Published: August 6, 2023 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 27 | Scripture: Romans 6:3-7
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last week that from Romans 5 12 to Romans 6. 9 is 9 is really the
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meat from the Theology of the Epistles of the
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one reading one sermon a commentary uncapable or incapable of doing Justice to the depth of what's called is
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putting before us today so listen
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as I read from Romans 6 verse 1. 3 verse 7. what shall we say then are we to continue in sin that Grace Mighty Grace may it never be how shall we who died for sin still live
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in it in it for do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death
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therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father
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so we too might walk in newness of life for if we have become United with him in the likeness of his death certainly we shall be also United to him
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in the likeness of his resurrection knowing this that our old self was crucified with him that our body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be
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said for he who has died is free is free from sin from sin let us pray
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a father we do ask if you would prepare our minds and hearts to hear your word your word to the Apostle Paul
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In this passage I especially ask father on behalf of those of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
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Christ Jesus might hear these words as applying to us
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help us to understand what they mean and how we are to then live we ask that you would give us understanding and give us Grace
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strengthen our faith to walk in what we know to be true and not what we see around us
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one of a few Universal agreements Universal agreements among all denominations that name Christian as part of their name Catholic
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Eastern orthodoxist Protestants and all denominations within each and that is that baptism is the initiatory sacrament or ritual
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one enters the church the body of Christ through the ritual of baptism and so again the universal agreement pretty much any
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Christian Church that you can find you will find that baptism is not only one of their sacraments it is the entry it is the initiatory sacrament
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Paul writes in First Corinthians that for by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves or free and we were all
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made to drink of one spirit and so it seems that in respect to that statement all of us to name the name of Jesus Christ have pretty much got it right
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that we start out with baptism but at that point all disagreement goes away so what baptism means as to when it should be applied to whom
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it should be applied where we have great there's a massive disagreement within the denominations of this event we agree that baptism somehow marks the
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entrance of a person into the church we don't agree on how that works we're going to bring it on Monday it
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and within that disagreement we have a wide spectrum of use from the point at infant baptism to the point of baptism on one's
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Deathbed so we run the whole gamut as to when baptism is to be administered and to whom baptism is to be administered
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now this is all very understandable considering that we do not have a systematic teaching in Scripture regarding the administration of baptism now that may seem like a dramatic
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statement and you're going through your mind right now and all the passages that you've read you've read and I invite any challenges to that statement after the sermon
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but if you think through where baptism is mentioned is mentioned it is either mentioned as something that is done without further explanation as to where it came from or really why it's
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done or it's used as it is here as an example and really as a proof of another teaching another teaching this passage here in Romans 6 is not
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about baptism Peter does the same thing where he uses baptism in a very enigmatic passage and it's kind of ironic that Peter comments
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on Paul that there are things in Paul that are hard to understand when Peter's talking about going to preach to those Souls like Peter look in the mirror buddy but he talks
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about baptism not to explain it not to tell us how to do it when to do it to whom to do it but rather as an example in an illustration of something else he's teaching he's teaching and so it's understandable that we have
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such wide Divergent views on what baptism is in the church one writer says not only nowhere in Paul
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but nowhere in the New Testament is there a unified teaching on baptism
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dogmatic we have all been about how we do baptism and how dogmatic we have been on how wrong everyone else is so do we sprinkle
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or do we immerse do we baptize infants do we baptize believers do we do it immediately after a profession of Faith do we wait for a
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catechism class to make sure that people understand the doctrines of the church or perhaps we wait until right before we die and then get baptized on our Deathbed
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sadly much of the debate has centered on that first comparison and that is the mode of baptism do we immerse do we sprinkle do we pour how do we do it
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but the real center of the debate isn't on mode but meaning why are we doing it and what is the impact
