Matthew 28 verses 16 through
20. After the Pharisees paid off
these men and tried to get them to say that Jesus didn't rise
again, but that His disciples took them. Verse 16 it says,
Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain
where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw Him, they worshipped
Him. But some doubted. And Jesus came
and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in
heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world." That's a promise, isn't it? The
Lord is with His people always, to the end of the world. The
Lord's purpose in this time until the end of the world is to send
his gospel to gather his sheep. So I've entitled this message,
Christ the Victor Sends for His Sheep. And the first thing you
see here is that the disciples, in verse 17, worshipped Him. They went to the mountain Jesus
told them to go to before He went to the cross. He said, after
I'm risen from the dead, go to this mountain. And then He even
sent the women to tell the disciples, after He rose from the dead,
go and meet Me. I'll meet you in Galilee, where
they had been used to meeting Him. And then they saw Him, they
worshipped Him, which is a testimony from Scripture that the Lord
Jesus Christ is God Himself. You don't worship a man. If you
do, you're breaking God's law, which says, Worship the Lord
your God, and Him only shall you serve. But here they worshipped
Him, and all of the apostles were called servants of the Lord
Jesus Christ, because you can't serve a man. Not in that sense,
not in the sense of obedience to God. You serve the Lord Jesus
Christ because He is God. And so in verse 18, Jesus spake
these words to them. He said, All power is given unto
me in heaven and in earth. Now in Romans chapter 14, if
you want to look at this verse with me, it's a very powerful
summary of all the Lord Jesus did and the purpose for which
He came and what He accomplished. He says in Romans 14 verse 9,
He says, For to this end, for this purpose,
Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord
both of the dead and living. And that's the verse I want to
read there. And it goes on, talks about his
judgment seat. The Lord Jesus Christ has been
given by God the Father all power. He lived and he died that as
conquering king and successful high priest he might save his
people by defeating and subduing their enemies, by providing to
God in glory what he required to reconcile his people to himself,
to reconcile God in His mercy and truth, in His righteousness
and peace, while He reconciled Himself to His people. That's
what the Lord Jesus Christ did. Remember Romans 5.10, we quote
it often. It says that when we were yet
enemies, God reconciled us to Himself by the death of His Son. Now the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ was a death of an offering to God. That death didn't reconcile
men because men saw the death of Christ and suddenly they became
reconciled. But God couldn't pardon his people. He couldn't be at peace with
his people unless he received from Christ a satisfaction to
his justice by his own death and his blood and righteousness.
That's what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He lived and he died as
a conquering king and as a successful high priest in order that he
might save his people by defeating and subduing their enemies. He
completed the work as high priest to make atonement for their sins.
And by His death, He reconciled God to them in His mercy and
truth, in His righteousness and peace. That's what it says in
Psalm 85, verse 10. So the death of Christ was to
satisfy God. It was to make a propitiation
to God. That's a very, very fundamental
and significant truth. So comforting to the believer
because it means that what Christ did was for God's sake, first
and foremost. It was for His honor. It was
to satisfy His justice and to glorify His mercy and truth,
and still be able to receive sinners. He is a just God and
a Savior, that thou mightest be just and justify them which
believe in Jesus. That's the testimony of Scripture.
That's the mystery. of all of Scripture is that God
would be just through the death of His Son. At the highest cost,
God removed the offense of His enemies in order to reconcile
them to Himself and to make Himself, set Himself at peace with them
and make them His sons. What a testimony that is of God's
Gospel. But Christ also defeated our
enemies, didn't He? He overcame our sin. He overcame
the devil, who is called in Scripture the strong man. Christ was stronger
than him. And He cast him out of heaven.
He overcame this world. He overcame death. He overcame
all of our enemies. He made atonement to God. He
made atonement in the court of heaven. Because all, like in
men's courts, If there's an issue, it goes up to the Supreme Court
in our land. And whatever the Supreme Court,
whatever decision they pass down, everybody's obligated to live
by that. All the law's got to be, they're regulated by what
they decide. It's a very, very powerful position
in our government. It's the utmost power in God's
government. Whatever God decides in the court
of heaven, that's the way things are. So Christ went to court
for his people. Offered his blood. God received
him. And because God received him,
he cleared, he justified his people. And because God justified
him, then God says, who is he that condemneth? God has justified
His people. Christ has died. He rose. He
reigns. He intercedes. He challenges
all of creation to bring an accusation against those God has justified.
It can't happen. But Christ died and rose that
He might reign as the Lord Jesus Christ, as not only the Son of
God, but as the mediator. Look at John chapter 17. Jesus prays to His Father. as the high priest for his people,
a most powerful prayer in all of scripture, John chapter 17.
