The Message of Baptism — Rolfe Barnard

Indeed, our father, the woman who suffered the hands of the physician, she said, If I can just touch the hem of his garment, he'll fix me up. And if men and women could touch the Lord with a touch of faith, a touch of committal to him, of utter surrender to him, rejoined to him, married to him, united to him, in a link that all hell can never dissolve.

And we bring our own hearts afresh to you tonight, and we bring these dear people, and we pray for a touch of the Holy Ghost as men reach out by faith to the present living Christ who's here in our midst.

In Christ's name we pray. Tonight I want to do something I hope that since I've been led of the Lord, I anticipated Wednesday night. We do not have so many visitors. I've been thanking God for them. But unless revival breaks out, most of our visitors will be the prayer meeting crowd in their own churches, you know, and we thank God for them.

The Message of Baptism and Identification with Christ

I want to have a heart-to-heart talk and a challenge with the 13th Street Baptist Church. I want to speak to you tonight on the message of baptism. The message of baptism. In the book of 1 Corinthians 10, we have a key to what Christian baptism is, I think.

In 1 Corinthians 10, we begin reading at verse 1. Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, now that all our fathers were all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud, and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink.

For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. In verse 2, they were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud, and in the sea. There has never been a time, listen now, there has never been a time when the people of God have not been directed by God to come under the leadership of a man.

In Moses' day, they had to be baptized, they had to be identified with Moses as the God-appointed leader of his work in that hour. Therein lies the key, I think, to what Christian baptism is. In our day, baptism is a picture, and if it's true, if your baptism is true, it pictures a truth of your being identified with and committed to the leadership or the lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the classic passage on Christian baptism, of course, it's Romans chapter 6, we find that truth blessedly taught, that we are baptized unto and into a person. That person, while he was God, and yet as the mediator between God and man, he is the man Christ Jesus.

Before we read from this sixth chapter of Romans, let me state that I'm not preaching tonight that we are saved by the act of Christian baptism, nor are we saved by the particular form, if you wish to have it that way of baptism, but we are saved by the message of baptism.

And I believe that unless we're ready to give up the sponge, that there isn't a congregation meeting together in America that doesn't need to come back to the message of baptism and start all over again.

For I have found myself that if I cannot go off and back to the time when I believe I was spiritually baptized, and start again, start again with the impetus and the first love that is always there, if a person is really truly baptized, I found we've just about lost the message of Christian baptism.

I wouldn't argue with anybody about the form. I had the honor of this last year of seeing God work in an unusual way. I see very seldom the Spirit of God make over a congregation, but it looked like it did there.

Many, many people, I believe, came into the Lord's shelter, and that church practiced tridentine baptism to baptize people three times forward, and they also practiced foot washing, but it didn't bother me.

They didn't bother my message. They heard me gladly, and I knew it not enough to try to straighten them out on their form of baptism. For to me, I'd rather be sprinkled and have it mean what baptism means than to be immersed and go to hell.

And I'm interested in this because there's something in me that I can't quite reconcile myself to giving up. I still believe that I may see America in the throes of an outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and I still believe that a sovereign God may yet come to our rescue, and if He don't, we're gone.

Pour out His Spirit and see men and women really serving the Lord. See men and women crying out to God, O God, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me whole. The message of baptism, it is significant. I honestly believe that every gospel truth in the Bible is contained in baptism and the Lord's supper.

I honestly do. And it is a tragedy that there's something to argue about now, and sort of a rope to go through, instead of meaning for men and women what they meant in the New Testament, and what under God they must mean for us again, if our testimony is to be believed in this darkened past.

Romans 6 and Baptism into Christ’s Death

Let's read here again this very familiar passage of Scripture where we are taught that Christian baptism, like the baptism in the sea and the clouds, where people were baptized into the leadership of Moses, here again we're baptized into identification with and under the leadership of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul says, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. Then he asked a question that admits of no answer. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

An impossibility, according to Paul. Don't you know, said he, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death.

That like, and we have to have this experience, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. But we have to be baptized into his death before we can walk in newness of life.

Our sense, and this is the Greek on it, it's not a question mark, but sense, in view of the fact that we've been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

If we're plumb dead, then we'll have a real resurrection. And if we've been baptized into death, then we can have the experience of walking in newness of life since one follows the other. Verse six, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

For he that is dead, thank God, is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him.

