Hebrews Lesson 60 July 20,
2006
NKJ Isaiah
40:31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
We
need a little review because last week I was asked a question after class and
this week I was asked a question before class both of which indicated that
there needed to be some review just to make sure that we understand what I was
trying to get to last week.
In Ephesians
4 Paul says there is…
NKJ Ephesians
4:5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
The
question is - what baptism does that refer to?
The baptism that refers to is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That is what distinguishes the Church Age
from every other dispensation in history.
There is no baptism by means of
the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. There is no baptism by means of the Holy
Spirit in the Tribulation. It is unique
to this era. Therefore it is the baptism
by the Holy Spirit that marks off the Church Age dispensation. It is the outstanding characteristic of the
believer. The believer in the Church Age
is identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. As a result of going through the baptism by
means of the Holy Spirit the believer is placed in Christ. It is in Christ that we have all of the
privileges and assets that we have as Church Age believers. It distinguishes us from everything else so
this is a crucial doctrine to understand.
So we have to go back to look at these passages. I was pointing out last time that in these baptismal
statements there are certain prepositions that are used in the Greek that are
not consistently translated over into the English that indicate certain
features of baptism.
Let
me just break it down for you. First of
all you have the verb to be baptized in the English. That is the verb in the Greek baptizo. That verb can be either an active voice
verb or a passive voice verb just to keep it simple. Active voice means that the grammatical subject
of the sentence performs the act of baptism.
John
the Baptist says…
NKJ Matthew
The
subject of the verb is the pronoun I, the first person singular I. He is the one who performs the baptism.
And
so in that construction the one who comes later (which of course refers to the
Lord Jesus Christ) is the one who performs the baptism, the subject of the verb. But what happens in some cases is that a
passive voice is used. So there is a
reversal of subject, but now the term that is used to describe the performer of
the action in a passive sentence is called the agent. The agent is the one who performs the action
of the verb. It’s not a grammatical
term. It’s not the same as the
grammatical subject.
I
know it has been a long time since the sixth grade when you studied this. But that is how you have to understand the
Scripture. And if you are from a certain
generation where you went through high school in the 70’s and you were taught
transformational grammar, then if you even know what a grammatical subject is
be thankful to some teacher who didn’t do what the State of Texas said they
were supposed to do.
When
I went through college and majored in English that is the grammar that we had
to take. I had no clue what it was
about. It wasn’t any grammar I had ever
studied. It was one of those post modern
attempts to introduce structural relativism into grammar.
Okay
this is the key verse on the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
NKJ 1
Corinthians
There
we have the Greek preposition en used.
The
verb there is in the aorist passive indicative.
Now I stressed the passive voice.
The subject receives the action. So
what is the grammatical subject of “we were all baptized”? The grammatical subject is the first person
plural pronoun we. “We” is the subject
of the verb baptized, but baptized is in a passive verb construction. So “we” doesn’t perform the action; “we”
receives the action. Who performs the
action? It is not stated in that
verse. Now this is really important to
understand because for years there has been debate (for at least a century)
over this particular verse primarily coming from Pentecostal theology that
argued that there were two different baptisms.
There was a baptism by the Holy Spirit that was performed by Christ
based on Matthew 3:11 and a baptism by the Holy Spirit based on I Corinthians
12:13. One happened at salvation. One happened subsequent to salvation when you
get the gift of speaking in tongues or healing or the second blessing.
Now
I was reading a hyper dispensationalist this last week on baptism to try to understand
what their arguments were. This
particular dispensational theology was written by a hyper dispensationalist. For those of you who don’t know, a hyper
dispensationalist believes that the Church Age didn’t begin until sometime
later in Acts. Some put it in Acts
9. Some put it when Paul was saved. Some put it at Acts 19. Some put it at the end of Acts. So they argue that all of Acts is
transitional. It doesn’t matter; they would not make the
demarcation (this is important) the baptism by of the Holy Spirit. That is the distinguishing characteristic of
the Church Age believer. We will have a
look at that as we go through our lesson this evening.
In
I Corinthians
Matthew
NKJ Matthew
Who
is speaking? John the Baptist.