And in his prayer, he says these things. In verse 1, he says,
Father, when he lifted up his eyes to heaven, the Lord Jesus
said, Father, the hour is come, the hour of his death, the hour,
he says, he asks his father, he says, glorify thy son, that
thy son also may glorify thee. In order for Christ to glorify
His Father, God had to glorify Christ. And verse 2, As thou
hast given Him, the Lord Jesus, power over all flesh, that He
should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. They weren't given to Him after
they realized that they needed to be Christ and came to Christ.
That's not when He gave them to the Lord Jesus. It was before
the world began. He gave Christ His sheep before
they knew their shepherd. He laid down His life for the
sheep before the sheep even knew the voice of the shepherd. Then
He called them. They were given to Him before
the world began. He died for them. It says in
Revelation 13, 8, He's the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. If He was slain from the foundation
of the world, then there were a people for whom He was slain.
There was a bride for whom He laid down His life. Isn't that
what it says in Ephesians 5? Christ loved the church and gave
Himself for it. But if He was slain before the
foundation of the world, then He knew the church and loved
them beforehand, before the foundation of the world. Already having
entered into an agreement with His Father that He would become
the propitiating sacrifice, He would stand for them in all things.
That's the reason He came. But He came also that He might
rise from the dead and reign over all men and give eternal
life to those the Father gave to Him. Now as the Son of God,
He had glory with the Father beforehand. Look at verse 5 of
John 17. He says, Now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own
self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. He had glory with the Father
before the world was. But as mediator, he took on the
form of a servant. He took on the nature of men. Those with whom he had been joined
in eternity. Had identified himself as them
as his brethren and him as their brethren. And so, the Lord Jesus
had glory before as the Son of God, but now as Mediator, God
gives Him, as God and Man, all of the glory that He had before. He's seated on the throne of
Heaven, on His Father's throne. And on that throne, as God and
Man, now, this was God's purpose, that Man would rule over all
of creation. not me and you in our own person,
but the Lord Jesus Christ as man, having conquered all of
God's enemies, having fulfilled all of God's law, glorified God,
which we all fell short in doing, He did, and having done that,
God made Him the ruler over all things in heaven and earth. That's
why He says in Matthew 28, 18, all power is given to me in heaven
and in earth. as God and man, the mediator,
the one who knows God's requirements and meets them for God, and the
one who understands and sympathizes with men and meets man's needs,
and he brings them together in himself as the mediator, having
made reconciliation in his own blood for them. In answer to
God's justice, what a glorious high priest, what a glorious
king, We're glad that He reigns, aren't you? But here's the thing.
When the Lord Jesus Christ lives and reigns in heaven, He lives
and reigns for His people. We read in Romans 14, 9 that
He both died and rose and revived that He might be Lord both of
the dead and the living. He's Lord of all in order that
He might give eternal life to His people. He orders the universe
in order that He might save His church. The gates of hell shall
not prevail against it. His church will be built. His people will be saved. The
sheep will be gathered. Every member will be there. He
won't be a deformed Christ. He will have all of His people,
all of His body. Now, when the Lord Jesus reigns
in Heaven to bring about this spoiling of His enemies, because
He's conquered Satan, He's conquered death and his death, He's conquered
sin, but now He reigns in order to bring them under subjection.
He must reign, it says in 1 Corinthians 15, He must reign until He has
put all enemies under His feet. That's what the Lord's going
to do. But the Jews were offended by the Lord Jesus Christ in every
way. But the thing that He said that
would most offend them was when He sat on His throne. They despised
Him because He told them that they must eat His flesh and drink
His blood to have life. That offended them. It offended
them that they would have to live by faith on the Son of God,
the Lord Jesus Christ. But he said, if that offends
you, just think how much more offended you'll be when you see
me, the Son of Man, sitting on the throne of glory. And that's
in John 6, 62. They were offended by the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's so many things that the
Lord Jesus has power over. He says, all things are given
to me. If you read John chapter 5, and I won't take time to read
that now, Actually, let's go ahead and take the time. John
chapter 5, look at this in verse 19. We'll read just about four
verses here. John 5, verses 19. One of the
most powerful places in scripture that speaks about our Lord and
His power. He says in verse 21, For as the
Father raiseth up the dead, John 5, 21, As the Father raiseth
up the dead, and quickeneth them, gives them life, Even so, the
Son quickeneth whom He will. The Lord Jesus Christ, by His
own will, raises the dead, both spiritually and physically. Verse
22, For the Father judgeth no man, but has committed all judgment
unto the Son. that all men should honor the
Son, even as they honor the Father. Men honor the Judge. And God
the Father has made Christ, the Son of God, Judge over all, over
all of creation, especially all men. He has in His power, in
His authority, He has the authority at His own will to dispose of
men and angels, or to preserve them and give them life. That's
at His disposal. And what He does will be the
will of God the Father. God has entrusted all this to
Him. And He's done it in order that men would honor the Lord
Jesus Christ as they honor the Father. All who deny the deity
of Christ cannot get around that statement. None could give the
same honor to God the Father unless that One to whom they
gave honor was God Himself, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then he goes on in verse 21, verse 23, he says, He that honoreth
not the Son, honoreth not the Father which hath sent Him. Everyone
who denies that Jesus is the Son of God, that He's God Himself,
and that He came in the flesh, does not honor God the Father.
