Baptism; The Skinny On The Dip

INTRODUCTION: It’s Still There!

BACKGROUND: Over the past couple of weeks I’ve made mention on more than one occasion that when it comes to the work of God in our lives it’s carried out on His terms and His terms alone. One of the clearest examples of this fact is seen in the Old Testament book of 2nd Kings in the life changing experience of a military officer named Naaman.

Now Naaman was afflicted with Leprosy, the most dreaded and feared disease of the time. To cure his affliction Elijah the Prophet of God told him to go wash seven times in the Jordan River and he would be healed. Naaman was angered by God’s terms, in that he had to wash in the muddy old Jordan River instead of one of the clean free flowing rivers of his own land. See when presented with God’s terms Naaman developed his own notion of how his cleansing should take place. He wanted t be cured on his own terms. Let’s look at what happened when this man came to his senses and followed God’s direction. (2nd Kings 5:14) It was only after Naaman did God’s thing God’s way that he was healed. He went down into that muddy old Jordan and came out “clean on the other side”

PROPOSITION: Sometimes out of ignorance of by deliberate actions we take a doctrine, a principle of the faith and attempt to apply it on our own terms, thus turning it into something that it was never intended to be. In some circles that’s exactly what has happened to the doctrine of baptism, so today we look at what scripture has to say… to “get the skinny on the dip!”

TRANSITION: To begin our study of this much discussed and little agreed upon topic we begin with a short history lesson as to where all the conflict surrounding baptism came from… the Genesis…

I. THE GENESIS OF THE ARGUMENT

a. Anyone who is at all familiar with the argument over the role of baptism in relationship to the salvation of man has probably heard or even perhaps taken part in an exchange such as this…

• PERSON 1 – ”you don’t have to be baptized in order to be saved, haven’t you ever read John 3:16?”

“for God so loved the world that He sent His only son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”

• PERSON 2 – “John 3:16 is true; but what about Acts 2:38?”

“repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgive and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

• PERSON 1 – “Acts 2:38; What about Ephesians 2:8?”

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

• PERSON 2 – “Yes I know about that but what about 1st Peter 3:21?”

“Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience.”

• And the argument goes on in that direction for some amount of time until the two parties, each convinced that they are right give up and go their separate ways, tempers flaring and feelings hurt

b. I had just such an exchange with one of my best friends; it was defiantly not one of my finest moments

• Why not? We were taking part in what can only be described as an exercise in futility, trying to “fight” scripture with scripture, as if they would somehow counteract each other and allow us to prove our point

• If it’s in the Bible, it is by its very nature “complementary,” every passage