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the meaning of baptism has frequently determined how we do it and especially when we do it in the early church and still in Roman
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Catholicism as well as Eastern Orthodoxy baptism is taught to wash away all sins previously committed previously committed well if that's the case then you want to
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hold off as long as possible before you get baptized and so the emperor Constantine waited until he was on his deathbed now that was dangerous
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was dangerous especially in that world and in that position it was very frequent that an emperor would die either in battle or on his throne by assassination so I guess you would have a labor of
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water with you at all times and a priest because you never knew when you were just about to go before your maker there is of course because of this the the wide diversity of of practice that
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means there's a wide diversity of meaning within professing Christendom in other words we don't all agree at what baptism means
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on the one hand we have baptismal regeneration the idea that baptizing someone is actually the act of regeneration and
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that is taught in a number of denominations with regard to infant baptism within the Roman Catholic confession for example that baptism of the infant is a
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saving act washing Away original sin and placing that child in a state of Innocence as Adam was baptismal
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regeneration on the other hand so in in that respect baptism has a tremendous gracious power but at the other end of the spectrum we find most American Baptists
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and that is baptism is nothing more than a public profession of faith there is no sacramental purpose or value to it nothing happens in it except you
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are stating to the congregation to all of the witnesses that you are a believer in Jesus Christ that's pretty much the extremes of the spectrum
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but there are plenty of views in between one of the most familiar to you I'm sure is that the baptism of an infant introduces that infant as a member of
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the New Covenant in Jesus Christ the only way to avoid error at either of the extremes the extremes or even in between
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is to seek to understand what baptism means once we understand the why and the what of baptism we will be able to determine
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The Who and the when the how is not as important so do please do not be offended I don't spend a lot of time on the word baptizo
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and whether it means to fully immerse to wash to dip to sprinkle or all of the other words that have been translated
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and yet we have the struggle in looking at the scriptures going back to what I said earlier we have no systematic teaching on baptism
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on baptism neither Jesus nor the apostles take any time in the text and say this is what it is this is what it means this is what it
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does but I do think that we can conclude from the way Paul and Peter uses it from the way Jesus commands it to be done with all of his disciples
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but it is a very significant ordinance of the Lord one author says we have no reason to suppose that baptism was ever a merely arbitrary entry right with a purpose
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to Mark out those who belong but without any meaning of its own in other words we have no reason in scripture in the way baptism is brought
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to us to us to assume that it is optional to assume that it is arbitrary
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that Christ could have ordained a different way of introducing us into membership of the church perhaps by breaking a bottle of champagne on our head might have been more effective but that
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is we have baptism and it's not a meaningless ritual that he decided upon maybe because John the Baptist was doing it but then it has inherent Grace and
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meaning from which we can determine how to do it when to do it why we do it
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no New Testament passage including Romans 6 talks about baptism in a systematic and instructional way and as I said earlier this passage here is actually not about baptism Paul pulls baptism in
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because he's writing to baptize Believers in Rome and that baptism he is saying means something in your life
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and something that is very very powerful he is actually answering here the two rhetorical questions that he has just given them in verses one and two the
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first one are we to continue in sin that Grace might increase and the second one being his answer how shall we who died to sin still live in
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it Paul's intent here is to explain the meaning of Jesus's death as well as the believer's relationship to that death or to combine those the
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meaning of Jesus's death to the believer and in doing this Paul provides one of the clearest explanations of the meaning of baptism anywhere in Scripture
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but he does it indirectly we have to read what he's saying and then try to understand what baptism then means and really it's not really the
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meaning of baptism it's the meaning of having been baptized now that may seem like a subtle splitting hairs
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splitting hairs but it is very important to to be along with Paul's focus and emphasis here he is not playing the part of the Theologian but rather of the pastor
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he's not describing the sacramental meaning of baptism but rather he is explaining what it means to have been
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baptized and this is something that we really don't dwell upon very much but Paul is emphasizing the result of baptism which indirectly teaches us what baptism
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itself means itself means so let's look at what he says well he starts out in verse 3.
