Let's open our Bibles together into the New Testament to the eighth chapter of the Book of Acts. Actually, there was someone who came to me before the service and guessed the exact verse I was speaking on tonight. He had done some thinking about it. In fact, two minutes worth this morning, he said, and figured it out. So it wasn't that hard of a quiz, I suppose. The first question of a new convert is our subject for tonight, and we find that here in the account of the Ethiopian eunuch.
We sometimes forget the confusion, uncertainties, and questions which are faced by new converts. It's important for us to remember to be kind, to be sensitive to their early inquiries, sometimes immature ideas or even mistakes. And not be judgmental, because after all, we all started out there, didn't we? We were all young and new babes in Christ at some point, and perhaps some of our ideas didn't quite square up with what the Bible teaches. But that comes with maturity.
That comes with growth in grace. The Ethiopian eunuch was a man who was a student of the Word of God. The Spirit of God had prepared him for this encounter with Philip. He was on his way back home after having come to Jerusalem to worship the Lord. Now whether he was a Jew by birth or a Gentile proselyte to Judaism, we're not really told. Here in Acts chapter 8, I rather think he may have been the latter.
I think that that would seem to fit in logically at least with the flow of the book of Acts that we would have here a Gentile who was a convert to Judaism. But he had not knowledge of Christ. And as he read Isaiah chapter 53, his heart was puzzled. We find concerning this man that he was a man of questions. In fact, the only statements recorded by him are questions or exclamations, nothing in between. Notice that in verse 31 he had this question of Philip as he joined the chariot.
He said, how could I, that is how could I understand what I'm reading unless someone guides me? Question. And so they read the scripture together that he was studying. In verse 34, the eunuch answered and said, please tell me of whom does the prophet say this? Question. Of himself or of someone else? Question. And then Philip preached Jesus to him. And they went on down the road and came to some water and the eunuch exclaimed, look, water.
And then he asked another question, what prevents me from being baptized? Here we have the first question or the first matter of concern after his hearing, and it's implied his believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. What prevents me from being baptized? He asked. Baptism, it seems to me, is the first question that every new convert ought to ask. Indeed, it's the first command which the word of God gives us to obey. We're coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want you to look with me in the book of Acts just very quickly at a sequence of scriptures that deal with this. Turn back to chapter two in verse 41. I want you to notice how consistently this theme is followed in the book of Acts. While it is not made a point every time there's a convert, the Holy Spirit causes Luke to record this frequently enough that we certainly see the pattern that's established. In Acts 2 41 it says, so then those who had received his word were baptized.
And they were added that day about 3,000 souls. Now turn over to chapter eight again, and this time in verse 12. Earlier in the chapter it says so, or rather, but when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized. Men and women alike. We've already read Acts chapter eight and verse 36. So let's skip over that to chapter nine and verse 18. Here regarding the apostle Paul after his conversion.
Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight and he arose and was baptized. Chapter 10 verse 47. Here we come now to the first Gentile, Cornelius, his household. In verse 47, Peter says, surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did Kenny. And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And now over into the minister of the apostle Paul in chapter 16 and verses 14 and 15.
A certain woman named Lydia from the city of Phthira, seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God was listening. And the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us saying, if you judge me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay there. And then in chapter 16 again in verse 33 it says, and he took them that very hour of the night. And they were in Philippi and washed their wounds.
And immediately he was baptized he and his household. Chapter 18 and verse 8. And Crispus the leader of the synagogue believed in the Lord with all his household. And many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized. Chapter 19 verses 3 through 5. And he said, Paul said, into what then were you baptized? And they said into John's baptism.
And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in him who is coming after him, that is in Jesus. And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And then one other account in chapter 22 and verse 16. Paul says, and now why do you delay, arise and be baptized and wash away your sins calling on his name.
So you see that throughout the book of Acts, not just in the early chapters which deal primarily with the Jews and with Israel, but throughout the book of Acts and the progress of it, you see baptism consistently followed and practiced among the early believers in the church. We teach as a local church that there are two ordinances or commandments which our Lord gave to us as a body of believers as a church to practice and obey during this age.
And of course they are the Lord's Supper and baptism. These are indeed commandments. They are not considerations. They are not options, but they are commandments given to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It seems to me that there are two extremes that need to be avoided regarding baptism. On the one hand there is the extreme that says baptism is not for this age. For a variation of it, baptism is unimportant. It's insignificant. It's optional.
The other is the extreme that teaches baptism is essential for salvation. And unless you are baptized, you cannot be saved. Both of those extremes are incorrect. They are in error. Is the command of Matthew 28, 19, for example, in what is commonly called the Great Commission, where Jesus has go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, is that command for this age? Well, certainly the apostles thought so.
