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Do We Need Another Pentecost? (Jesus Saves Series – Sermon 2) – The Text

Our scripture reading for today will come from Acts 2. We’ve just begun a new series in the book of Acts that focuses on the conversion of people to Christ. The message of the apostles as they began in, and eventually went forth from, Jerusalem was that Jesus now reigns and Jesus saves. Jesus saves! is the title of our series. The apostles carried this gospel first throughout Jerusalem, then throughout Judea, Samaria, and ultimately, the entire world. As they preached and men and women became convinced and convicted that Jesus was who the apostles preached that He was, they responded by asking the apostles and those who preached what they must do. That question was the subject of our study last week. We saw how the apostle Peter answered that question at the very beginning of the Christian age, and how he and the other apostles answered it when others asked it throughout their ministry.

Today, we will begin looking at specific episodes recorded in the book of Acts and the circumstances that led people to hear the gospel, and how those who received the gospel favorably responded to the apostle’s preaching. I want us to learn many things from these examples, but in keeping to the point of our series, I want you to carefully notice the contrast between what the apostles preached and how the people responded to their preaching, and on the other hand what people are often told today by those who profess to preach the gospel. I want you to be listening very carefully to that as we go through our lesson.

We’ll begin at the beginning; that is, the Day of Pentecost, which took place after the Lord completed His earthly ministry, commissioned His apostles, and just ten days after He ascended back to heaven. The Lord had instructed the apostles to wait in the city of Jerusalem for the promise of the Father and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. With this power would come the commencement of the kingdom of Christ on earth. Great things would happen that day marking the beginning of the reign of Christ and the work of God’s plan of salvation in the lives of men and women.

Acts 2:1-4 “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

The prolific Bible teacher and author James D. Bales called Acts 2 ‘the hub of the Bible’ because of the significance of this Day of Pentecost relating to the plans and eternal purposes of God. The salvation long promised and anticipated since the fall of man in the beginning of time is now fully realized and offered to the world through Christ. Great things indeed happened on the Day of Pentecost that marked the greatest change in the history of the world. Not only the commencement of the gospel age, but also the glorious and triumphant reign of King Jesus. What transpired that day, what it meant then and what it means to us today is truly remarkable.

Not only do some claim to replicate the incredible experiences of the Day of Pentecost, but some tell us that what the church needs today is to have another Pentecost. Is that true? Well, I have a different perspective on that, and I hope you will stay with me for our study. We’re going to see what the Day of Pentecost was all about, why the things that happened did, and how those events should apply to us today.

As we come to our first conversion account in the book of Acts, the question arises, do we today need another Pentecost? The Day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2 was indeed a great day for the church and in the history of the world. The church of Christ was established that day when the apostles were set forth to the world as the representatives of King Jesus, and it was on this day when Peter fulfilled the promise of Christ in Matthew 16:18-19 and used the gospel keys of the kingdom, opening the gates for men and women to come inside and become its citizens and Christ’s subjects. The Day of Pentecost had great significance to the Jews and was, consequently, the perfect day for all of these things to come to pass. The perfect day for Christ’s kingdom on this earth to be made manifest to the world.

The word Pentecost in Greek means fiftieth and it signifies fifty days after the Passover Sabbath. It was one of three primary feasts that the Jews observed throughout the year. There was the feast of unleavened bread (which we know as the Passover), the feast of weeks (which is the same as Pentecost), and the feast of tabernacles. The feast of unleavened bread took place at the time of Passover, and coinciding with Passover, the Jews’ harvest season was ready to begin. As it commenced, you may recall there was an annual wave offering specified in the Old Testament that the priests would perform. The very first sheaves that were gathered were taken by the priests on the first day of the week after the Passover and were ceremoniously waved before the Lord.

Now, that was not just ceremony and it was certainly no accident. It was planned by God that way because it so happened that on the very day that the priest would wave the firstfruits of the harvest this particular year, Jesus our Lord rose from the dead. Paul would later refer to Him as the firstfruits of all who sleep (I Corinthians 15:20). It’s a fulfillment of that Old Testament picture. Just as Jesus fulfilled the prophetic picture of the Passover lamb by being our Passover, He also fulfilled the symbolic picture of the wave offering that occurred only days later when He arose from the dead on the first day of the week following the Passover.

That’s a beautiful picture, and this is where Pentecost comes in because seven weeks later, or fifty days following the Passover Sabbath, in celebration of the harvest, the Jews would then observe the feast of weeks or the Day of Pentecost. You might say it was a thanksgiving celebration for the harvest that God had granted them. So, it was fitting that on that day, there would be the first great harvest of souls into the kingdom of Christ when the tremendous events of Acts 2 took place, when the gospel was preached and the church was established, and the first men and women were saved after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But there was not only a symbolic purpose behind the timing of these events, but a practical purpose as well. Of the three feast times of the year when the Jews would travel to Jerusalem, the feast of weeks perhaps drew the greatest crowds because of the time of year it was, allowing more to make the trip. On the Day of Pentecost, Jerusalem would be flooded with people not only from Israel, but from all over the world where Jews happened to be living at the time.

Acts 2:5 “And there were dwelling (or staying) in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.”

So, you can see that it was a perfect day for God to demonstrate the things that He did through the things that took place, and it was a perfect day for the apostles to first proclaim their testimony of the risen and glorified Christ to the world, beginning with the Jewish nation. The large numbers of people from all over the world from the very beginning gave the gospel message a tremendous platform from which to begin its spread throughout the earth. The promises that Jesus made to the apostles were that they would receive power from the Holy Spirit, that He would build His church, and that His kingdom reign would commence. All of those came to pass on this day. It was truly the beginning of the gospel age or the Christian age, the church age. Jesus told the disciples that in their lifetimes, they would see the kingdom of God come with power (Mark 9:1). Strangely today, some are still waiting for the kingdom to come, but Jesus says that would happen in the lifetime of the apostles. This power with which the kingdom would come is a reference to what happened on the Day of Pentecost. It’s a reference to the outpouring of power and the baptism of the Holy Spirit that Jesus would administer to these men as was foretold by John in Matthew 3:11.

Shortly before ascending back to the Father in heaven, Jesus commissioned those apostles to preach the gospel, which included the forgiveness of sins. They were going to preach that message beginning in Jerusalem, and you remember it was even prophesied back in the Old Testament in Isaiah 2:1-4 that when the Lord would set up His house here upon this earth, when He would establish the church, the law would go forth from Jerusalem. So, Jesus commissions His apostles beginning there at Jerusalem to preach the gospel including the remission of sins.

Luke 24:46-49 “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, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. 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.”

They would see the kingdom come with power in the city of Jerusalem just after Jesus ascended back to heaven, in just a matter of days. Jesus tells them to wait there and they will receive the Promise of the Father and be endued with power from heaven. This power would stand as a witness to the truth of their testimony that Christ had risen and was now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven, reigning as King. God was not expecting people to just accept the testimony of the apostles as they proclaimed it, but He manifested His power upon these men in order that people would know that God was in them and that they were speaking the things of God.

All of that sets the stage for what occurs in the first few verses of Acts 2.

Those words alone paint quite a thrilling picture. It was doubtless an incredible thing for the apostles to experience this, and an incredible thing for the people gathered around that day to see. Verses 5-12 tell us that the men from all of the many nations represented there that day started hearing the apostles speak the wonderful works of God in the languages of the lands they were from. After those tongues of fire sat upon the apostles and they were endued with this power, they began to speak in these various languages and those present heard them in the languages of their own country. This is the miracle of tongues that took place when the apostles were baptized (or overwhelmed as the word indicates here) with the Holy Spirit. This was not the apostles losing control of themselves or speaking in some unintelligible gibberish; this was simply the miracle of the apostles speaking the truth of God in foreign languages that they themselves did not know. That’s the supernatural element of this: they had never studied those languages. They were supernaturally empowered to speak those languages they had never studied.