Verse 24, one more verse. Actually, two more. He says,
Verily, verily, I say to you, he that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall
not come into condemnation, but is past already. from death to
life. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, it's because you've already passed from death to life. The
Spirit of God has already given you life. That's the reason you're
able to believe. You can't believe unless you
have life. You're dead in sins. You can't
know the things of God unless the Spirit of God makes them
known to you. So he says, if you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you have everlasting life. You shall not come into
condemnation. You've already passed from death
to life. And then in verse 25, Verily,
verily, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear shall live. When the gospel is preached,
and men hear it, the dead hear it, the dead, that Christ sends
his gospel to, hear it and live. For as the Father hath life in
Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself,
and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because
He is the Son of Man. The Son of Man, our Mediator,
has been given all power. All power. That's the reason
that the Lord Jesus Christ came as man. He lived, He died, He
rose in order that He might as God and man be Lord of dead and
living. That was God's will. And that's
where He is. All power is given to Him. To put all of His enemies under
His feet. He must reign. It's the unalterable and unchangeable
decree and purpose of God that He must reign. God prophesied
it, God promised it, and the eternal salvation of His people
require it. That's our Lord Jesus Christ. He came to be King in order that
He might save His people from their sins. Now, in Matthew 28,
if you look back there, the Lord says this to His disciples as
He's about to depart. He tells them this. He says in
verse 19, "'Go ye therefore, because I have all power, go
ye therefore and teach all nations with the authority of God, of
heaven, the highest authority, that there is in this universe,
He sends His disciples to teach all nations, not just the Jews,
but the Gentiles too, baptizing them in the name of the Father. This is one name, the name of
the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost. This is one God.
He has one name, God, over all. And in the Godhead there are
three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them
to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you, and lo, I
am with you always, even to the end of the world." If Christ
is with His people and He's reigning in heaven, He has to be God.
He's the judge of all. He searches the hearts of men.
He's with His disciples at all times, even to the end of the
world. And He sits on the throne of heaven. Who but God could
do that? But now I want to look at this
word here. He says, tell them to baptize in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Here we have,
I want to spend a few minutes on this, the doctrine of baptism. Now if you think about what we've
done through the book of Matthew, the book of Matthew opens up
telling us who Jesus Christ is as the son of David. And then
it tells us he's the son of God. First he gives the genealogy
of David, and then he says his name shall be called Emmanuel,
God with us. The son of David is the son of
God, he's God with us. He's the one, his name is Jesus,
whose name means Jehovah, is salvation. He's the one who shall,
not There's no chance of failure here. The Son of God can't fail.
He shall save his people from their sins. But then in Matthew
chapter 3, and you want to look at Matthew chapter 3, the Lord
Jesus Christ goes to John the Baptist and he himself is baptized. Now, the question might arise,
why was the Lord Jesus baptized? You might not remember that sermon
when we went through that text of Scripture, so I'll try to
remind you. Why was the Lord Jesus baptized?
