Let’s say that I am coming to visit you at your house. My approach to your house might come in a variety of ways. I most likely would drive my car, but on the other hand I might walk all the way, talking days to get there. I could take a taxi, catch a ride with another church member, or even hitch-hike. When I get to your house should I walk right in unannounced? That would be very uncharacteristic of me, and it might prove to be dangerous. It could be embarrassing for both of us, depending on what you were doing when I walked in. Or you have heard of some home-invasions in your neighborhood, and you have a weapon ready. If I just walked into your house, it would be terribly disrespectful. If I was visiting your house, I would knock, or ring, and I would ask for permission to enter. And then upon that permission I would take a few steps through the door way. You might ask me to go to the back door or servant’s entrance. But I wouldn’t go through a window or the hole in your roof.
Now picture your house as the Lord’s church. Why should I want to go in? There could be several reasons. I have recently been born again, and I believe that it is the Lord’s will that I become a member. I need the fellowship and Biblical instruction which is found only in the house of the Lord. I have recently moved to the area, and feel led of the Lord to join this church. I might have come to the House of God through one of many routes – walked or driven – but here I am. Since it is the Lord’s house, I need to have the Lord’s permission to become a member. And I believe that permission comes through the porter, the butler – and his administration of baptism. Authority to baptize belongs to the Master of the House, but He has passed that on to His servants. Permission to enter is not the same as the actual entrance – but is essential nevertheless. With the permission granted, I take the few steps necessary, and, voila, I am inside. I don’t believe that baptism is the actual entrance into Christ’s church, but the two are so closely connected that there are only technical differences between them.
In a few minutes we will observe the ordinance of baptism once again. This gives us an opportunity to refresh our hearts and minds in regard to the subject. Baptism is one of our most distinctive doctrines, and we all need to be immersed in its theology. If this message sounds familiar, it’s because it is the same basic message I preach before many baptisms. Only the illustrations have been changed to protect those who are almost bored.
One reason to preach messages on the subject of baptism is because of the heresy so often linked to it. For example, there is no more dangerous doctrine than the idea that baptism washes away sin. There is nothing anyone can do to please SATAN any more than be baptized with the expectation of salvation through water. He loves that kind talk more than he does filthy jokes or rock music lyrics. Priestly fingers splashing around in fonts of holy water is music to Devil’s ears. Unfortunately, it is just as probable that rain water will wash away your sin as baptismal water. That probability is ZERO.
Today, I would like to magnify the subject of proper baptism. I believe in the importance of baptism, IF it is truly scriptural baptism. It is the first step in obedience to our Lord after His saving grace. “See here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized?”
Sometimes the person being baptized has been a child of God for months or perhaps years. Sometimes it looks like we are repeating someone’s baptism. Let me say that there is no efficacy in repeating this particular ordinance. But there are apparent baptisms where mistakes were made – either by the porter or by the visitor who is asking for admission. These mistakes need to be understood and corrected.
It seems obvious to me that this Ethiopian had a little prior instruction in this regard. Baptism was something relatively new in his religious world, and yet since he knew something about it. His instruction must have been “Christian” – since only the Christians were baptizing. Furthermore, it must have been “Baptistic,” because he knew that there were possible hindrances. And Philip said, “If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest.” There are certain things that a person must believe and practice to have scriptural baptism.
The first is that the person being baptized must have a PROPER FAITH in Christ Jesus.
An undeniable Biblical principle is: “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized.” The “word,” referred to in Acts 2:41 was the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The need of the gospel is due to the wretched depravity and thorough sinfulness of all mankind. We are all born aliens, separated from God by a gulf of sin which not even the Golden Gate can bridge. We are “dead in trespasses and sins” without ability or desire even to lift our eyes toward glory. But “God commendeth his love toward us” and proved His eternal covenant in that while “we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” We are all like the poor crippled man at pool of Bethesda without anyone to help him. But Christ reaches down to some and says, “Be thou healed and whole; be thou saved from thy sin.” The Bible says that “Jesus came to give his life a ransom for many.” He came to die, that sinful men might live: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The sinful soul made alive by God’s grace, reaching out by faith to Christ, hating his own sins, is a new Creature in Christ. That person, according to the Bible, is only one fit for scriptural baptism.