It
is an active voice verb. I, John the
Baptist, am the subject of the verb baptize and I am the agent performing the
baptism.
In
water - en hudati. There you have the same preposition en
indicating the instrument that is used to bring about the baptism. I pointed out that baptism has the meaning of
dip, plunge, or immerse. It has this
idea primarily of dipping, like taking cloth and dipping it into dye. It is not just immersing it because immerse
means to put it in and not take it out. There
is some confusion over that where some people go to strange places
doctrinally. I don’t know if we will go
down those rabbit trails or not. I don’t
want to confuse you, I just want to clarify and make sure that you understand
what this is saying.
Water
is the instrument for the purpose or towards the goal of repentance.
By
means of the Spirit, en pneumati. So there is a parallel drawn between the Holy
Spirit and water. This is very important
to understand. As John used water to picture
the cleansing that was taking place to the converts that came to him, so Jesus
is pictured here as using the Holy Spirit in the same way. The Holy Spirit is actually the real agent of
cleansing, not water. That is what the I
Peter 3 passage indicates – not the removal of dirt from the flesh. It is the work of God the Holy Spirit who positionally
and absolutely cleanses us from all sin at the instant of our salvation.
So Jesus
will baptize. That is a future tense. It’s
not happening yet. It is still in the
indeterminate future as far as John was concerned. This was at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
Now
in Acts 1:5 Jesus comes along and is on the verge of the ascension. He is going to ascend in verses 9 and
10. He is reminding the disciples of
what John had said and what He had said.
He is telling them that not many days from now that is going to
occur. So He is talking about that
baptism by means of the Spirit that John talked about.
NKJ Acts 1:5 "for
John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit
not many days from now."
John
is the subject of the verb. It is an active
voice verb. John is the grammatical
subject.
It
is still future at the time of the ascension of Christ. Baptism
by means of the Holy Spirit hadn’t happened yet. It is still future.
We
have the same preposition again. Notice
the consistency in every one of these phrases.
The en indicates the instrumental means and the eis indicates the direction. Eis isn’t the direction or the ultimate goal. That is not part of the passage. Not every element is there.
So
what happens about 10 days later? You
have the Holy Spirit descend at Pentecost.
That is when this is fulfilled. This
is the demarcation point. Everything
else points to this event – to the baptism by means of the Holy Spirit.
Now
I will use the English examples on this.
John hit the ball with the
bat.
Now
when we use that English phrase with, English prepositions are really funky as
far as their use with Greek prepositions.
The Greek preposition en
can be translated by the English preposition with, for or by. So what happened also in this passage is that
if you go back to Acts 1:5 and Matthew 3:11 where it says that you will be
baptized with the Spirit, in the English it uses the preposition “with”; but notice
that the Greek preposition is still en.
The King James translated it “with the Spirit”.
Now
watch this. I want to go back to I Corinthians
12:13. I Corinthians
“Ah,”
they thought. “Two different
baptisms.”
But
in the both places it uses the same Greek construction which indicates that
there are not two different baptisms.
There is only one baptism by means of the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit is the means of the baptism, never the agent who performs the baptism. The prophecy in Matthew
Then
when you get to I Corinthians, “You have been baptized by means of the Spirit.”
Who
is performing the baptism? Jesus Christ
is performing the baptism.
For
years you have probably heard that the baptism of the Holy Spirit places you
into Christ. What does that do? That makes the Holy Spirit the grammatical subject
and the agent of the verb. But that is
not what these texts say, is it? The
texts all say that Christ is the subject and performer of the action, not the Holy
Spirit. He is the means. He is what the Son uses to identify the
believer with Himself just as John the Baptist used water as a symbol of the
converts cleansing and identification with the new state of repentance.
So
back to our English example. When we
take an English sentence such as “John hit the ball with or by means of the
bat” (the bat being the instrument to hit the ball), John is the grammatical
subject. Hit is the active voice
verb. John is the subject who performs
the act of hitting.
Now
when we change that to a passive voice construction…
The ball was hit by John
with the bat.