But notice before we look at the answer to that question how
the sequence is laid out for us in the book of Matthew. The
Lord Jesus Christ is baptized. Then he goes and through his
earthly ministry he preaches the gospel. He does the will
of God in all things. He calls his own. Then he goes
to the cross. He suffers. He takes their sin,
suffers the shame of them, he suffers the wrath of God against
himself, he dies, he's buried, he rises again and then he tells
his disciples, now you go and preach and teach what I've commanded
you and baptize them. You see the connection? The Lord
Jesus Christ is baptized. Then he himself goes through
the ministry of his as our substitute, living as the representative
head of his people, fulfills all righteousness Then suffers
under the wrath of God, answering for our sins to God in justice. He rises from the dead in victory
over our sin and the devil, answering God's law, glorifying God, doing
all for us. And then he himself tells his
disciples, now you go and baptize. The sequence is clear. His baptism
is at the outset of his ministry. All of his ministry is the fulfillment
of what his baptism prefigured. In his baptism, he went under
the water, he came back up out of the water, the Spirit of God
descended upon him like a dove, and then he went out to fulfill
the ministry as our high priest, as our king, as our representative
head, as our savior, to save his people from their sins. Then
he suffered and died and rose again. And that is the fulfillment
of his baptism. His baptism looked forward to
His baptism for His people under the wrath of God. Now I give
you that as sort of an outline of the book of Matthew because
in the beginning the Lord Jesus Christ is baptized. Look at this
in Matthew chapter 3. It says in verse 13 of Matthew
3, Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan to John to be baptized
of him. But John forbade him, saying,
I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now. In other words, allow it to be
so. For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." Then
he suffered him. And then you see the account
of his baptism. It says in verse 16, Jesus, when
he was baptized, went up straight out of the water. He went under
the water. He came up out of the water.
And lo, the heavens were opened unto him. The heavens were opened
to him after his baptism. Amazing! See the parallel? When
Jesus was about to leave his disciples, he tells them what
to do, and then he was received up into heaven. And John saw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice from
heaven saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. The heavens were opened and God
speaks from heaven. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. So pleased with Him. He's always
pleased with his son. But notice, this happens after
his baptism. And notice also, he tells John
this. He says, when John was reluctant to baptize Jesus, Jesus
said, allow this now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all
righteousness. Me, no, us, to fulfill all righteousness. There's two things that the baptism
of Christ teaches us. Well, several things, but I'm
going to focus on these two. First of all, it teaches us that
the Lord Jesus Christ, in His own death, would be baptized
under the wrath of God. And this baptism here is a foreshadow
of that actual baptism. And secondly, it teaches us that
in His baptism, His people with Him also were baptized. And therefore, they, in Christ,
fulfilled all righteousness. That's what the word us includes.
It's us. John the Baptist. He was doing...
And then it shows us that the heavens were opened. Because
after His baptism, He rose up out of the water. After his baptism,
the heavens were opened because on the fulfillment of what Christ
did in his baptism, he was raised from the dead. And God justified
him. He declared him to be well-pleasing
and all of his people with him. Now, this is what the baptism
of Christ pointed forward to. Look at Matthew chapter 20. Matthew chapter 20, in verse
20 of Matthew 20, it says here that the sons of Zebedee, which
we know were James and John, they came to the mother, I'm
sorry, then came to Him, to the Lord Jesus, the mother of Zebedee's
children, with her sons, worshiping Him, And desiring a certain thing
of him, and he said to her, What wilt thou? She saith to them,
Grant that these my two sons may sit the one on the right
hand, and the other on the left hand, on the left in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said,
You know not what you ask. Are you able to drink of the
cup that I shall drink of? And remember that cup when he
was in the garden? Father, If there's any other
way, take this cup from me." There's no question the cup he's
referring to is the cup of his suffering for his people under
the wrath of God. Are you able to drink of the
cup that I shall drink of and to be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with? And what is that? His death,
his burial, his resurrection. And they say to him, as we would
say in our ignorance, we are able. And he said to them, You
shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with. But to sit on my right hand and
on my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them
for whom it is prepared of my Father." Baptism here, of the
Christ he's speaking of, his baptism is a baptism under the
outpouring of God's wrath. Look at 1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter 3, verse 18. It says, For
Christ also hath suffered, I'm sorry, hath once suffered for
sins. Christ also hath once suffered
for sins. Not his own sins, but the sins
that were his people's sins that were made to be his by God's
act of imputation. So He suffered, He also had once
suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring
us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by
the Spirit. By which also He went and preached
unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when
once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while
the ark was a preparing wherein few, that is, eight souls, were
saved by water. So what he's saying here is the
same spirit that raised him from the dead is the same spirit by
which he preached to those in the time of Noah when Noah preached
the gospel. Noah preached by the Spirit of
God that God was going to destroy the world by flood. That was
the message God sent by His Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ. sent His
Spirit to preach through Moses to those people then. But He
says there were 8 souls saved by water. Verse 21 says, the
like figure, where unto even baptism doth also now save us,
not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer
of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ." So baptism was prefigured by the flood of Noah's day. The people in the ark, the ark
on which that flood was poured out from heaven, were a picture
of God's people in Christ being baptized in Christ's baptism,
in His death, burial, and resurrection. That's what it's saying here.
