Acts 2:37-42:
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do?
And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto Him.
And with many other words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation.
They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
And then, if you will turn to Romans 6.
Romans 6:1-11:
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.
We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?
Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection;
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin;
for he that hath died is justified from sin.
But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him;
knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death no more hath dominion over Him.
For the death that He died, He died unto sin once: but the life that He liveth, He liveth unto God.
Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
Now, in very briefly saying a few words about the meaning and significance of baptism, I will not say anything in the way of introduction, to save time. There are just three things about baptism that I would like to share with you, especially those who are going to be baptized.
First of all, baptism is a glorious and public testimony to an inward and personal experience of the Lord Jesus. I will say that again: baptism is a glorious and public testimony to an inward and personal experience.
Now, of course, we live in a kind of society which, certainly on our side of the Atlantic, has a large number of people who have been christened or baptized as babies, and therefore believe that they have been baptized.
Now, all I want to say is this: taking the Word of God, we cannot find one single clear-cut example of a baby being baptized. In fact, we cannot find a single clear-cut example of the baptism which the apostles and early church practiced being administered to anyone who was not saved.
There is no such thing, as I see it in the Word of God, as baptism by proxy. In other words, you baptize a child in faith that that child will become a believer.
There are many varieties of teaching about child baptism, and it would take us far too long to go into it. There is the one teaching that, by baptizing children, they are saved. They are actually born again through being baptized.
And then there is a second teaching, which has a lot more to be said for it and is a little more difficult to answer: that the children of Christian parents, by baptism, are introduced into the covenant circle of God’s people.
Now, all I can say is this in the short few moments we have: we have no clear-cut example—not a single clear-cut example—of anyone being baptized before they had come to a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
Nor have we got a single command, even a statement of the Word of God, which is explicit in referring to children, that they should be baptized. In other words, the practice has to be based upon inference.
We have to say that when the Philippian jailer was baptized, and all his household, there must have been little babies there. When Lydia was baptized, and her household, there must have been babies there. We have to somehow do, in my estimation, injustice to the Scripture, and take this thing about the promise being to you and to your children, and somehow from this infer that the promise to the children means that if the grown-ups are baptized, the children should be baptized as well because they are the children of the grown-ups. You understand?
Now, on the other hand, let us be quite clear about this: we have many examples of the baptism of those who have had a saving experience of the Lord Jesus.
In fact, we can be on very strong, clear ground here. Everywhere we look in the New Testament, where we find people being baptized, they have come to know the Lord Jesus. And almost immediately they are baptized on profession of their faith.
Three thousand here. We have Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened. We have the Philippian jailer and his family, who were so gloriously saved. We have many other examples of those who, once they came to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, were baptized.
In other words, it is those who have been born again who are able, in the waters of baptism, to give glorious and public testimony—not only to the world, but to the invisible world—that they have come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus.
Now, it does not matter how ignorant you are, how poor you are, how weak you are, how unworthy you are. If you have had a saving experience—and it is an if—if you have had a saving experience of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are qualified for baptism.
In the early church, they baptized them almost immediately. They had no sooner received the Lord Jesus than they were, sort of, in the water being baptized.
A little later on in the church, they were taking a little more time, probably because they found it was better to have a little bit of instruction. Indeed, by the end of the first century, we find from tradition—church tradition—that incredible things were asked of those being baptized. Before they were baptized, they had to be ready publicly to declare that they were prepared to be martyred. They were prepared to lay down their lives for the Lord Jesus Christ, and it was on that profession that they were baptized.
But the point is that it is a glorious and public testimony of an inward and personal experience of the Lord Jesus. Now, if you have had that—if you have only just tasted Him, only just put your trust in Him, if your eyes have only just been opened to Him—you do not see everything; you just see a little. Well, you are qualified for baptism too. Do not wait, or you will wait forever.
Oh, I wish I could be baptized again. I join all those who would love to get back in the waters of baptism again. I feel now I know, but it is very silly. When I was baptized, the only reason I got baptized was that I understood it was a command of the Lord Jesus, and I wanted to obey Him. That was all I knew about baptism.
In actual fact, it meant infinitely more than I could possibly understand at that point. When I got baptized, since then, by the grace of God, step by step, stage by stage, I have come into an understanding of what baptism means.
So I understand when the Apostle Paul says, “Know ye not that all of you who were baptized were baptized?” I think, “Oh, I did not know, but I do now.” You understand?
In other words, when you get baptized, you are really giving testimony to what is going to be a lifetime of experience. You are giving testimony to something which goes right back two thousand years and goes right on into eternity. You are really giving testimony to something which is cosmic, universal in its significance, and by the grace of God you have been brought into it. Is that not wonderful?
Now, if you say, “Well, I must wait until I know Him all better,” I can tell you this: the nearer you get to the Lord, the more you will feel you do not know Him. So if you say, “I will wait until I get to know the Lord better,” you can wait a long, long time.