Acts 2:7-8 “Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?”

Notice that what the apostles were speaking were intelligible, earthly languages. When they spoke, these men from other nations heard them speaking in their own languages. What made that a miracle was that these unlearned men (that’s why they pointed out that the apostles were Galileans) were speaking in languages they had not studied. By the way, that’s what tongues refers to in the New Testament. Not a string of ecstatic syllables and unintelligible utterances, as some claim and try to demonstrate today. Tongues were languages that people from other nations understood. In fact, the word tongues is substituted in some places by the word languages, as we just read in verse 8.

Why did Jesus baptize the apostles in the Holy Spirit, thus providing such a sign? What did this manifestation of power mean? Why did it occur? While it is true that these men heard the wonderful works of God in their own languages and therefore speaking in other languages could allow the apostles to communicate with people from other places, that really wasn’t the main point. The Old Testament predicted to the Jews that the reign of the Messiah would commence with the presence of tongues. Paul connects the prophecy of Isaiah 28 to the gift of tongues in I Corinthians 14, indicating that such would signify to the unbelieving Jews that the kingdom was being taken away from them as national Israel and given to others as a new Israel. That’s what it signified on the Day of Pentecost.

Isaiah 28:11 “For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people,”

1 Corinthians 14:21-22 “In the law it is written: “With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me,” says the Lord. Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe.”

So, tongues were meant for a sign. On the Day of Pentecost, it was a sign that the kingdom of Christ had now come and was being given to the new Israel. It occurs again in Acts 10 at the house of Cornelius, which we will study in future weeks, so that the Jews would believe that the Gentiles had been allowed into the kingdom as well. Keep in mind when you study tongues that they were a sign pertaining to the Jewish people. In Acts 2, you have Jews witnessing the sign and in Acts 10, the sign was for the benefit of the Jews that they might know that Cornelius and all Gentiles after him had the opportunity to hear and obey the gospel and enter the kingdom. It was a kingdom sign and it certainly got the attention of the Jews gathered on Pentecost in Jerusalem that day and it gave Peter a ready audience to whom he could now offer evidence of the Messiahship of the Christ that they had crucified just over fifty days before. The things that they were now seeing fulfilled were not only the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, but the promises and predictions of Christ Himself. They were ultimately evidence of the fact that Jesus was now reigning at God’s right hand as King, that He was who He claimed to be, and that they could now be admitted into the kingdom that He now possessed. With that, the old national Israel that they had known was fading away and being replaced as God’s kingdom by the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what it was all about and with this sermon began the fulfilling of the great commission.

Peter begins to preach in verses 14-36 and show them that what they were seeing was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel.

Acts 2:17 “And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.”

This obviously refers to the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in the early church. All flesh doesn’t mean every person on the earth for all time, else everyone on earth even today would possess miraculous powers. It is a limited term specifically referring to the fact that it would be poured out on Jew and Gentile alike, which it was (Acts 2, Acts 10). Those gifts were manifest in the early church. Even miraculous powers were diversified throughout the early church. This promise here in Joel 2 which Peter quotes exclusively refers to those in the early church who would receive power from the Holy Spirit as evidence of the truth.

Peter goes on to use prophetic language referring to the fact that the old Israel would pass away when the new Israel was coming into being, and Joel shows what all of that pointed forward to in verse 21.

Acts 2:21 “And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.”

You see what this outpouring of the Spirit pointed to? You see what it confirmed? It confirmed the gospel. The truth of Jesus and His present reign. It says as a result of all this that it would come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. We’ve talked about what that phrase means in earlier lessons.

Friends, the things these people witnessed on Pentecost not only fulfilled prophecy, but in so doing, showed the people that God was with and in the apostles, and that their message concerning the Christ should be received and obeyed. The events of that Pentecost as we now read them in scripture testify to us as well that Christ was in the apostles and the things they spoke were not only true then, but are still true now. You see, it’s possible to benefit from, to learn from, and to be a beneficiary of something without being the recipient of something.

On the basis of all that these people have now seen take place, Peter now preaches his powerful sermon in verses 22-36 about how Jesus is indeed who He claimed to be, that He is the promised Christ, that He has been made Lord of all. That not only did He have His own signs and wonders to attest to His claims, but was also crucified by their own wicked hands, rose again, and is now ascended to David’s throne in heaven at the right hand of God, reigning and ruling as King of His kingdom. That’s Peter’s sermon in a nutshell. The Bible tells us that there was a great reaction to his preaching.

Acts 2:36-41 ““Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “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. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.”

On the basis of all the things they saw that day, they then heard the gospel and they were convinced by the preaching of the gospel that Jesus was the Christ. They had a change of mind and a change of heart. They now believed in Him, whereas they did not before. But they weren’t yet saved. That’s important. They now believed, but they weren’t yet saved. They then asked, What shall we do? Now that we believe, how do we act upon this? Peter tells them to repent. That means turn from your sin. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of (or by the authority of) Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now they didn’t argue with that. They didn’t hesitate or try to substitute that. They did what Peter said. They gladly received his word and they were baptized that same day—not later, that day—because baptism is for the remission or forgiveness of sins. Upon being baptized for the forgiveness of their sins, upon being saved, they were added to the apostle’s number, which Luke identifies in verse 47 as the church.

That’s how people were saved then and that’s how people are saved now. Sometimes people say that what we need is another Pentecost, but that’s not true. Friend, we’re not ever going to have another Pentecost any more than we’re going to have another incarnation or another Calvary or another Messiah come to earth, die, be buried, and rise again. We’ve already had Pentecost. What we need to do today is act upon the Pentecost that we’ve already had. The one that happened 2,000 years ago that marked the coming of the kingdom of heaven. By hearing, believing, and obeying the message that Peter preached that day with such authority that was confirmed with those signs that happened on that day, we too can enter Christ’s kingdom, reign with Him, and be members of the church that He established in the city of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago on that day.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit was never promised to you or to me; it was promised to the apostles to testify that their words were so, and those words are yet available for you and me to accept and obey today. If you haven’t, I hope you will this very day.

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What Shall We Do? (Jesus Saves Series – Sermon 1) – The Text

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We concluded a series of lessons last week entitled Preaching Jesus. Who was Jesus? What did He come to do? Who did He claim to be? We learned that His disciples preached Him as the Son of God, the promised Christ, Lord over all, and King of all kings. In describing Jesus as all of these things, they presented Him as the Savior of the world. When His impending birth was announced to Joseph, the angel said His name would be Jesus.

Matthew 1:21 “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Before Jesus began His ministry, John the baptizer said He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). When Jesus Himself began to preach and prepare the world for the coming of His kingdom, He described His mission to this earth in this way:

Luke 19:10 “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

He made salvation possible through His vicarious death on the cross—that is, offering Himself as a sacrifice to atone for sin—through His burial and His resurrection, triumphing over sin and its greatest curse, death. He then returned to heaven and began reigning over the kingdom that God the Father gave to Him, and told the apostles that He had chosen them to go and preach or announce to the world the good news that all of these things had come to pass.

Mark 16:15 “And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

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,”

The long-promised and long-awaited salvation of fallen humanity could now be realized fully, in and through Him. Just a few days later, the apostles—now filled with the Holy Spirit—began to proclaim the crucified, risen, and exalted Christ to the world, beginning with the Jewish nation and, ultimately, to every other nation under heaven. This is what the book of Acts describes for us: the beginning and ever-expanding reign of Jesus Christ as King. The establishment of the church of Christ here on this earth in AD 30 and its development and its rapid growth. As the gospel accounts describe the work of Christ on this earth, the book of Acts describes what happened when Christ and His work was preached to a lost world. The message of those men was that Jesus reigns and Jesus saves.