And so he says that that figure, not the representation of it,
but the reality of it, doth also now save us, and we therefore
have a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. In other words, because Christ
was raised from the dead, we know that his answer to God's
justice fully satisfied God. And God justified him. Romans
4.25. He was delivered for our offenses
and raised again for our justification. Because of it. God justified
him in his resurrection. All that he said, all that he
did fulfilled all God said he would do. And he put his stamp,
this is my son. I'm well pleased with him and
I'm well pleased with all the people for whom he died because
that's why he sent him. He's Jesus. He shall save his
people from their sins. He finished that work. Now we
have a good conscience toward God. So that's what the baptism
of the Lord Jesus Christ pointed to. His own baptism, actual baptism
under the wrath of God. As the flood was outpoured on
the ark, and those in the ark were preserved and saved from
drowning, so God's wrath was poured out on the Lord Jesus
Christ and those in Christ were saved from the wrath of God. That flood came upon Him in order
that we might be set free. But look at Colossians chapter
2. Just to drive this home a little bit more, Colossians chapter
2. He says in verse 12, verse 12
of Colossians chapter 2. He says, buried with him in baptism. Now how can baptism be, how can
baptism signify our burial with the Lord Jesus Christ? Buried
with him in baptism. It doesn't mean that we were
actually buried with Jesus when we were baptized. It means that
our baptism signifies that when Christ was buried, we were buried
with Him. Do you understand? That's the
way the Bible speaks of things. Buried with Him in baptism, wherein
also, in baptism, you are risen with him through the faith of
the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead." When
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, sends His Spirit to His people, and
by preaching the gospel to them, gives them faith, That faith
is the operation of God, the Spirit, the faith of the operation
of God. And when they're given faith
in Christ, they see that in Christ they lived and died, were buried
and rose again. And that's life. That's the evidence
of life in their souls. God has given them, really given
them life. And look at verse 13. And you,
being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
hath he quickened, made alive, together with him, having forgiven
you all trespasses." Why were they made alive? Because their
trespasses were forgiven. A sinner can't be made alive.
That's what death is. It's the payback for sin. But
because they were forgiven, justified, therefore they were raised from
the dead when Christ was raised. We are given life because we
are forgiven and justified in the Lord Jesus Christ. So our baptism, then, has this
meaning to it. I want you to think also about
the thief on the cross. We've just studied him not too
long ago. I've been looking at him quite
a bit since then. But did you ever think about the fact that
the thief on the cross was never baptized? That's interesting,
isn't it? You wonder, well, he didn't get
baptized. He never took the Lord's table.
He never joined a church like we people do. What did he do? Well, the interesting
thing is, he made a confession. And that confession was because
of what he believed. He had been a blasphemer, just
like the other thief, but then he realizes This man has done
nothing amiss. He's the Son of God, Lord of
all, the coming King of glory, the one who is going to conquer
death and rise from the dead and take the kingdom of heaven
and come again and take his people and judge the world. He realized
that. God taught it to him through what he heard, Jesus pray, what
he heard the people say. But the dying thief did something
before he died. He confessed Christ against the
world. He believed Christ against all
outward appearance. In the eyes of everybody, the
Lord Jesus Christ died in weakness. But to the eyes of faith, to
this man, he was the very wisdom and power of God by which God
could be just and justify the ungodly. He's the savior of his
people. He didn't die for his own sins.
He died for theirs. So the thief confessed him. He
spoke to him. He said, Lord, remember me when
you come into your kingdom. Lord, remember me. He said to
the other thief, we're in the same condemnation. We, we, you
and me. He didn't elevate himself above
that other thief. He said, we are in the same condemnation. We're sinners. And our condemnation
is just. This man is righteous. He spoke
to him as Lord. He said, you're the coming king.
And so he knew he was going to rise from the dead. He had heard
him pray to his father. He therefore understood him to
be the Lamb of God, offering himself, praying to God for his
enemies, fulfilling God's law. All these things are true about
that thief. But his confession was because God had showed this
to him in his heart. Now, because he was not baptized,
yet he confessed in this way, it teaches us that he essentially
was baptized. Even though he didn't go underwater,
he was baptized by his identification and union with the Lord Jesus
Christ in his death. The first thief, the unbelieving
thief, died in his sins. But this thief, because he believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ, gave evidence to the fact that he
was one with Him. So that when Christ died, this
thief died to sin in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because Christ
died for his sins. So this thief really is an emblem
of someone who didn't go through the physical act of baptism,
but actually was baptized in Christ and evidenced that by
the confession he made of the Lord Jesus Christ. A confession
that came from faith that God had given him. So therefore,
when we see that the dying thief, and we see the sequence of these
things in the book of Matthew, how that Christ first was baptized,
He fulfilled all righteousness with His people in His own death,
burial, and resurrection, but His baptism pointed forward to
that. How that God received Him, the heavens were opened, and
He declared, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
He looked forward to His own baptism, and all of His people
with Him in His death, and the dying thief confessed his faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So our baptism, our baptism is
our confession that when the Lord Jesus Christ came and lived
and died and was buried and rose again, that's all of our salvation. All that God thinks of the Lord
Jesus Christ is our reception by God. Our acceptance before
God is entirely based on what God thinks of the Lord Jesus
Christ in His life and death and burial and resurrection.
