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Baptism: Foundational Doctrine - Part 2

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Baptism

Foundational Doctrine - Part 2

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Baptism: Foundational Doctrine - Part 2

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Baptism is the way you formally commit to following God in response to His calling, with laying-on of hands following after. Where this practice originates, what it signifies and how it's done are covered in this message. This is the third sermon in a series covering the fundamental teachings of Hebrews 6.

Transcript

[Gary Petty] Two weeks ago, I started a series of sermons I am going to do on what is often called the foundational doctrines. Let’s go to Hebrews, chapter 6. I think every once in a while, we should go through every one of these doctrines, because Paul makes this reference to these as actually absolutely foundational to what Christianity is all about. He says:

Hebrews 6:1 – Therefore – verse 1 – leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ…. See, you start with who Christ is – of course, we talk a lot about that in sermons all the time. …let’s go on to perfection – so going on to perfection is the whole Christian living approach we are supposed take with our viewpoint of Christ’s second coming – not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgments.

And so, we have here, after Christ and going on to perfection – two bookends – understanding who Christ is, living our life growing in purity, preparing for Christ return – we have these foundational doctrines. What I went through last time was faith. We are not exactly going through them in order. But, what I went through last time was faith. Now it’s one of the foundational doctrines. And we went through and showed, without faith it is impossible to please God. It’s impossible. It’s impossible to have a good relationship with God without faith and how difficult that is. We ended with the man who said to Christ – said to Jesus, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” We all struggle with faith.

What I want to talk about today – we’re going to go back to repentance here next time – but what I want to talk about baptisms. Now it’s plural. You’ll notice it is plural. It talks about more than one baptism. And then for the Bible study, we are going to go through the laying on of hands, because baptisms and laying on of hands are connected, and yet they are two different doctrines. And there is a reason why they are mentioned as two different doctrines. Many churches baptize today. Laying on of hands is a doctrine that has disappeared from many, many Protestant churches. In confirmation, I still think they lay hands on in the Catholic Church, but in the Protestant world, laying on of hands has just about disappeared. Even in Sabbath keeping churches where they used to lay hands on, this doctrine has disappeared in many of old Sabbath keeping churches. And yet it is a foundational doctrine that the church is supposed to build on. So, we are going to talk about baptisms today in the sermon and laying on of hands as a Bible study. So really what we are doing today is two Bible studies. So, we’re going to be going through a lot of scriptures today to build a story.

What we are doing is an outline. We can’t go through every scripture about baptism, obviously, but we’re going to build an outline about baptisms – what it means by baptisms and why are there different baptisms. What does that mean and how does that apply to us?
 
And of course, when we talk about baptisms, the word baptism in Greek – we all know this, we start with this understanding – it means total immersion. There is a reason for that. When we look through what it means, we understand that immersion has to be the concept behind it. It is a total complete immersion. So when we talk about water baptism, we’re going to talk about total immersion into water. When we go through the other baptisms, you will see they are also total immersions. It is being totally, completely surrounded, if you will, by what we are talking about.

So, let’s go to Matthew 3. Here’s where we usually start to talk about the concept of baptism and why there is more than one. Let’s start in verse 1. You know, what’s interesting, a lot of what we are going to read today – going through a lot of different scriptures – but a lot of them are examples. They are stories, especially when you get to the laying on of hands. We are going to go through stories of applications. Now, we’ll also go to where Paul explains – especially Paul –  what baptism is. We actually find more scriptures about the application of baptisms and laying on of hands than we do about explanations. But what Paul does explain is profound – very profound. It says in verse 1:

Matthew 3:1-3 – In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  For this is he who was spoken of by the Prophet Isaiah. So, he goes on and quotes from Isaiah that John the Baptist was actually a fulfillment of a prophecy.

V-4-6 – Now John himself was clothed in camel hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locust and wild honey. Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordon went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordon, confessing their sins.