This new series we’re starting today will be entitled Jesus Saves! We will spend several weeks, if the Lord wills, studying the book of Acts. We could spend months or years in the book discovering so many things about the Lord, His apostles, and His church, but we’re going to focus on the activity of the apostles and evangelists of those beginning years. What happened as they began in Jerusalem and eventually spread throughout the Roman Empire and the world preaching the saving message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and risen again. As they fulfilled the great commission and went throughout the world making disciples of people from every nation, what did that involve? In particular, how did people respond to their preaching? How were they made disciples? Does the model they followed match the model that many preachers and churches follow today? Seriously think about that question as we go through our study. As the apostles preached, they were often met with the question, What shall we do? What must we do in order to be saved? We’ll begin our series with a look at that question. It was first asked on the Day of Pentecost when Peter preached the first sermon after the resurrection and ascension of Christ.

Acts 2:36-37 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?””

It was not enough that they were told who Jesus was. How were they to respond to that preaching? How did the apostles answer their question? How does your preacher answer that question? I think we’ll discover that how Peter answers the question here is how the apostles answered it everywhere else they went. That question is vital.

When the disciples preached Jesus, it generally elicited some kind of response. Their preaching was powerfully convicting, so that it would’ve been difficult to be indifferent to it. That doesn’t mean that everyone accepted their message, but they did meet with strong reaction when they preached the salvation and lordship of Jesus Christ to the world. Many of the religious leaders strongly rejected their preaching and tried to silence them. Many in the Greek world laughed at their message, dismissing it as foolish talk. But thousands upon multiplied thousands of people believed what they were preaching and became disciples of Christ and followers of the way. What happened when people received the message the apostles were preaching? How did they become Christians? What did the apostles tell those who were pricked in their hearts upon hearing of the crucified and risen Lord? What were they told to do to act upon that teaching to accept the saving message of Christ? We don’t have to wonder about that. Luke gives us a detailed record of what happened when the apostles went from place to place and preached. We have it all throughout the book of Acts.

We should point out that what the apostles led people to do in response to their preaching should very much matter to us because the apostles were the inspired ambassadors or representatives of Christ the King (2 Corinthians 5:20). He gave to those men the ministry of reconciling sinners to God through Christ by the things they preached, which are now recorded for us in preserved holy scripture. That means that today, we are saved and reconciled to God when we receive and follow the teaching of the apostles as well. In other words, the accounts we read in the book of Acts of how people were converted to Christ and saved through Him serve as our pattern in faith and gospel obedience today. Doesn’t it stand to reason that if we heed the same truths that the people heeded when they heard the apostles preach about Jesus, if we believe the same things they believed about Jesus , if we place the same kind of faith in Jesus, and we act upon that faith in the same way doing the same things they did, that we’ll become the same thing they became?

So, it’s very important to notice how the apostles answered this question here and every other time it was asked. The very idea that this question was asked of the apostles tells us that a human response of some kind is necessary upon hearing the gospel. Some believe that salvation is the result of a spontaneous experience of some kind. Seeing a light, hearing a voice, having a feeling. Or that the Holy Spirit came upon them in some inexplicable way and when the experience was over, they felt the peace of salvation. But these people we will learn about were not saved by better-felt-than-told experiences. There were indeed some extraordinary experiences that took place in the book of Acts and we’ll see that in our series, but the experiences always led them to hearing someone preach the gospel to them, which then led to the question, What shall we do? What do I do about what I’ve heard? The Bible says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). That was true then and it is true now when the gospel is preached. A person must hear the gospel preached before they can be saved. Not only that, they must believe what they hear and act upon what they hear.

When this question was asked, there is no record in the New Testament of any apostle or preacher rebuking anyone for asking it. Some today nearly suggest that it’s wrong to ask such a question, that asking it implies that a person must DO something before they will be saved, and since salvation is by grace through faith, that must mean that salvation is unconditional and that obedience has no part in one’s salvation. But the apostles never rebuked anyone for asking the question. They could have, but they didn’t. In their later teaching in epistles, Paul for one made it clear that salvation is something that no person can merit through works.

Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,”

Nobody can earn salvation. It comes by grace (that is, unmerited favor) through faith (that is, a trust in Jesus Christ). But does that preclude any kind of obedience or submission to the will of Christ as a condition of forgiveness? It doesn’t matter what I or any other preacher today says, no matter his qualifications. What matters is what the apostles said. Today when people ask that question, they’ll receive a few different responses: You must keep certain sacraments in order to be saved…or Just believe in your heart that Jesus died for your sins. That’s all you need to do. Some would go a little further: Trust Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. But what does that mean? Is that what you were told to do? Of course, we are to trust Christ as our Lord and Savior, but how do you do that? Some are told to pray a simple prayer to receive Jesus into your heart. Were you at one time told by a preacher or friend who was trying to lead you to Christ to just bow your head and pray the sinner’s prayer: Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner. I believe you died to save me. Come into my heart now. Cleanse me and make me your child, so the prayer usually goes. Did you pray a prayer like that? Millions upon millions of people have. But what millions of people have done in modern times is not what we should be interested in. Rather, what did the apostles lead people to do when they fulfilled the commission of Christ and preached Jesus to the lost world of their day?

Let’s quickly survey the book of Acts. Today, let’s look at the nine specific accounts in this book that tell us in any detail what the apostles said when the people heard them preach and responded to it, wanting to be saved. Let’s see if we can come away with a consistent picture. All of these people began at different points of understanding, but they were all lost. You might say they were beginning on the journey to salvation from different coordinates, so that will have some bearing on how these scenes unfold, but I think we’ll see a fairly consistent picture.

We begin on Pentecost in Acts 2. Again, this is the first sermon that the apostles preached after being given the great commission. Peter preached Jesus as Lord and Christ, convincing them that He is the Son of God, the promised Messiah. They were so moved and pricked in their hearts by what Peter said that they asked, What shall we do? They realized they were in a sinful state. They wanted to be saved.

Acts 2:38 “Then Peter said to them, “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.”

The religious world today sometimes talks about an ‘altar call’ and I wonder how many of these include a preacher telling people if they want to be saved they need to repent of their sins and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. I daresay not very many. That would be a very rare occurrence in our world today, but I believe it was a common occurrence in the first century when the apostles preached, and it began right here on the Day of Pentecost. Peter didn’t say, just open up your heart and let Jesus come in. Look at verse 41.

Acts 2:41 “Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.”

Not a week later. Not on ‘baptism Sunday.’ That day.

Let’s look at Acts 8 where the gospel goes to Samaria. A preacher named Philip preaches Christ and the kingdom to the people there. What happened tells us not only how they responded to the gospel, but also tells us something about what Philip must’ve preached to them. He preached Christ and the kingdom and here was the response.

Acts 8:12-13 “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. Then Simon himself also believed; and when he was baptized he continued with Philip, and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs which were done.”

Did we read anything about the sinner’s prayer or just letting Jesus come into their hearts? No. Later in the chapter, Philip is sent down a desert road to meet a government nobleman from Ethiopia who wanted to hear about Christ.

Acts 8:35 “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.”

That would’ve been a great and interesting sermon to hear. I wonder what all it included. Well, we know that it was based in Isaiah 53, so he told him about the death of Jesus, that Jesus was the Son of God, the promised Messiah, and the fulfillment of all of the Messianic expectations of the Old Testament. He paralleled the life of Jesus with the prophecies of Isaiah. What all do you suppose was included in that?

Acts 8:36-38 “Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.”

He believes in his heart and he is confessing with his mouth. That is necessary for salvation according to Romans 10:10. So far as we read, they didn’t get down on the side of the road and pray a prayer with him so that he might be saved. No, he heard him preach, he understood and believed, and he wanted to be baptized. They stopped right there, and Philip baptized him in that oasis of water.

