21 Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened,
22 And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
Introduction
There were three ministers—a Roman Catholic priest, a Presbyterian, and a Baptist—arguing about which church Jesus would join if he were to come back to earth again. The Roman Catholic priest said, “Jesus would join the Roman Catholic Church and he would serve his holiness, the pope.” The Presbyterian said, “No, Jesus was very progressive and very positive. I am convinced he would be a Presbyterian.” The Baptist said, “I will answer your question, but first I want to ask you one. Why in the world would he want to change his membership?”
You know and I know that all denominations are manmade. In the scriptures the followers of Christ were called by many names. They were called believers, they were called disciples, they were called saints, and they were called brethren. They were called believers for their faith. They were called disciples for their knowledge. They were called saints for their holiness. They were called brethren for their love. These were the followers of Jesus Christ. But today we have made many different denominations out of those followers of Christ. I’m not sure which church Jesus would join if he came back to the earth again. I do know that Jesus was baptized, and he was baptized by a Baptist—John the Baptist. He was not baptized by John the Presbyterian, nor John the Methodist, nor the John the Lutheran. He was baptized by John the Baptist, and that makes me believe that Jesus was a Baptist.
In Luke chapter three, there is a very simple account of a most significant event in the life of Jesus: his baptism. It tells us, “Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee am I well pleased” (vs.21-22).
I do not know how such a significant event like Jesus being baptized could have been expressed more simply than that, but there is a wealth of truth behind those simple statements. I think you understand that baptism was not new, and it was not unique to John the Baptist. The Jews had for a long, long time practiced baptism, but it was a special and particular kind of baptism. It was baptism of proselytes. Now a proselyte was a convert to Judaism from heathenism. That is to say, that for anybody who was a Gentile (anybody who was not a Jew), if they came to believe in and embrace the Jewish faith, they were then baptized as a proselyte. Baptism was to them an outer sign of an inner change. It was an indication of a change of mind and a change of purpose that they had come to believe in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It meant that they had come to accept the record of God’s revelation through history. They had come to believe in the coming Messiah, and now they were giving an outward and visible indication of that new commitment—that change of heart and mind—and were becoming a practicing Jew.
These people were baptized as John baptized people, except for one difference. The uniqueness of John was at this point: John required baptism of all people, even circumcised Jews and practicing Jews. John the Baptist came saying that if you are going to be ready for the coming King, and if you are going to be ready to enter into the kingdom of God, then every one of you needs to be baptized. So, when the tax collectors came to him, he said, “You must be baptized.” When the Roman soldiers came to him, he said, “You must be baptized.” When the Pharisees—those strict separatists of the Jewish faith—came to him, he said to them, “You must also be baptized.” He was saying that you must declare openly and publicly that you are not fit for the kingdom of God without God’s forgiveness. You must indicate that you recognize sin in your life, and that you are ready and willing to turn from that sin and give a visible open public testimony to that fact by being baptized.
John was in essence saying that being right with God is a personal matter. He was saying that it is moral and spiritual. It is not racial. That is to say, that the simple fact that you have Jewish blood coursing through your veins, that you are a son of Abraham, and that you go through all of the Jewish rites and rituals—that does not make you right with God. It is a personal and decisive act, and if you believe in God, if you are willing to turn from your sin, and if you are willing to follow and obey him, then give evidence of that by being baptized.
That was very distasteful to the pride of the Pharisees and all of the strict religions of that day. They took offense that John the Baptist should treat them like a common proselyte, like a heathen, or like a person who was a non-Jew. The uniqueness then of John’s baptism was that he said everyone who wants to be ready for the coming King should be baptized. It was while John was preaching that kind of baptism—a baptism of repentance—that multitudes were coming to him and that Jesus the Son of God also came to be baptized.
There have been a lot of questions through the years as to why Jesus would be baptized, for he had no sin in his life. We know that. The scriptures tell us later that he was without sin. He did not need the baptism of repentance. He had no sin of which to repent. Why then did Jesus come to John and be baptized by him? There have been a lot of suggestions down through the years. There have been those who suggested that Jesus was baptized by John in order to place his approval upon the ministry of John the Baptist. The ministry of John the Baptist was marked by an unprecedented movement of the people back to God. John was stirring up religious fervor and building revival fires in the hearts of people all over the country, and the people were in an unprecedented way turning back to God.
Some say that by being baptized, Jesus was saying, “I want to be a part of that. I want to be involved in that. I want to place my stamp of approval upon that.” He was baptized in order to approve of this vast movement back to God. That may be true.
Others have said that Jesus was baptized in order to declare the course of his Messiahship. That is to say, that since baptism represents death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus was declaring openly, publicly, and symbolically by his baptism that he would be the kind of Messiah who would die, who would be buried, and who would rise again. But that is assuming that the people understood the symbolism of baptism to be death, burial, and resurrection. That may be true.
