The Visible Words of Water | Acts 2:37-41
Introduction
Suppose you were dropped into the middle of the South Pacific—a nice thought on this frigid Sunday morning—onto a deserted island, all alone, like Tom Hanks in the classic film Castaway. What would be some of the first actions you would take in order to survive? Food? Water? Shelter? Fire? Conventional survival wisdom would tell you that those 4 things are top priority. However, what that fantastic film memorably reminds us is that a key factor to the human experience is not just to have food and water, but to have someone to share it with—seen that iconic and beloved character of the blood-stained volleyball, Wilson.
The deep desire for community and the need to belong is fundamental to what it means to be human. Remember, at the very creation of Adam, God looked on his isolation as said, “not good”. And thus, he creates woman, and in their union, they are able to produce more image-bearers that will become families, cities, and nations. We were created to belong to something, something greater than ourselves. That is fundamental to being human.
And it is that reality that is enacted everytime we gather as a church body. It’s happening right now! Every Sunday morning, we come from all over Sioux Falls and the surrounding area, from our various lives, our various situations, our joys and our sufferings, and we gather in this MS gym. Why? Of all the things you could be doing on a Sunday morning, why come here? What on earth would possess you to go out in -40 wind chill to gather with people from all walks of life? We are crazy!
Of course, the answer to that question is muli-faceted, but one of those answers is to satisfy the desire to belong to something greater than ourselves. And we, as those who have been saved by grace through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God incarnate, have been swept up into the grand narrative of the gospel. We belong, in body and in soul, in life and in death to our faithful savior Jesus Christ, and, critically to his body.
As Pastor Ryan reminded us last week, because we belong to the body of Christ, we partake in these corporate (corpus, body) means of grace—the first and simplest of those is to gather together. But there are further questions to answer. Questions like…
How do I know who makes up the body of Christ?
How do I know I am a part of the body of Christ?
Who belongs to this group belongs to this group that is called to gather together regularly, and is there any way to know that objectively?
It is in our text this morning that we see the answer to these questions. We are dropping into a critical juncture in the story of Acts. If you remember, Acts 1 depicts Jesus gathering his disciples before he ascends and declaring that great promise..
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
—Acts 1:8
The mission of God, secured in Jesus, is going to begin anew in Jerusalem and then expand out to the ends of the earth.
Next, Acts 2. The promised power from on high comes down and falls on the disciples, and they do receive the Holy Spirit, and Peter, empowered by the Spirit, arises and gives the first Christian sermon. Peter, like millions of pastors this Sunday morning, preaches the gospel to the gathered jewish crowd from all over the world. He doesn’t pull any punches. He declares that, despite their best efforts, the Jesus THEY crucified was raised from the dead, conquering death, and now sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, imaging the great Psalm 110:1 imagery of putting all his enemies under his feet.
That is the context for our passage this morning. So would you please rise as you are able as I read Acts 2:37–41.
Acts 2:37–41
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
Acts 2, particularly our section today, depicts the beginning of the church. And what we see from this passage is that the objective distinguishing feature of the church is the sacrament of baptism.
Often discussed, often debated, Christian baptism is a vital part of the church. Baptism is one of the 2 sacraments instituted by Christ himself for the benefit and edification of the church, both individually and corporately. David Mathis, in his helpful book Habits of Grace, a book we often reference during this sermon series, says this about baptism and the Lord’s Supper…
[Baptism and the Lord’s Supper] are means of God’s grace: Christ-instituted channels of God’s power, delivered by God’s Spirit, dependent on Christian faith in the participants, given for the corporate context of the gathered church.
—David Mathis
As we continue to reflect on these corporate habits of grace at the beginning of this new year, there are lessons to be learned from Acts 2 on the benefit and witness of baptism. Here is what I believe is a good summary of what we can learn about Christian baptism from this passage and from all of the NT…
Christian baptism is the sign and seal of our union with Christ, and a declaration to the watching world that we belong to him.
As we unpack this passage in greater detail, we are going to see 4 different aspects of the corporate sacrament of baptism: the motivation of baptism, the meaning of baptism, the necessity of baptism, and the effect of baptism.