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by equating two things now when you were baptized you were probably baptized into the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit that is the baptismal formula since the
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earliest time of Christianity it follows Matthew 28 but we also have indication from the book of Acts that there were baptisms into the name of Jesus
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what Paul is saying here is not about that it's not about the the words that were said when you were baptized when he says all of us who have been baptized into
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Christ Jesus Christ Jesus he's saying the same thing that he says over in First Corinthians that I've already quoted that we have been baptized by the spirit into one body
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that body is the body of Christ the church so don't get hung up on what words were said when you were baptized but if you were baptized in the name of
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the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit then you were baptized into Christ Jesus now we all know that in him and in
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Christ is a phrase that Paul uses frequently throughout his letters and a very significant one at that but here what he's doing is being baptized into Christ
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Jesus is the same thing as being baptized into his death
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what he's teaching here is that just as we have Unity with Christ in baptism we have Unity with Christ in his death
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that's a key theme of what Paul is saying as I said last week the only thing that can deliver a human being from the slavery and bondage of sin
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is death is death and so rather than let us think oh great we have to wait until we die until we're finally freed from this body
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of sin and death Paul teaches the radical gracious truth that it is already happened in Christ we say okay yeah we understand Christ
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died to sin and he rose from the grave in victory over sin but what does that do for me well that's what Paul's teaching us having been baptized into Christ Jesus
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we have been baptized in to his death so there's a union there Paul uses the synonym with or the prefix
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with with Christ in death and then with Christ in Resurrection he says in the next verse therefore we have been
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buried with him through baptism into death now doesn't that give you some indication of what baptism means but more importantly do you understand what it means to have been baptized
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you have been buried people this is past tense
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when you were baptized into Christ Jesus you were baptized into his death you were buried with him in death
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in death but that's not the end of the story praise God praise God he says therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father we
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too might walk in newness of life this is the flip side we all understand that if Christ had been left in the grave
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as Paul says we would be of all men most to be pitied that we would still be in our sins our faith would be void we know that the resurrection
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put the exclamation point on that sacrifice of innocent Divine human blood but do we understand that we are also not left in the grave
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I mean we're not we may not even understand that we were in the grave to begin with because all we were doing is making a public profession of faith or maybe we don't give it any thought
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because I was baptized as an infant I'm a covenant child everything's fine I have no reason to think about what the meaning of baptism is it was just done
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well if we are in that mindset then we have no awareness of the freedom that we have been granted from sin and therefore we have no power to resist
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sin in our members and for all intents and purposes we are still under the bondage of sin even though we are believers we're like the slave who is freed but
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never told never told and every day continues to get up and go out into the fields and plow the cotton and harvest the cotton still thinking of himself as a slave
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and Paul says you are not a slave anymore you are no longer living in the realm of the first Adam you have now been
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delivered and transferred into the realm of life through this last Adam Jesus Christ how did that happen having been baptized
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now it may seem to you that I'm putting too much emphasis on baptism and that makes people nervous throughout the history of the church whenever anyone talks like Paul in Romans 6 the first
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thought is well you know does that mean baptism saves you what happens if you die without being baptized and they always go to where to the thief on the cross right cross right as if that is the absolute proof that
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you don't have to be baptized why are we even arguing that why are we even arguing that you don't have to be baptized because what Paul says about it is so
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incredibly powerful and liberating no baptism is not regenerative and we're going to get to talking about that when we talk about Covenant baptism
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in a few moments the meaning of the sacrament that we're reading here in Romans 6. is in the with Christ references Paul places the
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baptized believer with Christ in death and with Christ in Resurrection he says that we have been crucified with
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now I've heard it taught maybe you have as that crucifixion is a very slow death and therefore what Paul is saying is
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that we're in the process of dying well even in crucifixion they didn't bury them until they were dead
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okay it's such a it's such a a stupid argument failing to see the radical nature of what Paul's saying here and perhaps that's why he said it no we're not hung up on the cross for
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our entire believing life this slow death of crucifixion no our old self he says has been crucified
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not is being crucified but has been crucified and in baptism it has been buried but in the resurrection it has risen to
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walk in newness of life again the meaning not so much of baptism but the meaning of what it means to have
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baptized so he says all of us who have been baptized with Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death he says we have been buried with him through baptism into death in order that as Jesus was raised we too might walk in
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newness of life for if we have become United with him in the likeness of his death we shall also be implied United with him in the likeness of his
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resurrection and then he says now if we have died with Christ we believe that we shall also live with him this is
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the essence of baptism I think it is also the essence of faith we're told by the writer of Hebrews that face faith is the evidence of things hoped for hoped for and in Christ what it is what do we hope
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for we hope for deliverance from final condemnation we hope for eternal life and sadly what we have been taught for
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the past 100 150 years is that all of that is yet to come that we come to Christ in order to make sure that when we die we'll go to heaven
