WWUTT 2603 Philip Baptizes the Etheopian Eunuch (Acts 8:36-40)

Philip comes across an Ethiopian eunuch who has been reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip explains to him that Isaiah was talking about Christ, and now the eunuch wants to be baptized in Christ when we understand the text.

The Eunuch’s Reading and Philip’s Gospel Explanation

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of Acts, we're finishing up chapter 8 today. We've been reading about Philip, who was preaching in Samaria, and then he's encountered this Ethiopian eunuch on a road to Gaza.

He shares the gospel with the eunuch, and now the eunuch asks him if he can be baptized. So let me pick up reading in verse 36. We'll go through verse 40. Hear the word of the Lord. And as they went along the road, they came to some water.

And the eunuch said, Look, water, what prevents me from being baptized? And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

And he ordered the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.

But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through, he kept proclaiming the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea. And this is the last we will hear of Philip until we get to Acts chapter 21, and it appears there as if he settled in this place that the Lord relocated him to, and even had a family because we read of Philip's daughters there.

But we'll consider that when we get to Acts 21. In the meantime, we've been reading this account of Philip on a road from Jerusalem to Gaza. And as I had said to you yesterday, this was a desert road, seldom traveled by anybody.

Philip may not have on his own decided he needed to be on that road to share the gospel with anyone. But this road was important to this eunuch because being from Ethiopia, he was having to go back to Egypt.

And this road going southwest to Gaza would then take him into Egypt and then south from there into Ethiopia. The Lord, by his providence, had ordained that Philip would be on this road so that he could encounter the eunuch and share the gospel with him and so be saved.

The eunuch was reading a scroll from the prophet Isaiah, and he asked Philip to explain it to him. Philip shared with him the gospel of Jesus Christ. And now we're picking up the story here in verse 36, as they're continuing on down the road.

Now, nothing in the story, in the narrative as we read it, says that the eunuch was stopped in his chariot, but just that he was traveling along in his chariot. It said back up in verse 28, he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah.

Returning would seem to indicate that he's traveling. Sitting in his chariot is his posture in the chariot. And reading the prophet Isaiah is what he's doing in that chariot. And the spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot.

So as the chariot is coming or whatever it is, in whatever way, Philip has come upon this chariot. He runs up, that's what it says in verse 30, Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, do you understand what you are reading?

So we don't get exactly every little bit of detail that you would probably be used to reading if you were reading a novel or something like that. But we have enough details here that Philip identifies the man reading Isaiah and helps him to understand Isaiah, even pointing out that Isaiah 53 points to Christ.

So he shares the gospel of Christ with the eunuch and the eunuch comes to believe. So Philip has been sitting with the eunuch as they have been traveling, because what we have in verse 36 is as they went along down the road.

So they're traveling together and Philip is explaining the gospel to this man and they come upon some water. Now, somewhere in Philip's explanation of the gospel, he talks about baptism, because the eunuch has now been prompted to say, what prevents me from being baptized?

It is clear that the eunuch understands what baptism is and what it symbolizes.

Look, water.

What prevents me from being baptized? Like what would stop me from being baptized? Can I be? That's essentially the question he's asking Philip. Can I be baptized? Now, verse 37, and I teased this out yesterday, verse 37 is not in the earliest manuscripts.

And so as I'm reading here from the legacy translation, this verse is put in brackets indicating that it's not in the earliest manuscripts. You may have a Bible, like say, if you're reading from the English Standard Version, verse 37 isn't there at all.

It goes from verse 36 to 38, and you'll see verse 37 in the footnotes at the bottom. Or you may have a translation that will have some sort of marker there on verse 37. And in the footnotes, it will tell you that this verse did not appear in the earliest manuscripts.

But most modern translations are going to alert the reader to the fact that this verse was probably not written by Luke. In fact, I think we can definitively say it was not written by Luke. It does have a very early tradition, though.

This verse does show up in references from other theologians, other early church fathers in the late first century, early second century, somewhere around there. So it does have early attestation, but most likely it was somebody who needed to add some sort of expression or statement concerning a baptism tradition.

And so what did a person need to know in order to be baptized? So like somebody else is asking the question, just like the eunuch is asking here, can I be baptized? What prevents me from being baptized?

And so there became an early oral tradition within the church that you must believe with all your heart in who Jesus is. And then the eunuch answers, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And so that's what a person who was going to be baptized should respond with.

That's probably the origin of this phrase. Now, Erasmus, who had compiled the Textus Receptus, that's the the document that it's the base text that the King James Bible comes from. OK, so Erasmus, when he had put the Textus Receptus together, he admitted in his own research that he could not find in any Greek manuscript.