The
subject now is the ball. The verb is was
hit, but John is still the one hitting the ball. But now it is in a passive
voice construction so it is the ball was hit by John. In English we use the preposition “by” to
indicate the agent of the verb. That is
why we get confused in I Corinthians 12:12 when it says, “by one Spirit”. By in English indicates the performer in a passive
voice construction. So we think that the
Spirit is the one who performs the action. But actually the Greek uses the preposition hupo or dia to
indicate the agent of the action in a passive voice construction, not the
preposition en which is what we have in I Corinthians 12:13. Is that becoming a little clearer to
everybody?
This
is so crucial to tighten our focus on just exactly what this means. When we get into our lesson this evening on
the believer’s baptism, the real issue in water baptism or ritual baptism is
what it depicts. It is nothing more that
a picture, a training aid, for understanding this abstract and invisible
non-experiential reality called the baptism by means of God the Holy Spirit.
John En hudati Eis metantian
Matt
Jesus
En hudati unstated
there
By
the Spirit
Unstated En nephele En
Mosen
I Cor 10:2 En
thalasse Into
Moses
In
Matthew 3:11, John is the one who performs the action. He uses water (by means of water) to affect a
new state of repentance. He is compared
to Jesus who in the future will use the Spirit in the same way John uses water. It is a parallel construction to affect a new
state. It is not stated there. It is
stated in other passages like I Corinthians 12:13 – that it is into His
body.
I
Corinthians 10:2 used the same type of construction. That’s the baptism by Moses by means of the
cloud and by means of the sea. Sea and
cloud are the instruments used to affect the new state – identification with
Moses and his faith. I Corinthians
There
is only one baptism that is important for the Church Age. That is the baptism by means of the Holy
Spirit. That is what we call a real
baptism. It is not experiential. That means when it happens at the instant
that you put your faith alone in Christ alone you don’t experience
anything. You don’t have a warm rush
through your body. You don’t get flushed.
You don’t get the joy of the Spirit all of a sudden. Those things might happen, but not because
you got baptized by the Holy Spirit. It
is because you are saved and all of a sudden you realize what that means. It is non-experiential. The only way we learn about it is to go to
the Scripture. We study the Scripture and the Scripture tells us what the
happened and this is what He provided for us.
Now
let’s go over to our lesson tonight as we go beyond this to find out just what
is going on with the ritual baptism of the New Testament. I pointed out last time that there are three
ritual baptisms in the New Testament. The
first is the baptism by John the Baptist.
John baptized individuals in the
The
second ritual baptism had to do with Jesus’ baptism. It was a unique baptism.
It was done by John. To the casual
observer it looked like anybody else’s baptism.
But there was a difference because Jesus was not a sinner. He did not need to repent. So He wasn’t repenting. It was a unique baptism indicating the beginning
or the initiation of his public ministry.
When John baptized Him in the
NKJ Matthew
The
Holy Spirit is pictured as a dove descending upon Jesus. That is the beginning of His ministry.
So
you have the baptism by John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus, and then you
have believer’s baptism.
Sometimes
you will hear Baptist preachers say, “We need to follow Jesus in baptism.”
Well
there is an error there because the baptism of the believer in the Church Age
is distinct from the baptism of Jesus.
So we are not following Jesus in baptism. It is a different baptism. You have to make these distinctions.
When
we discussed this I ran across a great quote from Dr. Louis Sperry Chaffer, the
founder and president of Dallas Seminary, in the 7th volume of his Systematic
theology.
He
writes…
In approaching the theme of ritual baptism it is
recognized that over this subject the most bitter divisions have been allowed
to arise in the church – divisions and exclusions for which it is difficult to
account in the light of two facts: (1) the great majority of those who are
given to separations confess that there is no saving value in the ordinance and
(2) all who look into it with freedom from prejudice recognize that fruitful,
spiritual Christians are to be found on each side of the controversy
Lewis Sperry Chafer,
Systematic Theology, 7:34
Notice
that he doesn’t call it a sacrament. You
don’t receive grace or anything through ritual baptism. So everybody recognizes that you don’t get saved
by it and you don’t get sanctified by it.
There are subgroups that believe all that. The
So
there are good learned men that argue.