For in that he died, he died unto sin once. For then that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Baptism as a Public Profession of Faith

There are two things about Christian baptism that are signally important today. And the first thing is this, the gospel is that Christ died for sinners, and that upon savingly believing in him, they become identified with him in all that he is, and all that he did, and all that he ever shall do.

The article of baptism is simply a picture of the baptism of the Spirit by which we are made a part of his very flesh, and his bone, and his body, and where we are absolutely become one in the sight of God with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as far as I'm able to find out, and by some study, the only way on earth the New Testament recognizes that a person can publicly profess that he has been joined to and identified with the Lord Jesus Christ is by baptism.

Men cannot see your faith, but men can see your baptism. In the days when the New Testament was written, men were required to stand upon their hind legs and confess the Lordship of Christ, whatever the consequences were.

On the day of Pentecost, it wouldn't do for the Jews who under their leaders had publicly crucified Christ to have a little private experience and say they committed themselves to Christ. But they had to save themselves from the act of that awful generation, and the only way they could do it was so that men would know which side they were on.

And so Peter told them to repent and to baptize everyone of their father and nation of sin. In the day of the future, although I'm awfully weak on prophecy, I think the day is coming when that breath that is already upon us shall be personified, and when the whole world will have gone off after the Antichrist, the man who shall come in his name, and those awful days will be so terrible there won't be a Christian left on earth, except they be shortened it for the elect day.

And in that time it'll not be sufficient if they have a little private meeting with the pastor and receive the Lord Jesus Christ. And that day a man will have come out in the open, for the gospel then will be, fear God and honor him.

And the emphasis is that you don't fear the Antichrist and you don't bow down to him, and men will pay for their Christian profession then by refusing to receive the mark of the beast, whatever that is, and refusing to bow to him.

And he'll kill them, and we'll have a lot of martyrs then. There's never been a time, my friends, when there's any way on God's earth for a fellow to get saved without dying. There never has been a way a man could get saved as long as he stayed alive.

He has to die. He has to die. God helplessly has to die, and baptism is a picture of this crisis experienced by men enter in to their identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. Baptism is the way one publicly lets the world know initially that he now belongs to another, that he's identified with the other, and that he's ready to share the faith that this world dished out to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I wish I knew how to preach this. I wish I knew how to challenge people in this day of easy confession and easy believism. In the book of Acts, Acts 1 and 8, he shall be my witnesses, and we've tried to change it, but it means he shall be my martyrs, and this generation, if we're faithful to you, will have to tell you that if you accept the Lord Jesus Christ in the right sense of that word, accept, if you come under the hymn, it means that when they start killing Christians, you'll stand up and say, well, they're killing Christians.

I'm one. Kill me too. Kill me too. Did you know, my friends, that the communists have killed? While you've been enjoying a nice little time over here in America, and we're all living like kings, did you know that the Russians, the communists, have killed?

In the land of John Hus, Bohemia, there isn't a Christian. All been murdered by the communists in the last five years. Did you know in the capital of Morocco, a city of two and a half million people, there are only two people who claim to be Christians, and they keep it to themselves, because in Morocco, a Christian can't get a job.

A Christian can do no commerce or no traffic. Did you know, ladies and gentlemen, while America's running, did you know that streets are sealed by the Russian monster, most of them professing Christians?

Did you know while we sit here in this booth, that mankind of the dead ought to be a martyr, to be a martyr. And I tell you, my friend, God's no respecter of persons, and it ought to get out on us that this business of standing up in the act of baptism and saying, God, the world to know that I belong to Christ now, that unless you're lying about it, you're saying, come on, world, when you go to shooting at Christians, I'm one too.

Christian Commitment and the Cost of Discipleship

You've heard the story of the Roman general who was brought back to Rome with his victories, and the emperor put on a day of holiday to honor the great general. And the general found himself in the Colosseum, and pretty soon they let out down there in the Colosseum some helpless victims, and the general turned to the emperor and said, who are they?

And he said, they're some of these Christians. And he said, what are you going to do with them? Well, we're going to feed them to the lions. And the Roman general stood up and said, sir, if today's the day you're feeding Christians to the lions, feed me too.

I too am a Christian, oh, for some of that iron. I come to say a second thing that's important about baptism in this day, when everybody's a professing Christian, and the question is, does anybody do or know anything about it in this country, what it means to know the Lord?

Taking the Lord’s Name Without Reality

I come to say that about the worst crime and the worst sin the Bible knows anything about is the awful sin of taking the name of the Lord thy God in name. And that's not talking about getting down here on the street and cussing as we call it, that's bad enough.