This verse that we're reading here in Acts 837, Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Even Erasmus acknowledged that verse does not appear in any of the earliest manuscripts.

So when you have a King James only is, for example, who will make the criticism that modern translations omit verses from the Bible, but the King James Bible preserves every single verse, right? Well, the person who wrote the text that the King James Bible is translated from, the person who arranged that text shouldn't say he wrote it necessarily because he wasn't writing scripture.

He was just translating it into another translation. But anyway, he takes manuscript evidence, compiles it into the Textus Receptus, and even he said that verse is not in the earliest manuscript evidence.

What he was able to find was the verse written in a margin. So someone had taken it from the margin and had inserted it in the text. And that had happened before chapter and verse assignments were given to, I mean, basically the Bible.

Every book of the Bible given a chapter and a verse marker, which had happened before Erasmus had compiled the Textus Receptus. So the verse that we know as Acts 8 .37 was not written by Luke, as there's no evidence that it could have been written by Luke.

It is something that someone wrote in a margin, like I said, probably some sort of baptism confession that eventually wandered its way over into the text itself. Now, I think it was John Gill. Hang on, let me look at my notes here.

John Gill made a reference to Theodore Beza, who was the one of the early Protestant reformers. And Beza said he also said that this verse does not appear in the earliest manuscripts, particularly in the Alexandrian manuscripts.

But Beza said it ought by no means be expunged since it contains so clear confession of faith required of persons to be baptized, which was used in the truly apostolic times. Now, I honestly disagree with Beza there.

So Beza is saying that it shouldn't be omitted. I have enough of a desire to see the original text preserved. And when we know that was not in the earliest manuscript, then it is right for us to omit it.

Now, I'm reading from the legacy standard here. And, of course, like I said in the legacy, it's put in brackets. It hasn't been removed. The English standard removes it. I would still desire that even the English standard version would include it in the footnotes.

So I think it's right that they exclude the verse from the main text because Luke didn't write it. It was not a divinely inspired statement. It's a true statement. It's just not what the Spirit gave Luke to write.

And so in the interest of preserving the truth of Scripture and what was originally written, I think it's right that it's removed but still included in the footnotes because somebody is surely going to be reading that and going, why does this jump from verse 36 to verse 38?

So you see the verse in the footnotes, verse 37, and it being said that it doesn't appear in the earliest manuscript tradition. But I would also hope that such a person that identifies that then goes and investigates why.

Why is it OK that a verse would be omitted even though it would be included down in the footnotes? And of course, the reason for us would be that we want to preserve what the original text actually said.

What did the Spirit inspire this author to say to his original audience? And we don't deviate from that or try to help the author along or anything like that. It does appear in verse 36 as if the question goes unresolved.

So the eunuch says, look, Water, what prevents me from being baptized? So I could see some overzealous scribe looking at that and going, well, Philip never answers the question. So I'm going to put an answer in there that answers the question.

And he draws from the baptism tradition that was being practiced in the church at that time. So Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may. And the eunuch answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

Maybe they had that exchange, but regardless of if they did or not, if that was part of their dialogue, Luke did not write that down. So for preserving the original manuscript, we omit verse 37. However, it's still understood, as we have in Romans 10, it's not to say we're taking something out of the Bible that's really important and should be included there because we read in Romans 10, 8, what does it say?

The word is near to you in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith, which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Is that not exactly what we're reading here in Acts 8, 37, when some scribe had overzealously included words that Luke didn't actually write, but it's still in keeping with exactly what we read in Romans 10, 8 and 9.

If you believe with all your heart, you may. Yes, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Romans 10, 9. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead.

You will be saved. So this is somebody having written down that the eunuch was following through with that, making a confession, believing in his heart that Jesus was raised from the dead. We don't have to have the narrative explicitly say that to us.

But nothing is being taken out of the text when we remove that nothing, nothing important is being omitted, for we find such a statement elsewhere in Romans chapter 10. So the eunuch, verse 38, orders the chariot to stop again.

They were traveling along together and they both went down into the water, Philip, as well as as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. Now, I've seen a commentary somewhere. I cannot remember where I read this, but this was a number of years ago.

The person who was writing the commentary was either relating some belief that was held by somebody else or he was postulating this himself. I don't remember the commentary clear enough to know which angle he was taking on it or the way that he was presenting it.

But basically, the commentator, is that what we will call him? Not the commentarian. Anyway, the commentator was saying that this miracle or sorry, the water miraculously appeared there. So it wasn't just that they were happening along and, oh, look, water, but rather as they were going on this desert road, because remember, the text was sure to tell us that this was a desert road back up in verse 36 as they were going along in this arid place, unlikely to ever find any water.