Now baptism isn’t a strange concept in Judaism. In the Old Testament you will find in the old law that there are all kinds of washings that take place – that were part of the Old Covenant – especially the Levitical part of the Old Covenant – with the Levitical priesthood. There are washings that take place. By the time of Jesus, by the time of John the Baptist, what we have is, Judaism has actually accepted baptism as a ritual that they do. In fact, around the temple – the temple mount where Herod’s temple stood – they have found baptismal pools. Those weren’t built by Christians. Those were built by Jews. So, baptism isn’t totally foreign to the concept of being washed of your sins. But what John is doing here is unique. And what’s interesting is, that so many people were responding. So many people were leaving the cities to come out to the countryside – to the river Jordan – to be baptized by him – where he takes them completely into the water and immerses them. He says, “and they came confessing their sins.” So remember, these are Jews. These aren’t gentiles. These are Jews coming to be immersed, because they want to be washed from their sins. They see him as a prophet sent by God.

V-7-10 – But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them,” Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

So, he tells them you must repent also. Now this would have been very difficult to the highest religious leaders of Judaism. The Sadducees…many of them were priests who did sacrifices in the temple. The Pharisees were an interesting group, because they were not part of the Old Testament structure. Because the Pharisees were, for the most part, separate from the priests. They created their own rabbis, their own teachers, and their own schools, and ordained people separate from the priests. So, the Sadducees and the Pharisees were in competition many times. But they come, and he tells them that they must bear fruits for repentance. In other words, they have to show that they have actually repented. …and do not think to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,” for I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones, and even now, the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Now stopping there for a minute. Part of their problem was, they thought that by being born an Israelite, and being circumcised on the eighth day, they were guaranteed salvation. If you were born an Israelite and circumcised on the eighth day, you were guaranteed salvation – you and your family. And He is saying that being born a physical descendant of Abraham doesn’t guarantee salvation at all. You must repent and turn to God. He says:

V-11 – I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. In other words, “I baptize you for the forgiveness of your sins, because you repented of your sins.” But He who is coming after me, who is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

So here we have water baptism unto repentance. We have baptism of the Holy Spirit and baptism with fire. Three different kinds of baptism. So, we need to explain what these are, because Paul said, “Baptisms – understanding these three kinds of baptisms – is part of the foundational teachings of the church.

So, let’s start with water baptism. We understand that John the Baptist taught that you must repent, and then come and be washed – obviously, the water doesn’t wash your sins away, but you are symbolically being washed – and you must be immersed – totally immersed – totally cleaned – so that you could approach God. We find this then, taught by Jesus’ disciples. John the Baptist did it, but we find it became part of the New Testament Church.

Let’s go to Romans 6. Paul would teach more about baptism than anybody. When I do baptism counseling, the number of scriptures I have people study in depth is Romans 6, 7 and 8 – in depth. I mean, I usually ask the people to take 6, 7 & 8, and write it down verse by verse, then in the other column, write, “What is God saying to me?” Then we can discuss it.  He says:

Romans 6:1 – What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?

Now he had just…in chapter 5, he is talking about God’s forgiveness of sin and grace. Once again, in the Jewish world, it was believed, if you did enough good deeds that outweighed the bad deeds, that is how you got salvation. He is saying, “No. If God doesn’t forgive you, it doesn’t matter if you have done one sin or a thousand sins. If He doesn’t forgive you, you don’t receive salvation. It is that simple.” He says, “But now am I saying, because of God’s grace, does that mean we can just arbitrarily sin?” He says: Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live any longer in it? Now he says, “…we who have died to sin…” He is going to explain how we died to sin. Or do you not know that as many of us that were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? That is very interesting. Paul takes this beyond just the idea of, “Okay, I go under the water and I am washed of my sins.” He takes it to, you are going through a symbolic death. You are dying. You are dying with Christ. Christ died. You are going to die with Him. So he expands this out. You’re not just washed of your sins. You’re dying so that you come out of there and God makes you a into new person. You begin to be created into a new person. He says, “Don’t you know you died? How can you continue to want to sin and live the old lifestyle when you died?”He says – verse 4:

V-4-7 – Therefore we were buried with Him – the immersion thing once again – not just for cleanliness, but to be buried. You are totally buried – not partially buried with your arms sticking up out of the grave. You are buried through baptism unto death. Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism unto death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. So, baptism washes us, we die, and we are able now, after baptism, to become a new person. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that the old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For He who has died has been freed from sin.