That's talking about the higher crime. Listen to me, or going around here saying I belong to the Lord. I'm a product of the power of God. I'm one of God's conquests. Look at me, I'm a miracle. I'm a miracle.

I'm somebody the Lord has changed, and he keeps on changing. Look at me, I pass from death unto life. Look at me, by the grace of God, I'm what I am. The worst sin decided now is to go into that blighted land and to parade before a heathen world as a product of the grace and power of God.

Unless you are, unless you are in downtime, time worse than breaking up a man's home, or getting drunk and burning up the city, is the high crime. Stand before a hostile world that hates everything that's high and holy, and say I'm a Christian.

Instead of trying to get people to make that profession, for 30 years I've been trying to get them not to, unless it's so, unless it is so. Oh, how serious this business of being baptized. Imagine that scene on the day of Pentecost.

Hadn't been but a little while, 50 days, until in that self-sacrificing to die, there's a man by the name of Peter, set their hands and plunged into their hearts, out of the universe, and they said it's our move now.

This is a miracle of miracles, that the only leader of this world, they said, and Peter said, well if you know what you, by your baptism, that we were wronged, and we come under the leadership of that one, the lordship of that one, whom we just recently crucified.

Don't you know that everybody that did that, those 3 ,000 souls, bless God they got stabbed in this heart so much, they're willing to be potential martyrs? Why, to all intents and purposes, everybody that professed to be a follower and a believer in Jesus Christ on the day of Pentecost, they'd been taken out and crucified too.

Had not been for the providence of God. What I'm trying to say is this, that baptism in the New Testament wasn't something to argue with the Church of Christ people about. Baptism wasn't something to just go through the motions.

Baptism was a man or woman in whom a revolution had taken place. Because open confession of faith in Christ's New Testament days was confirmed, that it would cause the Pharisees to raise up and set him about, making havoc of the Church of the name of God.

It meant something then, and the Epistle was not just correct doctrine, if you let me say it. Nothing else is the need of this hour, except some men and women. Expression, identification, is vouchsafed by changed lives.

Don't you take the name of the Lord, thy God in name. Don't you do it. Under God, don't you. Better to go to hell without having to pay in hell for the awful crime of going about under false pretenses.

Ladies and gentlemen, there can be no salvation apart from inward change. And unless you've experienced an inward change, don't go to hell and have to pay for the awful crime of chained claiming that he, with all that power, changed you.

Unless he did. Unless he did. Don't take the name of the Lord, thy God in name. And the way we take the name of the Lord in the New Testament is in the act of baptism. We say, I belong to him now. I'm a product of his grace now.

See it? That means something. In the name of God, it means something. It means I don't wear my own clothing anymore. It means I don't belong to myself anymore. It means that the good of almighty God is glorified.

Everybody who takes the name of the Lord, thy God, wonderful if you didn't take it and say the truth, it's criminal to make a pretense about it. I was traveling along the state of Alabama years ago. I forget the circumstances, but I lost my road.

I was near my old home. And I was by myself going somewhere. And I saw an old farmer plowing a Georgia stock, whether you Kentuckians know what that is or not. The one mule plow. And I stopped my car and waited till he pulled up at the road at the end.

And I said, mister, I'm lost. I'm trying to get to such and such a place. And he told me how to find the way. And then he won't rest any time. I told the neighbor, he said, what's your name, bud? I say, my name is Barnard, Ralph Barnard.

He scratched his head a little bit and spit out a big amber juice, a pack of juice, and scratched his head some more. And he said, Barnard, you wouldn't know a fellow named Jim Barnard, would you? I said, he's my daddy.

Never will forget to live to be a million years. The old farmer scratched his head again. And his farm, his abrupt farm away, he said, I never saw you before, bub. But if Jim Barnard's your daddy, you're bound to be all right.

He wasn't bragging on me. He was bragging on my daddy. Oh, my soul, if God's your heavenly father, through your being united in his family through faith, in his redeeming son, you're bound to be all right if you join to him, if he's your father.

Baptism as Death to the Old Life

Baptism in the New Testament means identified with Christ in his death. I pass over it with just a word or two. I don't want to get into theology of it. I don't think I know how. But I know this is what it means.

No, you're not. Many were baptized into Christ, were baptized into his death. I'm familiar with interpretations of it. But please, men, I can't get it into my system. I understand it a miraculous way.

God reckons that a believing sinner was actually present and in Christ when he died. But I can't quite get my teeth in that one. Here's what it does mean. And it's a challenge to us if a man has really been baptized.

