all and forever.

And in his ministry on one occasion the Lord Jesus Christ said, if you do not take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. He didn't say, you've got to take up my cross. You can't take up his cross, only he could take up his cross.

Only he could suffer sin, only he could bear the penalty, only he could go through it, but you have your own cross. And it has nothing to do with sin in that sense, it has to do with self. It has to do with my right to myself, as Oswald Chambers would have called it.

And me laying down my right to myself in order to do the will of God. So the cross, depending on how we use it, can mean different things. It can mean a once for all thing that never ever needs to be repeated, or it can be something which has to be repeated every day.

He that doesn't take up his cross daily and follow me, cannot be my disciple. Now I wanted us to look at the word baptism in the mouth of the Lord Jesus when he said, I have a baptism in the Lord of Tithes with.

Because I wanted us to understand some of what baptism meant, and not to get entangled with some of the things on the edges, but just to begin to go for the heart of it. What does it really mean? What is baptism?

And we said that it was immersion, but it's not just immersion, it's actually saturation in something. So that what the person has been baptised into, they become so one with it, so identified, that you can't separate the one from the other.

And I think this is the third time I've said this now, but it's so important to say it again. In Bible days, they used to use the word baptism when they were dyeing cloth. If they took some white linen, they'd plug it into a purple dye, they would baptise it.

And from that moment, the linen and the purple became so absolutely one, that you couldn't mark where one ended and the other began. The cloth has become purple. It's not just that the cloth has purpleness, the cloth is now purple.

The two have absolutely become one. What happened on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ was manifold, it was amazing, there were all kinds of aspects of it. The scripture says that he was the Lamb of God who bared away the sins of the world.

Now if you think of the picture of bearing away, that's the picture of someone carrying something, like you might carry something on your shoulders. And that's true, but later on the Bible begins to go a little bit deeper and show us that although that's true, there's another level of truth.

Because Peter says, he bore our sins in his body, on the tree. Not just on, superficially, but in his body. He took it into himself. In Isaiah, there's this wonderful book that I guess most of us know, but it says, that all real life sheep have gone astray, and God, that he has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

And laid on him actually means God gathered together all the sins on him. All the sins of the world, your sins, and my sins, yesterday's sins, and tomorrow's sins. The sins from Adam to the last man whose sins, before times come to an end, all the sins of all the world was gathered together on him.

And Peter says, it was in his body, on the tree. But even that isn't the full measure of his identification with us. Because Paul tells us, right into the Corinthians, he became sin. I can't explain it any more than that, I dare try.

I think we've come to the edges of what God has revealed at this point, and we hardly dare say any more than what's already been said. Except just simply to say, that on the cross it was a baptism, and he was baptised into something, united with something, became so absolutely one with it that he was inseparable from it.

And you couldn't tell where the one ended and the other began. We were saying, I think maybe in one of our car journeys at one point, it was almost as though, The Lord Jesus acted almost as a sort of lightning conductor, and he gathered all the sins of all the world into himself on the cross.

And it brought down the wrath of God in judgement. We touched over, it was last night, about the Father saying that he would unsheathe his sword, and that his sword would strike his son. And it gets to the edges of our mind, and our minds begin to boggle, and we hardly understand the enormity of what took place.

But the point I want to make is this, that baptism is not just being dipped into something, it's being saturated in it. It's being marinated in it. It's being so absolutely one with it that you can't separate the one from the other.

Okay? That's what baptism is. Now, water baptism is but a picture of that. Let's go to the letter of Paul to the Romans. And I would love to go through this very, very slowly. Don't worry, I'm not going to.

Abraham’s Faith and Justification

But I would love to go through almost from the beginning. I want to get to chapter 6, but I would love to go through it gently and lay down the foundation. But I'm going to do it a bit a little bit like this.

In chapter 4, Paul asks a question. There are dozens of questions in the letters to the Romans, and there are hundreds of questions in the Bible. And the amazing thing is that most of them have an answer right next to them.

And the Bible doesn't ask us questions because it doesn't know the answer. It asks us questions because it wants to engage our thinking. You see, if I ask you a question, you can't go to sleep. Well, depends how long I preach for, I suppose.

But generally you can't go to sleep if your mind has begun to be occupied with a question. So, Paul here, speaking in the Spirit of God, begins to ask questions. And this is the question he asks right at the beginning of chapter 4.

He says, In other words, what was Abraham's experience? That's what he's saying. This is the manner our Father, says this Jew speaking, this one was our Father according to the flesh. What was his experience?

