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| BAPTIZED INTO CHRISTby Dennis Kiszonas IntroductionA few years back, a family in our area of New Jersey started coming to our church. After a while, someone came from their old church to visit them and asked them, "Where are you going to church now?" This family told them where they were going, and the people from their old church responded with surprise, "You don't want to be going to that church. They don't believe in baptism!" I want to start out by saying one thing very clearly: I want to affirm this, and I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that I believe in baptism. As I went through what God says in His Word on the subject of baptism, I got excited. This is the sort of topic that gets you thrilled. There is one thing that you need to remember, though, if you're going to enjoy the study of baptism. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, "Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all of our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea" (vv. 1-2). Paul goes back to the Old Testament book of Exodus, and he says, "Brothers and Sisters, I want you to know this. I don't want you to be ignorant about this - how that all our fathers, in the cloud and in the sea, were baptized into Moses." These people were baptized. If you go back to Exodus 14 and 15, you will find five times in those chapters where God tells us that, when those people crossed the sea with Moses - when they were baptized into Moses - they crossed that sea on dry ground. The principle I want to bring out here when we begin this study, is that, according to the Bible, you can be baptized without getting wet. These were all baptized into Moses. They were identified with Moses when they crossed that sea on dry ground, and they did not get wet at all. There are so many people who, immediately when they see the word "baptism," attach to it the idea of water baptism. But if you study the word of God, you'll find out that most of the time when the word "baptism" is used, it is not talking about water baptism in any sense. If you don't automatically connect baptism and water, you will be on your way to an understanding and a blessing - you will even get thrilled and excited about what the Bible teaches about baptism.
My Experience with BaptismHaving said that, I need to tell you that I didn't always feel excited about teaching or talking about baptism. My first few years in the ministry, when I was the pastor of a church in Chicago, I didn't talk about baptism. I didn't baptize anybody. I didn't understand it. I didn't know why we did it. Our church theoretically believed in it, but I had problems. "And He said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be condemned'" (Mark 16:15-16). I knew Romans 4:5 - "But to him who does not work, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." Faith without works saves a person, according to this verse. Ephesians 2:8 and 9 - "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." A person is saved by grace through faith - without works, without sacraments, without ordinances, without rituals, without religion. Then I came to Mark 16 and I read in verse 16, "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved." That bothered me. Why did the Lord say "and is baptized"? Isn't it enough to be saved by faith alone? So I had a problem with baptism. I read books, and they tried to explain it away - some books told me to just tear the page out of my Bible - and I didn't talk about it. I thought I'd just wait until I understood it before I began to teach on the subject. So I went on in my Bible to Acts 2. What a wonderful chapter. In the church where I was pastoring and in the school from which I graduated, we said that the church began in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost. And so of course you would be thrilled to get to teach that passage where it all began! What an important chapter! ... But I never preached on Acts chapter 2. I would get down to verse 38, and Peter said something which embarrassed me. In verse 37, the people in the crowd are pricked in their heart and convicted of their sin of crucifying the Messiah, and they say to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Then in verse 38, Peter answers: "Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." I would get to that passage and it would embarrass me because, if I were there on the Day of Pentecost and the crowd said to me, "What shall we do?" I wouldn't have said, "Repent and be baptized." I would have said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved," just like Paul did in Acts 16:31. But every time I would read this and every time I thought it was time to preach on Acts 2 - "where the church began" - I would get to this verse and I would say, "No. Can't preach on this one either." I got to Acts 22, thinking I could start in the middle of the book . . . but I only got as far as verse 16. Ananias here is speaking to Saul and he says, "And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord." What? I thought he was saved on the road to Damascus. . . . and since when does baptism wash away your sins? Here was another verse on baptism that didn't compute in my system. I didn't understand it, and I decided we wouldn't preach on the book of Acts. So I went over to 1 Peter and chapter 3. (Surely there was something in my Bible that I could preach!) In verse 21, Peter says, "There is also an antitype [figure] which now saves us - baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." What? Baptism now saves you? I didn't preach that! I didn't believe that! The Bible says, "By grace you have been saved through faith" - not of works, not of religion, not of baptism; it's faith in the Lord alone! I read the commentaries. They did their exegetical gymnastics, twisting and turning the Scriptures, trying to show that Peter doesn't really mean what he's saying. Again I said, "Is there anything in the Bible I can preach?" I went through Ephesians. I got to Ephesians chapter four and read: "Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism." (vv. 3-5). I read in this passage that, according to what Paul teaches, baptism is supposed to be something that has united us - something that brings Christians together, something that makes us one body - and we are to protect that unity. Yet, as I looked around Christendom, I saw that baptism was not something that brought us together, but was something that fractured the body of Christ into hundreds of different denominations. I remember in my last year of seminary I went to see my professor. "Doctor," I said, "Here I am finishing three years in this seminary and I'm going to be leaving here soon to go out and pastor a church somewhere, but I don't know into which church I should go. I don't know where I fit in. I'm a Catholic kid that got saved, and the Lord called me into the ministry, but with the 400 different denominations (or something like that), I don't know where to go!" And the old professor sat there and smiled at me, and asked me just one question: "What do you believe about baptism?" He's absolutely right. Baptism is the one thing that has divided Christendom into hundreds of denominations. "Who do you baptize?" Do you baptize adults, children, or babies? Do you baptize believers only? Each one of those has divided itself into a group of denominations. "How do you baptize?" Do you sprinkle the water? Do you pour the water? Do you dunk them one time, or do you dunk them three times in the water? Again, according to what your answer is, you sort yourself out as to which church you join. "What does baptism mean - what does it do?" Does it save you? Some people believe that - a very large part of Christendom believes that they are saved because they were sprinkled with water. Does it wash away original sin? Is it the sign and seal of a covenant? Or is it a testimony after you've been saved by faith? Whatever you believe as to those things will sort you out further still into what group you belong to. And then you could ask: "Are you seeking another baptism - the baptism of the Spirit?" Then your answer would open up a whole new variety of denominations which you could consider. Whatever you believe about baptism, you are in the minority. There is no majority viewpoint on the doctrine of baptism. This doctrine that Paul said was supposed to bring us together has in fact divided us into hundreds of denominations with contradicting and conflicting doctrines. There was a time - and I'm sure if we didn't have such a good government, it would be today - when Christians murdered Christians because they didn't believe the same thing about baptism! As I was going through Ephesians, I'll never forget the Sunday I got to this verse. I asked myself, "What does Paul mean by one baptism? Which one?" If you read the books, you'll find that everybody is trying to turn two into one - or three into one. . . I read one day how someone had asked one of the old Brethren preachers, "What do you say about baptism?" His answer - "I don't say anything about baptism." I believe we would be a lot better off if there were more preachers like him today than preachers who gloss over and twist the very Word of God to make it fit their denominational traditions - the traditions of men. These men take the Word of God and don't think twice about changing the words and changing the meaning and then saying, "It doesn't mean what it says - it's wrong." But thank God there is an answer to the confusion. Baptism was not meant by God to be a divisive, fracturing type of doctrine. The answer to the many questions the doctrine of baptism has raised can only be found by "rightly dividing the Word of Truth" and studying the Bible the way God gave us the Bible - dispensationally. . . . and that is what I would like to do in the following pages. |
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