They were convinced it was true, and the early church followed that practice. Is it necessary for salvation? The apostles did not teach that it was, nor did the early church teach it. And there is the first question that every convert ought to ask. That prevents me from being baptized. If you were to ask that in our church tonight, the answer to that would be a leaky baptistry.
I'm sorry to say we have quite a few people who are waiting on baptism, and we've been waiting to get the baptistry fixed for a number of months, trying several ideas. And you notice how the plants are even growing over there now, isn't it? You can see how badly it was leaking. But we are assured that within the next two weeks, as a matter of fact, the baptistry is going to be repaired, and we will be scheduling baptism immediately after that.
But let's think about that first question of a new convert. What prevents me from being baptized? And ask several basic questions. First of all, what is baptism? The noun baptism comes from a Greek verb, baptizo. You see that that's where the word baptism is derived. Baptizo means to dip or to immerse. All lexicographers agree on this. You say, what in the world is a lexicographer? That is a person who writes a dictionary. Those who study words and write definitions to words.
I was just reading a very interesting article today in Parade magazine, maybe some of you saw it, regarding Noah Webster, who was the first lexicographer of American English. There are people who study the definitions of words and write those words down. Now those who study these Greek words are lexicographers too. And they say regarding this verb that it definitely means to immerse or to dip. All lexicographers agree with that.
In Mark chapter 1, we have recorded for us the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now in the language as it's originally written there, it could not be made more clear that exactly what happened to Jesus was that he went down into the Jordan River and came up out of the Jordan River. Not just that he walked down the bank and waded into it, but that he went down into the water and came up out of the water.
There is no question that that was the mode or the form which the Lord Jesus Christ followed in his baptism, which was the baptism of John. But someone says, well it's not really the form that is important, it's the spirit that counts. Well certainly the spirit is important. Certainly the heart attitude is critical indeed to what baptism means. But the meaning is also found in its symbolism. And that is directly related to the mode, the form that is practiced.
Immersion pictures beautifully the symbolism of baptism, that of death, burial, and resurrection with the Lord Jesus Christ being placed below the waters, brought up again just as the Lord Jesus was. That is a picture of his death, burial, and resurrection. It seems to me that the form is significant. This Greek word is transliterated into the English language giving us the word baptism.
The King James Version translators actually created the word so as not to offend the King of England, King James who was the head of the Anglican Church, the Church of England. Had they translated this word like they translated other words from the Greek as well as the Hebrew, they would have used the word immerse, where it was implied it was literal water baptism.
But that would be in contrast to what the Church of England did and could have cost them not only their jobs but the upper portion of their anatomy. And so to keep from offending the King of England who had hired them to do their work, they simply transliterated the word and brought it into the English language. Thus we have the word baptism or baptize. Let me quote a Dr. Grould, E.P. Grould who is an Episcopalian authority commenting regarding Mark 1.
He says, the proposition here coincides with the proper meaning of the verb indicating that the form of the rite was immersion into the stream. As you know Episcopalians, those who are related to the Church of England practice another form but one of the scholars even admits immersion is what the Bible teaches. John Calvin who is associated so often with Presbyterians and the reform movement said this, among the ancients they immersed the whole body in water.
It is certain that immersion was the practice of the early Church. Cardinal Gibbons of the Roman Catholic faith and faith of our fathers said this, for several centuries after the establishment of Christianity, baptism was usually conferred by immersion. But he went on to say, since the 12th century the practice of baptism by our fusion has prevailed in the Catholic Church as this manner is attained with less inconvenience than immersion.
Someone asked me this morning, well where did sprinkling begin? It's difficult to trace that back and find the exact source of it. There are different ideas about it. But you can draw the bottom line and say this, that sprinkling began as a mode of convenience. Personally in this Church we understand the Bible to be our final authority and we have convictions about what the Bible teaches. We believe that the final authority, the Bible, teaches us that immersion is the proper mode of baptism.
Then the question, who should be baptized? The answer to that is those who have believed. Just as it was true with what Philip said to the Ethiopian eunuch, he said to him, if you believe you may be baptized. And he responded by saying, I believe, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And immediately they stopped the chariot and got out of the chariot and went down to the water and there he was baptized and Philip was caught away by the Spirit.
And the Ethiopian went on his way rejoicing. Who is it that should be baptized? The answer is those who have believed. Or as Jesus would put it in Matthew 28 and 19, those who have been made disciples. As those who have believed on him. In other words, baptism is not just for some. Baptism is not just for those who are more dedicated. It is not for those who have grown to some state of Christian maturity. It is not for those who sometimes get in the mood for it.
But the teaching of the New Testament is that baptism is for all who have believed, who are best disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is for all who come to faith. But then notice too, it is only for those who come to faith. We practice what we call believers baptism. That is, baptism is for those who have believed. In fact, in the Bible there is not a word of another kind of baptism for unbelievers or for infants for that matter.
