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Re-creation and Revolution
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Bonners Ferry Seventh-day Adventist Church, ID, USA
Delivery: 2010-09-18
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2010-10-17 05:11Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kirl-recandrev.php
What is Baptism? Outward testimony to internal reality. And yet, much more.
When it comes to Baptism, we are not dealing with a practice merely manufactured by a denomination or a corporation. Baptism comes to us from across the ages. Through it, the church marks two realities. One is creation; the other, revolution. Consider:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17. All Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version).
Baptism marks a life created for good, turned away from the good, then turned intentionally to the good. Humanity was not created to bring evil into the world. Because of the Fall, we enter life as distorted creatures. For our own safety, our own mental health, reality, in part, is hidden. We do not see the fallen angels on our trail, nor hear their machinations to destroy. Nor are we privy to views of heavenly angels commissioned to protect us.
We live out our lives in a situation heaven uses to develop our faith. We embark upon a step-by-step journey of learning to trust God. We say to the Creator, “Please create me. I am learning to trust You. I like what I see.” We are like the leaper, who said to Jesus, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” We know that he has the power. We wonder if He is willing to cleanse us. He is!
Baptism also signifies revolution. Good is being chosen over evil. God is overturning selfishness. It marks the rejection of a whole catalog of things that those who do not know Jesus do not value as we do. When baptized we are not just agreeing to a list of propositions we think right; we are embracing a different reality. It is impossible that our lives will not confront others by the difference in shape.
Noah showed his faith by building an ark. He directly contradicted what passed as erudite thought in his day. We show our faith by embracing the work of God; the life we live stands in absolute contradiction to the values and ideas presently bubbling in the world’s pot. It is no surprise if we are out of sync with non-Christians. But we should be surprised if we see the development of harmony between us and the world; for all who will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12)—not acceptance and legitimization.
Considering baptism, it is to be expected that we will think of it in terms of the ideas prominent in our own day. We tend to consider it in highly individualistic terms. We place the emphasis on themes we see as more individualistic.
Personal Emphases
The one baptized is admitting personal guilt. He has sinned. He needs salvation. He needs what only God makes available. The person who is baptized is by that act giving public testimony that he has accepted Jesus as personal Savior and Lord. The baptized one testifies that he is seeking the inward work of the Holy Spirit, that he is entered upon the pathway of personal reform, and he is confirming that he embraces a value system of unselfishness.
Corporate Emphases
Yes, we emphasize those things. And those are good and true, crucial, central, necessary, biblical. And yet, there is another whole dimension we dare not pass by. We are not just independent atoms; we are part of the vast web of humanity. Websites on the internet are connected together by links, and so are people. We are connected to each other. There are parts and there is the whole.
Among the features of the garments worn by the high priest were two stones, one on each shoulder, inscribed with the names, plural, of the sons of Israel (Exodus 28:12). Twelve names, one for each tribe, were inscribed on the stones. Thus, all Israel was represented. Jesus, as our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:15; 6:20; 7:26), is a personal Savior, but He is the personal Savior of all Israel.
Renunciation of the World
The baptized one makes a transition. He leaves his position running in place under the impending hammer of destruction. He no longer stands with those powerless to deny self. He becomes part of a divine collective. He joins the church. God has called, and now he answers. He receives his place in the community of the unselfish. He was in the world and of the world. Now, he is in the world but not of it (John 17:16). He was part of the problem; now he is part of the solution. He was relying on self; now he is relying upon Jesus.
He has renounced the world. The world hates him. He had been in bondage with them to its elements (Galatians 4:3), but now he is free. Through “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” the world is crucified to him, and him to the world (Galatians 6:14). He is dead to the world; its values are repugnant to him. He values love rather than exploitation. He refuses to be spoiled by the rudiments of the world (Colossians 2:20). He keeps himself unspotted, unfriended toward the world (James 1:27; 4:40. He refuses to love it (1 John 2:15).
He sees the world as the scene of self-serving rebellion, and turns back from self-salvation in every form. He is free; he now longs to deliver others trapped in thrall.
Passage into the Collective Body
Baptism marks passage into the collective body of Christ. We are part of something larger than ourselves. God has a church.
In the Bible, the word church comes from ekklesia, which literally means “the assembly.” Church is a gathering. The gathering is a meeting of those who worship God. It is the body of Christ in collective. Christ, the head, and the ekklesia, the body, meet together. It is a breaking through, a turning back from this time to the time when God and man first met together in Eden garden. No division then; hearts were on the same page. Unselfish love reigned supreme. We can experience something of this today in the church.