Others have said that Jesus was baptized in order to set an example for us—an example of all times as to what true baptism is to be like, what it is to be about, and how it is to take place. Jesus, who was and is our example in every way, may very well have been setting an example for us.
I think that the real reason Jesus was baptized was so that he might identify himself with the fallen race. He wanted in every way to identify himself with us. He had come to save us. He had come to be our redeemer, and he wanted to say, “I am one of you. I am a brother to you. And as I left heaven and came down to this earth, as I’ve walked and will walk the dusty roads of life with you, as I will sit down and eat with you, and as I will be one of you—so I want to be identified with you in this baptism of John the Baptist.” So the Lord Jesus—in order to identify himself with sinful, fallen humanity whom he had come to save—followed the example and footsteps of others, and walked down into the Jordan River where he was immersed by John the Baptist as all of the other people were.
Not only did the Lord Jesus allow himself to be baptized, but he said to his disciples shortly before he ascended to heaven, “I want you to go into all the world and make disciples. Then I want you to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost and then to teach them all the things I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Baptism was a very vital part of the New Testament church. We are told in the book of Acts that on the Day of Pentecost when Simon Peter preached to them the Gospel, many of them believed, and those who believed in Christ were baptized and continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine. They believed, they were baptized, and they continued. That is the Biblical pattern all throughout scripture. Believe, be baptized, and continue. That was the pattern of the New Testament Church.
Because of the significance of baptism, and because of what the Bible has to say, we have come to believe three things about baptism. We get some of this from the Lord Jesus in his example, and the rest of it we get from the teachings of Jesus and the teaching of his apostles. There are three things that we believe about baptism, that I believe the Bible teaches about Jesus’ baptism and ours.
1. Baptism is for believers only.
Only those who have come to personal faith and trust in Jesus Christ were baptized in the Bible times and should be baptized in our times. In fact there is no example of anybody in scripture ever being baptized where it doesn’t say of them that they first believed and then they were baptized. A vast number of denominations today practice baptism by sprinkling, and it is the “baptism” of infants. The foundation of that goes back to the belief that a baby is born guilty of Adam’s sin—that they inherit Adam’s guilt. They believe that should that baby die, guilty of sin, they could not go to heaven. So, the idea was invented, but it did not come from scripture. You cannot find in the Bible that baptizing a baby would wash away their original sin, or that it would take care of original guilt and would keep the baby safe until they reached the age when it could confirm their own faith, which would be about 12 years of age. Ultimately the baptism of infants goes back to that false belief that a baby is born guilty of sin and that it inherits its guilt from Adam and from the human race.
You know and I know that a child is not born guilty of sin. A child is born with a sinful nature, but the child is not guilty of sin. The child has a nature that is bent and turned toward sin. It is because of that sinful nature that you can teach a child all of his life to tell the truth, and sure as shooting—one of these days he is going to lie. You can teach a child all of his life not to steal, but one of these days that child is going to take something that doesn’t belong to him. You can teach him to talk right and to talk clean, and one of these days he is going to say something ugly and filthy. There is a bent toward sin in every one of us and it is because we have a sinful nature.
But we are not guilty before God of any sin until we become fully conscious of who God is and of our responsibility to him. We are not guilty before God of any sin until we know right from wrong—until we know what sin is. When we become sinners by choice, then we are guilty before God and held personally accountable for our own actions. It is only after a person becomes a sinner by choice that they are guilty before God and that they can be converted—that they can become a Christian and thus they can experience Christian baptism.
So in the Bible there is no example of any infant ever being baptized. It says, “They believed and they were baptized,” so that excludes forever the possibility of an infant being baptized. Sometimes when people talk about this they say, “It really is not a baptism. It is a dedication of the child.” But if you will listen carefully to the words of the minister when he presides over that ceremony, he will say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” If it is not a baptism, it shouldn’t be called a baptism. And if it is not a baptism, then there should be a believer’s baptism that follows. As I understand the scriptures and as I follow the example of Jesus, the only baptism there is a believer’s baptism.
2. Baptism should be by immersion.
Some time ago, a very fine Christian man of another denomination started visiting our church, and he was interested in joining our church until he found out that he would have to be immersed. Then he began to study the issue of baptism and he wrote a 12-page single-spaced paper on baptism, and defended his position of baptism by sprinkling. I read it very carefully and when I was done, I had only one comment to make to him: “If words have meaning, then immersion is the way to baptize.”
“Immersion” is what the word baptize meant in Jesus’ day. In Greek, the word is baptiso and it means “to submerge.” It means “to dip” or “to put under the water.” It was a word that was often used for the dyeing of garments, and if you came from as far back in the country as I did, then you can remember the days when your mother—or perhaps you—dyed cloth at home. You put it all the way under to dye it, and you let it soak a while to make sure the dye stayed in.
