The Waters that Divide PM Sermon 11/14/10

Waters that Divide

Baptism was something that united the Early Church but today has brought division to Christianity.
There are many misunderstandings about Baptism and what it means and how you should administer baptism.
This goes back to some of the earliest Christians. A story illustrates this point.
The story is told about the baptism of King Aengus by St. Patrick in the middle of the fifth century. Sometime during the rite, St. Patrick leaned on his sharp-pointed staff and inadvertently stabbed the king's foot. After the baptism was over, St. Patrick looked down at all the blood, realized what he had done, and begged the king's forgiveness. Why did you suffer this pain in silence, the Saint wanted to know.
The king replied, "I thought it was part of the ritual."

Tonight I would like to look back at the origin of the rite of Baptism in particular and Christian Baptism’s roots in the Old Testament.
I think in doing this it will clear up a lot of misconceptions in the world about baptism and people will be able to find some type of unity on this basic doctrine.
To lay out the importance of this, I would say that baptism is a foundational doctrine and teaching.


I. Baptism in Israel
When I was a kid I thought that baptism in the ministry of John the Baptist and in Jesus was a new thing on the world stage.
What I have found out over the years is that baptism was very common in Israel in what is called the 2nd Temple Era.
The Second Temple was the one rebuilt after the return from Exile that was finally completed by Herod the Great. The Second Temple Era goes from 200 BC to 70 AD.
Archaeologists have unearthed over 150 baptisteries near the Temple. These baptisteries were called Miktvah and were made to immerse your body in water. They had steps the descended into the water and steps that lead out the other side. The person would immerse themselves.
In Jerusalem, many houses of influential Jews in the time of Jesus were furnished with Baptisteries. Some Pharisees believed in immersion in water every morning for ritual cleanliness and some immersed themselves in water every night for ritual purity.
On the Day of Atonement the High Priest of Israel was required to be immersed in water before he could enter the Holy Place.
Rabbinic sources show that complete immersion was the requirement.
The Rabbinic rule was that water had to be in contact with every part of your body and the only way that is possible is complete immersion.
So we know that baptism was common in Judaism as well as it was unanimous that baptism meant that a person should be immersed for a baptism to valid.
The very word Baptism comes from a use of meaning complete immersion.
Strabo the Roman Historian uses this word to describe the sinking of ships in a naval battle. This word meant to completely immerse or to dip in a liquid.
One group that was very well known in the time of Christ for baptism and purification is the Essenes. The Essenes believed that one had to be immersed in water to be renewed.
Many people connect the baptism of John the Baptist with this group but there is no conclusive evidence for this.
Another phase of Judaism that required baptism was Jewish proselyte baptism. If one were a Gentile and desired baptism they would have to be immersed in water as well as undergo circumcision. One great Rabbi that was the teacher of the Great Gameliel who was Paul’s teacher taught that Gentile converts had to be baptized because Israel had gone through the Red Sea.
They called this being baptized into Moses. The Jews had been baptized into Moses because they were in the bodies of their ancestors but these Gentiles had to undergo baptism to be a part of Moses.


II. John the Baptist Baptism

John’s call of baptism was not a new thing but there was a new twist.
Baptism in Israel had purely been for ritual outward purity but had never been connected to the condition of one’s heart.
John came as a prophet of Israel’s Restoration.
He came a as fulfillment of Isaiah 40’s prophecy of one crying in the wilderness to make the path straight for the Messiah to come. John comes to warn of the Judgment to come.


Luke 3:2-3
2 in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. 3 And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins ;


Part of this repentance had John telling the people to bear fruit in accordance with repentance. If you have two tunics share with those in need, if you are a tax collector only take what you have been ordered to take.
Soldiers are not to abuse people by force but we content with your wages.
John’s baptism was connected with inner change and this is something new. This is a baptism just to prepare people for the ministry of Jesus.
The shift though is that now baptism is not just connected with outward cleansing but inward change that is connected to that change.


III. The third aspect of Baptism that I want to look at is something called Typology.
This is a less explored view of baptism but it is fascinating and very much a part of the New Testament.
I would propose that he early church would have understood baptism much more in this light than how people argue or explain baptism today. Let me explain what Typology is. It comes from the Greek word TUPOS which is found in the New Testament.
A TUPOS is a shadowy type of the reality. A great example would be what a footprint in mud would be to the shoe that made the print. The print is not the shoe itself but is the TUPOS or sign that the shoe was there.
The word ANTITUPOS or what we call and ANTITYPE is the reality being signified. The shoe in the example is the ANTITYPE – it is the reality where the print is the TUPOS or Type.
This same language is used to compare Baptism to events of the Old Testament. Tonight I want to look at three types that are found in the Old Testament to Christian Baptism.
The first type that is compared to Baptism in the New Testament is the Flood.