Maybe someone says, Wait, I found the sinner’s prayer in the next chapter. In Acts 9, we read about the conversion of Saul. After he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was blinded and sent into the city, the Bible says that while he was there for some days, he was praying. Well, was he praying for salvation?

Acts 9:6 “So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Ananias had not arrived yet. Saul was waiting for him to come. He may have been praying, but his sins were not washed away as a result, because after Ananias did come and restore his blinded eyes, Paul himself later recalled that Ananias said this to him:

Acts 22:16 “And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”

His sins were not washed away until he followed the instructions of Ananias. So, no sinner’s prayer for salvation there either. Now let’s look at Cornelius and his believing household.

Acts 10:48 “And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then they asked him to stay a few days.”

Then when Paul met and preached to Lydia.

Acts 16:15 “And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.”

Later in that same chapter, there was a Philippian prison keeper and his household.

Acts 16:30-33 “And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized.”

Immediately. Not the next Sunday or the next month. That same hour of the night, he and his family were baptized. If baptism has nothing whatsoever to do with saving faith and being saved, why was it so urgent that his family be baptized that same hour of the night?

The people in Corinth were taught the gospel by Paul and they were baptized.

Acts 18:8 “Then Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized.”

Then, some disciples of Apollos who had not properly been taught about Jesus were commanded to be baptized in the name of (or by the authority of) Jesus.

Acts 19:5 “When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Why do you suppose every example we have here ends with the person/people being immediately baptized? Not days or weeks later, but immediately? Well, what did Jesus tell the apostles when He issued the great commission?

Mark 16:14-16 “Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”

The book of Acts is a record of the apostles carrying out this great commission. It tells us how the apostles went forth and did what Jesus ordered them to do. Go preach the gospel, the good news of the crucified and risen Christ. You can be saved through His death, burial, and resurrection. Go preach that. And what of those who received this message?

Mark 16:16 “”He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”

Why isn’t baptism included in the negative statement? Why does it not say he who does not believe and is not baptized will be condemned? Because if you understand the design and purpose of baptism, one who doesn’t believe would have no need for baptism. It would be redundant. It’s like saying he who goes to the airport and gets aboard the plane will fly to Dallas. If a person doesn’t go to the airport, why would he need to be warned about not getting on the plane? You can’t get on the plane until you go to the airport.

So, Jesus says when they preach, here will be the result. Those who believe what is preached and are baptized will be saved. Friend, that is as plain as plain can be. It’s so plain and simple, it takes a Bible PhD. to mess it up and convolute it. How does Matthew record it?

Matthew 28:18-20 “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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, 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 the order. Go make disciples, baptizing them, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded. That’s exactly what you read in the book of Acts: the apostles went, they preached Jesus to the lost world, those who favorably received their message and were willing to accept their message were baptized upon their belief of what was preached, then those people were organized into churches that then carried out the will of God in those places and in their lives. That’s the fulfillment of the great commission.

Let Freedom Ring (The Text)

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I want to talk with you today about freedom. It’s a subject many of us hold very dear. It’s a wonderful thing that we shouldn’t take for granted. There have been billions of people in the history of Earth and billions even right now who don’t know what it means to enjoy freedom. Many have lived their lives under the shadow of tyranny, slavery, fear, and hopelessness. The thought of gaining the freedom to pursue one’s dreams and live to their potential is little more than a dream to them. We who possess that kind of freedom should be thankful for it and not abuse it or take it for granted.

I’m very thankful to be an American; not because Americans are any better or more worthwhile than other people on the face of the earth, for we are not. But I am thankful to have lived my life so far with the freedom to live, work, think, and speak according to my own conscience. When many of us see the flag waving in her glory or we see the July 4^th twilight sky ablaze with fireworks and celebration, we’re reminded of the privilege of living in a free country. All of this could easily be gone tomorrow.

But there is a freedom that I hold even more dear and treasure much more. Regardless of where I might live or the type of government that I must be subject to, it is a freedom that no one can take away.

John 8:31-36 “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

Today I want us to think about the greatest declaration of independence ever signed, the greatest liberation to ever take place in the history of humanity. Our lesson is entitled Let Freedom Ring!

It was in 1831 when the United States was yet a young nation that Samuel Francis Smith, a young seminary student, wrote the poem that became one of America’s early de facto national anthems. We know it well:

My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From ev’ry mountainside
Let freedom ring!

The third verse perhaps captures the theme of the song best:

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom’s song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

The song’s desire was obviously that the freedom America represented would spread across the earth and around the globe. Throughout the history of mankind, oppressed peoples have dreamed and yearned for freedom from oppression, from subjugation, and from suffering. Even in Jesus’ time, the Jews were not a sovereign and free people; they were subject to Caesar and had been a subjugated people to one Empire or another for hundreds and hundreds of years. They falsely hoped for a messiah to come and free them once and for all from political bondage. Jesus was indeed their Messiah, and He came to liberate His people, but the freedom He brought was not the freedom they sought. As we read in our text, Jesus told the Jews, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (verse 32). But they objected to that.

John 8:33 “We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?”

Their reply was absurd on its face. It was ridiculous and a clear case of delusion or being in a state of denial to claim that they had never been in bondage. They became a nation by being delivered from bondage out of Egypt. They had been in bondage to Babylon. They had been slaves to Assyria. They had been subjugated by Herod the Great. At this very time, they were complaining about being under the rule of Rome and hoping the Messiah would come and liberate them, giving them back their sovereignty. So, it’s almost laughable for them to suggest to Jesus that they had NEVER been in bondage.

But, you know, there are many people who deny that THEY are in bondage today even though they are. They’re either oblivious or in delusional denial of the power that holds them enslaved. Jesus explains to them what that is:

John 8:34-36 “Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

You see, every sinner is a slave and in bondage, sold under sin, a subject in Satan’s kingdom of darkness. Many people believe they’re too good to ever be described as a citizen of Satan’s kingdom, but that’s how Jesus describes them. If you’re living in sin today, that’s how the Lord describes YOU. But He also says, If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. In other words, the greatest freedom you and I can ever attain is the kind of freedom that Jesus brought.

Many people are unaware of the chains that bind them and of the freedom that Christ can bring. The freedom that Christ offers is not political freedom. So, what did Christ come to make us free from? The Bible says that Christ came to free us from the law of sin and death, for one thing.

Romans 8:1-2 “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

In other words, Christ has liberated God’s people from something that only brought death and condemnation. What is this law of sin and death that Paul refers to? It’s certainly true that any unforgiven sin results in death; you can always associate death with sin. But Paul has something much more specific in view here in this place. In fact, we must go back to the previous chapter to see what he really means. In Romans 7, Paul makes a powerful argument for the fact that Christians have been freed from the law of Moses so they might be married to Christ. He says in verses 1-6 that just as it takes death to break the marriage bond in the case of a man and woman, so Christ died that we might be freed from the law to be joined unto Christ. If we are to be obligated to keep the Mosaic law, and seek to be justified by Christ at the same time, Paul equates that with spiritual adultery:

Romans 7:4-6 “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”

What is the law he is talking about? When the apostle Paul uses the term law and it’s preceded by the definite article the, you can generally understand that he is talking about a specific law. He’s not talking about any kind of restraint in the life of God’s people, but specifically the law of Moses. We know that’s the case in this passage because of verse 7.

Romans 7:7 “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”

Paul says that that same law taught him thou shalt not covet. Well, that’s the Mosaic law, beginning with the Ten Commandments. So, why does he refer to the law of Moses with terms like the oldness of the letter (verse 6) and the commandment unto death (verse 10) and as something which killed or slew him (verse 11)? Is it because the law was bad or evil itself? No, not at all. Look at verse 12.

