The Baptism of Repentance – Matthew 3:13-17

When Paul preached this sermon, he was in Antioch of Pisidia, in what is now the heart of Turkey.

There are a couple of things that are quite ironic about that fact:

First, we are talking about Turkey, which according to the CIA web-site is 99.8% Muslim today.

The other two tenths of that last percentage point are Christians and Jews.

All together that means that 99.9% of the people of Turkey are antichrist and anti-gospel.

But there was Paul preaching the Lord Jesus to a group of Jews.

Something dreadful must have happened to that country to turn it so far from the truth,

And secular history gives us a record of those events.

The second thing which I find fascinating is what he thought that these people already knew.

This morning I briefly pointed out the fact that Paul called our Saviour “Jesus.”

He didn’t cushion the intellectual blow by saying David was promised to be the grandfather of “Christ.”

He didn’t use the words “Christ” or “Messiah,” but went straight to “Jesus.”

And in the next breath he was talking about John the Baptist.

Here were people who lived about 500 miles from Judah and a couple of decades away from the death of John,

But Paul expected them to have heard about both John and the Lord Jesus.

I must assume that the Paul knew that they knew.

But how did the story of Jesus reach Antioch?

Certainly, it was through Jewish travelers and immigrants,

But I wonder how many of them were Christians?

In verse 24 as Paul was speaking about our Lord, he said of John that he …

“First preached before [Jesus’] coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.”

It’s that “baptism of repentance” or the baptism of John that I want to address this evening.

Years earlier, the Lord Jesus asked …

“The baptism of John, from when was it? From heaven, or of men?”

This was a pretty simple question, but it sent some of the Saviour’s enemies into a tizzy.

“And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him?

But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet.

And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell” (Matthew 21:25-27).

Jesus asked this question because His foes were asking Him about the source of His authority.

His response indicated that His authority came from exactly the same source as the baptism of John –

They were serving God the Father under the Lord’s banner and with His approval and authority.

I think that this dialogue shows us that John was not merely practicing some sort of previous Jewish baptism.

But that is what a lot of Protestant seminary professors have tried to say.

Some of the Jews, such as the Essenes and the Pharisees, had various kinds of ceremonial washings,

But they had nothing quite like New Testament Baptism.

And no Bible student can find baptism in the Old Testament,

No secular or religious scholar can find baptism in the Apocrypha or the writings of the Greeks.

Every honest scholar, whether liberal or conservative, has to admit that John’s baptism was not derived from any previous religious rites and ceremonies.

What he was doing out there in the wilderness of Judea was absolutely new and exciting.

And he was doing it with the permission and the commission of God.

That is an extremely important question, but the question for us is:

Was John’s baptism different from later New Testament baptism?

It is a part of Protestant theology to say there is a difference between John’s baptism and that of “the church.”

Is that really so?

John 1:6 says, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”

And later in that chapter John referred to the fact that God had sent him to BAPTIZE.

So here was a man sent by God with baptism as one of his primary responsibilities.

Although baptism is not our only responsibility, it is one of the things that marks us out as servants of God.

In other words, we are in a similar situation as that of John.

And if John’s baptism was different from our baptism, we need to figure out in what way.

Well then, was the source of John’s baptism different from ours?

Did he baptize under a DIFFERENT AUTHORITY?

As we’ve already seen he was sent and commissioned by God.

But have we also been commissioned by God?

If we believe that Jesus Christ is the 2^nd person of the Trinity, then, yes, we have the same commission.

We baptize in the Name and under the authority of the Son of God, and that means that we have divine authority.

So we have the same authority to baptize as John the Baptist.

Well then what about THE MODE of John’s baptism; was it different from ours?

No. As you know the Greek word for baptism speaks of immersion.

John immersed people in water just as the disciples did, and just as the early church immersed people.

That is one reason why his ministry was primarily out in the wilderness on the banks of the Jordan.

The manner of our baptism is no different from that of John.

Well then, did John make different PREREQUISITES than Jesus did, or the apostles did, for those he baptized?

As intimated by Paul here in Acts 13, John demanded repentance before he would immerse anyone.

Luke 3 says, “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,

Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;

Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”

As I read these words, it seems to me that John was telling his hearers that he wasn’t about to baptize anyone who didn’t give evidence of salvation.

He wanted some sort of outward expression or indication of genuine repentance.

That ought to be the case yet today.

I have had people come pleading for me to baptize them,

But with reluctance and lots of second guessing, I have refused,

Because I hadn’t yet seen the outward indication of spiritual life in those people.

When I study the New Testament I almost always look at the comments of A.T. Robertson.

I have no proof whether or not the man was a Baptist, but I tend to think that he was.

He was clearly a great Greek scholar, and he has always seemed honest in his comments.

I’ve never detected him to cover or omit to mention something with which he might have disagreed.

In 1911 he wrote a book called “John, the Loyal.”

In it he quoted the unbeliever Josephus who said, “John required spiritual renewal before baptism.”

Robertson then added, “The public baptism was a public confession of sin and a public pledge to lead a new life. In a real sense, therefore, the baptism came to stand for the whole work of John.”

Couldn’t that same thing be said of our baptism as Baptists of the last days?

Of course, John preceded the Lord Jesus and His ministry.

This is what Paul was telling the people in Antioch.

Along came the Saviour, picking up where the John’s ministry was cut off by Herod the Tetrarch.

And when the Lord Jesus was asked to voice His opinion about his predecessor, He not only praised him, but also endorsed his ministry and his baptism.

Could John’s baptism have a clearer Christian stamp on it than that which the Lord Jesus gave it?

For a while John and the disciples of Christ baptized at the same time.

Never did they pit their respective baptisms against one another.

Our church won’t recognize the baptism of a church started by some human founder and without the authority of God.

But there wasn’t that problem between the baptism of John and the baptism of the Lord Jesus.

In fact the only baptism that Jesus ever received was at the hands of John.

And the only baptism that Jesus’ disciples ever received was by John.

Since John’s baptism was from Heaven,

And since it was good enough for Christ,

And since it was good enough for the Apostles,

It ought to be good enough for Bible believers today.

But someone says, “What about Acts 19:1-7?”

“And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples,

He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.

And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism.

Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.

When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. And all the men were about twelve.”

I’m not going to deal with this passage in detail this evening other than to say that this was a unique case.

Ephesus was even farther from Jerusalem than Antioch, and John never visited Ephesus.

And these men who claimed John’s baptism had never been baptized by John.

They had probably been baptized by someone who had been baptized by someone who had baptized by someone who had been baptized by John.

And somewhere between John and Ephesus the message that John had preached about repentance and about Christ was somehow diluted and polluted.

The New Testament shows us that John often referred to the Holy Spirit,

But these men said that THEY had never heard about the Holy Spirit.

“And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.

And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me,

Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him,

the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost” – John 1.

This is found in six different scriptures.

John taught his disciples about the Holy Spirit, so how did these not know about the Spirit?

It appears that they never heard the preaching of John.

What is even more important is how they could have been saved without the Holy Spirit?

I am convinced that these people were not born again, and that is why Paul baptized them.

So what was Paul doing in making this reference?

He was simply saying that while John was preaching repentance and baptizing those whom the Lord saved,

He answered people’s questions about who he was:

“Whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But, behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.”

Paul was saying that John was not the Messiah nor the son of David.

It was Jesus the son of Mary who was the son of David and the Son of God.

Jesus fulfilled the Messianic promises,

And John only fulfilled the promises regarding the Messiah’s forerunner.

But as to the question of John’s baptism: it was perfectly good Christian baptism.