The Substance of Believer’s 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.

Every Sunday, week after week, we come together as a church to proclaim the excellencies of God in worship. That's what we say in our mission statement, that we exist to proclaim the excellencies of God and to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

And as we often say every Sunday and throughout the week, we worship God as we read the Word and as we pray the Word and as we sing the Word and as we preach the Word and as we see the Word of God in the ordinances.

And usually every Sunday, we get to see the Word of God in one ordinance. But as Steve pointed out, there are two ordinances in the church. We call them ordinances because they are simply practices that Christ has ordained.

They're practices that Christ has commanded. And so today, by God's grace, we get to see two ordinances. The ordinance of the Lord's Supper that we see every week and the ordinance of baptism. And this afternoon, we have the privilege of seeing three of our brothers follow the Lord Jesus Christ into the waters of baptism in obedience to Christ and his great commission, what we just heard, and in obedience to the Word of God.

Three of our brothers, Sam and Paul, Jason and Lowell, are going to be immersed in water as a graphic, physical display of a miraculous spiritual reality that God alone has brought about in their lives.

I'll put that down. And as we prepare to see this unfold, as we prepare to celebrate this with them, it seems to me that we can do one of two things with the next 25 to 30 minutes that we have together.

And I thought about it. One option is this. We can look at a devotional thought of some kind, a good devotional thought, consider a worthy topic, and then celebrate baptism, albeit with a limited understanding of this ordinance.

Or option two, take the time that we have, go as deep as we can into the biblical doctrine of baptism. Matt knows where I want to go already. We can get technical and consider the concrete realities that are symbolized as our brothers pass through that water.

Matt knows what we're going to do. We can go devotional or we can go doctrinal. We're going to go doctrinal. That's right, yeah. Neither of them is wrong, but today, at least for today's purposes, we're going to go doctrinal.

And we're going to consider what it is these brothers are about to do. We're going to see what the Bible has to say about baptism, see what baptism is really about. And then today we're going to see, I hope, my hope and my prayer is this, that as we look into the text, as we look at the doctrine of baptism, not only will we be primed to celebrate baptism with our brothers and even with our sisters here today, but even more so, I want us to have a clearer view of the substance of believers' baptism.

If you look in the bulletin, that's what the title is for today, the substance of believers' baptism. And the substance, by that I mean the blazing center to which baptism points. The very focal point of baptism is none other than the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So today we're going to see Lowell baptized, and we're going to see P .J. baptized, we're going to see Sam baptized, and we're going to see, as we see all of this, I hope, I'm thinking about the artists that we have in the room, and we're going to see a portrait of Jesus Christ in the gospel, if we get it, that's what we're going to see in baptism.

So we have limited time, we're going to get right into it. And we're going to get technical, and I apologize, I don't have a lot of illustrations, but that's because it's all going to be illustrated behind me as soon as we're done.

So let's go deep, and if you have your notebooks, get them out. So we're going to look at four things, four spiritual realities that baptism points to. This is the first one. In baptism, we see the believer's death, burial, and resurrection in union with Jesus Christ.

Union with Christ in Death, Burial, and Resurrection

So if you have a Bible, please turn with me to Romans 6, verse 1. In this chapter, the Apostle Paul's responding to contentions that people have made, probably Jews, that say that the gospel encourages people to sin, that God's free grace gives people the license to engage in lawlessness.

And here Paul categorically disagrees. And in his response, he says this, Romans 6, verse 1. He says, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin, that grace may abound?

By no means.

How can we who died to sin still live in it? And then he brings up the topic of baptism. He says, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were 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.

If we fast forward to verse 6, he says this,. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin, for the one who has died has been set free from sin.

What does this mean? It means that baptism points to, it paints a picture of the Christian's radical relationship change, this new relationship that the believer has with sin and with righteousness and with God.

If we were to survey all the Christians in this room, one by one, most of us, if not all of us, who believe in Christ, who have repented and placed our faith in him, we would confess wholeheartedly that one of the chief things that characterized our lives before Christ was sin.

