The Sacrament of Baptism
Sacrament –Comes from the Latin word “sacramentum” denoting a deposit, or an oath particularly as in a military pledge of allegiance
and also based on a greek word “mysterion”
The sense that something has been deemed sacred and set apart for God.
Sacrament – an earthly sign of a heavenly meaning Or “Divinely given covenant signs”
Sacraments are the hidden things of God that cannot be know except as God has disclosed them.
In the Old Testament – Circumcision and Passover
In the New Testament – Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
Sacraments become rituals when people do them and they have lost their sense of significant meaning.
Mystery forms the background for understanding sacraments in the context of dealing with the embodiment of God’ s Word revealed in Christ (Incarnation) and the embodiment and growth of that Word in the believers (the Church)
Augistine said sacraments were the “visible Word”
The sacraments are the wonderful and unique opportunities we have to experience God’s Word visibly appearing in the life of the people of God.
History of Baptism –
In the New Testament we see John the Baptist – who began baptising people who were confessing their sin and repenting of their ways of life. They were people intent on living in an honest and meaningful relationship with God.
Then Jesus was baptised – something extraordinary happened, the heavens broke open, the spirit of God descended like a dove and the Father audibly spoke “This is my son, whom I am well pleased”. Jesus Baptism inaugurated his earthly ministry as he began to preach of a new and different life – and eternal life in God’s kingdom that could only be accessed through Him.
Before Jesus returned to God in Heaven he gave his followers this charge:
Matt 28:18-20
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them ina the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
In the book of Acts we see the Apostles and disciples of Jesus beginning to baptize new followers of Jesus, in Acts 2 Peter, the leader of this new way, after explaining what had just happened at Pentecost preached:
Acts 2:38-39
"Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Not long after that a man named Saul began to persecute the new church, chasing some followers to a town called Damascus, Saul encountered the risen Jesus. The experience blinded him and began a series of events that forever changed his life.
Acts 9:17-19
Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord-Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here — has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit." 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.
Over the next several hundred years, baptism became a sacred mark over the life of a follower of Jesus. It was an experience in the life of a person where their physical lives and their new spiritual lives visibly and publically connected, coming together as an inauguration into a completely new way of living as a life set free from the bondages of sin and now living in the grace and power of God.
During the middle ages (500-1500), the Roman Catholic Church gained great power throughout Europe and baptism became an ordinance of the Roman Catholic Church that was only instituted at the birth of a baby in a Catholic family. Baptism administered to infants soon began to loose it’s meaning and significance to the life of the follower of Jesus. During these years the church became the mediator between God and man and God’s Word was strategically and intentionally kept from common people.
The early 1500’s God’s Holy Spirit began to dramatically stir a Reformation in the lives of people. This Reformation was a spiritual revolution that would bring God’s Word to people so they could respond to the gospel of Jesus and God’s love by faith. Martin Luther in 1517 discovered that only in scripture is the righteousness of God found and that by faith alone are we saved by Jesus Christ.
As people began to read the Bible and be convicted by God’s Word, and understand the tremendous love God offers us through his Son Jesus, they began to place their faith in Jesus Christ alone. They also began to want to respond to him in obedience in every aspect of their lives, including the Sacraments that began to take on new life.
Like an earthquake, the Holy Spirit began to shake the landscape of humanity. And like the earthquake in Haiti things began to change with great violence. The Roman Catholic Church began to eliminate anyone who stood against their influence calling them heritics. The Sacraments – Lords Supper and Baptism – became important and volatile concerns during this time.
One of my personal heros of the faith is a man named Balthazar Hubmaier, a significant German theologian who followed the wave began by Luther.
In August 1524, Hubmaier wrote one of the most important theological treaties of the entire Reformation entitled “Concerning Heretics and Those Who Burn Them”. A plea for religious liberty and the voluntary decision a person must make to follow the teachings and life of Christ. That everyone has the freedom to believe in Jesus and not to believe and forsake the gospel. He began the discussion that lead to the early Baptist position of the separation of Church and State.
On January 21, 1525 – 485 years ago, the first baptism of an adult convert took place near Zurich Switzerland when a newly saved Catholic priest baptised his landlord. In the coming weeks and months hundreds of people began to be baptized by breaking ice over frozen streams and rivers. In April 1525 Hubmaier was baptized with 60 other people and a few weeks later on Easter Sunday Hubmaier baptized over 300 people.
To protect their influence, the Church issued a decree that anyone who received believer’s baptism as an adult would be subject to death.
Over the coming years persecution began to spread wherever men & women, under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, willingly confessed their sin, believing that their sins were forgiven by Jesus’ death received the gift of new life in Christ and in that publically professing their faith and participate in believer’s baptism. Thousands of lives were killed for their faith through Switzerland, Holland and Germany. By 1526 Hubmaier and his wife, Elsbeth, were on the run and in August 1527 they were imprisoned outside of Vienna. On March 3 he was tortured but the rack produced no last minute recantation and on March 10, 1528 He was burned at the stake in Vienna. His last words as they rubbed sulphur and gunpowder into his beard were “O dear brothers, pray God that he will give me patience in this my suffering. I will die in the Christian faith.” Three days later his wife was drowned in the Danube.
