How many of us remember when we were Baptized, fully emersed in water?
I remember the day I was baptized. At that time in my life, I had grown up in a church that christened Children. My parents had me christened as a child.
Our church practiced infant baptism called Christening due to their belief that baptizing purifies the child from the burden of original sin. Moreover, baptism serves as a time when the child becomes part of the divine covenant with God, they gain entry into the church community, inherit the blessings of the kingdom, and experience a spiritual rebirth for which the parents take responsibility.
To ensure the safety and well-being of infants during baptism, the denomination employs a gentle sprinkling or pouring of water over their heads, as complete immersion would pose risks due to their inability to hold their breath. This ritual holds great symbolic value, reflecting God's divine intentions for the child, and is regarded as both a sacrament and a gracious gift bestowed upon them by God. At this time the name of the children is confirmed.
At the time that I got baptized as an adult, I was in my first year to become a local preacher in the church. A number of youngsters had been convicted that believer’s baptism was what was required. After A Sunday morning service, we snuck off to a church in a nearby city that practiced Full Emersion Baptism. I am sure I did not really know that I could explain why I got baptized, but I do know that my life did change from that day spiritually speaking.
A Sacrament is a ritual that is a physical happening but is miraculous in its outcome. A work of grace. In the church, there are a number of sacraments. I will mention four sacraments.
The sacrament of communion is when the physical bread becomes the body and the blood of Jesus when you eat and drink the elements.
Luke 22:19-22 And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 20 Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
John 6:53-58 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
The Sacrament of Healing is the Physical laying on of hands and anointing with oil. The miracle is that God heals and raises up the sick.
Mark 16:18 For those who believe they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
James 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
The sacrament of marriage. Two separate people male and female come together in a marriage ceremony where the marriage official proclaims them husband and wife, also legally according to the custom of their nation and then consummated through sexual activity. The miracle of two separate people becomes one flesh.
Ephesians 5:31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
The sacrament of Water baptism is where you are physically fully immersed in water. The miracle is the water becomes your grave where you die and are buried into Christ Jesus into His death. When you are then pulled up out of the water you are resurrected into the life of Christ Jesus. You are raised into newness of life.
Romans 6:1-4 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into 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.
The original Greek word for baptism is baptizo
“To make a thing dipped or dyed. To immerse for a religious purpose” (A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament, E.W. Bullinger).
“To dip, immerse; to cleanse or purify by washing” (The New Analytical Greek Lexicon)
When I was a theological student, we had a lady in our church Elizabeth Greyvenstyn who had a special recipe for rusks. That is a hard type of biscuit you need to dip in your coffee to enjoy.
We knew her by the name of Ouma (Granny) Greyvenstyn. She lived in a town called Molteno, in the Eastern Cape, A pastor in the great depression of 1939 gave each woman in his church some money to start a business to increase the family’s income. Elizabeth baked rusks with her money. Her rusks became very well-known and today you can buy a box of rusks in any place you buy your groceries and almost every person in South Africa knows Oama Rusks. The slogan on the box still says, “Dip an Oama” Related to her own baptism.
Ouma was baptized full immersion in her older years and stated that you cannot put your fingers in a cup of coffee and sprinkle your rusk, you must dip it into the coffee.
The importance of baptism has to be without explanation obedience to Jesus Christ when He said.
Mark 16:15-16 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.
Salvation is not a fire escape to leave Earth on a free pass into Heaven.
Salvation is to be saved from the curses spoken to Adam;
Firstly Death
Genesis 2:15-17 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Secondly, Adam was placed outside of the garden and kept from eating from the Tree of Life
Genesis 3:22-24 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the man, and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Thirdly, Adam now must plant his own food to eat, and the ground is cursed to make it difficult for him.
Genesis 3:17-19 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil, you shall eat of it All the days of your life. 18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:16 To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain, you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
The sorrow in conception and pain in childbirth relates to the curse of sickness.
Women and men would now have ongoing conflict. In contrast to the ideal conditions in the Garden of Eden and the unity between Adam and Eve, their relationship, from that point on, would include a power struggle. Women will desire to control their husbands, but men will dictate over their wives
Jesus redeemed us from all curses. We received the free gift of grace and righteousness through the death of Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),
Romans 5:12-17 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— 13 (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. 16 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. 17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)
We have been saved from slavery to sin just as the Israelites were saved from the slavery of Egypt.
The problem for them though was that they had left Egypt but were still in the terrain of the Egyptians. They were still very alive under the rule of the Egyptians. They were trapped between the red sea and the Egyptians. God opened the sea and the Israelites passed on dry ground. When the Egyptians entered the ground in the middle of the sea the waters closed over them and they died. In the same way, your old man of sin dies and you are raised a new man in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 10 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. 6 Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. 7 And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” 8 Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; 9 nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor complain, as some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
The sacrament of baptism is the death of our old man in the water.
Colossians 2:11-13 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 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,
Paul is saying that when we repented and were baptized, the "old man" of sin was buried in a watery grave, and our sins were completely forgiven through our faith in the sacrifice of Christ. After being raised out of the water, we were "made alive" with Him and imputed to be righteous in God's sight.
We do not get taken out of this world after baptism, we are still in the world but we do have the prayer of Jesus which He prayed to keep us from evil. We need not live like the Israelites forgetting the miraculous salvation out of Egypt and then the death of Pharaoh and his army in the sea. For us, the consequence of not believing that God is able to keep us and take us into our full inheritance, into His Kingdom results in sin and sickness, and even physical death in this world.
We can be baptized in water but if we have not lived the reality to which that sacrament points, then we have missed it, we have only washed our bodies of dirt and our baptism has meant nothing. However, if we have acknowledged the death of our old man and accepted the riches of our new life in Christ and His kingdom, then baptism is important to our salvation. Salvation from the curses brought about by Adam while we live in this world. Identifying with Jesus Christ, His death, and His resurrection.
1 Peter 3:19-21 In which He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 [The souls of those] who long before in the days of Noah had been disobedient when God’s patience waited during the building of the ark in which a few [people], actually eight in number, were saved through water. 21 And baptism, which is a figure [of their deliverance], does now also save you [from inward questionings and fears], not by the removing of outward body filth [bathing], but by [providing you with] the answer of a good and clear conscience (inward cleanness and peace) before God [because you are demonstrating what you believe to be yours] through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is not the water that saves you, it is you and your belief in the fact that your old man is dead. Death is the direct entrance into the Kingdom of God. It is our acceptance of the truth that we live daily in His resurrected life.
Romans 5:9-10 Therefore, since we are now justified (acquitted, made righteous, and brought into right relationship with God) by Christ’s blood, how much more [certain is it that] we shall be saved by Him from the indignation and wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more [certain], now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved (daily delivered from sin’s dominion) through His [resurrection] life.