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter some years before he was martyred, and he called himself the least of all saints. But just before he died, he wrote another letter, and he called himself the chief of sinners.
So, is that not interesting? He went so far with the Lord and said, “I am the least of all saints.” He went a good deal farther, right near to seeing the Lord, and he said, “I am the chief of sinners.” Though I think there is a slight difference between being least of all saints and chief of sinners.
But is it not interesting that the nearer he got to the Lord, and the more he saw of the Lord, the more he pressed on with the Lord, the more he knew that he was unworthy and that really he had so little understanding of the Lord?
So do not wait until you understand the Lord very fully and well before you get baptized. You get baptized because you have tasted the salvation of God. That is the first thing.
Now, one other little point on this very quickly. People sometimes say about covenant baptism—that is, those who had Christian parents who had them christened or sprinkled when they were babies—that it corresponds to Colossians 2:11-12:
In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ;
having been buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead.
Now, they say that baptism corresponds to circumcision. And circumcision was: a boy was circumcised eight days after he was born under the old covenant. So they say babies of Christians should be baptized, and in the good old days they used to do it eight days after they were born, as soon after as was possible.
But, you see, this is a misunderstanding. Circumcision follows birth into the family of God, and baptism follows birth into the family of God. Do you get it?
Just as one was a physical birth into a physical covenant people, so the other is a spiritual birth into the spiritual and eternal family of God. So baptism does follow birth, but it does not follow your natural birth. It follows your spiritual birth. If you have been born again, then you are qualified to be baptized. That is the first thing.
Now, the second thing about baptism is this: it is certainly true, it is obedience to a command. But I think it is very sad if we think of baptism simply as a rite.
It is a rite. I mean, it is no good saying it is not a proper rite. There is a bit of ritual in it. Everyone is baptized the same way, or should be. I mean, they are lowered under the water and come up from under the water. Do you understand? That is a little bit of ritual. We do not put someone in head first and take them out, or put them in horizontally. There is a certain little bit of ceremony or ritual, so it is a rite. But if it is only a rite, it is very sad.
Now, it is an ordinance. What is an ordinance? An ordinance is something ordered, something commanded. But if it is only something ordered, it is very sad. It is a testimony. Now, you can only give the testimony that is inside of you, can you not?
Now, what is it a testimony of? Here is the second thing: it is a testimony to Calvary. We heard that in Romans 6: death, burial, resurrection.
And those waters of baptism are a symbol of death. When a person goes down into the waters and they are baptized into the water—that is, they go into the water—that is a picture of their identification with Christ in dying. When under the water, there is a picture that they are buried with Christ. And when they are raised from the water, that is a picture that they have been raised with Christ.
So, you see, you have the most wonderful testimony. No wonder the devil hates baptism. No wonder.
I remember that in Egypt, when Muslims used to find the Lord, the one thing the devil hated was baptism. They could find the Lord Jesus and be saved, and even talk about Him, and they were accepted. But the moment they were baptized, they were marked for murder.
Of all those who found the Lord when I was in Egypt for two years, I think just under two-thirds—just over half—were murdered.
There is one boy to this day who is in a mental home. He was a brilliant young man in university in Cairo, whose parents put poison into his food to destroy his mind when he got baptized. They would rather him be mental and be able to say, “Well, he was going mental when the Christians got him.”
You cannot believe the hatred of Satan for baptism. Why? Why does he hate a bit of water? What is magical in the water?
Charles H. Spurgeon, that great Baptist preacher, said, “You can be baptized all the way from Land’s End to New England, right across the Atlantic, and all that will happen, if you have not got saving faith, is you will get wet.”
There is nothing magical about the water. So what is it that Satan hates? Does he hate the fact of something being said in the name of Jesus? But sometimes the name of Jesus can be given to a number of things that do not mean anything, and it does not bother Satan.
What is it that Satan hates? He hates real baptism, because real baptism is a testimony to Calvary, and Calvary is the end of Satan and his power.
And the moment he sees those waters of baptism, and a real testimony in those waters of those who have found the Lord Jesus being, as it were, baptized—going into the water, under the water, out of the water—he knows very well that it is a testimony to the fact that they are dead with Christ, buried with Christ, and raised with Christ. He hates it.
So, it is a marvelous thing. There is no other way, apart from Christ, to really get to know the salvation of God. Is that not true? There was no other way for you to be saved, no other way for me to be saved. The only way I could be saved was through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
And if He is your salvation, then you give testimony. But you give testimony to so much more than that. It is not just that you have forgiveness of sin. There was no other way for you to have forgiveness of sin than by His death, burial, and resurrection. There was no other way for you to know union with Him than by His death, burial, and resurrection. And there is no other way for you to be glorified than by His death, burial, and resurrection. You understand?
A sister told me such a funny story this morning—I suppose I should not really tell you—but it comes right into this. She once heard about a preacher, and when he was a boy he had a favourite cat. It was a pet cat. He loved this cat, and the cat died. So he said that he would bury his cat; he would not let anyone else bury it.