Romans 7:12 “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”

What then was the problem? The problem was that Paul couldn’t keep it, and neither could anyone else except the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul portrays himself as a Jew trying to be justified by keeping Moses’ law who finds himself perpetually frustrated and in a hopeless state of condemnation. By that illustration, he is showing them the futility of trying to be justified by one’s own works apart from faith in Jesus Christ. You see, that law demanded perfection. Justification could only come through that law itself by perfectly keeping the law of Moses and no one ever, save Christ, perfectly kept it. All fell short of it. Had Jesus never come and fulfilled that law and freed us from it, no one would’ve ever been saved under it. That’s why Paul calls it the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). All who lived under it were condemned by it as sinners because of their inability to keep it.

Romans 7:14 “…but I am carnal, sold under sin.”

That doesn’t refer to a Christian, you see. It refers to him as a Jew trying to keep the Mosaic code and by extension to those who try to be saved by their own effort and goodness even today. Paul says it cannot be done. He says in verse 21 that under that law, evil is present with me and in verse 23 he is in captivity to the law of sin. So, you can see the state of slavery in which man was held as long as he was living under that law. He was shackled by sin and he never could find freedom. But Jesus came to bring freedom.

Romans 7:24 “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

No Christian can say that, for the Christian HAS been delivered. The Christian is not subject to that law that brought sin and death. The Christian is free from it. But in the next stroke of his pen, Paul says:

Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus…”

You see, the law—as good as it was, as intended for the good of man as it was, as holy as it was—was a yoke of bondage because man could never unerringly keep it. So, it pointed forward to Jesus who would provide a sacrifice and finally provide liberation and freedom from the yoke of sin.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that God does not have a law for His people today. And don’t pervert the grace of God and think that man is not required to obey the commandments of Jesus and His apostles today. God forbid! But under the law of Christ, we can know liberty. His yoke is easy and His burden is light, but the Christian is not unrestrained and free to do, act, think, and worship as he or she pleases. Not at all.

Hebrews 5:9 “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;”

John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

Mark 16:16 “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;”

But no longer must one try to justify himself through his own goodness or his own works or perfection because it simply cannot be done. Judaizing false teachers were troubling the church at Galatia, trying to take the Christians there back to the law of Moses and the rite of physical old covenant circumcision and Paul urgently pleads with them and sternly warns them.

Galatians 5:1 “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

Friend, you may not be trying to keep the Old Testament law, but are you deceived into thinking that your moral goodness, your good deeds, even your religious works are enough to earn you approval in the eyes of God? You can never earn approval in the eyes of God. I can never earn God’s favor or approval. The very definition of grace is unmerited favor, undeserved favor. Do you think you don’t need Christ or to obey His gospel? That you don’t need to be in His church? A subject in His kingdom? That your kindness and charity are enough to somehow merit His favor? Friend, you are deceived as millions of people are. You are in bondage trying to earn God’s favor by your goodness and works.

Jesus came to set you free from that slavery because as hard as you work and as good as you try to be, you’ll never pay off the debt. You’ll eternally drown in sin’s debt. But Jesus paid the debt in full on Calvary. When you commit your life in believing, trusting, obedient faith to Him, then you can have the promise of salvation and there is the certainty of everlasting life. He who the Son makes free is free indeed.

Perhaps today, you are enslaved by sin. Its shackles are holding you tight.

Proverbs 5:22 “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.”

If you’re not serving Jesus today, you are the servant of sin. That’s the simple fact of the matter. You are the servant of the devil. You may not like to think about it in that way, but if you’re not giving Jesus your life and doing His will, you are doing the will of the devil. You are doing the devil’s bidding day by day. There is no such thing as being free to yourself. The fact is you are a servant—either of Christ or of the devil.

Romans 6:16 “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”

Jesus came to break sin’s awful fetters. You can be the servant of righteousness as opposed to the slave of sin. Jesus came to release you from sin’s debt and its slavery. He came to free you from sin’s sinister hold on your heart and your life. Long ago when the Jews of old would let their inheritance slip away, they would have to sell their land or offer themselves as slaves to pay a debt. But every fiftieth year at the day of atonement, the call would go out and a year of jubilee was declared. That was to be a wonderful time for those people because the land was to revert back to its rightful owner and the indentured servant was to be set free. Things were restored to the way they were in the beginning. You might say it was a national reset in the land of Israel when jubilee came.

There’s a great New Testament theme in that. Jesus brought the everlasting year of jubilee. Those who have been baptized into Him and therefore know the forgiveness of sins know freedom from sin and its slavery and debt. When Jesus began His ministry, you may recall that He went to the synagogue in Nazareth. He stood up and opened the scroll of Isaiah.

Luke 4:17-21 “And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”

He offers you freedom today—regardless of where you may live or what political system you may be living under today. I may be talking to people around the world through the internet today who are living under oppressive regimes and very difficult circumstances. Regardless of your circumstance in this short, fleeting life, Jesus came to give you the greatest liberty that any person can ever receive: freedom from sin, condemnation, fear, failure, and hopelessness. That’s the freedom for which all should yearn, if we haven’t already obtained it.

In New York harbor, a lady stands tall today with a torch in her hand giving out light. Inscribed on the pedestal where she stands are these words:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

On her head is a crown with seven spikes representing seven seas and seven continents. It says that no matter where you are in the world, you can come to America with your burdens, your oppression, and your problems because Lady Liberty is holding a torch to light your way. Then at the bottom of her feet is a chain that has been broken. People by the millions held hostage by one situation or another in life have come to that place through the years to find freedom.

God is holding an even better promise of freedom to those who are looking to escape the bondage of sin. He welcomes all to come and bring your problems, burdens, and needs. You see, His word lights the way.

Haldor Lillenas wrote this wonderful hymn so many years ago:

Once I was bound by sin’s galling fetters,
Chained like a slave, I struggled in vain;
But I received a glorious freedom,
When Jesus broke my fetters in twain.

Freedom from all the carnal affections,
Freedom from envy, hatred and strife;
Freedom from vain and worldly ambitions,
Freedom from all that saddened my life.

Freedom from pride and all sinful follies,
Freedom from love and glitter of gold;
Freedom from evil, temper, and anger,
Glorious freedom, rapture untold.

Freedom from fear with all of its torments,
Freedom from care with all of its pain;
Freedom in Christ, my blessed Redeemer,
He who has rent my fetters in twain.

Glorious freedom, wonderful freedom,
No more in chains of sin I repine!
Jesus the glorious Emancipator,
Now and forever He shall be mine.

Jesus can by YOUR Emancipator today. He paid the debt with His blood. He came to break the chains of sin.

Romans 6:16-18 “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

What Paul is saying is that when they obeyed the likeness of the doctrine, the likeness of the gospel—the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—when in faith and repentance they were lowered beneath the baptismal wave, the blood of Jesus Christ washed their sins away.

Romans 6:3-4 “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

They were buried with Him in baptism, dying to sin. The old man and all of his lusts, desires, and his nature dying and a new man coming forth to walk in newness of life. Free from sin, liberated from sin. Yes, my friend, let freedom ring today. From heart to heart, from home to home, from shore to shore, and from continent to continent. If they take my freedom away today as an American, I still have my freedom in Jesus. I still have the hope of eternal life. That is a freedom no one can take away. It’s really the only freedom that I’m very concerned about at the end of the day. I hope that kind of freedom will ring in your heart right now and that you’ll come to Christ and claim it in gospel obedience today.

God Does Not Change (The Text)

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The book of Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament and its prophecy came about one hundred years after God’s people returned to Jerusalem from Babylonian captivity. That was a time of great joy and great relief, to return to their homeland and rebuild the city and the temple. But, a hundred years is a long time. It may not seem like it when you consider the whole span of Bible history, but from the perspective of a life or a particular generation of people or the history of a nation, a hundred years is really a long time. A lot can change in a hundred years. Attitudes can shift, things can be forgotten and can go by the wayside. Sure enough, that was the case with Israel.

