Baptism Sunday - Acts 2:38-39 | Crossing the Frontline-Meaning of Baptism

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

I was thinking this week how it must have been to be in the dead of winter on the front line in World War I in those trenches.

It was on Christmas Day that the troops amongst themselves negotiated a truce during the trench war of World War I.

There on the front line, German, French, and British soldiers on Christmas Day laid down their rifles and bayonets to cross the infamous front line.

Soon conversations were made between the troops and jokes were exchanged, cigarettes were exchanged, and then spontaneous soccer matches erupted.

No one would ever consider, no one in their right mind would ever consider crossing that front line, but on Christmas Day, there was a truce.

And the troops from both sides could cross and talk to each other.

Christian baptism, we're going to talk about baptism this morning.

And Christian baptism, in one sense, is crossing the front line, yet without a truce.

And when a Christian crosses that front line, there are risks involved.

And they can never return back to the side they were from once before.

I'm going to turn our attention to Acts 2.38.

And Peter said to them, repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

For any person at Pentecost, converting to Christianity was not a matter of privacy, privately reciting a sinner's prayer in some dark corner or signing a card or raising a hand, but instead it was made through public baptism.

Baptism, in one sense, was an initiatory rite.

It was renouncing one's former allegiances.

As Dr.

Charles Ryrie explains, he says any person who previously converted to Judaism would be familiar with the proselyte rite of baptism, which signified a renouncing of former allegiances and the entrance of a person into Judaism.

Now there's a new baptism, the baptism of Jesus Christ.

For those early Jews at Pentecost, coming forward to be baptized was, in one sense, crossing the front line.

It was crossing the front line without a truce.

It was a road, a lonely road of no return.

The professional faith would be in the proof of the pudding.

For these first Christians at Pentecost, becoming Christians, the question will be: will they be willing to step forward to be baptized?

The title of today's message is Crossing the Front Line.

Acts 2.38.

Let me read that for us again.

And Peter said to them, Repent, that's a command, and be baptized, that's another command, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off and everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.

There is a lot there, and I'm gonna give you three quick observations.

The first observation is that repentance is like crossing the front line.

Repentance is crossing the front line.

Do you notice there that repentance precedes forgiveness?

The forgiveness of sin is not because of baptism, but because of repentance in the heart.

The sinner crosses sides, goes from darkness to light, says Colossians 1, 13 and 14, when that person professes faith in Jesus Christ and repents of their sins.

Repent.

That's the first commandment.

Repent, and then you be baptized.

And he does say everyone, but does everyone mean everyone?

Do we just baptize everyone?

No, those who repent are to be baptized.

Before there can be water baptism, there must be forgiveness of sin, the washing away of sin.

Forgiveness of sin is always contingent upon one thing: repentance, not baptism.

Let me show you.

Jeremiah 36.3 says, so aptly that repentance and forgiveness goes hand in hand.

And the Old Testament, whenever uses the word turn from or turn to, the word repentance is a mind.

Jeremiah 36.6.

So that every one of you may turn from his evil.

In other words, repent and that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.

You see, repentance precedes forgiveness of sins.

My friends, if you've not repented of your sin, your sin are not, your sins will not be forgiven.

So in the Old Testament, forgiveness of sin was always predicated by repentance.

Or as the Old Testament's writers put it, turning from evil and turning to God.

In the New Testament, repentance likewise is turning from self-justifying works of self-righteousness, turning to what?

The perfect work of Christ on the cross.

Acts 3.19.

Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.

There is no forgiveness without repentance.

Baptism so aptly serves as a symbol of the forgiveness of sins.

Psalm 51, verse 2.

Psalms 51:2

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

What a wonderful illustration of sin that is washed away.

And water is a wonderful symbol to capture that thought of being washed from one's sins.

So repentance results in the forgiveness of sins.

And in one sense, a person crosses the front line from being dead in one's trespasses to one that is forgiven.

Once you were condemned, now you are forgiven.

The turn of art prompts one to join the other side.

You see, the moment that a person is regenerated, the moment that person's sins are washed away, they go, No, I'm now on the other side.

There are the condemned people, here are the saved people, there are the condemned people, here are the forgiven people.

You have crossed the front line by repenting.

And baptism, once again, I think, demonstrates visually what already happened spiritually, namely that through repentance one's sins were washed away.

But there's another aspect here of baptism is that baptism in itself is a public declaration that one has crossed the front line.

If the front line is this, and on these side are people who are unforgiven, and this side are people who are forgiven, you are walking over the front line, and lo and behold, sometimes the fire doesn't come from that side, but the fire comes from the other side.

The side that you came from.

Baptism is a rite.

It is an initiation right, nothing more, nothing less.

It serves as a visible representation of something happened in the past.