The Motivation of Baptism
The narrative of Peter’s sermon is suddenly interrupted by the crowd’s response. It is almost as if they can hear no more and cry out in one voice, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Upon hearing the gospel presented, they are, as Luke so poignantly describes it, cut to the heart. This is the way the Lord seeks to build his church, through faithful, regular, no holds-bar gospel declaration that requires a response.
The gospel requires a response. And that response will always be one of either soft-hearted faith, or hard-hearted rejection. But the crowd was listening with ears that could hear and eyes that could see, and they understood Peter correctly—there was a problem with them that needed to be addressed; namely their sin. And Peter names their abhorrent sin—the brutal murder of Jesus. And like billions of regular Christians since, they asked that simple question: “who can fix this problem of sin?” Peter’s answer is simple: “repent and be baptized.”
Throughout the rest of the book of Acts, we see several other references to baptisms being administered in the early church. And starting with this first instance, we learn that baptism was an essential part of people’s response to God’s gracious offer of salvation. But the order here is informative: Peter calls the people first to repentance and then to be baptized into Christ.
Albert Mohler, commenting on this passage, defines the repentant response to the gospel this way…
First, we forsake sin and repent. Sin demands repentance because sin is a violation of God’s commandments. Mentally assenting to the wrongness of sin is not enough. That is not repentance. Feeling sad about the consequences of sin is not sufficient. That is mere regret. We demonstrate true repentance by a genuine hatred of sin with a Spirit-empowered desire to never engage in that sin again and a Spirit-driven determination to obey Jesus instead.
—Albert Mohler
Notice how dependent we are on the Spirit for this faith. That turning away from sin requires a new heart, a soft-heart. There is no legalism here. There is no salvation transaction here. As Paul will say later, we are saved solely by grace through faith, not a result of works, otherwise we could boast in our own achievements!
But that is not the gospel. Before we can obey any commands of God—and we must!—we need to be made new, made alive. Like Lazarus in the tomb, before he could obey the command of Jesus to come out, he first had to be made alive! So too with baptism. If we are going to obey the command to be baptized, we must first obey the command to repent and believe! And if we repent, our God is faithful and just to forgive those sins—even the sin of putting Jesus to death.
Notice that the verb in Acts 2, “be baptized”, is a passive verb. While repentance is active—something we actually do—being baptized is something done to you. It requires humility, vulnerability, and letting go of control to step into the waters and let someone dunk you, trusting that they will pull you back up. So Peter commands this tension between what you must do and what must be done to you, a good picture of the gospel’s promise and response.
Repentance and forgiveness. That was the message of Peter’s sermon, and it is the essence of the Christian’s salvation. Faith is the hand that lays hold of the beauty of the gospel, and it is faith and belief in Jesus and his saving work that motivates the new Christian to respond to Peter’s command and to obey by being baptized into the name of Jesus.
So the motivation of baptism is to rightly and genuinely respond to the gospel. But what does baptism actually do? What is it?
The Meaning of Baptism
Peter commands that the hearers be baptized, but notice how he describes it…
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins…”
—Acts 2:38
Our baptisms are not just a perfunctory or arbitrary act that we do just because we are told we must. No, baptisms actually do something. Notice, we are not just baptized, we are baptized INTO Christ FOR the forgiveness of sins.
The Sovereign Grace Statement of Faith defines baptism this way….
Baptism is an initiatory, unrepeated sacrament for those who come to faith in Christ that pictures their remission of sins and union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Through immersion in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the believer publicly proclaims his faith in Christ and signifies his entrance in the body of Christ.
—Sovereign Grace Statement of Faith
Back in October, we witnessed the baptism of 4 people. Recall the process…
The participant steps into the water—water throughout the Bible depicting judgment, death, chaos.
The participant is asked to respond to questions, proclaiming their allegiance to Christ and confessing their faith in him.
They are dunked under the water, symbolizing their union with Christ in his death, and are pulled out of that same water, symbolizing even further their union with Christ in his resurrection.
Paul describes this process exactly in Romans 6…
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
—Romans 6:3-4
In baptism, we enact that great miracle that has happened in our hearts at our conversion. The old, sinful, hard-hearted man has died, and in Christ, the new spiritual man has been born. Just like Jesus said to Nicodemus, we must be born again, and baptism dramatizes that great reality.