So, the idea that you die in that water – that the old person dies…. Sometimes the people that are being baptized miss this. They come out and say, “Well, I hope God forgave me for what I did.” Well, you died. Christ death was applied to you and you died. What you did before doesn’t matter, because God said, “I killed that person. Now, let’s make a new person out of you.” So, you are washed, and you die. That’s part of the symbolism here. So, this continues now what John did – John the Baptist did – continues in the New Testament church, but the meaning of it is expanded. And we’ll see why when we go through the laying on of hands. That is why these two doctrines are so tightly connected to each other. So total immersion is necessary to symbolize death. A sprinkling doesn’t symbolize death, Neither does it symbolize a complete washing.

Now there’s another thing Paul does here that is absolutely amazing – that God inspires him to do – that you don’t see any of the other New Testament writers get until he says it. That is, under the Old Covenant, you became a member of the covenant through circumcision. If you weren’t circumcised, you weren’t a participant in the covenant. Your family wasn’t a participant in the covenant. That’s why circumcision was so important in the New Testament. We make fun of these people. Why was circumcision so important? Well, why would God send an angel to kill Moses’ sons because they weren’t circumcised? He said, “Your sons aren’t part of the covenant. How can you be an example to the people if your own sons aren’t circumcised? So, I am going to kill them.” So they were circumcised. It was a sign of the covenant. You couldn’t be a participant in the covenant unless you did this sign – unless you showed, “I am part of the covenant.” Now today, you make a covenant with somebody, what do you do? You shake hands. “Sorry, we didn’t shake hands. It’s not a covenant.” “Sorry, I didn’t sign the paper. It’s not a covenant.” Being circumcised was the shaking of the hands and signing the paper with God.

Let’s go to Colossians, chapter 2. So, we have the remission of sins – the washing away of sins – the symbolism of your dying with Christ – and now Paul expands this out in a remarkable way. There is lots of scriptural reference to this. All through the Old Testament, they’re told, “Some day I will circumcise you in the heart and not the flesh.” There is just prophecy after prophecy that that’s going to happen. Paul seems to be the only one who really got it, and said, “Ahh…I understand now.” Well, God revealed it to him. Verse 11:

Colossians 2:11-14 – In Him – he is talking to Christians here – basically, a Gentile church in Colossae – In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands – so, you’re circumcised, but not physically – by putting off the body of sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism.

Now think about that. He said when you were buried with Christ in baptism, you now went through a process of circumcision of the heart, which now makes you a participant in the covenant. You are now a participant in the covenant. Because circumcision was given to Israel not for all the reasons…like it was a good health reason or it’s for cleanliness. Those may be true, but that’s not why He told them to do it. He told them to do it because it is a sign that you are a part of My covenant. So now suddenly it changes. You were circumcised when you went under that water and you died. Something changed inside you. You died in there in order to become a new person. You died in order to become a new person, so that you can now be circumcised spiritually. So that has to tie into the New Covenant because circumcision has to do with the covenant. It doesn’t have to do with anything else.

He says: …buried with Him through baptism, in which you were raised with Him though faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

He took this handwriting of requirements. In Greek that is a very unique word. The handwriting of requirements, if you translate it specifically, it would be a certificate of death. What it was, it was the list of your crimes. It was all the judgements against you. So, when you went to court you had your list of debts – your judgements. You broke this law, you broke this law, and these are your judgements against you – the handwriting of ordinances. They weren’t the laws themselves. They were the list of you breaking the laws. What He says is, He nails these to the cross – the dockets from the court. They got nailed there because you became circumcised when you went under the water. You entered into a new covenant with God.