It is retrospective, not prospective.

It follows the forgiveness of son of sin.

It does not foreshadow the forgiveness of sin.

Let me repeat that.

It follows the forgiveness of sins.

It does not foreshadow the forgiveness of sin.

The rite of baptism today is a very heartwarming experience.

Everybody's got to cheer, everybody's got to cry, it's just gotta be cool and heartwarming.

But for those first century Jews and for many Christians all over the world, it is walking to the side of the enemy.

It is crossing the front line.

Alfred Ederscheim, a Jewish historian, writes, he says, even today, for a Jew, it is not his profession of Christianity, nor his attendance at the Christian services, nor his belief in the New Testament, but he's partaking of water baptism that definitely and finally excludes him from Judaism and sets him off as a Christian.

If there's ever a polarizing act in Christianity, it is baptism.

And especially for people like my wife and I who were baptized as children, it was almost a slap in the face of everyone to get baptized in a pool of water.

Baptism definitely and finally excludes one from the other side.

And in one sense, we sit off into the distance to the side of the enemy.

And what is the enemy?

Christianity.

You see, baptism calls for a choice.

It is a choice.

I want to be excluded from this side.

I want to be included in this side.

I want to cross the front line.

I want to walk over to the enemy.

Yet without a truce.

For a Jew, it was a final act of departure, saying their goodbyes and turning their back on Judaism, which was a risky endeavor to be now counted as Christians.

It says there in Acts 2.41, so those who received his word were baptized.

They put the bullet, they crossed the front line, and they were added that day 3,000 souls.

You want to ask yourself, to what were they added?

The church.

Verse 42 of Acts 2.

It says there, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and prayers.

Baptism is not this one-off act and you gone.

It is an inclusion and an immersion into a thing called the body of Christ.

Baptism for these Jews at Pentecost was a one-way ticket.

It was joining the ranks of the enemy.

It was joining them in their trenches.

Entering the waters of baptism was crossing the proverbial front line, going from one camp into the other camp.

And no wonder so many Christians in the first century, after baptism, they experience alienation and hostility from friends and family.

And so, in one sense, my friends, baptism is crossing over to the other side and immersing yourself in the trenches to fight on the former enemy, which is Christianity.

Now, let me be clear here once for all that baptism in one word is symbolic.

Let's get this clear.

It is symbolic.

It is a symbol of one's devotion to Christ and the body of Christ.

And that pool of water is such a striking, striking symbol.

It's a striking symbol of those, get this, who were baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Now you're going to freak out, you're going to go, oh, we're not a Pentecostal church.

I'm going to use the word baptism with the Holy Spirit this morning lots of times, and I'm going to ask you, have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?

Carl, have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?

We got to ask ourselves, have we been baptized with the Holy Spirit?

Because on Pentecost Day, those who were baptized with the Holy Spirit were later that day baptized into the pools of water.

Now you may ask, Anton, you've got another three or four minutes.

Tell me what is the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

And what does it have to do with the water of baptism over there?

And the answer is everything.

Everything.

John 1.33.

John the Baptist, who baptized with water in the river of uh of the Jordan River, he said, I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain.

This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

Who is he speaking of there?

Jesus.

And Jesus becomes a baptizer, and he is a baptizer with the Holy Spirit.

You see, John the Baptist baptized with water, but Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit, friend?

Has Jesus baptized you with the Holy Spirit, as John the Baptist predicted?

Jesus is the baptizer.

He is the one who baptizes you not with water, but with the Holy Spirit.

Acts 1, 5.

For John baptized, this is Jesus' own words, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

You see, the the element that John was baptizing with was known as H2O.

Jesus, on the other hand, uses the element of a person, the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, my friend, in contradiction to my Pentecostal friends, is that the Holy Spirit is never the baptizer.

Jesus is the baptizer.

The Holy Spirit is the element of baptism.

Jesus always baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and he baptizes you with the Holy Spirit, not into a river like the river Jordan, but he baptizes you into the body of Christ.

And this is absolutely a mind-blowing verse, 1 Corinthians 12, 13.

He says, therefore, in one spirit, and that could also read, for with one spirit we were all baptized into what?

The body of Christ.

Jews or Greeks, slaves are free, and all remain made to drink of one spirit.

Jesus baptizes into one body with the Holy Spirit.

Christ is the baptizer, he's the agent.

The Holy Spirit is the element, and the location of baptism is the body of Christ.

He immerses you in this organism called the body of Christ.

That's why I can't understand it.

When people get baptized, you don't see them.

They get baptized and you're like, what happened to you?

I'm kind of watching, you know, church on TV, I'm watching online.

But you were baptized into the body of Christ.

That's what you're, yeah.