We had a sin problem. We were sin addicts. We were like, if you've ever seen the show, The Walking Dead. We were like The Walking Dead, dead in our sins and yet mindlessly following the course of this world, just like a fish lives and moves and has its being in water and yet has never known anything else.

For every Christian, we know that we spent our former lives literally abiding in sin, separated from God. Separation from God is all that we ever knew. I believe that Lowell, P .J., and Sam would describe that as their experience.

That's how the Bible describes every man and woman and even child who has not yet placed their faith in Christ. Sinful, separated from God, and woefully lost. But, by God's grace, what's behind us tells a different aspect of the story.

For the Christians, our lives are no longer characterized by sin and rebellion. And this is why. It's a simple reason and it's a profound reason. When all of us who have placed our faith in Christ heard the good news of Jesus Christ, the good news of Jesus Christ is this, that Christ lived a perfect life that we could never live.

That he died the death that we deserve on the cross to atone for that sin. And that when he was buried, not even death could hold him. He conquered the death. He conquered the grave and he rose again.

When we heard that good news of the gospel, not only did God graciously, graciously open our eyes to behold that truth and to respond in repentance and faith, but he completely changed us. Like that. Not on the outside.

I remember when the Lord caused me to be born again. There was nothing different on the outside, but everything on the inside had changed. Paul explains this idea. And this is where theologians get the term regeneration from.

It's in Titus chapter 3 and verse 5. There he says this. He saved us. He's talking about Jesus. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration, by the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

The men that are going to be baptized today are not going to make any kind of claim about moral reform. That God has somehow given them an ethic to march by and now they're going to reform themselves accordingly.

No, this is a God-initiated renewal that we see when we talk about the death, burial, and resurrection of a man in union with Christ, or a woman in Christ. It's by God's own mercy that the third person of the Trinity carries out this plan.

In 1 Peter 3, the apostle Peter talks about this. Again, he talks about God's agency in this and what God does. He says, according to his great mercy. You'll notice he says mercy again. He said mercy in Titus.

He says mercy now. According to God's great mercy, he has caused us to be, you'll recognize this term, born again. Born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So in baptism we see the outward expression of a spiritual reality.

I think my brothers that are going to be baptized will agree with me. By God's grace and mercy, the old Lowell died. And the old P .J. died. And the old Sam died. And the old Shane died. And the old Steve and Amy.

And the brothers and sisters in Christ in this room, we died, dead to sin. And Paul says in verse 6 of Romans 6 that they were crucified, that we were crucified with Christ. We have been rescued from our former manner of life, our sinful lifestyle, our sinful choices, our sin-filled hearts, by the crucifixion of Christ and by our union with him in that crucifixion.

When we think about the word baptism, we don't get a very graphic view in our mind. Usually if I say, oh, we're having a baptism today, immediately everyone pictures a ceremony. They might have an incorrect view of that ceremony.

It might be a priest sprinkling water on a baby or some other iteration of that. But in Christ's day and in Paul's day, the word baptism had a very graphic meaning. It had almost a violent connotation.

And this is what I mean. That word baptizo, that's where we get our English word baptism, means to submerge or to immerse in water. Picture a sinking ship or someone being drowned in the water. We're not doing that today, by the way.

But someone being drowned in the water. And Christ even, if you're familiar with your New Testament, referred to his death as baptism twice, in Mark 10, 38, and then again in Luke 12, 50. In Luke 12, 50, listen to how Christ looked forward to his baptism.

He says, I have a baptism, a baptizo, to be baptized with. And how great is my distress until it is accomplished. If anyone knows about the Jewish historian Josephus, he described the destruction of Jerusalem in this way.

He said, the crowds flooded Jerusalem. Literally, they baptized Jerusalem. And they wrecked the city, he said. Baptism gives us a picture, not of the destruction of the good parts of a believer's life, but the destruction of the sin, the power of sin, the power of the flesh in the believer's life.