We may have noticed that sometimes the church is a scene of misunderstanding, hurt feelings, even conflict. The source of this is the love of the world that remains in us, that keeps us from loving brothers and sisters. The assembly is where we rub up against each other. It is a place for healing and truth. Neither principle can be sacrificed or it would cease to be the church. We are drawn to it because we need healing and we need truth. This is at the core with Jesus and His gospel.
Sometimes, instead of healing, people want to emphasize acceptance while excluding healing and truth, and, sometimes instead of truth, people want to emphasize exclusivity while excluding healing and truth; either way, it is distortion. A healthy church will see movement toward the embrace of healing and truth, because Jesus is there at that center.
The Beginning of Ministry
Baptism marks the beginning of ministry in a formal way. Before baptism, one was not part of the covenant body; it was impossible for him to be representative of it. After, he is part, he is representative. He is become a spectacle to angels and to men (1 Corinthians 1 Corinthians 4:9). He is part of the mystery of God, participant in the Great Controversy War between good and evil, into which angels desire closely to look (1 Peter 1:12). Ministry also has two aspects: service toward those outside of the church, and to those inside.
Those outside the church need us; we are called to light a darkened world. Each of our lives is a testimony. Part testifies to life under Satan’s rule. But for the Christian, one who is growing up into salvation (1 Peter 2:2), there is a testimony to life under the kingdom of God. Talk is one thing, living lives honest and just and merciful and loving, is another.
But we are mistaken if we think that ministry has only to do with those outside the church. Indeed, ministry, service, also means that as we have opportunity, we are to “do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10 ESV). The assembly is a gathering of the like-minded, fellow seekers for righteousness. We all need to grow, and God has made His church the garden we are to grow in.
Acceptance of God’s Kingship and Government
Baptism testifies to one’s acceptance of God’s government, His kingship, sovereignty. We have not thought of ourselves as monarchists. The American theory is that the people themselves are sovereign. But when we join God’s household, we join His kingdom. We renounce any claim to personal sovereignty and any linkage to earthly nations or kingdoms. We declare that we are foreigners, expatriates. We are ambassadors, appointed from the heavenly country (2 Corinthians 5:20; Ephesians 6:20; Hebrews 11:16).
We are not sovereign; we are servants of the most high God. We have changed values. We are disciples of Jesus. Heaven is our home; we are missionaries here. Sometimes we have thought of ourselves as missionaries from America to some distant land; but no. We are missionaries from heaven to earth. And that is a very different perspective.
Passage into God’s Covenant People
We mentioned that, when baptized, the person passes into the collective group that is God’s people. But there is another crucial aspect to this. Baptism also signifies passage into the body of God’s covenanted people. There is a covenant between God and us and each other. We are bound together in a contract. Before, He was not our God, for we had not chosen Him. Now, He is our God and we are His people. Now, He who touches us touches Him, he who offends us, offends Him; he who injures us, injures His adopted child.
Most of Israel then failed. But a different day would come for God’s covenant people. The prophecy is found in Jeremiah 31:31f, but we see it restated in Hebrews 8:10:
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
It is still God’s purpose to write His law into the minds and onto the hearts of that end-time people who do enter into covenant with Him. The covenant formula is the same: “I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
Most of us with gardens probably have a fence around it. This is to protect our precious plants from trampling and consumption by outsiders. God’s covenant is much like a fence. There is protection for us inside the walls of God’s will, and danger and destruction outside those walls. Tomatoes do not have legs and feet to walk out of the patch, but we do. God does not take away our feet when we choose him. He strengthens our feet. There is safety and increasing strength when we harmonize with the will of our God. We are in covenant relation with Him now.
Engagement In the War
Finally, being baptized is a public statement that one is now engaged in the war for the vindication of God’s character. When we claim to belong to the Father, all our behavior testifies to the onlooking universe what we think our Father is like. Many times in the Bible it is affirmed that we are His witnesses (Isaiah 43:10, 12, 44:8; Acts 1:8, etc.). The Bible even goes so far as to say that God is judged (Romans 3:4).
His Word claims that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and also states that the world will know that we are His disciples only when we show “love for one another” (John 13:35). Ironic, is it not, that this war will be, perhaps, the only war in all eternity that will be won by loving rather than hating.
Conclusion
Baptism means the recreation of a person. God does the recreating. It marks also a revolution, a complete change in the life. It is a change from darkness to light. Those who are baptized are not finishing the journey; they are at the central waymark. They are entering by the gate that leads to life (Matthew 7:13, 14). Eternal life is theirs today, because Jesus has their hearts today.
Jesus is accepted by them as their personal Savior and Lord. However, this does not lead to an impersonal, separatist faith. Rather, they become part of the body of Christ. The movement is from isolation to confession, separation to unity. And the best is yet to come. GCO
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