So, we have baptism for the washing away of sin – he even says here, for the forgiveness of sins. It’s part of what he says. You were baptized to die with Christ symbolically, so that you can become a new person, and you were baptized as the outward symbol that you are entering a covenant with God – a personal covenant with God. You start to see the importance of baptism.

I find it interesting that so many Protestants today – not the Baptist church, but many of the other Protestant churches – claim you don’t have to be baptized. The moment you accept Jesus Christ into your heart you are saved. Baptism is a nice thing to do. It’s a nice ceremony, but it has nothing to do with salvation. You cannot be baptized, and you are still saved. I read an article a while back from a Protestant who was struggling with baptism – it was a minister – because he said, “After studying the Bible, you should be baptized.” He said there was one thing he really noticed in the scripture: in the entire new testament, there is not one Christian who is not baptized. So, he was questioning his church’s teaching. If in the New Testament, every Christian is baptized, shouldn’t we require baptism? He was really having trouble. He was talking about changing churches – the minister – because, “Wait a minute. We’re commanded to do this.” And it is a command. And you start to realize why: forgiveness of sin, the fact that you die with Christ, and the fact that you have entered into a new covenant.
 
Look at Galatians 3. It would have been nice if Paul had written this altogether in one place. I’m not sure…when you read Paul’s writings, I’m not sure he was being revealed to more and more as time went on. So, he doesn’t have it all at one time. That is why he is not teaching it all at one time. But you put it together, you can see what he learned, and what he was doing – what God was revealing through him. Galatians 3, verse 26:

Galatians 3:26-28 – For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Now we are going to talk about the requirements for baptism in a minute, and we just talked about faith. Faith is required. You’re not baptized and then, “Oh, I believe.” It’s first, “I have faith” – just a little bit of faith – and that leads you to baptism. So, faith is a prerequisite for baptism. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. It’s as if you put on Christ. You are now literally a Christian. The life of Christ is supposed to be lived in us because we are baptized. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Now, people say, “What exactly does that mean? I mean, we’re still male and female. Look around the room. We’re all still male and female.” He said, “In relationship to God, we are Christian, and that is our first identity.” Our first identity is a Christian. We were all talking outside about our different backgrounds. It is always fun to look at your family tree. “My family is Italian.” “My family is German.” Or, “My family is English,” or whatever – all different places. But we don’t say, “I’m an Italian Christian,” do we? “I am a Christian, and my family happens to be Italian.” Or, “I’m a Christian, and my family happens to be Hungarian,” or whatever.  We are Christian first. Christian first, because why? Because we’re baptized into that. We’re baptized into Christ. That is a remarkable statement he makes there. In fact, we begin to see then how baptism brings people into the church as the body of Christ.
 
Now back in Matthew 3 – we won’t go there – but the next statement - progression in that story is, that Jesus comes to be baptized by John the Baptist. He comes to be baptized by John the Baptist. Now, Jesus did not need to be baptized for the remission of sins. Jesus didn’t need to die for Himself. He didn’t need to do this to enter into the New Covenant. He is the Covenant, as it says in the Old Testament. The Messiah is the covenant. So why was He baptized? John the Baptist says the same thing. “Why would I baptize You? You should be baptizing me.” Jesus answer is, “To fulfill all righteousness.” In other words, this is what righteousness is. This is what My followers will do. The rejection of baptism is a rejection of Jesus Christ. I know that is a strong statement, but I believe that. It is a rejection of Jesus Christ. It scares me that so many Protestant churches have given up baptism. Well, there are other things too that scare me about them, but that is a scary thing. It is a rejection of Jesus Christ. In fact, you will also see in Matthew 28, He commands His disciples, “You go and baptize in My name.” It’s a commandment.