Suddenly they come across some. And this was a miracle of God to create this oasis that the eunuch and the Philip would go down into and Philip would baptize the eunuch by the providence of God, by his miraculous hand, to make all of these things come to be.

Now, that's purely speculative. Nothing in the text tells us that water just miraculously appears there, but just that they were going along and came across some water. So don't read more into the text than is actually there.

But I pass that along in case maybe you have heard something like that, too. Didn't I hear somebody say that the water just miraculously appeared? It's reading into the text something that's not there.

And it's an unnecessary detail. They just simply came across some water and Philip baptized the eunuch as he desired to be baptized. And so by his baptism, he makes a profession himself that he has been buried with Christ and risen again to walk in newness of life.

As we read in Romans 6, 4, 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.

So the baptism itself symbolizing that we have been buried with Christ and risen to walk in newness of life. The whole idea of being immersed, submerged in water is that we are being buried and then coming up out of the water.

We have been raised to new life. And this has been the case for this eunuch so that he even goes on his way rejoicing as we continue to read verse thirty nine. When they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.

This eunuch now, by his own profession, was a follower of Jesus Christ. I've had some ask me before about baptism. Is it necessary to have a group of people witness your baptism? What about the eunuch?

He didn't have any witnesses at his baptism. No, he very clearly had witnesses. As a matter of fact, he probably had a whole caravan and group of people who were traveling with him because he was such an important person who served in the court of Candace.

It really wasn't a safe thing for a person to travel by themselves. Remember the story of the that that Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. He talked about a man who was on the road to Jericho and some robbers beat him and left him for dead.

Walking along a road like that by yourself is is is risky. So this eunuch would not have been traveling by himself. As a matter of fact, we read that he ordered the chariot to stop. So somebody else is driving this chariot.

It wasn't like one of those Egyptian chariots you've probably seen in the movies where it's just kind of a cart in the back and it's being pulled by one horse or two. And the eunuch is just kind of, you know, happening along.

And here comes Philip. He was in some kind of a caravan. And this chariot was probably rather large. And so that it was being it was being pulled by horses and somebody piloting those horses. That was not the eunuch, because he was reading the scroll from Isaiah.

He was taking the opportunity to get some reading in while they were on such a long journey. So there would have been many witnesses to what had just happened with this eunuch. They had watched him go down into the water and Philip baptize him.

And then after that happened, Philip is snatched away. We have that parallel again with the Elijah story in Second Kings chapter one. But while Elijah was taken up into heaven, Philip is relocated to Azotus.

So as as the eunuch continues on his way on this desert road. Philip goes like 30 miles away or something to Azotus, and and then he continues along. He's placed in a spot by the spirit of God to be able to continue along and share the gospel of Christ in all the cities that he goes through until he comes to Caesarea.

And he will be a servant to the Apostle Paul coming up a little bit later on, as we'll read of him again in Acts. Now, we have read about teleportation before in the Bible, and I'm not just talking about Elijah being snatched up away into heaven, being carried away on a whirlwind, but actually being teleported.

Remember, according to John's gospel, when Jesus came walking on the water to his disciples in the boat, the moment that he got into the boat with them, they were instantly immediately transported to the bank, as John records.

So Jesus gets into the boat and they're on the bank of of the Sea of Galilee. So that was Jesus miraculously teleporting himself and the disciples to that place. And then we've also seen how Jesus will appear and disappear in a room after his resurrection.

So we've read of occasions like this in the Bible before. It's not like that should be terribly shocking when we come upon it in Acts chapter eight. But the spirit of the Lord, by his power, relocates Philip from this spot to another place where he can continue on reading or sorry, rather preaching the gospel.

Baptism as Profession and Symbol of New Life

My friends, it is upon each and every one of us to be baptized. We give a testament to the transformation that has happened in our heart by the Holy Spirit when we are baptized in water, immersed, risen to walk in newness of life, showing to others that I am in Christ Jesus.

And this is what he has done for me. He died for me and rose from the dead. So likewise, I am dead and risen anew in Christ and desire to live my life in faithful service to him. May that be the testimony, the confession of each and every Christian, each and every believer and follower of Jesus.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read. And I pray that we understand what it means now that we have been baptized in Christ. What does this mean for my life? What does it mean to walk in newness of life?

Help me put off sin and every weight which so easily entangles and run with endurance the race that is set before me, fixing my eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of my faith. It's in Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

Podcast Outro and Upcoming Schedule

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.