I usually tell those who are in the members meetings that I am going to take a few seconds to talk about all the scriptures that deal with infant baptism. And I wait about that long to say that is all of them right there. You see, the point is that there are none that deal with infant baptism. Infant baptism is based upon a system of theology that is called covenant theology. Covenant theology says that the New Testament age is the fulfillment of God's Old Testament covenant with Abraham.
They teach that infant baptism thus replaces circumcision of the Jews as a means of bringing a child under the covenant of Abraham, the covenant with God. Now certainly the New Testament does teach a kind of circumcision, not physical circumcision, but rather spiritual circumcision. What Paul calls in Colossians chapter 2, the cutting away of the sin of the flesh. That is, the power, the principle of sin within us, the power of the principle of sin.
The guilt that is associated with that, that is circumcised, cut away from us when we come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But that is the only kind of circumcision that is mentioned in the New Testament. It is a spiritual thing that occurs in the heart, in the spirit when one comes to Christ. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Godparents or sponsors come with the child at the time of his being sprinkled, what they call baptism. They refer to that as vicarious faith.
These people are, the child doesn't have faith they say, but these people come with faith on behalf of the child. And thus they try to justify baptism for that child who has no, I'm sorry, no knowledge of what's going on. I know because I was sprinkled as a child and I didn't know what was going on. I got my head wet, but that's all that I could possibly get out of that whole experience. Luther taught that infants have faith. Calvin was very similar to that.
He taught that the seed of faith is implanted in children of believing parents because of the covenant of promise. And so taught infant baptism. But again, I refer to the fact that the word of God is our final authority. And nowhere in the word of God is infant baptism spoken about. Oh, you say yes, but you read some scriptures where households were baptized. But please notice that in none of those cases does it say whether the household was family or servants.
In the first place, the word can refer to either one. Let's assume for the moment that it is a family, which I think is probably the better understanding of it. It does not indicate there the age of the family. It says nothing about infants. And to use that as a text for arguing for infant baptism is at best to argue from silence a weak argument.
Indeed, the indication there is that not only the parents were saved and the households were baptized too, but it is rather that the parents and the households believed and therefore they were all baptized. Why should one be baptized? Because it is a command of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a part of his commandment to us to evangelize in this age. The early church then followed by giving us a consistent example of that. Why should one be baptized?
Because it evidences obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ and testifies not only of one's commitment to him, but of one's union and identity with him. What is the significance of baptism? Well, it is not a baptism of repentance. What I mean by that, the baptism today is not the same baptism in its significance with which Jesus was baptized. He was baptized by John the Baptist, an Old Testament baptism.
There are some Baptists who teach that the Baptist church can be traced all the way back to John the Baptist. Have you ever heard that doctrine? I guess you have to be from Kentucky to have heard that. It's called landmarkism. And it's a very strong theme in some of the Baptists and they only put the capital B on John the Baptist, but all the letters are capitalized. They taste that the Baptist church goes all the way back to John the Baptist.
My argument with them is this, that if it does, it's an Old Testament Baptist church. Because you see, John the Baptist was a part of the Old Testament. It seems to me they're cutting their own throats and trying to propagate that. Jesus was baptized with John the Baptist baptism. It was a baptism unto repentance. Not that he needed to repent, but he identified with us in our sin, in our need to repent.
And it was the beginning of his ministry, his public ministry, identifying in suffering with us in our sin, culminating with his death on the cross. By the way, from what I just said, you can see that the apostles did not create baptism. John the Baptist practiced it. We got it from the, what was the group called down at the Dead Sea? The Essenes. The Essenes practiced it.
In fact, if you go down to the community that the archeologists have uncovered from those early days, 2,000 years ago, you will find something there that some people believe is a baptistry that was built in a part of one of their buildings. At least it appears to be. It may be a bathtub. I don't know. I don't know how archeologists decided it was a bath history, not a bathtub or whatever it may have been. But the fact is that the Essenes were known to have practiced baptism.
The Jews practiced baptism in the Old Testament. Gentile proselytes brought into Judaism were immersed in the water to bring them in. The pagans practiced the same rite. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ gave it a brand new meaning, signifying his death, burial, and resurrection. And so, although it's the same event, it has a brand new meaning and significance during this age because it points back to his death and resurrection. That's what it symbolizes, the great facts of the gospel.
It also pictures our baptism in the Holy Spirit. At the moment that you and I are saved, the Holy Spirit is a wonderful thing. He baptizes us. Nowhere are we taught in scripture to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Not once are we commanded to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, contrary to much of the teaching in some churches today. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the work of the Holy Spirit identifying us with the Lord Jesus Christ at the very moment that we're saved. We don't sense it.