1 Peter 3: 18-21
18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit ; 19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. 21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you-not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience -through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,


The word in verse 21 that is translated as Corresponding to in the New American Standard Version
The NIV translates this word in verse 21 as Symbolizes
The KJV translates this word as LIKE FIGURE
The Greek word is ANTITUPON
In other words what Peter is saying is the flood is a type of baptism and symbolizes Baptism, Christian Baptism is the reality and is the subject that he is talking about.
How does the flood act as a type to baptism or symbolize baptism.
In the flood you have righteous people being saved by water. The water cleanses away the sin and separates the New Humanity from the Old humanity.
Noah and his family represent God’s new start with humanity and the sinful people are washed away in the water.
In the same way in the waters of baptism sin is washed away.
Now is Peter saying that Baptism is magical and you can just take anyone off the street and say the right words, dunk them and expect them to be saved?
That is definetly NOT what he is saying.
The key word in this passage is the word APPEAL
This word that is used to say that Baptism is an appeal to God for a good conscience can be likened to a Prayer.
Many times I am asked why we don’t have the sinners’ prayer in our churches. I always tell them that we do believe in the sinner’s prayer but we believe the sinner’s prayer is water baptism.
This is exactly what Peter is saying – in Baptism you make your appeal to God.
What better way to say I believe in the Gospel than to reenact the Gospel. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that the Gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
In baptism we are declaring or appealing to God that we believe that Jesus died so we therefore repent and put the old person to death, and we too are buried as Jesus was buried, and we are raised up out of the water with the hope of the resurrection.

In Acts 22: 16 we see baptism connected to calling out to God just like this passage in 1 Peter
In Acts 22:16 Ananias says to Paul,

16 'Now why do you delay ? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.'

Baptism is the event that we are separated from sin and Call UPON GOD – CRY OUT TO GOD
Calling on his name could be translated as MAKE AN APPEAL
It means the same as what we looked at before.
Christian Baptism is all about an inward change, a cry to God, and an act of faith that cries out to the world that you believe the Gospel.
For 1800 years of Church history Baptism has always been the proper response to the Gospel call. It wasn’t until the American Great Awakening that people started to separate a person’s profession of faith from baptism.
It wasn’t until the 1800’s that the Sinner’s prayer came into existence. It had always been sufficient for someone to make a public proclamation of faith and be immediately baptized.
This is the same model that we will see in Acts that we will look at next Sunday night.


IV. Baptism linked to the Exodus Event
The second OT type that I wanted to look at tonight was the crossing of the Israelites.
As a matter of fact the Jewish Rabbis as I pointed out earlier said that the reason Gentile converts had to be baptized in water to become a Jew went back to the crossing of the Red Sea.


1 Corinthians 10: 1-5
1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea ; 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea ; 3 and all ate the same spiritual food ; 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased ; for they were laid low in the wilderness. 6 Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.


In verse 6 of this passage Paul uses the Word EXAMPLES – In other words Israel had these experiences as a type of what is to come.
This Greek word is literally TUPOS or TYPE –
Israel crossing the Red Sea is Type of our baptism into Christ.


Romans 6: 1-6
1 What shall we say then ? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase ? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death ? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin ;

We are baptized into Christ – Just as Israel was identified with Moses.
When the crossed the Red Sea there was no turning back. They were ALL IN with Moses and God leading them.
This is what Paul is talking about in Romans. We are baptized into Christ and we are no longer slaves. We have broken the slavery of sin and crucified the old person and have united with Christ in baptism.
So we should see Baptism as a liberating event. An Exodus from Sin and Transforming Experience.


V. The Holy of Holies and the Day of Atonement acts as a type of Christian baptism
You may think this is an odd place to find a connection to Christian baptism and the Holy of Holies but you will see the connection in Hebrews.
In Hebrews 9 we are told that the Holy of Holies is a type or TUPOS of a reality that is in Heaven.
The High Priest of Israel would have to immerse himself in water every year and offer a sacrifice for himself and Israel and sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant.
Jesus will become the perfect sacrifice and by His blood he will enter the Holy Place of Heaven through that blood.


It is with this in mind we see what the Hebrew writer says about us in Hebrews 10: 19-22
19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.


In this passage we see again a connection between bodies washed in water – this is a direct reference to the baptism of the High Priest.
We are the new priesthood in the new covenant. Our baptism allows us to go into the most Holy Place of God with confidence.
This word for the ceremonial baptism of the priesthood is used in Titus 3.


Titus 3: 5-6
5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,


The Washing of Regeneration that Paul uses is a word from the Jewish Scriptures that refers to the Laver in the Temple that was used for these baptisms.
The NIV translates this as Washing of Rebirth
The New Revised Standard actually translates the Greek of this passage the best- water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Water is involved in this Greek word Loutron – you cannot translate this word without water.
This passage is talking about the water of rebirth and it is not a metaphor- to a Jew this word meant H2O water.
So you have Paul using this same term for the High Priestly baptism in reference to Christian baptism.


Conclusion:
From looking at the OT types we can draw a few conclusions:
1) Baptism is about separating sin from man. We are leaving the sinful way behind and becoming a new humanity In Christ.
Just as in Noah mankind got a new start, we are getting a new start in Christ with our baptism.
2) Baptism is a petition to God, If you like a prayer of faith to God.
3) Baptism is an Exodus event in which you leave the slavery of sin behind, it is about Freedom in Christ
4) Baptism is an event that purifies us by the shed blood of Christ that we can now go into the most Holy Place of God.