“If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest” be baptized.” Philip in Acts 8 and Peter in Acts 2 didn’t preach Jesus as a teacher, example, humanitarian, martyr or any other ordinary or extraordinary man. They both preached Christ as the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of world.” Here, Philip preached Isaiah 53. “All we like sheep have gone astray but the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” And when the right Christ is received in right way (by faith), the right baptism ought to follow. “Repent and be baptized everyone of you for the remission of sin and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” The baptism which follows repentance and faith acts as testimony that this person has truly accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
The first essential for scriptural baptism is true faith in Jesus Christ as one’s personal Redeemer. We cannot stress this enough – baptism does not save sinful souls. Christ is the Saviour, and we must trust Him, and Him alone, for salvation from sin. Scriptural baptism can only be given to someone who has already been redeemed.
We shouldn’t let stray dogs or horses into our homes. But just because someone has two legs and big smile, doesn’t mean that he should be allowed in either. Just because he claims to be a believer in Christ, doesn’t give him a right to barge into God’s house.
Basic to scriptural baptism is the PROPER METHOD of baptism – verses 38-39.
In the Bible, you will never find any other baptism but immersion in water. You will not find sprinkling, or pouring, or baby baptism anywhere in the Word of God. You won’t find spraying people down with garden hoses or fire hoses. Philip and this African man went both down into the water. And Philip didn’t get out his water-bottle and pour a little of the Jordan River on the man’s head.
Baptism which doesn’t cover the body of the new Christian is not scriptural baptism. We could prove the point from the Book of Romans or the Gospels, from the Greek, and even from the etymology of the English word. But we see it here with our own eyes – they both went into the water of that road-side oasis.
If you have not been immersed in water you have not been baptized. You may have been sprinkled, or you may have been “christened,” but you were not “baptized.” The word “baptism” demands immersion, without the slightest room for any alternative.
The third thing Basic to scriptural baptism is a PROPER BAPTIZER or AUTHORITY.
In Matthew 21:25 Jesus asked the Pharisees: “Where did John the Baptist get authority to baptize?” The logic behind the question was that only God can give that kind of authority. The poor Pharisees were backed into a corner, and they refused to offer any kind of answer.
What happened when Nadab and Abihu decided to offer their unauthorized service to Lord? They approached the Golden Altar with flames taken from their own camp fires. But the command of God was that the only fire acceptable to Him was that which He had ignited. Nadab and Abihu died at the hands of God because they messed with the authority of God. That strange fire is exactly like, John Q. Public deciding on his own to baptize someone. Only the Lord’s butler has the Lord’s authority to permit entrance into His house. And who is that porter – that butler? In Matthew 28 our Lord gave the authority, permission and commission to baptize to His church. That is the only Scripture where this authority has ever been given to anyone, since John. The Jewish High Priest wasn’t given authority to baptize, nor was the Sanhedrin. The 120 disciples were not so authorized; nor were the ladies, nor a single individual Christian. The only person, place or thing ever given divine authority to baptize, beside John, is Christ’s church. Philip baptized this man in the desert under authority of Church in Jerusalem of which he was a member and a missionary.
But that doesn’t mean just any group of people calling itself “a church” has God’s authority to baptize. Just think about it: Are there any churches which teach that baptism washes away sin? There are lots of churches that teach this heresy – from Catholicism to most of Protestantism. But has Jesus authorized this kind of baptism? No! Has God commissioned the baptism of those who sprinkle or pour water, calling it “baptism?” Since pouring is not baptism, obviously God never authorized it. Just because they call themselves “churches” which do this, it doesn’t make this error Biblical. Is the religious organization which teaches that Jesus Christ is but a mere man a true church of God? Is the organization which teaches that man is saved from sin by works – a true church? Is the baptism practiced by an heretical church valid baptism in the sight of God? Absolutely not! If the Lord Jesus started the first church and commissioned it to duplicate itself through missions, what should we think about those churches which pride themselves on their human founders? What about those churches founded by Martin Luther, John Knox, John Wesley and Henry VIII? If they were founded by men, where did they get authority to baptize? Didn’t that authority come from their founders as well? If they got their authority from men, then they don’t have divine authority to baptize scripturally.