You want to see how important baptism is? There is one example that really points it out. Let’s go to Acts 10 – Acts, chapter 10. This story is, of course, about where Peter is sent to Cornelius. Cornelius is an Italian soldier. He is a Gentile – is part of the Roman legion. He is an officer in the Roman army, and Peter goes to him, because God has to reveal this truth and make him go to him. But Peter is not going to baptize him. He is not going to baptize him. He’s there to teach him about God, and he teaches him about Jesus Christ and who Jesus Christ is. And he does what he thinks his job is, which is to go tell this Roman soldier, “Yes, God accepts you.” Then something very interesting happens. Verse 44:

Acts 10::44 – While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished – because there were other people with Peterthat were in the church, but there were all Jews – as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.

They were surprised. The Holy Spirit was supposed to be poured out on the Jews. Remember in Acts, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, and Peter says, “This is exactly what Joel predicted in the minor prophets – that He would pour out His Spirit on His people.” If you go back and look at Joel it doesn’t just mean the Jews. It was to be poured out on all people. They’re starting to watch this happen. And they’re saying, “Wow! The Holy Spirit is going to come upon the Gentiles also.” For they heard them speak in tongues and magnify God. So what Peter does next is fascinating, because you’d think Peter would say, “Wow! God has forgiven them” – which He had, because He doesn’t give His Holy Spirit to anyone He hasn’t forgiven – “and God has poured out His Holy Spirit on them! This is wonderful! Let’s go tell everybody.” That’s not what he does. Notice what he says. And Peter answered, “Can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. And they asked him to stay a few days.

Just because they received the Holy Spirit didn’t mean, in Peter’s mind, “Oh, you don’t have to be baptized.” He baptized them anyway, because baptism was a command. God had accepted them into the covenant. Peter realized they still were expected to show they were part of the covenant. They were still supposed to go through the outward sign of being brought into the covenant – the covenant people, the church. That alone shows how important baptism was considered in the early church – that someone was baptized after they received the Spirit of God. It also shows that God will work around human beings. If Peter wasn’t going to baptize them, God knew they were ready. God gave them the Holy Spirit anyway.

God isn’t always contained by us. He tells us what to do, but He’s not contained in those things. Because He knows what is going on beyond what we do. If a minister refuses to baptize somebody who is truly repentant and accepted by God, that doesn’t mean that person never receives God’s Spirit. That is not what is going to happen. If a minister, in the hardness of his heart, refuses to baptize someone who should be baptized, God is going to make sure it gets taken care of. God is God. Now, He still expects us to go to ministers and be baptized, but if a minister makes a mistake, He’s still God – which is a real comfort to me – to know that I can make a mistake and God is still God. Somehow my mistakes don’t affect people’s salvation. That’s a nice thing to know.
 
Now, the requirements for baptism. We mentioned faith. Already faith has been brought up in the past scriptures we have read. It’s interesting,,,well, let’s look at an example in Acts 8 – Acts, chapter 8, verse 35. A lot of what we are going to look at, as far as examples, are in Acts. Acts 8:35 – now this is, of course, the story of an Ethiopian eunuch. Phillip is going along and finds this Ethiopian eunuch, which would have been a very important person in the Ethiopian government. He obviously had converted to Judaism, because he had come to Jerusalem to worship God. He’s going back to Ethiopia and he has the scroll of Isaiah. So he’s got to be a very rich person to be able to have a scroll. So he asks Phillip to explain to him some of the prophecies in Isaiah, and they are all about the Messiah. It says in verse 35:

Acts 8:35 – Then Phillip opened his mouth, and beginning at this scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now as they went down the road they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” So, he explained all these things to him, including baptism. It wasn’t foreign to him, because since he had converted to Judaism, he would have understood baptism was important – maybe he even heard John the Baptist at some point. Who knows? And Phillip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” So, he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and he baptized him.

So once again, “Do you believe Jesus Christ is who we just read about in Isaiah?” “Yes, I do. You just told me who Jesus is. I understood. He has died now and has been resurrected and I wish to become part of this. I wish to be immersed in this – not just immersed in water, but immersed in Christ – in this relationship with Christ – dying with Him, coming out of the water, so I can be resurrected with Him to become a new person – entering into this New Covenant where I am circumcised in the heart.”