And I mean that. I was what you call baptized twice when I was 10 years old. They put me under the water, and I was sincere, but I was dead wrong. When I nearly 22, I think it's done over again, and I hope that it was done right because I believe it didn't tell a lie then.

I believe it pictured this, that a crisis had happened in my experience. A crisis, ladies and gentlemen, listen to me, that settled one thing, and that is that forevermore the old life is to be reckoned as is to be entered.

I believe the new birth means, among other things, by the nature of the day died. And I believe a man that doesn't have a holy hatred for that that nailed the Son of God to the cross in all of our weakness and in our perfection, I believe a man that doesn't have a holy hatred for that which crucified the Son of God is a stranger to the saving grace of Almighty God.

I think that's what it means when it says we're baptized into his death, we're baptized into his death. A little young lady received an invitation from her friends to attend a social gathering. It happened to be a dance, and she wrote a courteous answer and thanked the friends for their thought and regretted she couldn't be there.

And she added at the close of her letter, I died last Sunday morning. What she meant was, publicly, she'd been baptized, and unless her baptism was a lie, it told the world here's one more sinner that's dead and going to reckon himself dead and going to fight the good fight against the life of sin from this day forward, from this day forward.

The word of God says, nevertheless, the foundation standeth sure. The Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone, that name is the name of the Lord, depart from iniquity, depart from iniquity. God knows we need this.

New Birth, Consecration, and Walking in Newness of Life

We've invented so many adjectives now. I go up and down the land, and I hear people talking about born-again Christians. They mean there's some other kind. And I hear them talking about separated Christians.

They mean by that there's some other kind. And I hear them talking about consecrated Christians, and I suppose they mean there's some other kind. They've forgotten the fact that Christ gave himself for us to deliver us from this present age, and that heart separation is certainly a part of salvation, and that nobody, of course, is saved unless they're born again.

And there's no such thing as a Christian who isn't consecrated to the Lord. God kept us. We've invented so many terms, and we need to just get back. If we never have another convert, and if we have to close up all of our churches, and if the unsaved in our churches get mad and throw us all out, we must punish them and love them.

And we haven't had a crisis experience whereby the lost of the old man are crucified and a new nature is given. That's right. Baptism is a picture of a man who had something happen, and the old life is behind, brother.

The New Testament keeps back. He were, he were, he were in time past, in time past. But there's been something happened, and it was a crisis when you met the Lord Jesus Christ in the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit.

And you know Him, and you felt Him, and you touched Him, and He did for you what only Christ can do. And if a man's had that experience, of course, fellas did, he can be raised. But you just can't get people to walk in newness of life unless they've died to the old life.

You can hammer at it, brother Henry, and you can fuss at it, and you can organize at it, but it just can't be done. A man's got to die before he can be raised again. And I'm not talking about life where we've got a set of rules to go by.

I'm talking about a life that's got the spirit of newness in it. Praise God, there's a lilt in the voice, there's a glory in the face, there's a joy in the heart. Bless God, there's a willingness in the spirit that comes from having been raised to a different spirit altogether.

It doesn't say we walk in newness of life, but newness of life. Baptism does either lie when you went through it, or it pictures. Here's a fellow that's had an experience with the living Christ who was dead, but thank God he's not dead now.

And through that experience, through being vitally joined to him, praise the Lord, you got a new spring in your step, and a new song in your heart, and a new joy in your soul. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

You wouldn't get mad at me if I told you this world don't give a hoot about your doctrine. They don't care. They wouldn't understand if you told them about it. They don't care. This is the day of television.

This is the day when they don't tell you about the new forward, they show you. This is the day when we must adorn the doctrine of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, by walking in newness of life. Baptism has a third message.

Baptism as Putting On Christ’s Righteousness

It's a message of putting on. In the foreign field, what we call the foreign field now, missionaries in town, they're learning that don't baptize people very quickly after they claim to be saved. They get saved over there, they've got a half a dozen wives, they're opium pokers, they just name it and they're guilty.

They've got plenty of jobs, and they don't count them as being saved until they get rid of the gods, get rid of a lot of things. And they do not let them publicly profess to be the people whom God has worked to change in until there's some evidence that a change has been wrought.

I don't know whether we'll have to come to that in this country or not, but I know one thing, brother, that this generation of converts, if we don't baptize them very quick, they'll be so deep in the hot pimple we can catch them again.

We never will. But I am saying to you that to be baptized means before a whole world to announce publicly my identification as a soldier in the army of the Lord, prepared to endure hardness for him. That's what it means.