It's something that happens to us, but it's not something that we sense. It is done once. It is done at the moment of salvation. It never needs to be repeated. It means that he identifies us with the Lord Jesus Christ, just as that spiritual baptism, by the way, brings us into the church, the universal body of Christ, capital C on church. Just as that spiritual baptism brings us into the church, the body of Christ.
So we believe that it's logical to conclude that water baptism should be a part of one coming into our local church. Not that one has to be baptized every time he goes into a church, but after being saved, one is baptized in water and brought into the membership of a local church because it fits beautifully with that picture of our spiritual baptism. When one is baptized, it is an illustration of our death with Christ to the old way of life, to our sin. Romans chapter 6 talks about this.
Our burial with Christ, our resurrection, to walk with him after newness of life. It indicates our desire to walk pleasing to him. And so is baptism essential for salvation? The answer is a resounding no, it is not. It is not necessary. Commonly we point to the thief on the cross as an example of that. Jesus said, today you will be with me in paradise. Obviously he wasn't baptized. Well, there are those that have argued with me on that. They say, well, he was baptized with the baptism of desire.
He would have been if he could. I don't know how you argue with that. The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 14 said, I thank God I baptize none of you but Gaius and Crispus and he names the ones that he baptized. Now the reason for his saying that, you have to understand what he's talking about in the first couple of chapters of Corinthians, but my point is this.
If baptism were necessary for salvation, Paul would never have said, I thank God I didn't baptize you except for these few people. In other words, he says others have baptized him. He would have wanted to make sure they were baptized immediately if it were necessary to somehow consummate their salvation. It seems to me that the teaching that one must be baptized to be saved is heresy.
Just as heretical and just as false as those Judaizers in the early days of the church that one had to be circumcised to be saved. They were adding to the gospel of Jesus Christ and Paul denounced them in the strongest terms and so I believe that we need to denounce that teaching which says one must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be baptized to be saved. That is heresy, that is false teaching. Salvation comes through simple faith, receiving through faith what God provides by grace.
Is it essential however for discipleship? Is baptism essential for discipleship? The answer is a resounding yes, it is. If commands are meant to be obeyed, it is necessary for discipleship. If commands are meant to be obeyed, then failure to obey the command is disobedience. Jesus said in John 14, 15, if you love me, keep my commandments. My friend baptism is one, it is one of his commandments. It seems to me that baptism is the first question that a new convert ought to seek out.
Now there are those who delay, some delay out of fear, they're afraid of the experience. I have talked to people who are absolutely petrified of water. And I know they bathe, I know some of them get into a bathtub at least on Saturday night whether they need it or not. But somehow either they go swimming in a swimming pool, get water up to here, that's about as far as my wife goes, because she has been baptized. We've never lost anybody yet in the baptistry.
It's been close a couple of times, but we haven't lost them yet. There's nothing to be terrified of. Yet there are those who neglect because of fear or delay because of fear. There are those who delay because of neglect. They simply don't see this as something that is that urgent. But it seems to me if you study it in the Bible, in the book of Acts in particular, the historical book of the early church, you see that almost always it followed immediately the act of faith.
Now we do delay that somewhat in our own practice of it in order to give an opportunity for that faith to be testified to publicly. I'm not sure that we have biblical grounds for that however, because as it was practiced in the New Testament church, it followed faith immediately. There are those who delay also, I'm sorry to say, out of pride because somehow it is a humbling thing, and I think it's meant to be that. It's meant to be a humbling of oneself.
My friend, if the Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be baptized with the suffering that he endured, if he humbled himself to the point of death, even the death of the cross, it's not too much that we should humble ourselves in front of others and allow ourselves to be identified through water with him, with his people.
I don't know what the reason may be for delay in your life if that's the case, but I want to encourage you to examine that because I want to repeat the baptism is essential for discipleship. It's not that the Lord doesn't forgive sins, he does. But let's face it, he commanded baptism. Obedience means to be baptized. It's not a question of salvation, but it is a question of following him in obedience. Let's bow together in prayer. My friend, the question tonight may be for you.
What prevents me from being baptized? And I would respond to you the way that Philip responded to that Ethiopian. If you believe, you may. Have you believed? Do not place your faith in some rite, even if it be baptism, for water can never wash away sins, only the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for that. What prevents me from being baptized? Nothing if you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as far as God is concerned. If you have believed, have you been baptized?
Have you followed the Lord in the waters of baptism? Father, I pray that you tonight will, in a very wonderful and gentle way, your way, deal with us, speak to our hearts about this.
And for those who have for some reason delayed in their obedience, I pray that you, not me, not this preacher, not this church, but you by your spirit, would deal with those hearts and bring them to the point of understanding the importance of this and of following through with an obedient discipleship, knowing that that pleases you. And I pray, Father, if some friend be here without Jesus, that you will help that one to see the preeminence of that decision to receive by faith the Lord Jesus.
And may you do that tonight. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.