What did he discover of God? What was it all about? And then he goes on here to speak about something unique. You know, the Bible refers to Abraham as the Father of Believers. He is the Father because he is the first one.

Quite often when the Bible uses the word Father, that's what it means. It's not always a biological term. It actually just simply means the first one. I don't know whether I've actually said this before, but way back in Genesis it talks about certain people, and I always get them all mixed up, but there's there's Jubal and there's Jabal and there's Tubal-Cain and it says that one was the father of those that dwell in tents and one was the father of those that play music and one was the father of those who worked with metals.

And I always say this question, well my father, my own natural father was an engineer who liked camping and played the mouth organ, so who was his father? According to Genesis, who was his father? Because if you read on one more chapter to Genesis, you come into chapter 6 and all the descendants of Jabal, Jubal and Tubal-Cain died in the flood anyway.

So there aren't any natural descendants. So when the Bible says that these people are the father of it, it means the very first. The person who set the trend. The initiator, the architect, the first one to do it in this particular way.

Now Abraham is the father of believers in a particular way. There are other people in the Bible who believe God but there's something very specific about Abraham and it's captioned here in this little passage where it goes on, it says this, it says where Abraham was justified by works, he got something to glory about, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say? Abraham, and this is a quote from Genesis, chapter 15, verse 6, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. If you were taking my advice and trying to find out how the Bible used words and you were looking up something like the verb believe or the noun faith because they're actually the same word and I said, well tell me the first time you're going to find this in the Bible.

The first time you would find the word believe or faith in the Bible would be here in the story of Abraham. It's the time when, we won't go into all the details of it, but God made certain promises to Abraham and the Bible just simply says that Abraham believed God.

It's the very first time that the Bible uses the word believe. Abraham believed God and then it goes on, it says and God counted it, that's his faith, counted it as righteousness. Abraham did not achieve righteousness, he didn't somehow get to a level where he was righteous with God.

He received righteousness, it was put to his account because he put all his trust in God. The Hebrew word for faith is amen. So Abraham amended God, that's really what happened. God said something and Abraham said, he didn't just say, Abraham amended.

What is faith? We're saying, I think it was this morning, that faith really, it's response to revelation. It's not you deciding that you should be better or be braver or be able to do more wonderful works than you've done previously.

It's you responding to God. God brings the word, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. God says something, you respond in the way that God wants you to and that's faith, and that's what happened with Abraham.

The word of God came to him and he believed and he became the father of believers. I can hear kind of one or two English accents here, but I know you're mostly Scots. But you know that some of the English people are very reserved people and have quite a reputation because they don't want people to get too enthusiastic or excited against things, so they have a whole list of problems to make sure you don't get too carried away with things, like too many cooks spoil the broth, which really means don't get too involved in this, because there's already enough people here anyway.

And this wonderful classic one, which is, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Faith is putting all your eggs in one basket. Faith is no contingency plans, no plan B's, nowhere to go if this doesn't work.

Faith is total dependence upon what God has said, and that's what Abraham did. He made not a single contribution to his own righteousness. Not a single contribution, not a penny worth of righteousness did Abraham add to it.

He believed God and God counted his faith as righteousness. Now this is familiar stuff, I hope it's familiar stuff. This is what Bible teachers would call justification by faith. And it goes on, it explains in this particular passage that even the people of God were required, although they were circumcised, they were still required to be people who walked in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham.

In other words, circumcision wasn't sufficient. They also had to be Abraham's children. Abraham had to be their father in faith. They had to have the same kind of faith that Abraham had. And then he goes on, and he goes on, and he goes on to say, let's jump ahead, he says in verse 17, the end of the chapter almost, there's a lovely little description here of faith, so I'll read that.

I'll read from verse 17. As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before him whom ye believed, even God, who quickened to death and caused those things which be not as though they were, who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations.

According to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body, now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.

He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. Faith glorifies God. And being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

And therefore, this kind of faith, therefore it was imputed, it was reckoned to him for righteousness. And then he says this in verse 23,. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was reckoned to him, but for us also, to whom it shall be reckoned, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was justified never for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

So Paul at this point is saying, well this is what Abraham did, he believed like this, he put all his eggs in one basket, he trusted God absolutely, and the reason the record is there, is not just for Abraham's benefit, or not just for the benefit of the physical descendants of Abraham, but it's for all of us.