It is that word that Jesus used. It is that word that the apostle Paul used to describe baptism, and it forever sets for us the pattern of baptism. Baptism is to be for a believer—someone who has come to realize both his sin in his life and his need for God. It is for someone who turns from the sin in his life, puts his faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and then follows the Lord in that kind of baptism.
That what the word means, or at least that’s what it meant in Jesus’ day, when Jesus used it. It is only as a person is immersed that you can adequately depict what baptism was intended to depict. Read carefully the book of Romans chapter six, and Paul says this about baptism: “We are buried with Christ in baptism. And like as he was raised from the dead, so we are raised to walk in a newness of life” (v.4).
He then links baptism with death, burial, and resurrection. Baptism is to symbolize essentially our Christian experience. Before we become a Christian, we are dead in trespasses and in sin. When we become a Christian, we die to sin. What do you do with dead people? You bury them. How do you bury them? You don’t stand them up and sprinkle dirt on their dead; you dig a hole and you put them under. In baptism, we want to symbolize that a person has died to self and to sin. Symbolically you are going to bury them and the water becomes a grave. You “bury” the person completely under the water—you immerse them in the same way that you bury people out in the cemetery.
We also believe that the person who died to sin receives Jesus Christ into his heart, and has a new life given to him. You want to symbolize that this dead person who has been buried has come to life again—that they have resurrected life. You’ve already immersed them in the water to symbolize their death to sin and their burial to an old way of life, and now you lift them up to symbolize their resurrection to walk in a newness of life. The apostle Paul said that is what it is all about. If that is what it is all about, then the only way to depict that or to symbolize that is by immersion.
In that same passage of scripture, he uses another illustration. He says in Romans 6:5, “If we be planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also raised in the likeness of his resurrection.” He uses not only his illustration of burial, but he uses the illustration of planting. He says, “If we be planted together in his likeness…”
Some of you have gardens, and in the spring you cultivate the soil and you plant seeds. You dig a hole in the ground, you plant that seed down in the ground, and then you cover it up. You put it completely under. Then something wonderful begins to take place because life is in that seed, placed there by God. By the way, man can simulate a seed in every way except he cannot put life into it; only God can put life into a seed.
You plant that seed down in the ground and it begins to break down. The shell splits away and the seed begins to germinate, and from that seed grows a plant. It pokes its way up through the soil and begins to flourish and grow into a flower, into fruit, or into vegetables—whatever kind of seed you planted. But the secret to the garden is to put the seed in the ground, and out of that death comes new life. Paul uses that as in illustration of what baptism is all about. We are buried with Christ, and we have been planted in his likeness; both of those uses and symbols depict immersion.
We think that a person can be a Christian if they have not been immersed, but I want you to know that immersion is not a Baptist quirk. It is a Bible doctrine. It is a Bible teaching. Baptism is for those who have come to personal faith and trust in Jesus Christ and then they are buried with him. They are planted with him in baptism.
3. Baptism is a symbol.
Baptism has no magic to it; it does not wash away any sins, but it outwardly symbolizes what has happened inwardly and spiritually to us. Charles Spurgeon put it this way: “Christ came, not to make bad men good, or even to make good men better, but Jesus came to make dead men live.” Baptism is a symbol of that experience of a person who has been dead in sin, and has come to a newness of life. It is a public and open identification of our experience of salvation and grace.
I have used this illustration before, but let me use it again. I have on my finger a ring. If I ask you what that means, every one of you would say that it means that you are married. That has become the acceptable symbol of marriage. It’s not just any kind of ring, because a different kind of ring on that finger would not symbolize marriage. And it’s not just on any finger, because I could take this ring and put it some other place, and it would not symbolize marriage.
It is this kind of ring on this finger. I could put the ring in my ear and it would not symbolize marriage. I could put the ring in my nose and it would not symbolize marriage. It might symbolize yours. This kind of ring on this finger symbolizes marriage. If I take the ring off, I’m still married just as much as I ever was, because it really is not the ring that makes me married—it is the commitment that makes me married. But because there was a commitment, I put the ring on as an outwardly visible sign of that commitment. I could put the ring on one of these children down at the front and it wouldn’t make them married. Commitment makes you married. The ring becomes a symbol.
The same way that this ring is a symbol of my married life, so baptism becomes a symbol of my Christian life. It does not make me a Christian. Even if I do not have a ring on, I can be married. I sometimes marry people who don’t have enough money to buy a ring. If I’ve not been baptized, I can still be a child of God. I can still be a Christian. Baptism becomes not a matter of necessity—it becomes a matter of obedience in my life.
Jesus himself was baptized by immersion as an adult by John the Baptist to symbolize something sacred and important. If I am to follow him then I ought also as a believer to be immersed in water, symbolizing that inner change that took place when I trusted him as Lord and Savior. It’s a simple statement about a most significant act: Jesus also was baptized.