South City Baptist Church: Tauranga 16.03.14
Relationship series no 5
Aim
To see the meanings of baptism
Introduction
Today I want to talk again about our vertical relationship with God. We have been saying, in the past few weeks, that relationships are often on the horizontal (with others) and vertical (with God). Today I want to talk about our relationship with God, in terms of the symbolism of believer’s baptism.
In our church’s way of life there are two sacraments: The Lord’s Table (Communion) and the service of Believers’Baptism.
Both of these are reminders of a truth in picture form.
Today we are familiar with pictures that represent things. On your computer you click on a square with a Green X in it and you know that is a shortcut to Excel Spreadsheets the Blue W is “Word Documents”. As we travel on the road there are signs which mean “no parking” or “speed limits”, or a stop sign coming up.
In each of these examples a picture represents a truth.
With Communion we take the symbols that Jesus gave at the last supper;
1the bread to represent his body,
2the wine to represent the blood of Christ.
Some churches say that the elements actually become the bread and the wine. In fact we all know that the chemical and material structure of these things doesn’t change. The bread is still bread and the wine still wine. They are simply representing two truths the body of Christ and the blood of Christ. They are elements and reminders.
So it is with Believers’Baptism by immersion. It is a picture story that contains three elements: the death, burial and resurrection. This is why it is a baptism of believers by immersion. Some churches talk about infant dedication being baptism. It was never to be of infants, it was to be of believers. It was never to be by sprinkling it was to be by immersion.
Just as Jesus was baptized, we follow his example. Just as people in the early new testament church were baptized, so we follow the same pattern.
Today I want to take those three elements of the baptism (death,burial and resurrection) and express them in four ways.
1It represents and reminds us that the death, burial and resurrection of Christis the means of our salvation.
It is important that we realize that the sacrifice of Christ was made up of three elements. The torture and death on the cross; the burial in line with the Jewish custom of the day and;the resurrection the rising from the dead. When we consider the cross we have to take all three into account. So why three elements?
- Death. In part it was to fulfill scripture. Isaiah 53:1-5 (NIV) 1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
4 Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.
But it is more than that Jesus had to be the sacrificial lamb that took away the sin of the world. As in the Old testament a lamb was slaughtered to take away sin, God gave Christ as the’ once and for al’l sacrifice for sin. Sin was not just covered it was forgiven.
- Burial. There had to be the proof that Jesus was dead and to bury Him in accordance with Jewish custom was the evidence of His being dead. Sure Pilate’s soldiers had pronounced Him dead and would have broken His legs to speed up the process if He had not already been dead. But again there is more in that He went down and dealt with the powers of darkness.Ephesians 4:8-9 (NIV) 8 This is why it says: "When He ascended on high, He led captives in His train and gave gifts to men."
9 (What does "He ascended" mean except that He also descended to the lower, earthly regions? - Resurrection. That He would overcome sin, death and hell and rise from the grave. This is something that sets Him apart from any other religious leader. The power of His death is seen in His resurrection.
2It represents the journey that the believer goes through as he or she identifies with Christ and affirms that it is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ that is the means of our salvation.
It is not about law. It is about identifying with Christ in that He has made a covenant of salvation which we can accept or rejectand that covenant is shown in death burial and resurrection.
If we don’t accept it, it does not change the covenant. The other day there was an email from Countdown. They were offering,among other things, tomatoes for $1.00 per kg for one day only. We looked at it and said “that’s a good price” but we were busy that day and had some tomatoes at home so we did not avail ourselves of that offer. It didn’t change the offer. It Just meant that while others did take up that offer, we didn’t. We did not take the time and trouble to go to Countdown and say we will be a part of your offer. The fact that some will accept and some will reject Christ and that does not change the offer. It just means that 90% of New Zealanders have not accepted the offer either because they have not heard of it, or they have heard of it but have given it no more thought, or they have been challenged by the truth of salvation and have deliberately chosen not to accept it.
It’s not a new thing that people do not accept Christ’s offer of salvation. Jesus had the same trouble that ‘he came to his own but his own received Him not’.
John 1:10-13 (NIV) 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him.11 He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. 12 Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
3It is about burying the old life.Paul teaches that as we identify with Christ we are
- Dying to the old lifeAs we identify we Christ we are saying “I am dying to the old life. The habits and ways of the past. My rejection of God and love of sin are gone and I am putting all that behind me”. The truth is that many of us do not want to die to the old life, the old habits and the old ways. There is some pleasure in some of these things. They are familiar but the truth is that if we are to identify with Christ the old life has to be crucified with Christ. Crucifixion was a long and painful death and sometimes getting rid of the old life can be a long and painful process but baptism talks about putting the old life to death.
- It’s about burying it and not just putting it aside. It is counted as dead.Romans 7:4-6 (NIV) 4 So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
5 For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. - Romans 6:1-4 (NIV) 1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. - It is about rising to a new life It is about a new way of living New values new ways new power Romans 6:5-10 (NIV)
5 If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.
6 For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--
7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.
9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him.
10 The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.
4And in rising to this new life Paul says we put on Christ
- And there is this picture of the old man being put to death
- The old man being buried
- And Rising to a new man and we put on Christ Galatians 3:26-29 (NIV) 26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,
27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
This passage talks about not only putting the old life to death but rising to a new life which is materially different. We know that when Christ was on earth He was limited by all the limitations that you and I suffer fromtiredness, sorrow, hunger and pain. When He rose from the dead He rose with and transformed by that could walk through walls Disappear and re appear. Now for us, who have been raised to a new life, we have clothed ourselves with Christ. We are no longer seen as male or female, Jew or Greek. The thing that marks us now is that weare clothed with Christ and we are a son or daughter of God. We are receiving all the things that were promised to Abraham. We are Abraham’s descendants. One of the people of Gods promise.
We were looking at some family photos yesterday and amongst the ones hanging on thewall was one of my father in the second world war. He was dressed in his military uniform of the British Army. He was clothed as a soldier,no longer a civilian, no longer an employee of London transport. He was now a soldier. He looked like a soldier and he acted like a soldier. He had a new commander and a new allegiance because he had decided that for the next five years he would be a soldier so he was clothed as a soldier.
Galatians says we have put on the character of Christ like putting on new clothes. We are no longer covered in the robe of sin but the robe of Christ’s righteousness. So you will look different, you will act differently.
You come to the cross with a load of sin. You leave that at the cross and take Christ’s Salvation and the robe of righteousness.
Conclusion
There is much we could say about baptism today. We could talk about following Christ’s example. We could talk about it being an integral part of the salvation experience of the new testament along with belief in Christ and repentance. We could talk about it as an outward picture that is representing and even advertising an inward change. We could talk about it being a command to be baptized
But today the thing that has been on my heart is to talk about this death, burial and resurrection. A picture of the old life being put to death and buried and the new life coming forward and being clothed in God’s righteousness.
If you have not been baptized by immersion we are planning to hold a baptismal service next month and invite you to come and talk with one of the leadership group about this step of obedience to God.
South City Baptist Church: Tauranga Relationships 5 Baptism 16.03.14 Page | 1