That's what we confess in our baptism. This is all my hope. This is all my life. And we submit
to baptism because it's the ordinance that was put in place by the
Lord Jesus Himself. Our Lord. He's our Lord. The
thief on the cross said, Lord. He spoke to Him as His Lord in
God. And we submit to it because when
we submit to our Lord, we want to be obedient to Him. Not obedient
as a constraint, like we got our arm behind our back. Man,
I really don't want to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway.
No, it's a... We're glad to identify with the Lord Jesus Christ. The
people around the cross all mocked the Lord Jesus. They hurled their
insults at Him in cruelty. It was a shameful thing, a scandalous
thing, that the Lord Jesus Christ would die and that the Jews would
have to put up with Him with this thing over His head, the
King of the Jews. They hated it. And yet the very
thing that they hated and despised, the thief loved. And so in our
baptism, we want to identify with Christ. We want to be identified
with Him who lived and died and rose. That's all of our salvation. He's our Savior. Why wouldn't
we? This is our confession before
men. It's the confession of our faith. And when we realize Through
God-given faith, through the preaching of the gospel, what
Christ has done for us, that our salvation is entirely because
of our union with Him in His life and death and burial and
resurrection. That we want to obey Him in this. We want to give God the glory.
When the thief on the cross asked the Lord Jesus, remember me,
it was a confession of a needy sinner. who found all of his
salvation and hope for glory in what Christ thought of him.
His most endearing thought was that the Lord Jesus Christ would
consider and think upon him. He knew that if Christ thought
on him, he would fulfill his will, because God always fulfills
all of his thoughts. And so he entrusted his internal
destiny into what Christ thought of him. Remember me. Remember
me. And that's what we do as believers.
We look to the Lord Jesus Christ and we want nothing more than
to be with Him. To be identified with Him. We love to know and
to learn that my salvation depends only on what He did. So that's
what our baptism is. It's a confession. A confession
that all my salvation is in our Lord Jesus Christ. and my union
with Him." Now, in Scripture, it's clear, too, that baptism
is – the form of baptism is immersion in water. I know it says in Ezekiel 36,
I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean. That's
really the basis of everybody who sprinkles and claims that's
baptism. But that's not speaking about
our baptism. It's speaking about the work of the Spirit of God
who takes the things of Christ and sprinkles the blood of Christ
on our conscience. But the outward sign, as we read
in Colossians 2, is we're buried with Him in baptism. We rise
again. That's what baptism signifies.
When Christ was baptized, He went down into the water and
He came up out of the water. And when John was baptizing,
it says in John chapter 3, he was baptizing there because there
was much water there. They didn't need a lot of water,
they just get some pots. Sprinkle people like they do
in various churches nowadays. There's only one way, there's
only one form of baptism that's scriptural and that's immersion
in water. You go under the water because
Christ was buried. You come up out of the water.
Because He has died and was buried, and you come up out of the water
because He rose again, and you rose with Him. That's what you're
confessing. It's not sprinkling. It's total immersion. And the
word baptism is taken from the Greek word, which is baptizo,
and the translators just simply didn't translate it. They just
left it as it was. Baptizo is the Greek word. Why
not say, well, it means what it means, like they do with other
words? In the New Testament, sometimes it's done like that.
They'll say, this is the Messiah, which means the Christ. You remember
that? Or when Jesus cried on the cross,
Eloi, Eloi, lana sabachthani? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? He interprets the other language. But when they saw the word baptizo,
they didn't want to, for whatever reason, they didn't translate
it. They just left it as the transliteration. They called
it baptize, baptism. But if you look at Strong's Concordance,
The word baptizo used in the Greek language, in their language,
the language of those people then, it meant to dip, to immerse,
to submerge, to cleanse by dipping or submerging, and to overwhelm. Those are the three different
things. And this is exactly what you find in scripture. John baptized
in Jordan because there was much water there. Look at the book
of Acts chapter 8. Why would you sprinkle somebody
to indicate that you were buried, died with Christ, were buried
with Him and rose again? That doesn't have any physical
correspondence to the actual truth that you're signifying. There's a reason why people sprinkle.