What he argues primarily is the mode of baptism - whether it is
sprinkling or immersion. Dr. Chafer did
not argue about whether or not there should be baptism. He was recognizing the debate over mode - whether
it is by sprinkling or immersion. Remember
that Dr. Chafer was an ordained Southern Presbyterian minister. Presbyterians practice infant baptism. Dr. Walvoord who was his successor as
President of Dallas Seminary baptized each of his children as infants. He was an ordained Presbyterian
minister. These are little facts that
most people don’t know about. Don’t get all
wrapped around the axel whether you agree or disagree with what I say
tonight. You have to understand that this
is not something that you go into battle over.
The
foundational verse for the believer’s baptism is given in the passage known as
the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20.
This is actually stated several different ways in each of the gospels excluding
John and in the book of Acts. Jesus
several times gave marching orders to His disciples. They are not just different ways of
presenting what he said at one time. He
gave these marching orders several times.
NKJ Matthew
28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
NKJ Matthew 28:20
"teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I
am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
The
hyper-dispensationalist that I read today said that this was connected to the
kingdom message. No, there is nothing in
Matthew 28 talking about the kingdom. This
was the marching orders to the disciples.
Let’s
exegete it a little bit so that we understand just what is going on here. First of all we have the word “go”. The word “go” in English sounds like a mandate.
“Go!”
And
you will often hear preachers preach on how important it is to go. It is a participle in the original. It is not an imperative. It is a participle, but a participle can
sometimes have an imperatival force especially if the participle precedes an
imperative verb. It picks up the command
impact of the verb because it is right there in front of it. The more I have studied this over the years,
the more I have come to understand this participle has an imperatival force in
front of it. Some people say it is an
imperatival force of time or manner such as while you were going. That’s legitimate as well.
Jesus
has recognized that you are going to go.
When I get through and say amen tonight, y’all are going to go. You are going to go home. You are going to go out to eat. But everybody is going to go. What Jesus would be saying if you take it as
a temporal participle is while you are going – while you are going to work,
while you are with friends, while you are engaged as a parent you should be
engaged in making disciples. So you can
understand it either way. I do think
that there are legitimate grammatical grounds for understanding it with an imperatival
force, but it can go either way.
To make
disciples is your main verb. The controlling
verb is to make disciples. It is an
aorist active imperative. Now an aorist
imperative is a stress point. This is
bold faced. A present imperative indicates
standard operating procedure. It is
usually used for something that is an ongoing characteristic. When an aorist imperative is used the writer
is simply punching it up. This is a high
priority. This is vital. This is important. Do this.
And so the command here is to make disciples. A disciple is one of those words that gets
used, abused and overused in Christianity today. You have all kinds of people talking about discipleship. Nobody really understands what a disciple
is. The term mathetes
basically means a learner or a student.
And it can be in any kind of context.
Jesus, for the purposes of what he was going to do in laying the
foundation of the church, chose 12 men to teach them and to make them students
and they were to be the foundation for the church (minus Judas Iscariot of
course who was not a believer).
In
this structure Jesus now only says to make disciples of all nations, but he
follows the mandate with two participles.
Now what is important here is to understand the connection of these two
participles to the main verb. He is not
just saying make disciples period. He is
saying to make disciples a certain way.
It
is sort of like if I was out with some guys or ladies (some ladies here are
excellent shots) on the shooting range and popping caps. Somebody is a really good shot.
Then
I pullout my Colt 1851 Navy cap and ball revolver and say, “Okay, let’s see how
you can do. Hit the target with
this.”
Notice
that I didn’t say hit the target, I said to hit the target with this. It is not only the mandate to hit the target,
but to shoot the target with a particular gun.
You are not fulfilling the request if you shoot the target with a 45
automatic. You are not fulfilling the
request if you hit the target with a 30 ought 6 with a scope on it. It is hit the target with the 1851 Navy
Colt.