A second requirement is repentance, and we will be going through repentance next time – to show that repentance…as we’ve already seen, those who came to John the Baptist had to repent in order to be baptized.

So, we have looked at water baptism. We have the other two types of baptism. Baptism of the Spirit. Early in the development in the church, we see something else happening here that is connected to baptism. It’s not always mentioned with it, but it is very importantly mentioned to it at certain times – which show that these two things work together. One is in Acts 8. Let’s go to Acts 8. We’re right here. Let’s go back a page. We have where, once again involving Philip, who is going out and preaching, and he goes to Samaria. Samaria is part of Judea, but it is really not Jews who live there, for the most part. Samaria had been the capital of ancient Israel. The Samaritans were Gentiles who had actually been brought in by the Babylonians. You can actually read about in the Old Testament to populate the area. When they moved the Israelites out, the Assyrians brought in these people, and the people lived there, and they claimed to be Jews, but they didn’t worship at the temple. They had their own mountain – their own temple. They didn’t worship at the Jewish temple. They claimed they had a better religion than the Jews – that they were the true Israelites – the true Jews. But they were really Gentiles that had been brought in centuries before. And so, Philip goes there to preach. In verse 9, it says:

Acts 8:9-19 – There is a certain man there named Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city, and astonished the people in Samaria, claiming that he was someone great in whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the great power of God.”

So here you have a religious leader, that in Samaria is considered to be the greatest man of God, and he was a sorcerer. He mixed paganism in with religion, which the Samaritans did anyway. They mixed paganism in with the worship of the true God. And they heeded him because he had astonished then with his sorceries for a long time. But when they believed Philip as he preached the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. So, Philip is now baptizing people, because they are believing. They are saying, “Yes, yes.” In fact, Jesus had actually gone to Samaria and interacted with them. It is possible that the seeds were already planted by Jesus, because He told them to go to Samaria. He told His disciples to go to Judaea, Samaria and the world. So, they were specifically told to go there. He had gone there and planted the seed. They show up and people are responding. The Gentiles were responding – the first Gentiles really responding to the word. They are baptized.

Then Simon himself also believed. He believed who Jesus was. And we’ll show that that’s not enough. And when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and he was amazed seeing the miracles and signs that were done. Now when the Apostles who were in Jerusalem had heard the Samarians had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. They were baptized, but they had not received the Holy Spirit. They were baptized for the remission of sins the same way John the Baptist was baptizing. For as yet He had not fallen on any of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

Now, not every place where they talk of baptism do they talk about this – the laying on of hands – but when they do talk about them together, we see that these are two ceremonies that are actually connected with each other. You can be forgiven of your sins and not receive the Holy Spirit.  Well, you can die with Christ and be forgiven, but how can you live in Christ if Christ is not put in you. See, there has to be something else that happens here. I can be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, but I still can’t become Christ-like unless He’s in me. The Spirit of Christ must come in me. When Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone with whom I lay hands will receive the Holy Spirit.” Of course, he was rejected. This is where we get the English word Simony – the buying of religious office, which was a huge practice in the middle ages. If you had enough money you could be Pope. There were times in the middle ages, if you had enough money you could be Pope – and if you lived long enough, because they would kill each other, but that is another story.
 
So, what we have here is the connection now with the baptism of the Holy Spirit – the second baptism –baptism with the Spirit. You don’t want to say, “Oh, I have a little piece of it – the Spirit.” I don’t even know what that would mean, but you want to be immersed in it, right? It’s an immersion. You want to be totally immersed in the Spirit of God. That’s why it’s called another baptism. They are connected together. This leads us to a very interesting situation in Acts 19. Let’s go to Acts 19, verse 1:

Acts 19:1-5 – And it happened that while Apollos was in Corinth that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples he asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” Now these were disciples who were Christians. These were people who were trying to obey God. They had a very small congregation, as we’ll see. And it’s interesting. They said to him, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. We’re not sure what you mean by the Holy Spirit. What does that mean?” And he asked them, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.” In other words, probably a disciple of John the Baptist had showed up and baptized them. They were baptized for the remission of sins. Now here they were trying to be a little Christian church, and they had been forgiven of their sins, but the second baptism had not taken place. So, Paul said, “John indeed baptized into a baptism of repentance, saying to the people they should believe on Him who would come after him – that is, on Christ Jesus. Let me explain to you what he really meant by Christ. He actually came, and He lived,” and he explained everything about Jesus Christ. It says: When they heard this they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. What you find is a re-baptism.