And he went off to bury his cat, and he loved the cat so much that when he buried the cat, he buried it with its tail out of the ground. Then every day he went down and pulled it up.
That is a horrifying story, is it not? Because every day the cat sunk a bit more. And this old brother said, “This is what we do.”
You know, we have not really seen that we are crucified with Christ, that it really is done. So we try to be. But every day we go to pull up the old man to see how he is doing. You know what I mean? We have a look at him, and he looks more dead than ever, but he is still there, if you know what I mean. He has not gone. He has not been buried.
Now, when you bury something, you put it out of sight. So the Lord has really done this job properly. We are not only crucified with Christ, but we are buried with Christ. And what do you do when you bury someone? You put them out of sight—tail and all. The whole lot is underground. They are down, they are finished, they are out of sight, they are buried.
But here is the wonderful thing: we are raised to walk in newness of life.
Now, when God reveals this—and I do not know whether He has for those of you being baptized, but surely if you go on with Him, He will—you will begin to see this glorious thing. One of these days, the Holy Spirit will shine into your heart, and you will see, “I am crucified with Christ. When He died, I died. When He was buried, I was buried. And when He was raised, I was raised with Him to walk in newness of life.” Praise God.
That is the second thing about baptism, and, oh, it is wonderful when we can see it like that. It is the basis of all God’s dealings with you, of all the operations of His Spirit, of all His fullness and power in your life, of every gift that He will give you to exercise. The basis of all God’s dealings with us, individually and corporately, is the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is our tremendous privilege in the waters of baptism to very simply give testimony to that fact.
Now, the third thing is this: it is far, far more than even that.
In 2 Corinthians 5:17 we read:
Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.
Now, that is the way this version, the American Standard Version of 1901, reads. I like the marginal variation: “Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation.” Because it is quite correct to the original. It is quite possible to say, “There is a new creation,” as much as, “He is a new creature.”
Now, I like “there is a new creation” because it stops you, sort of, being egocentric. What happens so often is that we who have found the Lord and know the Lord are always looking and saying, “Where is this new creature?”
You see, Bob Mumford once said a very funny thing. He said, about dying with Christ, “You know, I thought I had died with Christ, but I found I had only fainted.”
Now, when we look inside, so very often this is what happens. When we try to reckon ourselves dead as if it is a play-action, as if somehow or another we have got to kid ourselves, we have got to deceive ourselves, we have got to somehow impose something upon ourselves—no, you are dead. The trouble is, I look in and I say, “Where is this new creature? I cannot see him.”
But, you know, it is marvelous: if any man be in Christ, there is a new creation. In Christ there is a new creation.
Now, you see, God divides this world into two. There is an old creation and a new creation. There is an old man and a new man. There is an old nature and a new nature. There is an old life and a new life. There is Adam and Christ.
Now, we have not time to go through all the Scriptures, but the whole New Testament is full of it when you begin to see it. And the wonderful thing is, if you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and been saved, then your position is this: you are out of the old creation and in the new creation. You are out of Adam and you are in Christ. You are out of the old man and you are in the new man.
But, you see, how did it happen? I will tell you how it happened. The Lord Jesus took the old creation, the old nature, the old man, Adam, into the cross. And when He was crucified, it was crucified. When He was buried, it was buried. And when He was raised, He was raised as the new man.
So when you go into the waters of baptism, you are really saying to those principalities and powers, “I do not belong to the powers of darkness. I have been delivered from the powers of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.”
A glorious transference has taken place. I have been transferred. My citizenship has been transferred. I am no longer someone who belongs to the old creation; I am in the new creation. I am no longer an inhabitant of this world. I am a stranger and a pilgrim in this world. My citizenship is in heaven.
Now, when you go into the waters of baptism, though you may not fully understand it now, that is what you are bearing testimony to, and that is what the devil hates.
And that is why the Apostle Peter referred to it as being like Noah’s ark. He said baptism corresponds to Noah’s ark, in which eight people were saved. What was Noah’s ark? It was an ark that was carrying eight people from an old creation to a new creation, from an old world to a new world, from an old man to a new man, from one order that was under judgment to one order that was under blessing.
Are you in that ark? The ark is the Lord Jesus. Blessed be God, He is the ark of God. And in Him we have gone into death, and in Him we have been buried, and in Him we have been raised to walk in newness of life.
Now you understand what I mean. Baptism is really a testimony to a lifetime experience: something God did some two thousand years ago in His Son, and which is eternal in influence and significance.
And here you are, a little bit of clay, and here I am, a little bit of clay, living in the twentieth century. We go into those waters—so simple, so somehow, in many ways, seemingly insignificant—and what we are really doing is bearing testimony to something which lies at the centre of the whole universe: the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Praise God.
But you will not understand all that when you get baptized. But at least you do know that you belong to Him, and you are in Him, and you are with Him. Blessed be His name.