So
that is how this works. You have got two
participles here that are participles of either manner or means. Those concepts are close together. What they do is describe how the mandate is
to be fulfilled. You are to make disciples
by baptizing and by teaching. You are
not supposed to make disciples by going out to Papadeaux’s
and having crawfish for dinner. You see it tells you how you are to make
disciples. He restricts it with these
participles of means. You do it by
baptizing and by teaching. They are not
connected by a conjunction here which is interesting. So they pile up on top of each other. You make disciples by baptizing, by
teaching. So it’s added together. Now the baptizing here is said to be
baptizing them - that is the disciples in the name of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit indicating that there is identification with the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
NKJ Matthew
28:20 "teaching them to observe all things that I have
commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the
age." Amen.
Notice
this last phrase. It is one that I find
overlooked. That sets the context for
this entire statement – to be until the end of the age. It is not saying until the age begins. You see there is this view that baptism only
meant things to the Jews so it is only operative in the early transitional
period of the book of Acts. But you see
that it is connected to a statement that Jesus is making when he says…
I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
This
mandate to make disciples extends all the way through the end of the age. Right?
Otherwise let’s stop and go home.
Look at the second part of it. It
is making disciples by teaching. That is what we do – Sunday morning, Tuesday
night, and Thursday night. This is
biblical discipleship – teaching the Word of God so that you can grow in the
grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Teaching is linked just as much to the command
as the baptism is in this particular construction. And the temporal boundary is the end of the age. What age are we talking about? The Church Age.
What
I want to do now is look briefly at the parallels to this Great Commission.
NKJ Mark
It
doesn’t say anything about teaching or baptism.
It summarizes it with the Greek word keruso,
to proclaim the gospel.
NKJ Mark
Now
you are going to run into folks who say, “Look.
Look. You have to be baptized to
be saved. See what it says!”
Yeah,
but in the second half of the construction it says…
he who does not believe will be condemned.
The
point is that the person who does not believe is not saved. Baptism was the result. It is what you expected a convert to do. It doesn’t bring salvation. The reason it doesn’t say “he who has not
believed and wasn’t baptized shall be condemned. The only factor in salvation is faith alone
in Christ alone.
Then
we have the Luke account.
NKJ Luke 24:46
Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was
necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,
NKJ Luke 24:47
"and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in
His name to all nations, beginning at
NKJ Luke 24:48 "And
you are witnesses of these things.
NKJ Luke 24:49
"Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city
of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."
That
is the Holy Spirit. You are to stay in
the city.
Now
when Luke picks up his pen and writes part 2 which is the book of Acts, he has
Jesus reiterate this in the beginning of Acts.
Part of this we have already done.
NKJ Acts 1:5 "for
John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit
not many days from now."
Jesus expands on this.
NKJ Acts 1:8 "But
you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall
be witnesses to Me in
That
is Pentecost.
In
sum what we see is that the essence of this commission to the apostles which
lays the foundation of the church is that they are supposed to be witnesses of
what Jesus Christ taught. They are to go
out and carry out this mission to make students of believers. That involves two things – baptism in the
name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to do all that “I
have observed.”
Matthew
28:19-20 are the two most explicit of the various passages. That is why most people go to Matthew
28:19-20 rather than these others.
Now
the next question we ask is, “How do we understand this – baptism in the name
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?
What did he mean by that?”
He
doesn’t say in the passage to baptize by water.
Water isn’t mentioned there. The
question that some people ask (and should be asked) is - which baptism is this? Ritual baptism? Is this a circumlocution? Are we talking about baptism by means of the
Holy Spirit? Which is it?
The
way we answer this question is to go to the book of Acts to take it step-by-step
and see how the apostles understood and implemented that from Peter all the way
through Paul. So that is what I want to
do. Let’s turn over to Acts 2.
Acts
2 contains the account of the day of Pentecost.
On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descends upon the 12. Now it is important to realize who is
involved here.
NKJ Acts 2:1 When the
Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
You will see pictures of the
day of Pentecost. They will have 120
people out on the steps of the temple when the Holy Spirit descended. There is a problem with that. The only time
you have a 120 people mentioned is earlier in Acts when 120 believers gathered
together in verse 15 for the selection of Mathias. They gathered in the Upper Room. Now let’s just think about that for a minute.
Number
1 you wouldn’t have 120 people staying together in one room for ten days. It gets a little crowded. It is in the early summer. It’s in June.
There is no air conditioning. It is a little rough having that many people
in that small of a space for very long.