If a church teaches heresy, then it has no authority to baptize or do anything else in God’s name. If it can’t trace its history and doctrine to the New Testament, then it has no divine authority to exist. If a “Baptist” church proudly claims to be a Protestant congregation, they are declaring a human origin. They are not connected to the church of Matthew 28 to which Christ gave authority to baptize and to serve him in other ways. I believe that Matthew 28 then limits scriptural baptism to scriptural churches, and to them alone. We do not accept any baptism but “Baptist” baptism. That is because, other than Catholicism, only Baptist churches claim descendence from the first church. But the claims of the Catholics are nullified by their unbiblical doctrines.
Does that mean that every church which calls itself “Baptist” is the same in doctrine and practice? Only a blind man would think so, because there are thousands of Baptist churches filled with many of the same Christ-denying doctrines as the Protestants and Catholics. The majority of Baptist seminaries today have professors which openly teach Christ-denying doctrines. And the graduates of those schools are filled with heretical, Protestant, and unbiblical ideas. When those graduates go on to pastor Baptist churches, those churches become filled with error. And when there is enough heresy and enough unsaved members in those congregations, the Lord extinguishes its flame as a church of Christ. Because of this fact, our church does not accept the baptism of any denominationalized Baptist church. And even when someone from an independent Baptist congregation asks us to receive them and their baptism, we look seriously into the doctrine and history of that congregation as well. We’re not doing this in a mean-spirited way, and we certainly aren’t saying that someone of whom we demand baptism is not a Christian. We are doing nothing but trying to be consistent in doctrine and with Scripture.
The only institution authorized to baptize is a scriptural, New Testament church. That means any church which claims to be a Protestant Church has no authority to baptize people, because by their own definition they declare themselves to be children of Roman Catholic corruption. God’s true churches have been in existence in every generation since the days of the Lord Jesus. And only those churches have God’s authority to administer the ordinances. We believe that it is important to believe correctly, and practice properly, baptism’s administrator.
It is also important to believe properly about the MEANING of baptism.
Baptism is first, a picture of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is why only immersion is the acceptable mode and method. Perhaps immersion in dirt might be more precise, but God has graciously granted our use of water. How can a little water sprinkled on the head illustrate Jesus’ burial or death? As an illustration, sprinkling could illustrate a potential fraud: Sprinkling would say that Jesus didn’t actually die, and He was not truly buried. He only fainted, and later the disciples came and pulled him from the tomb, covered by a little dirt. When a person is scripturally immersed, he declares to world that he believes that his salvation from sin is directly tied to the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. But that is not all that is pictured in baptism.
Baptism pictures the sinner’s union with Christ in that death, burial and resurrection. Romans 6:4-6: – “Know ye not, 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 as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” This is the point: – the candidate for baptism is now dead with Christ. He is dead to sin, dead to his old vices, and dead to old ways of life. He has buried his old way of life – and is now a new creature in Christ. How much sin is there in the grave? How much sin is there In Heaven? In the same way, the baptized believer is not to live in sin any longer.
It is important to scriptural baptism to realize that by this immersion in water we are declaring: “I am dead to sin, crucified with Christ, and henceforth I will not serve sin and Satan.” This doesn’t mean that we must, or even can, live sinlessly perfect following our baptism. But in baptism we show that this desire is in our hearts.
Paul says in Romans 6:11-13: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrtns unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, As those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of rtns unto God.” The candidate for baptism says: “My heart is yours Lord, I reckon myself dead to sin, and now, Lord, with your blessing I will not wilfully sin against my Saviour.” How many people realize that when they are immersed? How many of us forget that through the years after our baptism? The Christian living in open sin and rebellion makes a mockery of his baptism. That is one reason why the sinful Christian needs to be put out of the Lord’s church. No Christian should enter the baptistry still harboring intentions to carry on in his sin. No Christian should be baptized when he has no intention to serve the Lord who saved him.
It is basic to scriptural baptism to believe properly about these things: To believe right about the meaning of baptism: “I am united to the living Christ, and I am now dead to sin, but alive unto the Lord.” It is basic to baptism, to have the right administrator, one of the Lord’s scriptural churches. It is important to practice the correct mode of baptism – immersion in water. And there must be a proper faith in the Saviour. “He died for me, and I have repented of my sin, putting my faith in Him. I publicly declare that I accept Him as my Lord and Saviour.”