Baptism is all wet
Dunk, Sprinkle, and Double Dunk Baptism
Act 2:38-41 NIV
Matthew 3 NIV
Mark 1:9-13 NIV
Luke 3 NIV
John 1:24-42 NIV
Baptism how should it be done pouring, sprinkling or immersion, what about infants and children? When ready, should one wait or be baptized immediately? Is re-baptism necessary? What part does repentance play? How does the Bible answer all these questions?
This year I want us to spend a lot of time with Jesus and together learn from His words and life for He is our example sent from the Father. He is the author, finisher and the one who perfects our faith. We desire to follow Him in all things and that includes Baptism.
Our scripture passage tells us about “John the Baptist” as one with the spirit of Elijah the prophet calling to repentance those who would seek to be right with God. Jesus is about 30 years old here as He responds to John’s call and the work that the Father has sent Him to do.
John had been out in the desert a while. Ever wonder why Jesus wasn’t the first person baptized by John? Well that would be because God the Father is the time keeper of all things. Jesus needed to be at the Jordon River at a specific time in human history. In fact everyone connected to Jesus had to be at the right place and at the right time when Jesus reveled Himself to the world. Jesus Baptism was a kind of public announcement that He had arrived at a point in human history that fulfilled biblical prophecy.
Jesus was perfect and was without sin all His life. In order to fulfill all righteousness He was identifying himself with sinners at the Jordan River even though He was without sin. John himself says it. “It is I who needs to be baptized by you”.
Jesus walking into the water that day did so in order to repent for the sin of all human kind. He was in fact publicly announcing that the world was sinful and that He being sinless was willing to repent for all of it on our behalf. He wanted to demonstrate our need to separate ourselves from sin through the ceremony of water baptism.
Presbyterian and many Reformed Christians see infant baptism as the New Testament form of circumcision in the Jewish covenant (Joshua 24:15). Circumcision did not create faith in the 8-day-old Jewish boy. It merely marked him as a member of God’s covenant people Israel.
Likewise, baptism doesn’t create faith; it is a sign of membership in the covenant community. Presbyterian and Reformed Christians consider children of professing Christians to be members of the visible Church (the covenant community).
Baptism was not a new thing to Jewish people of the time but its use as part of belonging to the Covenant Community was new. This is and was a big change to how people made a public repentance for their sins. They used to have to rely on many, many baptisms or washings according to the laws of Moses. But now Jesus was here bringing in a new covenant of Grace.
To be identified in this new covenant God called you out to repentance and baptism.
The Jewish roots and Christian use for water baptism
Wikipedia:
Mikvah (or mikveh) (Hebrew: מִקְוָה, Standard Miqva Tiberian Miqwāh; plural: mikva’ot or mikves) is a specific type of bath designed for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism.
Several biblical regulations specify that full immersion in water is required to regain ritual purity after ritually impure incidents have occurred. Most forms of impurity can be nullified through immersion in any natural collection of water. Some, such as a Zav/Zavah, however require "living water," such as springs or groundwater wells.
Its main uses nowadays are:
By Jewish women to achieve ritual purity and after childbirth
By Jewish men to achieve ritual purity (see details below)
As part of a traditional procedure for conversion to Judaism.
For utensils used for food
The existence of a mikvah is considered so important in Orthodox Judaism, that an Orthodox community is required to construct a mikvah before building a synagogue.
Christian Tradition
The Didache (Koine Greek: Διδαχὴ, Didachē meaning - Teaching
Outside of the Bible, probably the earliest known written instructions for administering baptism is that of the anonymous book of 16 short chapters known as the Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, which most scholars date to about the year 100. It gives the following instruction: "Concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water [that is, in running water, as in a river]. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit."[32]
As we can see even early Christians had no iron clad method for baptism and in fact they left room to allow baptism to be carried out depending on the circumstances.
Manner of baptism
Today, Christian baptism takes many forms among Christian denominations, but the three basic forms are as follows:
Aspersion
Aspersion is the sprinkling of water on the head.
Affusion
Affusion is the pouring of water over the head.
Immersion
Immersion is the submerging of the entire body in water.
It is sometimes taken as implying that baptism is by complete immersion in water to represent a death/birth of a new life as a Christian.
Credobaptists (Believers Baptism) answer these foundational questions this way:
Baptism is a public profession of faith. It is a symbolic way of publicly telling the world one is a Christian.
Only those who have faith in Christ are members of God’s covenant community (or church).
Baptism symbolizes that the individual has been washed and cleansed from his sin by the blood of Jesus.
Baptism is merely a symbol. It does not convey grace of any kind.
These answers entail, or at least imply, credobaptism. If, for example, the whole point of baptism is to publicly declare that an individual is a believer in Christ, then newborns should not be baptized because they do not, as far as we can tell, believe in Christ (or anything else for that matter).
Paedobaptists (Infant Baptism) answer these foundational questions quite differently. There is widespread disagreement among paedobaptists, but they typically give the following sorts of answers:
Baptism is a sign that a person is a member of God’s covenant community.
Believers and the children of believers are members of God’s covenant community (or church).
Baptism symbolizes cleansing and washing.
Baptism is not merely a symbol. It conveys grace.
Paedobaptists disagree on the answer to this question. Some argue baptism conveys justifying grace, others sanctifying grace, still others say that it conveys both.
If one answers these fundamental questions this way, then the practice of infant baptism allows for a different perspective.
If baptism is a sign that a person is a member of God’s covenant and if the children of believers are members of that community, then, paedobaptists contend, it follows that the children of believers should receive the sign that they are members of God’s covenant community by being baptized.
If baptism is like a passport, a sign that you are a member of a particular country, and if an infant is a member of that country, he should be permitted a passport.
Why do paedobaptists and credobaptists give different answers to foundational question surrounding baptism? They differ because their reading and interpretation of the Bible and their view about the sources of theology differ.
In my family I have a little bit of everything, my daughter now 23 was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church as an infant and feels no need to be baptized into her Protestant Baptist Church. My son who is now 20 was baptized at his request at age 13 into a Baptist church by immersion. My wife was never baptized as a child but was baptized as an adult by immersion in a Baptist Church and I was baptized as an infant into the Roman Catholic Church and then re-baptized as an adult into a Baptist Church. I now serve in the pulpit of a Presbyterian Church that practices infant baptism.
Now if one of my kids marries someone who is Jewish or Greek Orthodox we will have everything covered!
So what is Baptism? It is an act made by a believer or on behalf of a believer that identifies a person as a sinner seeking repentance for their sins. It then identifies that person as a member of a new covenant of Grace which was instituted by Jesus Christ.
Do you have to be baptized to get to heaven? No. There were two thieves on the cross beside Jesus at His execution. Jesus told the one man after he confessed his sin that he would be with Him that day in Paradise – Luke 23:43. He was not taken off the cross in order to receive baptism yet he was still promised paradise by Jesus. We do it to because Jesus told us to do it and then told us to teach others about Him.
Matt 28”18-20
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Let us pray.
John 3:22 NIV • Read this chapter
[ John the Baptist’s Testimony About Jesus ] After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized.
John 4:2 NIV
although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
Acts 10:47 NIV
Then Peter said, "Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have."
Romans 6:3 NIV
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
1 Corinthians 10:2 NIV
They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
Acts 18:8 NIV
Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized.
Acts 16:33 NIV
At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized.
