How important is your baptism?
"Our Savior commands us to follow His example in all things, including baptism:
Matthew 28:19 says,
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." At the beginning of His public ministry, Christ chose to be baptized. John the Baptist was calling the Jewish people to confess their sins and demonstrate repentance through immersion in the Jordan River. Sinless Christ joined the crowd at the river and asked John to baptize Him. Christ chose to affiliate Himself with sinful man. When we follow His example in the waters of baptism, we're publicly confessing our faith in the Savior and identifying ourselves with Him.
Baptism allows us to demonstrate our connection with Christ and with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We're all members of one body under the authority of the same Messiah. But it's important to remember that Ephesians 2:8-9 says faith in Jesus Christ is the only requirement for salvation, not baptism. But, to fulfill His command, we're to be baptized following our decision to accept Him into our lives."
In Baptism, Yasha Christ is speaking to the believer, to the assembled congregation, and to the watching world, identifying this person with himself in death, in burial, and in resurrection. And so in Baptism, what you have is a sign of an execution. It's a sign of a drowning. This is the reason why, when Christ is baptized, John the Baptist can't believe it. Christ comes to him and says, "I want to be baptized by you," and John says, "No, no, no, I need be baptized by you."
Why is John so alarmed by this? Well, it's because of what he's doing with baptism. He's saying, "You're a bunch of snakes, you need to come under the judgment of God." And in Baptism, what's happening? Well, water is scary. You go under water, you can't breathe. It's a picture of death and of the grave, and always has been, Biblically. The flood, God floods the world, that is a baptism, Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3. God sends Jonah into the deep, into the water, it is his judgment upon Jonah. God ultimately baptizes the world with fire, and engulfs and immerses the world in fire.
So when Christ says, "I want to be baptized," John is alarmed by this because this is the sinless son of God. And it makes no more sense than someone saying, "I really would like to be on the FBI's most wanted registry." You would say, "Why would you want to be on that list? Why would you want to identify yourself with these snakes who are under the judgment of God?" But of course, Christ is doing exactly that. Not because he has sin, but because he's identifying himself with sinful people.
So, when someone is going down into the waters of baptism, first of all, that person is confessing, "I deserve death. I deserve the judgment of God." Christ is saying to the person, "Yeah, you're right. This is exactly what you deserve, is death and the grave." But the person is also acknowledging, "I am trusting in the power of God to raise me from death, and Christ is affirming that in the physical act of the person being brought under water, can't breathe, death, and then being ripped out of the water by a power that doesn't belong to him. There's a power that's coming from the outside, bringing that person up.
So, that person now has identified with Christ in his death, Romans 6, in his burial, in his resurrection, the person also is acknowledging, "I was dead in trespasses and sins under the judgment of God, buried, but I am now raised to newness of life because I'm in Christ." And the person is identified with that final reality of dying and being buried and then having one's name called and being brought up out of the grave. That's a physical, visible sign of that.
And so what happens in baptism is that Yasha Christ is claiming this person as his own. "This is the boundary marker, this is one of ours. This is our brother and our sister." Which is why in the New Testament, you don't have any such thing as an unbaptized Believer. Those who believe are baptized, the apostle Paul says that there's one Sovereign, there's one faith, there's one baptism, one God and Father of all.
So baptism is extraordinarily important, this is the initial rite of the Believer's obedience, but it also is a sign that builds up the faith, not only of the person being baptized, but of the rest of the community of believers, They're watching the gospel and they're hearing the gospel sloshing around in the water. Christ has given that to us because he knows we need to see it, we need to experience it, we need to feel it and we need to be reminded of it. And every time we see baptism, we're reminded we're at war, and we're to take this gospel to the ends of the earth, discipling the nations and baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:36-39
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Yasha, whom ye have crucified, both Sovereign and Christ.
37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
In Romans 6:3-4,
The Apostle Paul puts the matter this way:
Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
They all knew that they must be baptized!