Hubmaier added his blood to the many who willingly gave their lives to establish the freedom we have to experience the Sacrament of Believers Baptism. What was the significance of this mysterious Sacrament that was worth their lives?
Baptism – Memory Verse this week...
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. Romans 6:3-4
Baptism is not something we offer to God, but it is something that Jesus Christ offers to us. Jesus calls us to follow him and in that Jesus leads us to our own death. Our own willingness to die to ourselves – our own desires and receive and live in the glorious life that Jesus offers us.
Mark 1:17-18
"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.
Mark 8:34-36
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his lifec will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 3
The Sacrament of Baptism is an Act of Faith
Jesus saves us by our faith – In baptism we become Christ’s possession. The name of Jesus Christ is spoken over the baptismal candidate and they gain a share in that name, they are baptized “into Jesus Christ”
Rom 6:3 “...all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus”
Matt 28:19
baptizing them ina the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
they now belong to Jesus Christ. Having been rescued from the rule of this world they now have become Christ’s own.
We are set apart by faith
Baptism implies a break in our life. Our past and our future are torn apart by the present moment of baptism.
2 Cor 5:16-18
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 1
This break does not come about by our breaking of our chains to make my life better. But it is recognizing that long ago, Christ himself entered into our realm and brought about that break through his death on the cross. In baptism this break now also takes effect in my own life. Christ, my mediator between me and God, has also stepped between me and the rest of the world. Those who are baptized no longer belong to the world, no longer serve the world, and are no longer subject to it. They belong to Christ alone and now we relate to the rest of the world only through Christ. He continues to be my mediator between me and everyone, God and the world.
This break with the world is absolute. It requires and causes our death. In baptism we die together with our old world. This death must be understood in the strictest sense as an event that is suffered. We can not bring about our own spiritual death, there is nothing we can do to cause it. Our old self cannot kill itself, it cannot will it’s own death.
The Sacrament of Baptism is an Act of Obedience
We follow Jesus by our own choice, our own obedience to him and his word. We cannot be obedient to that which we do not hear and respond to. The cross of Christ leads us by His grace to our life, our new life found in Christ.
Those who become Christ’s own must come under his cross. The cross of Christ is the gracious death, which we die once and for all time in our baptism.
We die in Christ alone; we die through Christ and in Christ. Christ IS OUR DEATH. It is for the sake our relationship with Christ, and only in that community that we die. In baptism we receive both community with Christ and our death as a gift of grace. We can never create this ourselves.
It is in this death that judgement is passed on our old self and our sin and it is out of this judgement that we rise the new self.
Our obedience in our baptism involves us in the transaction that leads us from death to life.
“5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection”
Baptism does not save us, like there is no action that we could do that would save us, but it is our choice to follow Jesus to His cross and it is in Jesus that we die in order to be freed from our sin.
Sinners must die. Whoever has died has been justified and freed from sin, sin no longer has any claim on those who are dead. Forgiveness of sin does not mean that the sin is overlooked or forgotten, it means that the sinner has been put to death and separated from sin. Sin no longer has claim over those who are dead. Being baptized into the death of Christ is what brings forgiveness of sin, but we must be willing to associate ourselves with the death and life of Jesus, it is obedience by faith that we are baptized into Christ’s death.
The Sacrament of Baptism is an Act of Community
Christ invades the realm of Satan and lays hold of those who belong to him and thereby creating his church community – His body
“we too may live a new life” Rom 6:4
There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; Eph 4:4-5
In calling the disciples, Jesus demanded a visible act of obedience. To follow Jesus was a public act, in the same way baptism is a public act, for in baptism we are incorporated into the visible church community of Jesus Christ. We become part of the body of Jesus.
The break with the world can no longer be hidden, it must become externally visible through active participation in the life and worship of the body of Jesus – the church community.
Christians who are actively involved in the church community take a step out of the world, their work, and family; they visibly stand in the community with Jesus Christ. They take this step on their own as individuals, but regain what they have given up – brothers, sisters, houses, fields, (Mk 10:30).
Baptism is like a new birth in the family of God. We are born into a new life with a new body and a new family.
Here in a few minutes, Dariush, as a new follower of Jesus will experience baptism. I like doing our baptisms in the bay, because he will be leaving the land and entering into the water, just like he leaves his old life and enters into a realm that is very different from anything he has experienced before, his life with Christ. While there I will ask him “what is your profession” and his response will be “Jesus is my Lord and the Bible will be my guide” then I will say “I baptise you Dariush, my brother, in the name of the Father, His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit”. I will lower him into the water as a picture of his death and the cleansing of his life of his sin, then raising him up to walk in the newness of his life in Christ. Then he will come back to the land to live as a new man.