It means to put on the uniform of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Bible language it means to be clothed in his righteous garments. And how solemn that is that never again can I parade in my own supposed righteousness.

But if I walk down the street, I'm subjecting the robe of the righteousness of Christ to the filth of this age. My soul, when I was in the army, I wore the uniform of Uncle Sam. It was understood that I was subject to the orders of the commander-in-chief.

The orders for the day were posted on the bulletin boards in every place, public place on an army camp. And men lived day by day subject to the orders of the commander for that day. And every cigarette butt that was picked up by some dentist from New York City, the butt private, was picked up in the name of and the authority of the commander of the United States.

Everything that takes place in the army is done on the authority of the one supreme commander. And everybody's subject. Everybody in the army's got a boss till you get to the president. And that chain runs down.

Oh my soul, when Ralph Barnard, years since, asked the church to baptize him in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Ghost, that is my way of saying to this old godless world, the only way I know you'd say it initially, I'm in the army of the Lord.

When a soldier walked down the street drunk, everybody in the street saw him. He is conspicuous because he had on Uncle Sam's uniform. So often one has to go back to the time when publicly he put on the uniform of the son of God.

In God's name. In God's name. Don't get it dirty. It's his good name that's at stake. If I am, I lied when I was baptized. I've been bought with a price. I've been bought with a price. Baptism has another message, the last one.

Baptism and the Christian’s Mission

When a man's baptized, scripturally, under God, we must insist on these things. He either lies when he goes through that act, or he's experienced a crisis, death to the old life, walking in a newness of life.

He knows something of significance of the fact that he's wearing another's uniform and called by another's name. Robed in another's righteousness belongs to somebody else. But deeper than all of that, as far as the deep need of this hour, when a man's scripturally baptized, listen to me, and the spear.

And then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. And he spake again the second time unto them, Peace be unto you. As has sent me, even so send I you. As God is my judge, that floor rubbled under it.

I prayed about it. I broke under it. I argued with God about it. I tried to get some interpretations to fix it so I wasn't in on that. But I had to get in on it. My Lord looked at Rothbard just as real as he looked at them, and gave an impossible statement, made a terrible statement.

It just killed me. He said, Roth, as Father has sent me, even so send I you. If you'll ever face that, honey, it'll kill you. That's awful. I argued with God about it. I said, Lord, I can't represent you like you represent the Father.

Then I got my theology out. I said, you're God. But he reminded me that everything he accomplished down here, brother, listen to me, he did as a man filled with the Spirit. You may not believe it, but Jesus Christ as a man had to earn the right to be my substitute.

And he has made perfect as a substitute for me by suffering. That's right. You know, he had to fight to keep from sinning until this blood broke out like sweat on his body. He had to pray with supplication and strong tears and crying to overcome the tempter.

And I said, Lord, you perfectly represented the Father. Why, you could see it. You've seen me. You've seen the Father. I can't represent you. And I've heard that tale of Americans. Sometimes I think I'll scream, Brother Barnard, we'll support you, but we can't do this.

I'll tell you what you can do. You knew what God called you to do. And I'll tell you what you must do. You must do it and take down your sign and put this grace in the name of Jesus Christ. I tell you, every Christian on the face of the earth was called to his own particular spot to represent, to live in Christ the instant he saved you.

That's right. He translates you from the kingdom of darkness and brought you over into the good room where he's the leader. And when you're baptized, you're signified. I got a new master now, and I got a new leader now, and I'm subject to his orders and I'm representing him in an even world.

I got some peace by taking down my Greek New Testament. I'm trying to be smart, but the English language is very poor and the Greek language was very rich. And I read that expression, as my father has sent me, even so send I you.

And I got victory. There are two Greek words. The first Greek word, as my father has sent, the Greek word there demands perfect, perfect representation. And my Lord could say, I perfectly represent my father.

I came to do his will and his whole will. I do always the things which pleases him. And then the next word, send, has a different Greek word, and it led O Rothbard in. The Lord said, you won't perfectly represent me like I perfectly represent the father, but you're all I got.

Under God, that's solemn. Ladies and gentlemen, it could well be that yonder when I meet the Lord in judgment, it could well be, I hope not, that poor Rothbard missed out that I never was in the will of God representing the Lord in the place sent me to be.

Wouldn't it be awful if I faced there everything I've ever tried to do for the Lord burned up. But I challenge you, my friends, wouldn't it be terrible if when you meet the Lord, you find that you've paraded as a false.