Baptism: Leaving the Old and Entering the New (Romans 6:3–11)

  • The truth behind baptism is deeply empowering and encouraging, and can explain some of the tensions we experience as we try to live the Christian life.

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Goal

  • To explain baptism, and to encourage and empower all of us as we get hold of it’s true meaning.
  • Because when we understand the meaning, it is very empowering for all of us
  • What is Baptism about?
    • It is a symbol of being united with Jesus in his death and resurrection

Baptism: Leaving the Old and Entering the New

  1. Going Down: Joined to Jesus in his death
  2. Coming Up: Joined to Jesus in his resurrection
  3. So why get wet?

1. Going Down: Joined to Jesus in his death

  • We’re going to look at what the Bible teaches about this
    • The three places where it is taught the clearest are Eph 2, Col 2 & Rom 6
    • We’re going to look at Rom 6 this morning

Romans 6:3–14

  1. Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
  2. Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.
  3. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.
  4. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
  5. (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.)
  6. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
  7. We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer is his master.
  8. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
  9. So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
  10. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires,
  11. and do not present the members of your body to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and the members of your body to God as instruments to be used for righteousness.
  12. For sin will not be your master, because you are not under law but under grace.

based on NET Bible

  • Here we have the basic idea
    • in some way (that we can’t really explain) if we are Christians, then our core identities were with Jesus when he died on the cross.
    • It’s OK that we don’t understand this, but in some way some of our essence was there.
  • So we are freed from both the
    • guilt of sin
    • it’s power
  • Two things happened:
    1. The price was paid for our sin. Guilt was removed. We walk free
    2. The old dark power inside us that made us a slave to doing wrong things has been fatally wounded

Rock of Ages
Augustus Toplady, 1776

“Be for sin the double cure:
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”

  • Guilt: Purified as white as snow
  • Power: Strength right now to battle sin and have victory
  • Romans 5 is focused mainly on the matter of guilt and reconciliation
  • Romans 6 is primarily about power
    v.6 no longer be enslaved to sin
    v.7 freed
    v.12 do not have to obey
    v.14 not your master
  • So why do we constantly sin?
    • Because we are living in the over lap of two ages
    • this present age, which started at creation and will end at Christ’s return
    • and the age to come, which has already started, when he rose from the dead
  • So we have the power of the new available to us, through the Spirit

Romans 7 & 8

  1. So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me.
  2. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being.
  3. But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members.
  4. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
  1. For the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
  • Now we come to the other side of the coin:
  • Baptism: You have a new identity that has come out of the water —live out of it

2. Joined to Jesus in his resurrection

Romans 6 —Raised in the new

  1. Now if we have died with Christ,
    we believe that we will also live with him.
  2. We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead,
          he is never going to die again;
          death no longer has power over him.
  3. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all,
          but the life he lives, he lives to God.
  4. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin,
          but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
  • There are two aspects: present and future. First the future
    • Jesus received a new physical body—so will we
    • This new body is immortal, cannot suffer pain or sickness
    • Because we are joined to Jesus, whatever happens to him will happen to us
  • But there is also the present in v.11
    • Even now this new life has started inside us
    • We have been re-created as something new, and it has started already inside us!
  • We are JOINED to Christ.
    • Brothers and sisters, we are joined to him if we are Christians.
    • United. Inseparable. He in us and us in him.

Luke 15

  1. “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?
  2. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
  3. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’

Lamb painting

Lamb painting

Lamb photo

Lamb photo

Image source: Gerhardy

  • The same ideas are in the letters of Colossians and Ephesians
    • bury—raised
      • death—life
      • “Together with him” Paul has actually coined new words here
    • when someone was crucified, they would nail a list of their crimes to the cross
      • Our sins and failures are nailed to Jesus’s cross
      • Not transferred to him, as a separate entity
        • but he put his arms around us and said “let’s do this together” and then he did it all
  • The core message of the gospel is union with Christ
  • Once I used to teach the Gospel in terms of scales
  • However much truth there is in this image, it is not how Paul presents the Gospel
    • Not a cold, legal transaction with scales,
    • but union with a living person
  • Implications of being united with Jesus
    1. Our destinies are inseparably connected
      • we are totally secure
    2. We actually have died
      • and we have been raised something else

Baptism: Leaving the Old and Entering the New

  1. Going Down: Joined to Jesus in his death
  2. Coming Up: Joined to Jesus in his resurrection
  3. So why get wet?

3. So what about Baptism?

“Baptism in lake”

Baptism in lake

Image source: kevinkeithdesign

  • What happens... (Total immersion)
  • Why are they going through this?
    • Does anything magically happen to them in this process?
      • no, nothing at all (except they get a little cleaner in the process)
  • There have been two extremes in the history of the church:
    1. No salvation without baptism (but what about thief on the cross?)
    2. It really not a big deal, just a cool option if you want it
      • Is it just an empty ritual then?
      • It is also an opportunity to receive a spiritual impartation
    3. In the middle – not essential to get to heaven, but a real opportunity to get more of the Spirit, so why miss out?

Baptism is three things:

  1. A public declaration that you are following Jesus
  2. A picture of death and new life
  3. An opportunity to receive more from God

1. A public declaration that you are following Jesus

  • Declaring yourself as a follower of Jesus
    • In some cultures to decide to become a follower of Jesus can lead to persecution or even death
    • This was the case in the early church, 2000 years ago
    • But Jesus said he was not interested in secret followers
    • He wanted people who would trust him in life and in death
    • He promised that he would commit himself to those who were willing to commit to him
    • He wanted people who would trust him enough to “go public” with it
    • The way he asked them to “go public” was with an external action that symbolized what had happened inside them

2. So why dunk in water as a sign of committing yourself?

Romans 6 —Baptism

  1. Do you not know that all of us who have been
          baptized into Christ Jesus
          were baptized into his death?
  2. Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, in order that,
          just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
          we too might walk in newness of life.
  3. For if we have been united with him in a death like his,
          we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
  • so going down is a picture of dying
  • v.4 Paul says [“Christ was raised from the dead”]
    • coming up out of the water is a picture of a new life beginning
      • [“we too might walk in newness of life.”]
  • v.5 There is some invisible bond that has occurred between us and Jesus
    • Just imagine that you had the opportunity of every bad thing in your past to be re-written
    • Everything you have done that you regret to be erased
    • Every mistake or hurt to be just wiped away
      • That is what this death is—the old is gone, there is a new life that begins

Baptism is three things:

  1. A public declaration that you are following Jesus
  2. A picture of death and new life
  3. An opportunity to receive more from God

3. An opportunity to receive more from God

  • Jesus told his followers to be baptized
    • and he also promised them that he would bless them if they kept his commandments
    • one of the blessings is the power and presence of Jesus actually available to us and in us
      • This is through his Holy Spirit

If you are not a follower of Jesus today—

  • How would you like to have the opportunity of having:
  • Every bad thing in your past to be re-written
  • Everything you have done that you regret to be erased
  • Every mistake or hurt to be just wiped away
  • Reconciliation with God, so he sees you as pure and spotless
  • And a new power in your life to live in a new way
  • Follow him!
  • If you are not following Jesus, and are interested in finding out more, then I would love to talk with you later
  • And if you are, and would like to be baptized, then we would like to do some baptisms this summer!
    • Come and talk to me
    • It is a wonderful occasion of celebration

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