Sometimes you talk to people and come to the conclusion they need to be re-baptized. Because when you sit down and go through, “Did you repent? Did you have faith? Were you baptized into you…you know, a ceremony – like in Catholicism, which really misses this entirely? Were you baptized as a baby?” – if you come from a Lutheran background, or Eastern Orthodox, or Catholic background. “Yes, I was baptized as a baby and confirmed when I was older.” “Did you repent of your sins at six days old?” – which is a prerequisite for baptism? So, we re-baptize a lot of people who come into our culture, because their baptism was not what was biblically outlined. Here we see a case, where people were actually baptized either by John the Baptist or a disciple of John the Baptist, and he says, “Okay, you were forgiven of your sins, but this whole process wasn’t completed.” And he actually re-baptized them.

I have had people from the Church of God Seventh Day, and they don’t lay hands on any more. I’ve had people call me and say, “I was just baptized. I went through all the baptizing counseling, and it was just like your booklet. Everything we did was just like what you do, but my minister won’t lay hands on me. Will you lay hands on me?” And I say, “Sure,” and I lay hands on them. “If they won’t lay hands on me, I won’t receive God’s Spirit.” So, they come over to the house and I lay hands on them. It has happened a couple of times.

So here he said, “Look, we just need to do this whole thing again. Some time had passed, so they just re-baptized them.

V-5 – When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now the men were about twelve in all.

What is really amazing is, when you read through the book of Acts, the church at Ephesus became one of the biggest churches in all of the world, probably, at the time. Some of the churches met in people’s homes. They had to go and rent an auditorium to have church in. It started with these twelve people, who were trying to obey God because they were baptized, but had not received God’s Holy Spirit. And it expanded from the twelve men. Of course, they had families, but it expanded from that group.

So here we have an understanding, and we will talk a little bit more about it, of the laying on of hands. But the reason why there is a second baptism needed, if God forgives us of our sins, we’re free – we’re forgiven – but, if God doesn’t give us the power to become a new person – if God doesn’t give us a second baptism, if He doesn’t immerse us in the Holy Spirit so that Christ is in us – we’re immersed in Christ – how long does it take to become a sinner again? We’re just trapped. How long does it take to become a sinner again? I don’t know, thirty seconds? To become this new person that we are supposed to become – so we can be changed into a brand-new person at the resurrection – the beginning of that process is at baptism – both water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
 
Baptism of fire. That’s an interesting one. There are many Pentecostals that say the baptism of fire was in Acts 2, when they saw tongues of fire come down on the people. So therefore, the proof that you’ve received the baptism of fire is that you speak in tongues. So, if you don’t speak in tongues, you don’t have God’s Spirit. I have spoken to numerous people, who used to go to Pentecostal churches, who will say, “I struggled so much because I had to make up speaking in tongues, because I wanted everyone to believe I had God’s Spirit. So, I would make up speaking in tongues.” But is that what that means? Let’s go back to Matthew 3 – Matthew, chapter 3. So, we have to put on Christ. We all want the first two baptisms. Let’s look at what he said here. Verse 11 says:

Matthew 3:11-12 – I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I – whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Now, if I stop there, I’ve got to figure out what fire is. Water baptism, Holy Spirit, we can figure that out. But what happens if I read the next verse? His winnowing fan is in His hand. Now His here is the one that comes after him, which is Jesus Christ. The winnowing fan is what you use to fan wheat. What they would do is, they would bring wheat into a threshing floor, and they would have open areas where the wind could go through, and they would take nets, and they would throw in the air – these baskets would have a netting on the bottom – and what would happen is, the wind would blow out the chaff, and the heavier wheat would fall down. So, you could get all the pieces of stalk and everything out of them. What would you do afterwards? You’d sweep up all the chaff and you would burn it.