We'll get to that in a second. But in Acts chapter 8, it says,
I want to read through this starting at verse... 26 says, And the angel of the Lord
spake to Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto
the way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza, which is desert.
And he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia,
a eunuch, of great authority under Candace, the queen of the
Ethiopians, who had charge, the charge of all her treasure, and
had come to Jerusalem for to worship. That man had, he had
a lot of trust, didn't he? All the treasure of the Queen
of Ethiopia was given to this man to take care of. So he was
a significant man in the eyes of the Ethiopians. There were
a large number of people there, millions of people. When he was
returning from Jerusalem, because he went there to worship, he
was sitting in his chariot and he read Isaiah the prophet. Then
the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to
this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him,
and heard him read the prophet Isaiah. And he said, Understandest
thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except
some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he
would come up and sit with him. Notice, the place of the scripture
where he read was this, "...he was led as a sheep to the slaughter,
and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment
was taken away, and who shall declare his generation, for his
life is taken from the earth?" What did the Ethiopian just read?
Isaiah 53. And what does it say there? Who
hath believed our report? In Romans 10-16 it says they
haven't all obeyed the gospel because Isaiah said, who has
believed our report? The report is the gospel. Isaiah
53 is the gospel in prophecy. What is it telling? It's telling
about the Lord Jesus Christ who is Jehovah's servant, who came
and God laid on him the iniquities of his people, he bore them before
God, he suffered for them, and by his sufferings they are washed
and cleansed, by his stripes they are healed." He's the Lamb
of God. The subject of Isaiah 53 is the
Lamb of God, isn't it? Now, so the eunuch was reading
that. Philip preached Christ crucified to this man. And the
eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh
the prophet this? Of himself or of some other man?
Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way,
they came to a certain water. Now, in preaching Christ from
Isaiah 53, how would he have learned about baptism? Well,
Philip would have explained to him the death, the burial, and
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we baptize. The eunuch would have understood
that because he said, here as they went on their way, they
came to a certain water. And the eunuch said, see, here
is water. What does hinder me to be baptized? Is there anything, any reason
why I couldn't be baptized? Well, a lot of people could think
of a lot of reasons why you shouldn't be baptized. But Philip only
asked one question. He says, "...if thou believest
with all thine heart thou mayest." And He answered and said, "...I
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Jesus the Savior,
Christ the Anointed and Appointed One, to save His people from
their sins, from the devil, from death, the one who was appointed
as high priest, the Lamb of God is the Son of God. All that's
in there because he had to believe the gospel Philip preached about
Jesus. Jesus is the Lamb of God who
took away the sins of his people throughout the world, and he's
the Son of God. That's what he says. He is God
himself. He could not fail. And so, he
commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both
into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. They didn't just scoop up some
and fling it on his face, they actually got down in the water.
And when they were coming up out of the water, the Spirit
of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more,
and the eunuch went on his way rejoicing. Who wouldn't? He just
was able by what he did, going down into the water and coming
up, he just said, I'm a saved man. The Lord has saved me. Not
because of what I did, but because he saw and understood that Christ
did it all. And his salvation was all in
him. And he just simply confessed it like the thief on the cross.
So baptism is done by immersion. And believers alone are to be
baptized. I don't know why this is so convoluted
in religion today. There's only one scripture. We
just read this, right? The one place in scripture, what
hinders me from being baptized, one condition is given, if you
believe with all your heart. Wouldn't you naturally say, well
that's got to be the only condition for baptism, if you were really
being honest with scripture? But no. People want to baptize
babies. They want to sprinkle them instead
of immersing them. And so they make up doctrines.
Look at Acts chapter 16. Here's where they go. I don't
want to belabor this too much, but I have to address these commonly
held falsehoods. Isaiah 16 verse 14. Did I say
Isaiah? Acts chapter 16 verse 14. Acts 16. And a certain woman... named Lydia, a seller of purple
of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us, whose
heart the Lord opened, and she attended unto the things which
were spoken of Paul." Notice how she heard, God opened her
heart, and she attended, that means she believed. And when
she was baptized, that's all fine and good, she believed,
didn't she? And her household, Oh, well that's where the problem
comes in. People say, well see her household.
She was a mom. She had all these kids running
around. They all got in the water with her. Or maybe they sprinkled
them. But that's not what it says here. It just says her household.
It doesn't mention children, does it? If you want to hold
the position that this scripture teaches that children were baptized,
you're obligated to prove that her household contained children. And how would you do that? It's
not here, is it? She was a seller of purple. They
went into her house. It doesn't mention her husband.