Number
two is that in the practice of Judaism at that particular time whenever you had
mixed company (men were on one side and women were on the other side) men and
women were kept separate. You would not
have all of these men and women spending time in the same room 24-7 or a long
period of time. From a common sense point
of view you would recognize that you were not going to have 120 people hanging
around for a long time.
But
then we have a grammatical argument.
Remember in the original Greek text there are no verses and no chapters.
So when you read verse one of chapter 2,
the “they” is a pronoun. The rule in
grammar is that you look for the nearest plural noun prior to this. That is the antecedent or the reference for
this pronoun. The last verse of chapter
one says…
NKJ Acts
“They” refers to the 11
apostles. It doesn’t refer to the
120. As a matter of fact if you go
through and trace out the use of the third person plural pronoun in chapter 1
except for a small number of verses around 15 and 16 where it refers to the 120
once or twice, the rest of the chapter
it always refers to the eleven. So it is
the eleven that are gathered together.
The Holy Spirit descends on them.
Why? Because they are the foundation
of the church. That is Ephesians 4. It is not the 120 that are the foundation of
the church. It is the eleven apostles who
are the foundation. They are the first
ones that get the Holy Spirit. There is
unity here.
NKJ Ephesians
4:4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as
you were called in one hope of your calling;
It is all grounded on the
foundation which is based on the 11 apostles.
So it doesn’t happen to everybody else.
Everybody else in Acts who gets the Holy Spirit and the baptism by means
of the Holy Spirit and speaks in tongues does it only at the hand of one of the
apostles. That is to show that there is
not this split in the body of Christ. You
don’t have a Jewish body of Christ, a Samaritan body of Christ, and a Gentile
body of Christ. You only have one body
of Christ. It is grounded on the eleven
apostles. So they are the ones who receive the initial pouring out of the Holy
Spirit and speaking in tongues. I have
been told by those who know a lot more languages than I do that there are only
11 language groups even though you have several geographical and ethnic groups
listed. I think there are 15 or 16 in
verses 8-12. Actually, there are 11
language groups. Actually in my research
I think there are only 5 or 6. It does
not minimize the miracle speaking in languages, but it is not like they are
speaking 120 languages. They are only
speaking four or 5. You have Latin,
Greek, Aramaic, and maybe a few dialects such as Coptic and other dialects. Those
were all provinces in
So that is the back ground
for Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. At the
conclusion of that sermon (we just want to look at what happens at the end) in
Acts
NKJ Acts
When I was young I liked to
get involved in some good theological wrangling with people at times. I used to love to go to the Texas State
Fair. I wasn’t the only one. This is one of those things that theological
students like to sharpen the edge of their thinking on. There was always a booth at the State Fair of
Texas in
They would argue that you
have to be baptized in order to get the gift of the Holy Spirit. You have got to go to the Greek there. This is an extremely complex Greek
construction in this passage. And, it is
poorly translated in the English. It makes this phrase in the middle “let each
of you be baptized in the name of Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” as
if that is a second command after repent.
Actually repent is a second person plural imperative. That means – y’all repent.
Do you see in that last
phrase? That is a second person
plural. Am I making myself clear? The “you” in the middle - what do you think
that “you” is? That is a singular you. It starts with a second person plural
(repent). Then it goes to a second
person singular; then it goes back to a second person plural. To make it a little clearer in the English it
is…
Literal translation: Repent and each of you will receive the Holy
Spirit. Then be baptized in the name of
the Holy Spirit on the account of the forgiveness of your sins.
That
is how it should be understood. It has
the idea of on the account or because of the forgiveness of your sin. We receive forgiveness when we put our faith
in Christ. That is what Peter is saying
here by repent. He is indicating
changing your mind about who Jesus is.
He just got finished talking to the Jews about how they crucified Jesus
as the Messiah and rejected Him. Now they need to change their minds and accept
Jesus as their Savior. As a result of that they too would receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit just as they did and then subsequent to that “let each
of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”
This
is where we see the connection. Remember
that the only precedent that you have to this is back in Matthew 18:19-20. That is the only thing that gives any meaning
to this.
Now
does it mention water? No, it doesn’t
mention water at all in this passage.