When we see our brothers go into the water, that is what's being represented. They have died to sin. And if you're a believer in Christ, you have died to sin. Paul says, you have died, now consider yourself dead to sin.

And not only did we die, but we've been raised, it says, to newness of life. We've been given new life. And not just new life, but eternal life. Life forever. He's given us new desires. Anyone who's been born again by the Spirit of God knows this experience.

He's given us new desires, a new appetite for the things of God, for the Word of God. I'm thinking of the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

That makes no sense if you've never been born again. But if you have, it makes complete sense. He's given us a new power in the Holy Spirit. He's given us a new relationship with God in the Gospel. We're not simply a refurbished version of our old selves when Christ makes us a new creature.

We're brand new in Christ. It's not like when you smash your iPhone and then you get the screen replaced. It's new, altogether new. All the deficiencies gone. Now, does that mean that we're perfect? Of course not.

We walk in humility, and we know that we still are waging war against this old man that pops up his head from time to time. But the great reality is this. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 .17, he says,. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. And when these men pass through the waters of baptism, they're declaring in one sense with the Apostle Paul, you guys tell me if you disagree. I don't think you do, but I believe what you're saying with the Apostle Paul emphatically is this.

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, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. The believer puts on Christ, and we see that image in baptism.

I remember hearing a story about a man. I guess I said there were no illustrations. I have one. I remember hearing the story of a man who experienced this reality. It was in the 1700s or 1800s. He was the town drunk.

He was known around the town for being the most debaucherous man in that place. And somehow, we don't know how, but God saved him. He heard the gospel. He saw his depravity. He put his faith in Jesus Christ, and God made him a new creature.

And he didn't know how he could communicate this to other people. And so he went to the town undertaker, and he rented a hearse. This was a horse-drawn hearse. And he loaded a coffin on the back of that hearse.

And then he got on the hearse, and he asked the undertaker to drive around town. Kids, imagine this. Riding on the roof. You know what a hearse is, right? Riding on the roof of a hearse around town. And he would say this.

That old man that you knew, he's dead.

He's died. But there's a new man in Christ. I am alive, and I'm altogether new. It's a great story. The only problem, I think, is this, that there's already a physical representation for what has happened in that man's life.

And it's called baptism. I'm dead. That old man is dead. And in Christ, I'm alive.

And I'm a new man.

Justification and the Washing Away of Sin

The next thing we see in baptism is this. The believer's justification. Number two, the believer's justification. Throughout the New Testament, we see forgiveness inseparably tied together with the act of baptism.

Now, does this mean that people are forgiven by being baptized?

No.

We were singing about that thief on the cross. He died, and yet he was with Christ that day in paradise. But what it does mean is this, that baptism shows that a man or a woman has responded to the gospel message, and they have, in fact, been freely and fully forgiven of their sins.

They have been... We were singing this in the hymns today. They have been washed. They have been cleaned. Atonement has been made. The price has been paid. They have been justified by God before God. The sin that once separated them from God is gone, and there's now only peace and righteousness and reconciliation and fellowship to be enjoyed with the creator of the universe.

We see Paul's use of this imagery in Acts 2, verse 16. If you want to go there with me, Acts 2, 16. When he shared his testimony, he was sharing his testimony with the Roman Tribune and the Jews, and as he's doing this, he recounts his exchange with Ananias, who came to him after his conversion, or maybe just at the time of his conversion, I should say.

And in Acts 2, 16, he recounts Ananias' exhortation to him. He says this. Ananias told him,.

And now why do you wait?

What's keeping you?

What's holding you back? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. Here we see baptism. We see faith in Christ that's calling on his name, calling on Christ's name, and we see the washing away of sins.

In this one verse, and in many others, if you know the Bible, we see the solution to humanity's greatest existential problem. It's not war. It's not political corruption. It's not global warming. It's not COVID.

Humanity's greatest existential problem is that God is good, and we are not, that God is holy, and that we have sinned against that God, that God is righteous, and we are wretched, and that we are accountable to God.