All those who are children of Abraham. Now I can see if I can get you thinking, you have got to become a child of Abraham before you become a child of God. That's to say, you've got to have Abraham's kind of faith.

You've got to be an Abraham kind of person, who puts all his eggs in one basket, who trusts God absolutely, before God can move on to the next stages. And then we've got a description here, in chapter 4, of some of the implications of someone who is justified by faith.

Someone to whom God has reckoned righteousness, separate from any contribution, works of the law, that he might have done. And in verse 7 he says this, and I'm not going to go through all this too slowly, I hope.

In verse 7 he says this, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven. This is one of the by-product blessings of someone who is justified by faith. Someone to whom God reckons righteousness because of their faith.

They know the blessedness of iniquities being forgiven. By the word forgiven he really means sent away. It doesn't mean covered up at this point, but it means sent away. It's a picture of the scapegoat in the time when they confessed the sins of the nation over an animal and sent it off into the wilderness.

Carrying away, in picture, the sins of the people. Have you ever heard those people who say, well, I'll forgive you, but I won't forget it. Most people don't understand the word forgiveness. The word forgiveness actually means to send it away.

To send it away. To put it away from you. That's what it means. So, don't say, I'll forgive, but I can't forget. Because you're actually saying, I'll forgive, but I won't forgive. Do you understand the implications of it?

That's what God does. God puts it away. He carried it away. He puts it away. I think you may meet with Corrie Ten Boom. He used to say that God takes our sin and buries them in the depths of the ocean and then he puts up a big notice that says no fishing.

You're not to remember it. You're not to bring it to mind. God puts it away. These are some of the blessings that Abraham knew. Abraham knew the blessedness of iniquities forgiven. He knew that sense of peace.

That God had done something. And not only Abraham, but what I'm describing here, according to Paul, is what David does in describing the blessedness of such a man. So, Abraham knew this. David knew this.

In other words, all those who are justified by faith know these by-product blessings. They know iniquities put away. Whose sins are covered. This is another Old Testament picture. In Old Testament times, the idea of someone who was polluted and not fit to be in the presence of a king and that was provided for them an atonement.

Something which would cover them. I've known it for a long time now, but I know there are some people here who are kind of hippies or lesser. In other words, chapter. Well, the Hebrew word for atonement is kapthah.

And it's a link, because if you're an old nephew and you don't know what a kapthah is, it's the garment that goes right down to the floor. It's got long sleeves and a hood. And the consequence is that if you wear it properly, you can't see a thing if the person has got it.

And they are completely atoned in this picture. They are covered. They are completely hidden. And it's another Old Testament picture of the way that God did the thing. So that people who had blotted their copybook, as you would say, people who had stained their own characters of sin, God would still make a provision for them so that they could come into his presence covered and still acceptable to him.

This isn't the half of it yet, but this is just the beginning. Then he goes on and says, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin. God puts to the man who believes him righteousness to his account.

But not only does he put righteousness to his account, and he bankers here, God refuses to debit any sins to your account. This means that God puts his righteousness to your account, and if you are one of these people who is trusting him absolutely, it doesn't matter what you do, the balance never decreases.

It's still always the perfect righteousness of God. In fact, maybe you know the translation of that verse in 1 Corinthians 13, which says, Love doesn't keep a score. Love doesn't keep an account of sin.

And all this was part of God's loving provision. All this was... We're answering a question, unless you forgot the question. What did Abraham, our father, according to the faith, understand? What was his experience?

Well, righteousness was credited to his account when he put all his trust in God. What was his experience? Well, Abraham knew the blessedness of iniquities that were put away. Abraham knew the blessedness of sins that were covered.

Abraham knew the blessedness of God not keeping a score of his failure. These are all the blessings. And it comes down here towards the end of chapter 4, and it says, it wasn't written for his sake alone, it was written for your sake.

To us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. And I hope this won't stumble you too quickly, and that you'll listen to me a little bit longer for what I want to go and say.

The New Covenant’s Greater Fullness

Chapter 4 is really all Old Testament salvation. It's the kind of salvation that Abraham knew, that David knew. It's genuine, it's real. And it's included in the kind of salvation that God prepared in the New Covenant.

It's included, but it's not the whole of it. There's more. Let's see what he goes on to say now there, verse 5. And follow the logic now, as we're going to see this soon. He says, So this links it in with what he said before.

Stop, pause, think. If words mean anything at all, by whom also, means that we're now coming on to the truth of everything that was in chapter 4, but there are going to be some additional things that weren't in chapter 4.