So, if we want to know what fire is, John the Baptist explains it for us in the next verse. He says, “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn, and He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Now that is an obvious reference – and this is something that everybody – even the Pentecostals – agree with, verse 12 has to do with the lake of fire. It has to do with punishment. But they separate verse 11 and 12 into two different subjects. John the Baptist said them together as one subject. John the Baptist didn’t say, “And now verse 12...” This was all part of a discussion he was having. He had already told the Pharisees, “Who warned you from the wrath to come?” He had already told them, “You people are in trouble – you Pharisees and Sadducees – because God is going to judge you if you don’t repent. So you better repent.” And later down here he says, “He is coming to also baptize with fire – unquenchable fire” – judgment from God. You think about the lake of fire. You talk about total immersion. The people thrown into the lake of fire are immersed in fire and destroyed – total immersion. See, all three of these have to do with immersion. That is why you call them baptisms. You don’t want the baptism of fire. You don’t want that one. You want the first two.

So, we look at what he says now, and you will see that all these basic doctrines form a continuity. Faith, repentance are needed before baptism. Baptism, and then you receive the laying on of hands. Then we get the resurrections, which is a result of faith, repentance, baptisms, and the laying on of hands. Then you get this message of fire. When we get to eternal judgment, we have to talk about the baptism of fire. That is why he gives these as foundational doctrines. There are a lot more doctrines, but he gives these as foundational doctrines, because this is what we do, and this is how it ends up. Of course, there are all kinds of other doctrines that get tied into this – salvation, justification, sanctification, all the holy days. You can take these basic doctrines and see how they are taught throughout all the holy days. This helps form a continuity of what God is doing.

So, water baptism is commanded, but it first must be proceeded by faith and repentance. Going to a tent meeting, and having this emotional feeling, and running down and getting baptized is not what this is about. And we have to bring forth fruit fit for repentance. Now, people can be baptized, by the way, and fake it. I have seen it happen. I have had people tell me they faked it. Didn’t believe it one bit. They just got baptized because their friends were getting baptized, and they said what the said, and the minister said, “Okay.” Because sometimes they were doing group baptism counseling. And in group baptism counseling, sometimes people can sneak in. But anybody can lie to the minister and the minister doesn’t know it. Or, they are having some emotional experience at the time, but deep in the core of their being, they are not really repentant. They don’t know who God really is. And you know what? You can’t fool God.

So, we can baptize people, and we can lay hands on them, and God not give them the Holy Spirit. Just like Cornelius, the opposite – okay, you aren’t going to baptize him, but God can give him the Holy Spirit – the opposite can happen. Which means a person can play act – be baptized, have hands laid on them, and never receive God’s Holy Spirit. But you can only play act so long. Sooner or later, your life shows you have no connection with God. Eventually it comes out. The rest of us just struggle along, trying to respond to God’s Spirit – trying desperately, and failing, but we keep moving along. Others, they just never got it. So that happens on occasion.

Once a person has repented, we must be immersed in God’s Holy Spirit. It is only through the baptism of the Holy Spirit that true conversion can take place – that we can live in Christ, and Christ in us, as we are told to do. So, this gets us through an outline of the basic doctrine of baptisms.

So, what we will do after lunch is, we will go through then, the doctrine of laying on of hands, which has a lot more to do than just the receiving of God’s Holy Spirit. The laying on of hands is an expansive doctrine in terms of its application and how it is applied in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. So, this afternoon we will go through the laying on of hands.

Comments

  • Gary Petty
    Cathie, We were not able to record the laying on of hands study. I plan on giving the sermon on baptisms and study on laying on of hands in Nashville on August 11. It should be recorded then.
  • cathiec
    Thanks for this sermon Gary. Is a recording of the next one in your series - Laying on of Hands - going to be uploaded, as you mention you did it on the same day?
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