She obviously was a woman of substance. But notice. After Paul and Silas go into
the Philippian jail, and God shakes the earth, and they're
set free, notice on further in the same chapter, it says in
verse 39, and they came, actually I'm kind of jumping in the middle
here, let's read verse 37, but Paul said to them, They have
beaten us. This is after they wanted to
release him from jail. He said, no, no. They've beaten
us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and they cast us into
prison, and now do they want to thrust us out privately? Nay,
verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out. These men had
falsely sent Paul and Silas to prison and had them beaten, and
now he's not giving them any He is making them stand up and
own their injustice. He says in verse 38, And the
sergeants told these words to the magistrates, and they feared
when they heard that they were Romans. And so Paul and Silas
came and besought them, I'm sorry, no the magistrates, came and
besought them, and brought them out, and desired them to depart
out of their city. This is a scandal. We don't want
this to happen. We don't want this to get out. Don't tell the
news organization. Verse 40, And they went out, Paul and Silas,
went out of the prison. And they entered into the house
of Lydia. Interesting. And when they had
seen the brethren, they comforted them and departed. Who was in
Lydia's house? Obviously brethren were there.
Well who were brethren? They're not women. They're men,
adult men, in fact, that were baptized with Lydia and that
was her household. She had servants. She was a woman
of wealth and she had servants who were converted and became
brethren. That's the only possible explanation
of what's going on here by the words given to us from Scripture.
You can't read into this that there were children baptized,
especially not sprinkled here. So this is very significant. All who believe are baptized.
Look at Romans chapter 6. And this will be the actual undeniable
truth taught here in Romans chapter 6. In verse 3 of Romans 6, he
says, That so many of us, as were baptized into Jesus Christ,
were baptized into His death. So what is Paul saying? Whoever
was baptized, baptized in water, were signifying by that baptism
that they were actually baptized into Christ's death. They themselves
were with Christ when He died. That's what it's saying. When
it says they were baptized into Christ, it means baptized with
reference to Christ. But they were baptized with reference
to Christ, confessing that in His death they died. Therefore,
in reality, they are buried with him by baptism into death. Verse
4. 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. For if we have been planted together,
how can you be planted together with Christ unless you were actually
a believer? You can't be. Only believers
are baptized. But more significantly, The fact
is that when Christ died, we were planted together with Him,
it says here, verse 5, in the likeness of His death. When we
were baptized, we signified by our baptism that we were actually
planted together with Christ in His death. And then he goes
on, he says, If we have been planted together
in the likeness of His death through baptism, and reality,
actually so, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. We who were buried with Christ,
and died with Christ, and were buried with Christ, shall live
with Christ. There's no question about it.
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the
body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not
serve sin. Without going into a long explanation
of this, understand that verse 6 is saying that when Christ
died, we died both to the guilt and condemnation of our sins.
All of our sins were put on Christ in His body. He bore our sins
in His body up to the tree. 1 Peter 2.24. And so when He
died, our sins, like a body, died with Him. That's called
the old man here. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. Verse 7. He's justified from
sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also
live with him. Knowing that Christ, being raised
from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over
him. So baptism is our confession. that when Christ lived and died
and was buried and rose again, we died to sin, our sins were
put away, like we sang in the song, remembered no more. And
when He was resurrected, as we come up out of the water of baptism,
we're raised with Christ. We were raised with Christ. We
were justified. Living, He loved me. Dying, He
saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. Death, burial, and resurrection.
That's all of our salvation in Christ. And we signify that by
going under the water, by coming up out of the water. We believe
that Christ is all of our life before God. What a wonderful
thing it is. It's not a sprinkling. It's an
immersion. Believers only do this. It was an ordinance given
to us by Christ. And when we do it, we glorify
God by confessing, Christ is all my hope. God receives me
just like when the heavens were opened to His Son. And He says,
with My Son I'm well pleased. Because when Christ rose, God
received His people. And God received His people.
And He tells us to think, this is the only way God has received
us. If we've been buried with Him,
We enrose with Him, then we stand before God justified. That's
what we confess in our baptism. What a wonderful thing it is
to so identify with Christ who loved us and gave Himself for
us. Our baptism with Him. So much we could say about it.
Let's pray. Father, we thank You that we have been put into
the Lord Jesus Christ. Of Him, our God and Father, we
have been put into Christ. And He has been made unto us
wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Our salvation
is entirely by what He did. It's in our Savior. He's our
surety. He stood for us, answered with
Himself and rose again justified from all things and we justified
with Him. Justified by His blood and in
looking to Him we receive the assurance in our heart that you
received him for his people. And as sinners, we can look to
him as the sinners we read about in scripture, believing him,
they too found all their hope in salvation in Christ. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen.