It's been some time since we've
been here and Donna's making use of the time to get to be
with the new little one back in the back. I've got to tell
you all that his wife is in the nursery with their grandson. More than Amy and Jason, just,
I don't know, three weeks. You should have seen them yesterday. Yeah, they're making up for the
little time we get here and there. Please turn with me to the Gospel
of John, Chapter 1. While you're turning there, let
me say how much I appreciate your kindness and your goodness
toward our children. And I appreciate so much that
they're right at home here and you take good care of them. It's a great relaxation to my
mind to know that they're in this place. They hear the gospel
and they have such wonderful people that support them and
look out for them. I appreciate that very much.
Let's read John chapter 1 verses 30 through 34. This is he of
whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred before me. for
he was before me. And I knew him not, but that
he should be made manifest to Israel. Therefore am I come baptizing
with water." And John Moore Records saying, I saw the spirit descending
from heaven like a dove and it abode upon him. And I knew him
not, but that he sent me to baptize with water. The same said unto
me, upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending and remaining
on him. The same is he who baptizes with
the Holy Spirit. And I saw and bore record that
this is the Son of God. Let's pray. Father, I have a passage that's
wonderful. I have a message. that goes along
with it. I have a desire, Lord, to see
your glory. And I believe, Lord, I'm among
people who have that same desire. Lord, to preach a message, even
as accurately as we possibly can, will do us no good unless
you visit with us in this place. I don't understand how you do
that. I don't understand, Lord, the
workings of your Spirit. But I pray that He might make
you, Lord Jesus Christ, present among us today. And that it might
be in our hearts and in our minds in such a way that we could say
that the Lord met with us and the Lord spoke to us and we heard. For it's in Christ's name we
pray. Amen. I'm speaking this morning
from these verses on the spiritual reality of baptism and I trust
that you'll follow along with me because I think there are
some good things to be gained from thinking about this. Let
me first of all say that any act of baptism in water which
is not the result of having first been baptized in the Holy Spirit
is nothing but a religious ritual. one which will contribute absolutely
nothing toward the salvation of your soul. You just got wet. That's all that happened. Baptism
in the Holy Spirit has been grossly misrepresented by false religion
as some kind of a supernatural experience by which some are
unable to live on a higher plane of spiritual existence than others
of us who simply believe. But nothing could be further
from the truth. The vital reality of baptism in the Holy Spirit
is simply this. It's neither more nor less than
being spiritually united with the Lord Jesus Christ by the
almighty power of the Spirit of Christ. And let me say this,
lest someone be misunderstanding, I'm talking about the way God
saves sinners. This is not a second work of
grace, this is the work of grace. Christ takes up residence in
our very beings and we become right with God because he's with
us and we're with him. In its most fundamental sense
This is the glorious reality which is clearly pictured in
the act of water baptism. I find it most interesting that
virtually all perversions of Christianity are more attracted
by what the Bible teaches about the Spirit of Christ than they
are about the Christ whom the Spirit delights to reveal. The
Holy Spirit's primary work is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what he does. That's what he loves to do. And
that's what he does best is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ in
all of his glory and in his absolute wonderful preeminence. And every
action the Holy Spirit performs in the salvation of God's elect
is unmistakably pictured in this ordinance of baptism. Let me
begin with this. The first thing we see in baptism
is we see the preeminent, the absolute uncontested preeminence
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 30 said, this is He. This
is He concerning whom I said after me, that is in terms of
time, comes a man who has become or come to be before me in terms
of honor and glory for He was. First of me, he was before me
from all eternity. Baptism is the public declaration
of our utter dependence upon that one who is infinitely before
us. This is what theologians mean
when they talk about preeminence. The preeminence of Christ is
his firstness. His allness, His onlyness in
every way and in all things, but particularly His preeminence
is in His mighty work of redemption. It's on display in almost every
page of the scriptures. This is the God who saves sinners. That is His preeminence. He's
a glorious Savior who saves wretches like us. Ask any born-again child of God
how he got that way. And here's what you'll hear.
Christ is all. Christ is all. He's everything
in our salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
whole thing. the entire sum and complete substance
of the salvation of our wretched beings. This is what we mean
by his preeminence. He does what he wills with whomever
he wills, whenever he wills to do it, wherever he wills to do
it, and in the manner in which he wills to perform it. He just
does it so wonderfully and it's all up to him. I love a God like
that, don't you? That he just saves people. I
wasn't looking. Were you looking? I wasn't looking. He just saved me because of his
preeminent grace. The baptism of lost religionists,
on the other hand, is a declaration of their own preeminence in salvation. That they've come to be before
Him instead of Him coming to be before them. Because in their
view, Christ could not have saved them if they had not first submitted
to His offer. We are not worshiping a God today
who offers anything. We're worshiping a God today
who saves his people single-handedly, without their consent, and makes
them happier than anything that ever happened in their life otherwise.
Best thing ever. I love my wife. I love my children. I love my grandchild and my other
grandchildren. I love my Lord Jesus Christ in
such a way that it far exceeds any of those other loves. How
many free willers have crowned themselves with many crowns thinking
they have honored the Lord of Glory by allowing Him the privilege
of saving them? Oh my. If baptism is anything
less than our hearts public confession That our union with Christ is
the result of His union with me and is entirely of His willing
and His doing. And if not, we do not know the
meaning of Christ is all. Otherwise, our baptism is just
another sinful religious work that we tack on to the others.
We try to, even though we might imagine it to be an ultimate
good work, by which we imagine that we've made God proud of
us and that he has saved us from hell. The act of baptism is Therefore,
a dramatic confession. That is, it's one which acts
out in pictorial fashion the fullness of Christ's work of
salvation. So don't be mistaken, there's
no saving power in the place. You can make that trek over to
Israel and be baptized in the Jordan River, and it's the same
stuff. It's H2O. Probably a little dirtier. And it will not save you. There's
no saving grace in the place in which you were baptized. There's
no saving power in the water. You can be baptized in a whole
vat of holy water. It won't do anything to wash
away your sins. There's no saving power in the
one doing the baptism. You know, if the Lord were to
resurrect John the Baptist and every one of us got baptized
again, it would do nothing more toward our salvation and our
oneness with Christ. It doesn't matter who does the
baptizing. Get John the Baptist to dunk
you and it wouldn't save a single hair on your head. And there's
no saving power in the one being baptized. One's attempts to prove his dedication
or hers, to manifest our sincerity, or to convince others of our
salvation by having ourselves baptized is at best, at the very
best, a false testimony. And at worse, it's a work of
law by which the Apostle Paul said no man would be justified.
Baptism cannot save our souls. To perceive it that way is to
empty it of all its meaning and reduce it to a soul damning work
of the flesh. That's all it becomes. But baptism,
in its most glorious and most sublime essence, is the simplest,
the clearest, and the most public testimony we will ever give to
the saving grace of God in Christ. I hope you hear me this morning.
In this simple and clear dramatic presentation, the only part we
play is the one that pictures us the most starkly honest. Ours is the role of the sinner,
dead in trespasses and sins and yet buried together and raised
together through union with Christ. This explains why we contribute
absolutely nothing to the ceremony and someone else has to do all
the work. What did you do when you were baptized? Nothing. Absolutely
nothing. Your pastor or some other person
did all the work. Oh, isn't that a picture of saving
grace? What did you do to be saved? Nothing. Not one thing. God just reached down and saved
you. That's why I love baptism so
much. We contribute absolutely nothing to the ceremony and someone
else does all the work. What a clear confession of our
absolute spiritual inability and our utter reliance on the
all-sufficient work of Christ our Savior. Bear with me while
I read you a small collection of verses that the Holy Spirit
has inspired to remind us of the infinite glory of Christ's
preeminence in the salvation of lost sinners. He wrote in
Revelation, and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead, and
he placed his right hand on me, saying, fear not, I am the first
and the last and the living one. and I became dead and behold
I am living unto the ages of the ages and I hold the keys.
I hold the keys, Christ says, of death and hell. Baptism is
not the key to salvation. How many people you know, how
many you have in your family that believe they're going to
heaven because they got baptized? I know several of mine. Baptism is not the key to salvation.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the only key to salvation there is.
If you're in Christ, you're baptized into Christ, you're saved. You
can't get out. He's going to keep you. He saved
you against your will and he's going to keep you against your
will. And you're going to be happy that he did. In Colossians Paul
wrote, and he is the head of the body. of the church, he who
is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, in order that
he have the preeminence in all things. Baptism in water without
spiritual baptism into union with Christ is absolute meaninglessness. Paul wrote again to the Romans,
because whom he foreknew, that is, loved in advance, Indeed
he foreordained, that is he made it as good as done before it
was done. He foreordained conformed. Now we would have written that
differently. We would have said, whom he foreknew,
indeed he foreordained to be conformed. Christ, though he
has a human body, is an eternal being. And if it was good today,
it was already good way back yonder in time. And if it was
good way back yonder in time, it'll be good however long that
we live in glory. Now, he foreordained it was as
good as done before the foundation of the world, conformed to the
image of his son. I remember, I remember being
a rank religionist, having no knowledge of the gospel, having
no understanding of the truth, and having no peace and no hope
and no union with Christ. I remember that. And yet this
verse tells me that God doesn't remember that. That it was as
good as done before the very first molecule was ever created. Whom he foreknew, indeed he foreordained,
conformed to the image of his son, so that he be the firstborn
among many brothers. Those who find assurance of salvation
in the act of baptism, have missed the entire meaning of the observance.
Baptism is not a mere ritual by which we are guaranteed a
place in heaven. It's the public declaration that
our only hope is that everything Christ did in his death, in his
burial, and in his resurrection, we did too through union with
him. Baptism is without a doubt the
clearest testimony that Christ is all that we will ever give.
I don't think I've ever heard a verbal testimony that speaks
the volumes of just that simple act of baptism. What a testimony
that God created when he ordained that ordinance. Now let's talk
just a minute about the revelation then of Christ's work of salvation
and baptism. Verse 31 of our text said, and
I knew him not, This is John the Baptist talking. I didn't
even know what he looked like, didn't know who he was. But in order
that he be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing in
water. Christ himself chose the act
of baptism as the clearest, the best, and the most perfect means
of revealing the essence of his redeeming work. Baptism, you'll
not find a clearer example or illustration anywhere in the
scriptures of the way God saves sinners better than baptism. Baptism is the whole message.
Mark chapter 1 and verse 5, and there went out unto him all the
land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him
in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. That's what the act
is. I don't think it meant that they stood up there and recited
for, goodness sake, how long would they have been there all
day baptizing two or three if we recited all of our sins? It
wasn't that they stood up and confessed all their sins. No,
the confession of their sins was the act of baptism. They
were saying, I need to be found in Christ and I might be a new
man in Christ. That's how they were confessing
their sins. And Merson confesses being dead
in sin with no hope of saving ourselves. And a few verses on
down, he says, I have baptized you in water. But he, the Lord
Jesus, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. That's the other
half of baptism. Being laid under the water is
our confession. Ain't nothing but a dead sinner
apart from God's saving grace and mercy and union with Christ.
And then he raises us up from under the water and says you're
a new creature in Christ Jesus. What a glorious thing that God
did when he made baptism. In Luke chapter 3 and verse 16,
he talks about the spiritual dimension of baptism. Here the writer says, He will
baptize you, God Almighty, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit
and fire. The unquenchable zeal of being
made one with Christ is such that not even the most timid
of us Not even the most timid among us can keep from speaking
of our union with the Redeemer as the entire sum and substance
of our salvation. No, He baptizes us with the Holy
Spirit and fire. That's the reality, that's the
inward reality pictured by that outward act. Luke wrote and said,
now when all the people have been baptized, it came to pass
that, and I've always found this very interesting, when all the
people that had come to be baptized have been baptized, it came to
pass that Jesus also, being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened
and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in a bodily shape like
a dove. And a voice came from heaven,
thou art my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased. That word
am is a word that carries as far back in eternity you want
to go and as far forward as you want to go. God's statement about
his son is, I am well pleased. Christ was baptized as a man.
I find that amazing. His identification with us mere
sinners was so perfect and complete that even he was baptized. I find that amazing. He was baptized
as a man to fulfill all righteousness. All the righteousness that we
needed to perform. Now you do the best you can.
I do the best I can. I strive to do what's right. I strive to do what's good. I honestly give my best efforts
to trying to be what I ought to be. I don't ever succeed. Everything, every good work I've
ever done. Every good thought I ever thought,
every good thing that ever had any connection with me, had so
much sin in it that it ceased to be good by the moment that
it came out of me. But at the same time, I do, I
do try to fulfill all righteousness, but I tell you where my hope
lies, here's the man who fulfilled All my righteousness. In His
life on this earth as a man. And now in glory He sits before
me as my crucified and risen Savior. God is satisfied with
me. Because I'm just one with Him.
I'm somehow lost so deeply in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ that God can't see me anymore. And I like that seat.
I love that seat. No, Christ was baptized as a
man to fulfill all righteousness and to foreshadow his death and
burial and resurrection. Everything Christ accomplished
on the cross he portrayed beforehand. His baptism was looking forward
to what he was going to do. He portrayed beforehand everything
he did in salvation he portrayed in his baptism. His baptism was
therefore the testimony of his union with his people. And our
baptism is the testimony of our union with him. The righteousness
he fulfilled is the result of his being made sin through union
with his people. If he just stayed away from us,
he would not have had sin. Baptism has been but an outward,
dramatic presentation. As I said, it's a drama. It's
an acting out of eternal truth. It's a dramatic presentation
of the essence of this confession. Here's what we all said when
we were baptized and if you have yet to be baptized I trust this
is what you will say. He guaranteed or when he through
union with me bore all my sin He guaranteed my righteousness
through my union with Him. And that's the sum and substance
of salvation. That's the message of baptism.
Everything He did, I did too in Him. To be baptized merely
as a religious ritual has no more saving power than diving
into the water hole down at the creek. It's a waste of your time. Baptism is our public confession
of the work of another on our behalf and the testimony that
our only hope of spiritual life is that he put our sins away
through his union with us. That's what baptism means. In
the book of Acts it says John indeed baptized in water That's
the symbol, that's the outward thing that we do that illustrates
so many other spiritual things. John indeed baptized in water,
but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from
now, he said. John the Baptist first gave the
dramatic presentation of the spiritual reality of union with
Christ. He dunked a lot of people in the Jordan River. And he taught
them all this message, in Christ we died, in Christ we were buried,
and in Christ we were raised. Christ is all. I don't think
I'm speaking to anyone who would like it to be any other way.
Christ is all. Let's read a few verses together
from Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6, let's begin
with the first verse. God forbid, how shall we live
that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us
were baptized into Jesus Christ? I like that. Baptized into Jesus
Christ. We're baptized into His death.
His death is our death now. He paid the price and we did
too. 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. His life is our life. For if
we've been planted together, that's buried together, planted
in the ground, through the dramatic presentation of baptism, if we've
been planted together in the likeness of his death, We shall
be, I like the certainty of that, we shall be in the likeness of
his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him. At the moment he was crucified,
our old man, I wasn't even born then, yet my old man was crucified
together with him. That the body of sin be destroyed
and that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is
dead, he who died in Christ, is freed from sin. Now if we
be dead, literally if we died with Christ, if I was in Him
when He was put to death, we believe that we shall also live
with Him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies
no more, death has no more dominion over Him, for in that He died,
He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto
God. Now look at what He says. Likewise,
all the above, reckon, consider it so, Reckon you also yourselves
Dead indeed indeed unto sin crucified to it, but alive unto God through
Jesus Christ our Lord Turn over with me for a moment
look at a couple of verses in 1st Corinthians chapter 12 Verses
12 and 13 I'm trying to emphasize with
these passages that everything Christ did, we did. And all of
our sin became His. Everything we did became His. Verses 12 and 13. For as the
body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one
body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. God can't
see the difference between us and Him. For by one Spirit are
we all baptized into one body. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
Whether it's in the baptistry or down at the river and someone
just goes through that. I'm sure it's a scenario that's
somewhat unusual for people who don't know the meaning of it
and who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet down there in
that river there is a portrayal of eternal grace that you can't
find anywhere else in the scriptures other than this simple act. They
take that person and they lay them down under the water. This
person died when Christ did. And they raise that person back
out of the water and say this person lives. in the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ. For by one spirit are we all
baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether
we be bond or free, and have all been made to drink into one
spirit. Look over in Galatians chapter
3. Galatians 3, read with me, verses
26 and 27. For you are all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ. have put on Christ. Does that
mean that when you are baptized that somehow rather that act
of being put under the water saves you? No, it's just a symbol
of a work that was already done. Baptized into the Lord Jesus. One last one, flip over to Colossians,
a few pages on. Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2 verse 12. I must have picked the wrong
one. Sorry, we'll have to come back
on that one. Anyway, the whole point I'm trying
to make is that our baptism and Christ's baptism is all the same
oneness and all the same unity. We're just confessing that because
I'm found in Him, God the Father can't even see my sins because
the Lord Jesus Christ put them away. Let me finish up with one
last thought about baptism. You know even the humanity, even
the humanity of our Lord was revealed in baptism. Christ lived
as a man in such conformity to the frailty of our flesh that
in the flesh he relied on the Holy Spirit just as much as you
and I did in every way. In every way he was made to experience
our condition, our needs and our inabilities. Even as the son of God in flesh.
He lived in such conformity to us that he relied on the Holy
Spirit as we do. Let me read you a verse. And
John witnessed, saying, I have gazed upon the Spirit. I saw,
I just stood with my eyes riveted on that, the Holy Spirit coming
down as a dove out of heaven. And he, that Holy Spirit, remained
on the Lord Jesus Christ, remained on him. As God Almighty, Jesus
Christ is entirely self-sufficient. He's as much God as God the Father
is. They share the same essence. He's as much God as God the Holy
Spirit is. There's no distinction between them. Their essence is
the same. Their wholeness is the same.
Every attribute of God that's present in God the Father and
God the Holy Spirit is just equally so present in the Lord Jesus
Christ. As God Almighty then, Christ
is entirely self-sufficient. He needs nothing from us. He
requires nothing from us. As the man Christ Jesus, however,
He was as reliant on the Spirit of God as we are. It's hard for
me to get my mind around that in order to fully be the representative
of sinful sons and daughters of Adam, He didn't just play
the role. He didn't just put on a suit
and dress up as somebody who was figuratively taking care
of business. No. No, He became. He became
a man in every sense that you and I are human beings. That's an amazing thought to
think. I don't think it's one that we can get our minds around,
but here's the point. As the man Christ Jesus, He was
as reliant on the Spirit of God as we are. What depths our Savior
went to in order to represent us before God, He truly could
represent me because He was just like me, sin excluded. So much
so that we have Even now, we have a glorified, resurrected
man. Bone of our bones, flesh of our
flesh. Glorified, glorified. We have
a man in glory who undertook everything that we needed and
he demonstrated it all in his death, burial and resurrection
that he portrayed before he did it in his baptism. Listen to what he said, I have
a baptism to be baptized with and how I am constrained until
it be finished. All the sins of all of God's
elect from the creation to the last of the last days were about
to become his. Oh what grace that we as mere
sinners participate in. in that we have the privilege
of being made one with Him. Everything He did, I did. Everything
He is, I am. Everything God looks down upon
Him and sees, He sees in me. I can't even see it in me, and
yet He does. But oh, what a horrible hell. Our Savior endured to bring this
grace to pass when he made himself one with the likes of us. Listen
to him as he prays, lying prostrate on the ground, and he begs. It's pitiful to think about.
My Father, if it's possible, if it could be some other way,
let this cup pass from me. Yet, not as I will, but as thou
wilt. Let me read you just a few more
of his agonizing verses that come out of Psalm 22. Let me turn there. Psalm 22. Let's read the first
six verses. Tell me this wasn't a real judgment
and a real condemnation. Tell me this doesn't fit what
God should do to you and I. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime
but you hear not, in the night season and am not silent. But you are holy. Here's the
holy one of God saying that you are holy. He was so loaded with
our sins he didn't include himself in that. O thou that inhabitest
the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee.
They trusted and you delivered them. They cried unto thee and
were delivered. They trusted in you and were
not confounded. But I, but I am a worm and no
man. a reproach of men and despised
of the people. Whatever the anguish of eternal
death is, and I hope no one in this room ever has to experience that,
but whatever the anguish of eternal death is, that indescribable
torment of God's relentless and infinite anger The endless suffering
for sins that cannot be taken back or undone. Whatever that
is, Christ endured that punishment for all the sins of all God's
elect. And he did it so effectively
that God the Father cannot remember a single one of them. And we're
doing them right now. Do you know we don't draw a breath?
It's not a sinful breath. We don't have a resting thought
that's not a sinful thought. Sin just issues forth from us
24-7 all the time. God can't remember a single one
of them for those for whom Christ died. God himself finds no sin in anyone
of those that Christ died for. Now let me see if I can finish.
Union with Christ, then, our union with Christ, is the reason
the Father finds no sin in his saints. He says, and I knew him
not, but the one having sent me to baptize in water, that
one said to me, upon whomever you see the Spirit coming down
and remaining on him, this is the one baptizing in the Holy
Spirit. Therefore, Paul could write to
the Corinthians and say, if anyone, I love that, if anyone, whoever
is in Christ, he is or she is a new creation. And in that new
creation, the old things passed away and behold, they have become
new. In Galatians, Paul wrote to them
as well and he said, neither circumcision is anything, or
uncircumcision, whatever work you think you can do and get
God's attention, the only thing that matters is a new creation. When Christ joins himself to
his people, he makes us all together something we have never been.
Paul wrote finally to Timothy, the one having saved us, God
the one having saved us, having called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, and this is what I like about that purpose and grace,
given to us in Christ Jesus before times eternal. It's interesting isn't it to
live in this time bound world, And to know our salvation was
as secure in the ages and ages of eternity past as it ever became
that day when the Lord opened up your eyes and said, Liv, it
was already yours. Christ had already bought it
and paid for it and guaranteed it and it can't be otherwise.
It'll be that way. Finally, let me finish up with
this. I pray this is the testimony of all of us here today. I have
seen and I have witnessed that this one, this Christ I've tried
to preach to you today, this one is the Son of God. May you be found, baptized into
Him so much that when you get to glory, God can't tell the
difference and He'll embrace you just as though you were His
Son. Because we are all one in Christ Jesus. Let's pray. Father,
we thank you for your son. Furthermore, Father, we thank
you for your grace because he didn't do what you commanded
him to. Forgive us, Lord, for those times
in which we misread the scriptures and we think that you're against
us. Lord, thank you for being for us, Father, and that you
so placed us placed all of your people of all ages and all time,
all places, so placed us, so completely, so unified us, so
inseparably with the Lord Jesus Christ, that we could not possibly
not be saved. Oh, how we thank you for our
Savior. How we thank you for His sacrifice. We thank you for
His glory and His grace and we thank you, oh Lord, that we have
been so baptized into Him that we can't get out. We worship. We worship Father at your feet
and we worship in His name this morning. In Christ's name we
pray. Amen.