In this period of one hundred years, a lot had changed. Whatever excitement there might’ve been at returning and rebuilding was now gone. The nation had reverted to its old self. The services of the temple had become common and profane. The nation was once again in sorry shape, spiritually, and they blamed God for their troubles. Despite His forbearance, they had the audacity to accuse God of not loving or caring about them. And once again, the fires of God’s judgment were smoldering, except that there was one thing that kept Him from destroying them altogether. Read with me.

Malachi 3:6 “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”

God made a covenant, promising that a Messiah would come from their people and bring salvation to the world through them. God did not destroy them because the promises that were made to them still had to be fulfilled through them in Christ, and God would not break His word. They deserved to be destroyed, but God did not destroy them because of His covenant.

The prophet Balaam, knowing how capable he himself was of deceit and knowing how he could be tempted by bribery to change from one course to another, said this of God:

Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”

God does not change. We can’t think of God in terms of humans. People change their minds, attitudes, sometimes their personality over time. But God never changes, and He succinctly states that on more than one occasion in His word: I do not change. But not only does He not change, but He cannot change. Today, we’ll study what it means to serve an unchanging God.

It’s difficult for us to imagine one who never changes because everything in this world changes with the passing of enough time. Everything about our lives is changing from moment to moment, day to day, and year to year. Even the earth and the heavens are changing. Things that look to us like they never change are surely, slowly, and constantly being reshaped by the forces of time.

Psalm 102:25-27 “Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.”

Everything from the microscopic atom to the sun’s solar system and universe are all in a constant state of flux, transition, and change. Everything God has created is changeable, but God does not change. James made this contrast.

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights (speaking of heavenly lights: the sun that rises and sets and the stars that are born and later burn out), with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

One may say, Hasn’t God changed throughout the course of human history? Isn’t there an old covenant and a new covenant? Haven’t the economies through which God has dealt with people in different times changed? But those things don’t mean that God has changed. The Bible is not merely a compilation of books and writings; the Bible has a continuity about it. It is a story. Paul refers to the mystery of the scheme of redemption that spans the ages, from eternity to eternity as “the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10-11). The word manifold means variegated or many-colored, like a grand mosaic work of art. Each part or piece of the divine story–beautiful and significant within itself–every interaction between God and man down through the stream of time seems independent to itself, but it’s not, because when all of it is arranged in place by the master artist, a larger picture emerges. That picture here is Christ Jesus and the redemption of the world. There is a continuum from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 and everything that has come to pass has all been according to the purpose that God has had from eternity. He is not playing it by ear. He created the world with purpose, He created man with purpose, and His dealings with man have been with purpose.

2 Timothy 1:9 “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,”

So, God’s plan throughout the ages has involved change and has brought change, but the plan never changed and God never changed. He does not change and He will not change. But not only is God’s purpose unchanging, God’s attributes and personality are unchanging. Some almost seem to believe that the Bible is a story of at least two different Gods: the God revealed in the Old Testament and the God revealed in the New Testament. On one hand, a God of rules, law, of wrath, vengeance, and judgment. On the other, a God of grace, mercy, love, kindness and understanding; a God who is not all that concerned or angered by sin, but who basically handed us the reins to live and worship as we please. But that’s not accurate.

You see, the Bible does not give us two revelations of God because God hasn’t changed. The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is one revelation of God, all pointing to Christ. Yes, He has established different covenants at different points in time, but all of that has to do with His overarching purpose, and He has not changed. It’s not that God has decided not to change, by the way. He didn’t just arbitrarily say, I won’t change; it’s that God cannot change, because if He changed, He wouldn’t be God.

Think about it this way: the perfection of God demands His immutability. If something changes, that change will result in something either being better or worse. If it makes no difference, then it’s really not a change. Well, God cannot become more perfect, nor is it possible for God to no longer be perfect. God is simply God. He has an immutable nature. He is who He is. He didn’t just decide to act a certain way and be a certain way. God is God.

For example, the Bible doesn’t say that God merely loves or can love; it says that God IS love. He didn’t become love; He IS love, and He has always been love. The Bible doesn’t say that God chooses to be holy or that He can be holy and separate from sin; it says that God IS holy. God told His people through Moses in the Old Testament and through Peter in the New Testament, and it is repeated several times in God’s word, You shall be holy, for I am holy. God was not holy in the Old Testament and then became love and grace in the New Testament, as though there is some contradistinction between the two. God has always been holy and He is still holy, and God has always been love, and He is still love. He will always be all of those things.

God showed incredible grace to His people in the Old Testament. I mean, where do people get the idea that there was no grace under the old covenant? God was a great God of grace even in that dispensation. Can we not read that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord? God could’ve immediately destroyed Adam and Eve when they sinned in the garden, but He didn’t. His grace made a way and His mercy spared them. They paid a price for their sin, but God was still acting in grace. God spared His own people as we read in our text and gave them space for repentance beyond what they deserved. Yes, even back then, God was a God of grace.

By the same token, God promises His wrath even in the New Testament age. In fact, time and again, we are told by Paul, Peter, Jude, and others that the divine strokes of punishment that fell on the people of old are examples to erring and apostate children of God today. To go even a step further, the Hebrew writer indicated that the judgment and punishment of God is even worse for one who turns from the truth today, because now we have the full revelation in Christ Jesus. God hasn’t changed.

The difference is that now, we have the realized blessings and promises of God that are all found in Christ. Those before Christ looked forward to Christ and all of those events pointed forward to Christ. God’s dealings with them were preparing the way and creating the expectation and hope of Christ. Praise be to God that now, we know the fulfillment of those promises, covenants, and blessings. But, you see, God has not changed. God still hates sin as much as He ever did. God still promises to punish sin. And yes, He still loves sinners like He always has. He is the same God who went searching for the rebellious pair in the garden and made a sacrifice and covered their nakedness. He is the same God who told Cain, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” (Genesis 4:7) That same God sent His holy and spotless Son down the golden staircase of heaven into this awful, sin-filled world to save it.

God hasn’t changed. He has been acting according to the same purpose in accordance with His own attributes from eternity and He will to eternity. He has not gone from being some raging, jealous, vengeful, wrathful, thundering God of old to being some aging, senile, doting, docile grandfather today. He is the same God today that He was to Adam, that He was to Noah, that He was to Abraham, to Moses, to the Jews of Malachi’s day, to the church of the first century, to the church a hundred years ago. God simply does not change.

Not only does God’s personality not change, but neither does He change in His pronouncements. Just as God is immutable Himself, His word is unbreakable. God cannot lie, the Bible says.

John 17:17 “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”

Not sometimes truth, was truth, can be truth or will be truth—thy word IS truth. It’s much like when Jesus said, Before Abraham was, I AM. God’s word is eternal and unbreakable, and the Bible is as relevant and authoritative in our lives today as it was to the early churches to whom the apostles wrote. Time has not rendered it null and void. Cultural, technological, and societal achievements and advancements have not made the word of God irrelevant. Some suggest that God’s view of things, His standards and expectations have changed with the times and so should we, and that God just sort of follows our lead. But that’s not what the Bible says.

2 Peter 1:24-25 “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”

Mark 13:31 “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”

Let me remind you that what the Bible calls sin is still sin. Living in a modern world does not change that. The ebb and flow of culture does not change that. God’s word is immutable. Sin is still sin, even if the world ignores what God says about it.

John 12:48 “…the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.”

Sin is still sin even if the majority celebrates and embraces it.

Exodus 23:2 “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil;”

Sis is still sin even if it’s legal. There is a court much higher than the supreme court, I promise you that.

Acts 5:29 “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.”

Sin is still sin even if you don’t see the harm in it and you don’t recognize it as sin. It is still sin if the Bible teaches that it is sin.

Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

Sin is still sin even if the church tolerates and accepts it. We see people in religion tolerating and accepting many things that were unthinkable just a few years ago. Some people get the idea that it must be alright then, but it’s not alright. God said not to pagans, but to His own wayward people:

Isaiah 5:20 “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

Sin is still sin even if wicked people try to justify and defy it. People twist the scriptures. Jude 4 speaks of some who would attempt to turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. Sin is still sin even if we’re persecuted for believing in preaching it.

1 John 3:13 “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.”

Immorality is still a sin and will always be a sin in God’s eyes because that’s how His word describes it. Sins of the flesh, sexual sins that are defined in the word of God—time has not changed that. The supreme court can’t change that, the president can’t change that, nobody can change that. God’s word is immutable and His word cannot be broken. We may ignore or dismiss sin, we may become flippant about sin and immorality, but it’s still sin, and it’s a big deal in the eyes of God, whether our culture sees it that way or not.

Unscriptural practices are still unscriptural in God’s eyes. It doesn’t change over time. God gave a pattern for the church. God revealed His church when He built it in the first century. We have this book to guide us in all matters of faith and practice and that doesn’t change. Men may change and drift away from that pattern, but that doesn’t mean that God has changed that pattern or that His commandments or examples that were set forth for us no longer matter. You see, God’s word and His pronouncements do not change.

God also does not change when it comes to His promises. It’s tempting to doubt the promises of God. It’s tempting to look at circumstances and current events, and either forget what God has promised or let our faith in his promises waver. It’s easy to allow time to cause the fires of excitement and anticipation to burn low and eventually go out. But I would remind you that God often takes a lot of time to bring His promises to pass. It took nearly four thousand years for God’s seed promise to Eve to be fulfilled, but in the fullness of time, Christ was born. The Bible says it happened in the fullness of time, or at the right time. It took one hundred twenty years for God’s warning of judgment to come to Noah and the antediluvians of judgment to come to pass. But finally, sure enough, the sky grew dark, the thunder rumbled, the heavens opened, and it started to rain. It took a long time for Abraham and Sarah to have a son, the son of promise. In fact, it was perplexing to them why it took so long, especially considering their age after God made the promise. But fifteen years later, despite their presumptuous scheme regarding Hagar and Ishmael, baby Isaac was born.

So, you see, God keeps His promises. The Hebrew writer warns Christians not to turn away and go back to the sacrifices of the temple and the services of the Jewish economy, but to remain steadfast in Christ. Not to waver from the good confession that they at one time had made. It was tempting to turn away because of the persecution that was bearing down upon them. It was tempting to think that God was not in what they were a part of or that He had forsaken them because of their circumstances.

Hebrews 10:23 “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)”

God has made those who will believe and obey Him many promises and He is true to those promises. He will not go back on those promises. God cannot lie, even when from our human vantage point, we simply can’t see how it will work out or how those things can be true. Do you have faith in what God says? Jesus made another promise I want you to look at.

John 14:2-3 “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

It’s been two thousand years since Jesus made that promise but it’s true. One day, He is going to burst through the blue. One day, He is going to return and bring this world to judgment. Are you ready for that time? You need to be, because God will not forget His promise. God does not change.

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Are We Saved Before Or After Baptism? (The Text)

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At what point is a penitent sinner saved from past sins? That question has long divided professing Christians. Most people who claim to follow Jesus believe that baptism is to play some part in a believer’s life. But, what part? Is baptism merely a symbolic ceremony performed upon new Chrstians? Or is it the point at which one is forgiven of sins by the blood of Christ? If the latter be the case, wouldn’t that make it a necessary step of obedience in order to be saved?

What about you? Do you believe that you were saved before you were baptized, because that’s really what the question comes down to. We’ll look at a passage of scripture in Paul’s letter to the church at Rome about the wonderful transformation that takes place in the heart of a sinner who comes to the Lord Jesus.

It should go without saying that in order to be saved and to be reconciled to God, we need to have our sins removed. God is holy; He can have no fellowship with sin. Our sins are what has separated us from God to begin with. So, salvation is about having our sins forgiven; being made free from sin. But how? By the blood of Jesus? Of course. By the death of Jesus? Of course. By the grace of God? Of course. But at what point are our sins taken away? When does the sinner move from the state of sin to the state of salvation? It really isn’t a mystery because Paul declares it very plainly in our text. We’ll search the scriptures to find the answers to these questions.

The Bible is clear that the sinner MUST be forgiven of his sins in order to be saved. As we said, God is holy and just, and cannot have fellowship with sin.

Isaiah 59:1-2 “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”

The sinner is spiritually dead, facing the second and eternal death if he remains in his sins.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death…”

So, to be saved from sin means to be forgiven of sin; to be forgiven of sin means to be freed from sin. The only way we can be free from sin is by coming to Jesus for forgiveness and cleansing from those sins.

John 8:36 “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

The question is, how do we come to Jesus? What does it mean to be washed in His blood? At what point are we forgiven and thus, free from sin’s fetters? When you find the answers to these questions, you also learn at what point a man is saved in Christ, because no man can be saved until he is free from the bondage and guilt of sin. That freedom is only by the grace of a merciful God; not based on any worth or merit of our own.

Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”

But there must be a point at which a man is no longer in sin, but rather declared righteous and free from the sins of his past. When is that? When is a man made free from sin?

Romans 6:17-18” But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

Consider that word “then.” That point of transition. What is Paul talking about? Someone will say that a man is made free from sin the moment he believes in Christ. Is that what Paul is referring to? Look again at verse 17. Did he say …ye were the servants of sin, but ye have believed in your heart that form of doctrine being then made free from sin…? Is that what Paul said? No, you won’t find the word believe there. Belief is the cause of what Paul is talking about. We certainly can’t be saved without believing in Jesus. In fact, Jesus Himself said:

John 8:24 “… for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

Faith is essential. But is it all there is? Are we then made free from sin when we believe?

James 2:19 “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

You see, the devils believe the truth; they just don’t submit to it. Paul preached before sinful King Agrippa and in his persuasive appeal to the king, he asked him if he believed.

Acts 26:27-28 “King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”

The word believe can be used in different degrees. It can simply mean to assent to a fact. More comprehensively, it means to yield to the one believed. There’s an interesting sentence construction in Mark 16:16 where Jesus gave the great commission to His disciples.

Mark 16:15-16 “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

Notice that belief and baptism are made conditions by our Lord for salvation. Someone in protest might say, why didn’t Jesus say that he who believeth not AND is not baptized shall be condemned? Friend, it’s simply because belief envelopes the obedience that results from it. In other words, baptism is the immediate manifestation of belief. Jesus didn’t have to include both in the last phrase because baptism would avail nothing to the man who doesn’t believe. As one man said, regarding an unbeliever and baptism, he couldn’t if he would, he wouldn’t if he could, and it wouldn’t do him any good if he did. So, yes, we must believe Jesus in order to be saved, but becoming free from sin doesn’t occur when one merely assents mentally to the gospel.

Someone else might say that they believe they were made free from sin when they said the sinner’s prayer. Let’s look again at Romans 6:17.

Romans 6:17 “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”

Did Paul say, “but ye have prayed from your heart, being then made free from sin…”? No, that’s not what he said either. In fact, you have never read where one person responded to the preaching of the gospel by reciting anything that the Bible calls “The Sinner’s Prayer.” You know, friend, there is no such thing in the New Covenant. There’s not one single example of gospel conversion recorded in the book of Acts that says that any person was ever told to pray a prayer to receive salvation, to become a Christian or to be made free from sin. Those who ARE Christians are told to pray for the forgiveness of their sins, but the sinner outside of Christ is never told to do so, and there is not one example of anyone saying such a prayer in order to be saved after Jesus Christ came and died upon the cross and offered salvation to the world. That is simply not what Paul said in Romans 6:17. Perhaps you were told by a preacher or by someone else that to come to Jesus, you simply need to accept Christ into your heart by saying such a prayer. But look again at our text, and we’ll let Paul explain what he means.