But it is not talking about receiving the Holy Spirit because it is repent
and you will receive the Holy Spirit. Then,
be baptized. We are not talking about the
baptism of the Holy Spirit here. We are
talking about another form of baptism. So
this is properly understood to be ritual baptism. It becomes a little clearer later on. It doesn’t mention water in every passage
because this is understood. If you
remember, last week I showed you a picture of the miqvote outside the gate at the
entry of the temple. There were at least
30 different places for ritual washing outside the entry way to the
temple. So when the 11 apostles are
gathered outside the temple and have 3,000 converts, they were all baptized
right then and there because they had these pools for ritual washings (30 of
them) right there. So they could take 11
of them and then run an assembly line. They
could easily baptize 3,000 people in one day.
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So that took place right
there on the steps of the temple.
Now
the next place that we have the mention of baptism is in Acts 8. This involves two different episodes. It doesn’t involve an apostle. It involves Phillip who was one of the 7
chosen in Acts 6 to assist the apostles.
In Acts 8 starting in verse 4 talking about what is going on in
NKJ Acts 8:5 Then
Philip went down to the city of
NKJ Acts 8:6 And the
multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and
seeing the miracles which he did.
NKJ Acts 8:7 For
unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed;
and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed.
These
were miracles that attested to His message.
NKJ Acts 8:8 And there
was great joy in that city.
NKJ Acts 8:9 But there
was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city
and astonished the people of
Then
we have the story about Simon. Skip down
to verse 12
NKJ Acts 8:12 But when
they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God
and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized.
Actually I think it is an
imperative verb here. It isn’t a
process. It is “they were baptized”. Again we see that baptism follows immediately
upon conversion.
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So
we have Phillip going to
Then
in Acts 8:16… skip down.
Phillip
the evangelist isn’t an apostle. They
haven’t experienced everything yet. They
have been baptized (ritual water baptism) but they haven’t received the Holy
Spirit.
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That
is a synonym for believing the gospel.
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So
here is the order. They trust in
Christ. They go through ritual baptism then
they receive the Holy Spirit when John and Peter come to them.
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He
is the Holy Spirit.
So
we have to trace this phrase through Acts.
Every time we see baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus, it is talking
about water baptism. We see that most
clearly in the latter part of this chapter when the angel of the Lord (not the
pre-incarnate Christ the Old Testament angel of the Lord, but an angel) spoke
to Phillip and told him to go to the
NKJ Acts
Sound
familiar? The same
NKJ Acts
He
goes up to him.
NKJ Acts
Phillip
comes to him and asks him in verse 30…
NKJ Acts
NKJ Acts
He
read Isaiah 53:7-8.
NKJ Acts
NKJ Isaiah
53:7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His
mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its
shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
NKJ Isaiah
53:8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will
declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the
transgressions of My people He was stricken.
So
basically Phillip explains the gospel to him.
He trusts Christ as His savior. As
they go down the road, they came to some water in verse 36.
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So
here is the connection. It is clearly a water
baptism, ritual baptism.
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The
Ethiopian eunuch is well-grounded in Old Testament theology. Most of these people are well-grounded in the
Old Testament. They are getting baptized
immediately. Personally, I think people
need a little time because they need to be instructed about what all this
about. Most people today are ignorant of
the Old Testament. Most of the people we
have seen so far are very knowledgeable about Old Testament doctrine.
Now
we see that it is immediate and that it is water baptism. It is not with a Jew; it is with an Ethiopian,
a gentile.
Then
in Acts 9 we have the episode with Paul’s baptism after Paul saw Jesus on the
road to
NKJ Acts
He
was instructed to go to Saul and to pray for him and heal his blindness and to
baptize him.
In Acts
NKJ Acts
It
doesn’t mention water. It is not baptism
of the Holy Spirit. That has already
happened at the instant of his conversion.
Peter
takes the gospel to the gentiles at
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So
they haven’t been baptized by water yet (ritual baptism), but they have been
baptized by the Holy Spirit. He ordered
them to be baptized.
NKJ Acts
How? In the name of Jesus Christ.
I
just want to hit a couple of more.
This
is when
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