Our greatest problem is our sin. But when a man or a woman is baptized, they publicly declare that they have seen their sin, that they have become aware of their filthy lives before a holy God, and that they have called upon the name of Jesus.

And I'm sure if we were to ask our friends here, when you called upon the name of Jesus, what did you get? You got an answer. You got an answer. In Romans 5, verse 6, while we were still weak, at the right time, just the right time in history, not a day early and not a day late, Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved by him through the wrath of God?

Jesus Christ didn't come into the world to condemn the world. There are many people that aren't Christians that don't understand this, but Christ didn't come to condemn you, but to save the world. But unlike every religion, as I pointed out, he has not given us an ethic or a moral to follow.

That wouldn't be enough to satisfy a holy God. No, Jesus died in our place. He took the wrath that we deserve so that all of us who look upon him by faith, who call on his name, would be saved completely, forever, to the uttermost.

A free gift to be received by grace alone through faith alone. On the cross, some people think that Jesus dreaded the idea of being on the cross and having his hands and feet nailed and having the whips upon his back.

That is not the primary thing that Christ was concerned about leading up to the crucifixion. On the cross, Jesus bore our sin. He bore our guilt. He bore our shame. He took everything that we deserve for our sin.

He took as our substitute. Note that word, our substitute. He took our punishment and in exchange, as Steve had pointed out already today, he gave us his righteousness. Theologians call that penal substitutionary atonement.

Paul sheds light on that in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21.

He says,.

For our sake, for the sake of our brothers, for the sake of us believers, for our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. If you're like me, you've heard this before and maybe the luster has worn off, but he became sin on your behalf.

Became it. On the cross. Not like other views of the atonement would say to show you how much he loves you or to pay off the devil. No, he became sin on your behalf that he might engage in what we call the great exchange.

Your filth for his righteousness. The Puritan Thomas Watson said, God does not justify because we are worthy, but he justifies us,.

Or sorry,.

But in justifying us, he makes us worthy. When Sam, Lowell, and P .J. get into that water, that is what they will be demonstrating. The great exchange played out before our eyes. Their filthy rags washed away, not for a day, not for a week, not for a month, but forever.

Gone forever. Think about that. Forgiveness forever. Eternal life forever. Washed away forever in exchange for Christ's endless riches of righteousness. In 10 billion years, kids, you guys are celebrating your 10th birthdays,.

11th birthdays, 9th birthdays.

In Christ, you'll be celebrating your 999th billion year of life and you're going to be dwelling there in the riches of Christ's righteousness one day for an eternity. Next in baptism, we see the believer's admission into the body of Christ.

In the Bible, there's not a single account of someone going home and baptizing themselves in their bathtub or somewhere else like that. And there's no reason for that, or there is a reason for that, excuse me, baptism is a public ordinance, an outward display to self and to others.

It is a communal activity that recognizes a person's admission into the church universal and into the church local. In baptism, the believer says, not only have I been made new, not only have I been justified, but they say I have been admitted into the ecclesia, the church, the ecclesia, the called out ones of God.

I am gone. I'm done with the world and I'm a member of Christ's body. Paul taught this in 1 Corinthians 12, 12. He says, For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is for Christ.

For in one spirit, hear this, we were all baptized into one body. Jews and Greeks, slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one spirit. We don't have time to go there, but if you want to write it down.

And look at it later,.

Galatians 3, 26 -29. He says something very similar. In the new covenant community of God, there is no distinction between race, ethnicity, citizenship, political affiliation, social or economic status.

All of those dividing lines are erased. They're done away with. And in Christ, we are one family. That passage in Galatians speaks to this. We are the sons and daughters of God. We are Abraham's offspring by faith.

We are heirs of God according to promise. In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us there is one body and one spirit.

As you were called.

To one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all. And so when we see our brothers again go into that water, we should rejoice and acknowledge their membership into the body of Christ.

