Topical Sermon On Baptism

Buried And Raised: What The Waters Declare

There is something that stops a room. When someone walks into water and goes under and comes back up, people lean forward. Something ancient and important is happening, and even those who cannot yet name it sense that this is not ordinary. Today we want to open the Scriptures together and ask a straightforward question: What is baptism, and what does God intend for us to understand about it? We are going to let three passages speak, and we are going to follow the text wherever it leads.

Before we open Matthew 3, let me say a word to everyone in the room. If you are a longtime believer who was baptized years ago, this morning is an invitation to remember and to be renewed in what that act meant. If you are someone exploring baptism for the first time, you are welcome here, and nothing in this sermon will pressure you toward a decision you have not yet made in your own heart. We simply want to open the Word and see what God has said.

The First Witness: Jesus In The Jordan

Matthew 3:13-17 in the CSB reads: "Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. But John tried to stop him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?' Jesus answered him, 'Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.' Then John allowed him. When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and the heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice from heaven said: 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.'"

Notice what is happening here. John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. It was a public declaration that the one being baptized was turning from sin and waiting for the coming kingdom. Jesus had no sin from which to turn. John understood this, which is why he resisted. His protest was not false modesty. It was theological accuracy. And yet Jesus insisted.

The phrase Jesus uses is significant: "to fulfill all righteousness." Jesus was not being baptized because he needed cleansing. He was being baptized because he was identifying himself with the people he came to save. He stepped into the water as our representative. He stood where sinners stand. He took the place of the repentant, not because he was guilty, but because he was going to bear our guilt. From the very beginning of his public ministry, Jesus was moving toward the cross, and his baptism was the first public step in that direction.

And then the heavens opened. The Spirit descended. The Father spoke. The entire Trinity was present at the baptism of Jesus. This was not a private religious moment. This was a commissioning. The Son was declared beloved. The Spirit anointed him for ministry. The Father expressed his pleasure. Baptism, from its very first appearance in the ministry of Jesus, is connected to identity, to mission, and to the voice of God saying: you belong to me.

That is the foundation. Baptism begins not with us but with Jesus.

The Second Witness: The Church At Pentecost

Now we move to Acts 2:37-41. The Spirit has been poured out. Peter has preached the resurrection of Jesus. The crowd has been cut to the heart, and they ask the most urgent question a person can ask: "Brothers, what should we do?"

Peter's answer in verse 38 is direct: "Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Verse 41 tells us the result: "So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them."

In the Baptist tradition, we understand baptism as an ordinance, meaning it is something the Lord Jesus ordained and commanded, and it is something that symbolizes and publicly declares what has already happened in the heart by grace through faith. We do not believe the water itself forgives sins or imparts the Holy Spirit. Salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone. But we do believe that Peter's call to repentance and baptism was a call to a complete, public, whole-life response to the gospel.

It is worth pausing here to acknowledge that faithful Christians across history have understood this verse differently. Some traditions, reading "for the forgiveness of your sins," have concluded that baptism is a means through which God actually conveys saving grace. Others, reading the same phrase in light of the whole New Testament, understand it as a declaration of what repentance and faith have already secured. We hold the latter view, but we hold it with humility toward brothers and sisters who love the same Lord and take the same Scripture seriously.

What is unmistakable in Acts 2 is this: repentance and baptism were not separated. The three thousand who believed were baptized that same day. In the New Testament, faith and baptism were not distant events with years between them. They belonged together. Baptism was the immediate, public, embodied response of a person who had trusted Christ. It was the moment when a private faith became a public declaration. It was the moment when a person said to the watching world and to the gathered church: I belong to Jesus.

Notice also that baptism brought them into community. Verse 41 says they were added to the church. Baptism is not a solo act. It is an entrance into the body. When someone is baptized, they are not just making a statement about their own heart. They are joining a people. They are saying: these are now my people, and I am one of them.

The Third Witness: Buried And Raised With Christ

Romans 6:1-11 is the deepest theological treatment of baptism in the New Testament. Paul has just finished explaining in Romans 5 that where sin increased, grace increased all the more. He anticipates an objection: should we go on sinning so that grace can increase? His answer is immediate and almost startled: "Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?"

Then comes the explanation in verses 3 and 4: "Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life."

Paul is not saying that the act of baptism itself killed the old self and produced new life. He is saying that baptism pictures and proclaims the spiritual reality that has happened to every believer in union with Christ. When you trusted Christ, something real happened. You were united with him in his death. The person you were, defined by sin and separated from God, died. And you were united with him in his resurrection. A new life began.

Baptism by immersion carries this picture with extraordinary power. Going under the water is a burial. Coming up out of the water is a resurrection. The physical act enacts the spiritual truth. This is why baptism by immersion is the historic and consistent practice of Baptist churches. It is not stubbornness or tradition for its own sake. It is fidelity to the picture that Paul describes. The body goes down. The body comes up. Death and resurrection are dramatized in water.

Verses 6 and 7 press the application: "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin."

And then verses 11 brings it home: "So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus."

The word "consider" is an accounting term. It means to reckon, to count something as true. Paul is not asking us to pretend. He is asking us to live in the light of what is actually true about us in Christ. You are not who you were. You died. You were raised. Now live like it.

This is the lifelong meaning of baptism. You do not get baptized and then move on. You return to your baptism every time you face temptation. You return to it every time you wonder whether you have any standing before God. You say: I was buried with Christ. I was raised with Christ. I am alive to God. That is who I am.

A Word To Every Person In This Room

To those who are considering baptism: the question is not whether you feel ready or whether you have everything figured out. The question is whether you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you have repented of your sin and placed your faith in him, baptism is the next step. It is not a step toward salvation. It is a step of obedience that declares the salvation you have already received. It is a public answer to the question the crowd asked at Pentecost. It is a way of saying: I have died with Christ, and I have been raised with Christ, and I want the world to know it.

To those who were baptized long ago: remember what the water declared. You are not your old self. You are not defined by your failures since that day. You are in Christ. You are alive to God. Walk in that newness of life today.

To those who are still exploring: you are welcome here. Keep reading. Keep asking. The God who opened the heavens over the Jordan and poured out his Spirit at Pentecost is not hiding from you. He is the one who is drawing you.

The waters declare something the whole creation longs to hear. Jesus went into the Jordan and the Father said: this is my beloved Son. When a believer goes into the water, the same gospel is proclaimed. Because of Christ, the Father receives us. Because of Christ, we are buried and raised. Because of Christ, we are alive.

That is what the waters declare.

Sources Consulted

Schreiner, Thomas R. and Shawn D. Wright, editors. Believer's Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ. B&H Academic, 2006.

Moo, Douglas J. The Letter to the Romans. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 2018.

France, R. T. The Gospel of Matthew. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 2007.

Polhill, John B. Acts. New American Commentary. B&H Publishing, 1992.

Stein, Robert H. "Baptism and Becoming a Christian in the New Testament." Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 2, no. 1 (1998).