Paul makes the delineation not at the point of mere belief, but at the point of obedience. He said they had “obeyed from the heart…being then made free from sin…” Most preachers today will tell you that salvation comes first, then comes obedience, but Paul stated it the other way around. He says that you obey, then you are made free from sin and become servants of righteousness. That’s in harmony with what he wrote in Hebrews 5:9 as well.

Hebrews 5:9 “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;”

Now we don’t earn anything in obedience; don’t mistake the point. But the Lord has made gospel obedience the condition of receiving the gift of salvation. Any gift must be received, and we receive Christ’s gift in faith that is manifest in obedience. We obey the form of doctrine delivered, as Paul says, and then become free from sin. Remember too, that becoming free from sin is not something that comes after salvation. It must happen in order for salvation to take place, and we’re made free by the efficacious sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His blood that was shed on Calvary. But that gift is received at the point where we obey from the heart the form of doctrine that Paul is talking about.

That begs the question, what is that form of doctrine to which Paul refers? He uses the word obey, so we know it’s something we submit to, not merely believe or mentally assent to. It isn’t something we get or receive in our hearts. He says that it’s something that we DO from the heart. It’s an action of obedience. He also says that that act of obedience is not a mere ritual, but a response of faith and repentance, a conscious decision from the heart. (That’s why the notion that babies are born in sin and must be baptized to be saved is wrong. An infant can’t do anything from the heart or from an understanding and willing mind.) Paul says freedom from sin comes when we obey and submit from the heart to that form of doctrine which was delivered you. What is a form? We talk about a form when we pour concrete. You prepare your site and dig footers as you prepare a form. You pour concrete into that form, and a concrete slab takes on the shape, dimensions and depth of the form. If you bake a cake, you mix the batter and pour it into a pan, and it comes out looking exactly like the pan that you baked it in. So, you see, Paul is talking about a mold or likeness. The renowned New Testament scholar James MacKnight said in his commentary of this verse:

A form (tupos in the Greek) is “a mold into which melted metals are poured to receive the form of the mold.” (from MacKnight On The Epistles)

That’s interesting because you might say that faith and repentance are produced by gospel conviction, and that melts one’s heart or spirit so that it might be poured into God’s mold/form and made into what God desires of it. That’s a powerful illustration that Paul uses here: We are poured into the mold/form of the doctrine.

So what’s the doctrine Paul speaks of? He says it was delivered you. It merely refers to the teaching delivered to them. Here’s what he said to the church at Corinth:

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also now received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”

He says, “the gospel that you received…the gospel wherein ye stand…the gospel by which ye are saved…” That gospel, that teaching, was the fact that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and arose again the third day. Is that not the very crux of the gospel? Paul said that it is.

Let’s try that on. Back to Romans 6:17.

Romans 6:17-18 “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

When were they made free from sin? When were they saved? When they obeyed the gospel. What did these Roman converts obey that was in the form/mold/likeness of the gospel–the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus? Did they say a prayer in the likeness of His death, burial and resurrection? Did they merely believe in the likeness of His death, burial and resurrection? Look back at Romans 6:3-5.

Romans 6:3-5 “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: “

There it is! These believers DIED to their sins in baptism, they were BURIED with Jesus in baptism, and they ROSE from the watery grave of baptism to walk in newness of life! Planted in the likeness of HIS death and HIS resurrection. Friend, that means that baptism is much more than just ‘an outward show’ of a past inward transaction. Paul didn’t say that we were planted in the likeness of our death and our resurrection from sin, but His death and His resurrection. In other words, raised from baptism to a new life. Baptism is something besides a church ordinance for people who have already been saved or freed from sin. Paul says they obeyed from the heart that likeness of the gospel, or the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, being then made free from sin.

That helps us to understand a number of other statements made in the book of Acts. Remember in Acts 22, Saul of Tarsus had met Jesus on the Damascus road and had been told to go into the city. He, having been made blind, waited there for the preacher Ananias that Jesus said would come to him, to restore his sight and tell him what to do to be saved. You recall what Ananias told him? Paul recounted it in verse 16.

Acts 22:16 “And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”

You say, surely the literal water in baptism doesn’t wash our sins away? Oh no, the blood of Jesus is the only thing that washes our sins away. But the question is, where was that blood shed?

John 19:33-34 “But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”

His blood was poured out in His death. So, where does Paul say that we unite with His death? In our death to sin, which takes place in baptism. That helps us to understand why Peter said this, in Acts 2:38:

Acts 2:38 “…Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins…”

For, meaning in order to receive or obtain. Remission, meaning forgiveness. This helps us to see why every single conversion recorded in the New Testament after Christ died and rose again and the gospel was preached included the believer immediately being baptized for the remission of their sins. You see, you can’t be saved and remain in your sins; your sins must be removed. You must be liberated from the bondage of sin in order to be saved. You must be in Christ in order to be free from sin and thus, saved. Paul so beautifully tells us when and how that is done. When, in faith, the penitent heart is united with

Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection in baptism for the remission of sins. That’s exactly what the people on the Day of Pentecost did.

Acts 2:38 “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

That means baptism is not an option. It’s not an auxiliary command or suggestion; it is an absolute command to every penitent believer. Verse 41 tells us that those who gladly received his word WERE baptized, and they were then added to the church.

We come to Acts 8, when the Ethiopian nobleman who was riding along in his chariot and reading from the scroll of Isaiah met Philip the evangelist, and Philip took that scroll and showed him how it referred to Jesus and led him to salvation. You remember that the eunuch saw an oasis of water there along the way and he said,

Acts 8:36-39 “…See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.”

That’s why we also read in that same chapter how that Simon and the people of Samaria, upon hearing and believing the gospel or good news of the kingdom that Philip preached, were baptized. And on and on we could go, to the house of Cornelius in Acts 10. To the Philippian jailer in Acts 16, when he was holding Paul and Silas in prison and during the midnight hour as they were singing and praying, an angel opened the doors of the prison. All of the prisoners could’ve escaped, but they didn’t, and the jailer was amazed.

Acts 16:27-33 “And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.”

You can go all the way through the book of Acts, and every example of conversion includes sinners being baptized in order to have their sins remitted. It was done immediately when they came to the point of believing that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and they were willing to turn away from their sins.

Have you done that? Have you been baptized into Christ? Let me be even more specific: Do you believe that you were saved BEFORE being baptized in obedience to Christ? That’s what most churches and most preachers will lead you to believe. But, does that fit with what Paul was saying in our text? Have you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, being then made free from sin? I’d like to urge you to obey the Lord in baptism for the remission of your sins. I’d like to urge you to turn away from your sins

in faith and repentance and be willing to confess that Jesus is who He claims to be—the Christ, the Son of God—and be baptized in order to have your sins washed away. That will put you into Christ.

Galatians 3:27 “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Can a person be saved outside of Christ? No, we must be IN Christ. The Bible says we are baptized into Christ. When we’re baptized into Christ, we put on Christ; we enter into a relationship with Him. Having been made free from sin, made a new creation in Christ. Baptism doesn’t merely picture the fact that at some point in the past we became a new creation. Rather, it IS the point at which we become a new creation.

The Bible places a greater emphasis on baptism than most people in the religious world place upon it today. I’d like to urge you to give serious consideration to what the Bible does indeed say about baptism, and I hope that you will hasten to obey the Lord in the way that the Lord gave this commandment. For the reason which He gave the commandment. That you’ll be baptized and have your sins washed away. You’ll enter into Christ with a new life, to be a member of Christ’s church and serve Him as long as you live.