The very body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And lastly, number four, we see the believer's deliverance from God's judgment. Those first three points are relatively well known, but very few people know about this fourth point simply because it comes from a challenging passage to interpret.

But let's go there. 1 Peter 3, verse 18. 1 Peter 3, 18. Peter writes this. For Christ also suffered once for sins, one time, the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God. That's that penal substitutionary atonement again.

Being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. This is where it gets hard 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.

Okay, pay attention there. If I've lost you, they prepared the ark and eight persons were brought safely through water. Stay with me there. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you 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.

This is one of the most controversial passages in the Bible. But what does it mean? In a nutshell,.

It means this,.

That just as Noah and his family were delivered through the waters of judgment, safe inside the ark, tucked away in the ark, while the world around them perished, when we see these men in the baptismal behind us pass through the water and pass safely through the water to go down and to come back up and alive, we are seeing a picture of them passing through God's judgment, kept safe in Christ, and coming out on the other side unscathed.

Wayne Grudem, he has a great commentary. He says it better than I could say it. He says this, those who go down into the waters of baptism really are going down into the waters of judgment and death, death that they deserve.

We're under no illusions. Death that they deserve from God for their sins.

But, but,.

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.

Because Christ died on the cross and bore the wrath of God and was buried and raised on the third day in union with him, not only do you go down into the water, but you come back up and Christ is your shield.

There is no longer,.

Believers,.

I want to speak to you specifically, I'll say this as a fact, and you can think in your mind if it's true, there is no longer any fearful expectation of judgment for the Christian. The perfect love of Jesus Christ.

Has,.

Or maybe I should say should, expel all fear of judgment from the believer's heart. Christ dealt with it all.

When we see those guys go in the water.

And come back up alive, it's going to be no harder for them to do that than for us to come into the presence of God with the merit of Christ. Not with our own merit, but with the merit of Christ. Romans 8 .1.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 6 .5,. I'm just rapid firing here. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

2 Timothy 4 .8. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord Jesus Christ, sorry, the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day. That's Paul talking to Timothy.

He's saying there's this crown of righteousness and the Lord, the righteous judge, is going to award that to me on the day of his coming or on the day that I come to him. But it doesn't finish there. He says,.

And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.

All.

Who have loved his appearing. When these men go into the water and they come back out in peace, unharmed, and happy, and we rejoice with them and we should rejoice with them. That is a picture of us going before judgment.

We will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, but we do not possess the merit to pass that judgment. Christ does. And we need to have peace and assurance and faith in what Christ has accomplished.

So those are the four points. If you've been paying attention, you might see that baptism paints a three-dimensional portrait of the person and the work and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Think about it, if you've written it down for a second.

Baptism displays the greatest event in all of human history, that over 2 ,000 years ago, Jesus died and was buried and then was raised from the grave to atone for our sins. That's past. Distant past. Baptism displays the believer's past experience of regeneration at the time of their conversion.

He made you a new creature. Baptism displays the believer's present justification, justified before a righteous God. Baptism displays our present communion with one another and with God as his bride, the church.

Baptism.

Looks forward.

To that day when we will pass through the torrential fire. God's not going to judge the earth again with water. He's going to judge it with fire. And we will pass through the torrential fire of God's judgment safely in Christ, unscathed, untouched, to enjoy eternity with him forever and ever.

Baptism is a picture of the gospel and it's a picture of what we might call the gospel life. Life lived in light of Christ. And so these are the realities that we are going to be celebrating today as we see our brothers through.

Hopefully this enriches your experience of this ordinance as we watch and as our brothers participate. And I'll just finish with this. If you have never experienced these realities, if this sounds completely foreign to you, there's a good likelihood you've come with some of the men that are being baptized or you're here visiting.

Talk to those men that you've come with or talk to one of us. Our exhortation to you is going to be the same one that Ananias exhorted to Paul. What are you waiting for? Repent. Believe in Christ and be baptized for the washing away of your sins.

Calling on his name. So brothers and sisters, call on his name. And if you haven't called on his name, call on his name. Let's pray.