Are you following my logic in this? By whom also. So, everything that Abraham knew, everything that David knew, plus. So let's look at the pluses. By whom also we have access, by faith, into this grace in which we stand.

The New Covenant gives access into something quite different, more than. In fact, more than is one of the favourite words in chapter 5. Here's your homework for tonight. Find out how many times Paul uses the little phrase more than in chapter 5.

Because chapter 5 is more than chapter 4. Because chapter 5 is the New Covenant and chapter 4 is the Old Covenant. And the New Covenant is more than the Old Covenant. Not different to it, so that it doesn't include it.

Includes all of it. I'll tell you what it's a little bit like. It's a little bit like if you go down to the seashore and you're kind of in one of the rock pools and you've got the sea there and it's one or two little kind of crustaceans and things in there and then the tide comes in.

The rock pool is still there. It's not not there. It's just that it's absolutely overwhelmed with an ocean of fullness that has come as well. And the New Covenant is an ocean of fullness. And this is how Paul expressed it.

He expressed it like this. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Now this is one of the first marked differences. If you know Romans, or if you're a good evangelical and you've done good counseling training, you should know Romans 3 in verse 23 which says there's no difference.

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Do you know that verse? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. What God intended for the human race was glory. Do you remember in another question that David asked, What is man that thou art mindful of him?

And the son of man that thou visitest him. For thou hast made him a little low of the angels and crowned him with glory and honour. That was man's original condition. Glorious. Crowned with glory and honour.

But when man sinned, he didn't only just spoil his present condition, he forfeited his destiny. He blew the lot. He lost his glorious destiny that God had for him. He fell, not only into sin, but he fell from the glory that God had expected for him and planned for him.

And man consequently is hopeless. He has nothing that draws him forward. But you get here to chapter 5 and now Paul is saying we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. The thing that was lost in Romans chapter 3 is now restored in Romans chapter 5.

The glory of God. It becomes a possibility again. That man should really be what God intended him to be. The start page where David asks that question is a fascinating song. If you're one of the people who like definitions and want to know what things really mean.

And you say well what is man? You know some people hear what is life and it's a tale of what is it? Fury told by an idiot. All these different people have defined it and all the rest of it. What is man?

Well here's the Bible's definition of man. He's a little elderly angel crowned with glory and all that. I want you to notice something about the Bible's definition of man. It doesn't have sin in it. Sin is not in the Bible's definition of man.

In fact man, if he has sin in him, is no longer what God really meant by man. Because God says let us make him in our image and our likeness. And if he has sin in him, is no longer in God's image and no longer in God's likeness.

And he no longer deserves the title of man. Which I'm sure you're very well taught, if you know, is the reason why Paul speaks in Corinthians and he makes reference to Jesus being the second Adam, the last Adam and the second man.

Because effectively there's only ever been two men. Only two who fulfilled the definition. Adam was in the image and likeness of God, briefly, blew it, squandered our destiny. And Jesus who maintained it right the way through.

Man as God intended him to be. Here it is. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. It doesn't matter how often you fail. I'll say this again because I think this is a lovely illustration. I want to try and go through the whole story.

C .F. Lewis, as well as writing his non-new books, he wrote lots of things. But he wrote a little series of science fiction books, a trilogy of them. One was called Out of the Silent Planet and the second one was called Voyage to Venus.

And the third one, which isn't quite so good, is called That Idiot Stinks. But the middle one, this Voyage to Venus, it's just a story. It's just a complicated illustration in many ways. But he imagines this time when someone goes from Earth to Venus.

And they arrive at Venus. Remember, it's just a story. Don't get too carried away with this. He arrives at Venus, this Earth man, just at the point when Venus is experiencing its creation, its Eden. When God is putting everything in place and all the animals are brand new and everything is just beginning to come together.

And in this Venusian Eden, if that's the right word for it, in this there is an Adam and an Eve. There is the man and the woman. And the man from Earth arrives there just at the point when Venus begins to have its temptation.

When Venus' evil one comes to tempt the woman to believe him and make another pattern of life. And the man from Earth gets involved in all that takes place. And there's a tremendous battle as it goes on.

And I will cut to the end of the story now. And you can read the book yourself. So you cut to the end of the story and there's this wonderful scene, which C .S. Lewis describes very wonderfully, of all the animals of this new creation all surrounding the new Adam and the new Eve in this particular, this new world.