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never thinking about what that means now and this is why the church is so
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fraught with anxiety this is why when you go to a Christian bookstore again I wish you wouldn't but if you do God forbid um ninety percent of the books are on
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self-help ninety percent of the books are dealing with how to deal with your anxious soul ninety percent of them are trying to convince you that you are a Christian even though you sin and doubt your
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salvation because 90 percent or more of Christianity does not understand what Paul is teaching does not understand what Christ has done and does not understand what their
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baptism means [Music] it's not just a ceremony but did you know this when you were
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baptized I didn't fortunately the Christians in Rome probably didn't either notice how he begins this in verse 3. he says or do you not know
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that phrase right there means you might not even know what I'm about to teach you but you should do you not know
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well most of us don't know and that doesn't mean that when you find out you need to get baptized again okay Paul does not at any point here say
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that well if you didn't understand what I just said when you were baptized and now you understand what I'm saying well you need to get baptized again no that's not what he's saying because this baptism the only thing that
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we needed at baptism with faith in Jesus Christ theological knowledge and awareness of what this was doing to me comes later I'm not even a fan of Catechism classes
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prior to baptism the biblical model I think is quite clear there were three thousand plus people at Pentecost who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and they were baptized that day
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baptism does not wash away sins previously committed that was perhaps the earliest misunderstanding of baptism because it involved water but is not the scripture clear that only
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blood washes away sin in Leviticus we read that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin there's no water there the water in the Tabernacle the
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water in the temple did not wash away sin the blood did and say only the blood of Jesus Christ does that does that baptism does not take the place of
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circumcision as a sign of the Covenant again Paul is quite clear that that which takes away the circumcision of the flesh is the circumcision of the heart
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and that is the Regeneration of the Holy Spirit not baptism not baptism and so those two meanings of baptism are false baptism is not merely an
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initiation ceremony a public profession we are baptized by the spirit into the body of Christ This Is Something Real that takes place
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the problem with the typical modern Baptist interpretation is that we read of several baptisms in the New Testament that we're not public as far as we know the Ethiopian eunuch
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did not call together several hundred of his friends before he was baptized in the Philippian Jailer it was the middle of the night in his house
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we do it as part of a church service we do it as a congregation in order to celebrate the grace and the mercy that is Illustrated in baptism not because the person is
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making a public profession they have probably already done that Andrews Nygren says according to Paul in baptism we have to do with realities not
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merely with symbolic representations that which baptism symbolizes also actually happens and precisely through
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baptism verse 6 in our passage knowing this see Paul has come full circle verse three do you not know verse 6 knowing this that our old self
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was crucified with him that our body of sin might be rendered powerless that we should no longer be slaves to sin
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that's what this is all about he's answering that question should we continue in sin that Grace might abound and he explains to us no you don't
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understand having been baptized into Christ you have been baptized into his death and just as he was raised from the dead you also have been raised to walk in
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newness of life the whole point of the argument is that Christians no longer belong in the world of death see that brings in chapter five we no
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longer belong in the world in which death Reigns death Reigns Paul does not hear suppose that one should wait should wait until the final bodily Resurrection
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before beginning to walk in newness of life that's kind of the ridiculous nature of our understanding of not only baptism but eschatology
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but eschatology really in the modern idea of eschatology nothing matters until it doesn't matter
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but Paul says no you have been you have been crucified past tense you have been raised past tense and this is now the principle that should govern every believer's life on account of having been baptized
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when they look at themselves do they see themselves as sinless no Paul's going to get into that but do they see themselves under the
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bondage of sin no when he says we are not under law but under grace what he's saying is we have been freed from that whole Paradigm of
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sin to which law belongs law doesn't belong in a righteous world does it does it law belongs in a sinful world
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but we're no longer in that world if we are in Jesus Christ again that does not mean that we will not sin
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not sin what it means is we are not slaves to sin we are not bound by sins dictates so if that is the meaning of baptism who
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then may be baptized if baptism unites us with Christ in death and Resurrection who can be considered candidates
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considered candidates for baptism for baptism of whom can we say that they are united with Christ in death in order that they may be United with him in the resurrection
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of whom can we say that they have died to sin through baptism into Christ verse 11 even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus
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to whom can we say these things of whom can we say these things can we say these things of infants or can we say these things who have been
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justified by grace through faith only those who are alive in the last Adam and not still dead in the first Adam
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in word only believers can be candidates for baptism let us pray
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father we do again pray that you would open our minds to understand your word and in this case to understand more deeply what it means to have been
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baptized that we might also rise to walk in newness of life
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the table representing that death that brought us freedom and also that Resurrection resurrection that brought us the power of the Holy Spirit to live in that freedom
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we pray that we would examine our own to ask ourselves if we are in the faith and finding that we are in the faith we
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ask that you might sanctify Us in the and cause us to walk in that newness of life in which we live For Your Glory and for our good
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we ask in Jesus