For those at Pentecost who heard the gospel about Jesus Christ, him being crucified and buried and rising from the dead on the third day, that stirred up conviction in people's hearts.

They confessed with their mouths, they believed with their heart.

And now it would be time for Jesus after that act of repentance and faith to baptize them with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ.

Baptism of the Holy Spirit is essential to be prior to baptism with water.

At the moment of salvation, without delay, Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ.

We cross the front line into the trenches of the body of Christ.

Acts 11, 16.

Then I remembered the word of the Lord had He said, John indeed baptized you with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit, friend?

If you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit, it was a once-off, complete and total at that point in time, never to be repeated.

You who've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you will be placed into the body of Christ.

Today, those who are entering the waters of baptism here, they have number one repented of their sins.

Number two, they have crossed the front line.

They have gone from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of light, but they've also been baptized by Jesus with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ.

Today they're gonna be baptized with water by Jason or Webb as a fitting symbol of what Jesus did with the Holy Spirit.

And they will be baptized what?

Into a pool.

And think of that pool there as the body of Christ.

Now, as I said before, baptism is symbolic and symbolic at best, and it's not an issue of salvation.

Can we agree on that?

But if we mess with the symbolism, when we get things out of order, we do make it an issue of salvation.

You see, for many people, baptism is something.

That offers them forgiveness of sin without repentance, and that is not true, that's not biblical.

It offers discipleship without faith.

It gives them a sense of belonging to the church, yet there is no profession of faith.

Being a symbol doesn't mean we can just change it at will.

There's a rich theology, and the practice should follow the theology.

You know, some would say, like the eunuch in Acts 8, see here what prevents me from being baptized?

Here's water.

Why can't I not get baptized?

And I would say, friend, absolutely nothing prevents you from getting baptized year today.

Every one of you can be baptized year today.

But the question is, no, there are two questions.

Have you repented?

And have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?

That's what will prevent you from getting baptized if you have not repented and have been baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Now, what prevents our little kids, our our our infants and newborns from being baptized?

And the answer is nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing prevents your infant here today from getting baptized, as long as you can tell for sure they have repented of their sins.

And if you can tell us for sure that they have been baptized with the Holy Spirit because they have professed their faith in Jesus Christ, then nothing prevents them.

They'll be off to college soon, but nevertheless, we will gladly immerse your infant.

We do not sprinkle.

You see, why don't we sprinkle here?

We don't sprinkle because Jesus does not sprinkle us with the body of Christ.

He immerses us into the body of Christ.

He uses the Holy Spirit in its totality, in his totality.

He doesn't sprinkle us with portions of the Holy Spirit.

The symbolism must fit the theology.

Even though it's symbolic and not a matter of salvation, we cannot twist it and make it to be something that it's not, or else we will make it an issue of salvation.

And there are people today who believe because they were baptized, they are saved and they have crossed the front line.

In all seriousness, that is not what Scripture teaches.

So let's summarize all that I've said here to this morning.

Baptism is a requirement given in the Great Commission.

It is an act of obedience.

It is not something we do to get saved.

It's something we do because we have saved, we got saved.

Make disciples and the very next thing, baptize them.

Okay, Matthew 28, 20.

Number two, baptism is retroactive.

It looks back at what took place.

It's not saying, well, maybe God will do something in the future.

It looks back at repentance and the washing of sins that already took place.

It doesn't look forward to it.

Baptism, number three, is a representation of what Jesus did for us.

He baptized us with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ.

And I am super excited to see those this morning who have crossed the front line who says, I'm walking over and I'm not turning back.

There's no turning back here.

Praise God for their obedience and their willingness to publicly cross the front line.

Today is indeed a public declaration of everyone here saying, I am not going back to the other side.

Even though I might have a few arrows and bullets on my back, I'm not going back to the other side.

So you may want to ask what happened with the Christmas truce on Christmas Day 1914.

Well, the guys who were not in the trenches, the high-ranking officials, uh, they condemned it.

They said it was treacherous insanity.

And so by the end of Christmas Day, everybody went back to the trenches and life returned to normal.

Everybody went back to the other side.

And on Boxing Day, the shooting and artillery fire continued as usual.

But my friend, if you are baptized and you walk over to the other side, things will not be back as normal.

You have no liberty to go back.

Once you've been baptized by the Holy Spirit or with the Holy Spirit, you cannot go back.

You in the body of Christ once for all.

Let us pray and thank God for this wonderful, momentous occasion.

Lord, we thank you for those who are coming forward today who want to make who want to make a public declaration of what happened with them spiritually.

And I pray, God, that we will be uh supportive and and and caring towards them.

They are immersed into the body of Christ.

They one of ours, let us treat them like one of ours, let us embrace them fully and entirely.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

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