However, in more recent and modern church history, baptism has been viewed as simply a sign. Simply a declaration. Like announcing an engagement or the birth of a child—nice, thanks for doing it, but not really that important, not vital. We can just take your word for it.
But baptism is much more than simply a sign of an inward reality. Baptism is the sign and seal of that inward work of divine and amazing grace, made evident by the believer’s complete break with their past, sinful life, confession of the Lordship of Christ, and their faithful receiving of new life in him.
As the Statement of Faith says, it is an initiatory act. It is the objective moment that the believer is united to the body of Christ, as it is witnessed by the body of Christ. Christian baptism answers the question, “How does the world know you’re a Christian?” How do we, the church, know you’re a Christian, other than subjective and arbitrary markers…are you producing the fruits of the Spirit enough, are you changed enough, is your confession genuine. All good, all necessary—but all subjective.
Or as Al Mohler simply says…
The New Testament, however, doesn’t recognize any unbaptized believer.
—Al Mohler
The mission of God has always been a group project, which means that it will require a visible means to identify the people of God. In the OT, that objective, outward, physical marker of the people of God was circumcision, which served as the sign and seal of the covenant between God and Abraham and his offspring, later the nation of Israel.
In Christ, recorded and explained in the NT, the covenant between God and his people has expanded to include not just the physical descendants of Abraham, but all those who are united to Christ by faith. The incredible covenantal promises to Abraham no longer travel by bloodlines, but through the precious and sufficient blood of Jesus. The covenant belongs to those who are united to him by faith.
This is one of the distinguishing points of theology that separates those who practice believers baptism (us) and churches that practice baptism of infants of believing parents. Full disclosure, as some of you know, I grew up in such a church. Many of you did too. I was baptized a little over a week after my birth. The Lord graciously and sovereignly placed me in a loving and godly home, and so it was right to baptize the children of believing parents. I love my family, I love that church that I grew up in, but as I began to study Scripture, one of the passages that changed things for me on this point was Galatians 3…
But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
—Galatians 3:25–29
Paul’s purpose here in Galatians is to establish Christ as the foundation of including the Gentiles into the covenantal community. For Paul, to participate in the blessings, those great blessings promised to Abraham, expanded in Moses and David, and secured in Christ—”I will be your God and you will be my people”—one must put their faith in Christ. Baptism, then, serves as the proof of our incorporation into the body of Christ through faith.
And if that is what baptism means—a sign and seal of our union with Christ and our incorporation in his covenantal and corporate body—do we need to do it? Is it required?
The Necessity of Baptism
As good gospel-centered people, you may be tempted to say and ask, “I know that I am not saved by my works, but saved by grace. So do I really NEED to be baptized in order to be saved?”
The gospel promises forgiveness of sins. And all promises require something—they must be believed. When the Lord, in his sovereignty, saved you and made you alive in Christ, all of the promises of Christ became “yes and amen” to you. That’s immediate and amazing. Baptism, then, is the public declaration that you believe those promises and count them as true for you in Christ Jesus. But look back into Acts 2…
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
—Acts 2:37
Peter’s answer to them is not, “Oh you don’t need to do anything! No need to respond! Just believe in your heart!” Of course not. He actually answers their question with a proper answer: repent and be baptized! There are things they must do! We are not just spiritual minds, as though all that’s required is for you to intellectually agree with the gospel and feel warm things in your heart when you think of it. Yes, we must think right and true things about God, and to think of those true things and treasure them in such a way that we are affected by them. But we are also physical creatures! And we really must obey the commands of God in our actual, physical world. Our theology must come out of our fingertips.
Think of an engaged couple. Is it really necessary that they go through all the hassle of a wedding? I mean, it’s expensive, a ton of work, often requires travel and all sorts of stuff…I mean, they already love each other, do they really NEED to have such a formal ceremony?
Of course you would insist on there needing to be a wedding! Why? Because something happens at a wedding. It’s not magic, it’s not voodoo, but two people walk up the aisle single, and come back down married. There is a status change. Like the ordination of an elder, or an installation of a Senior Pastor like we did last week, these objective, public “rituals” do something. The same is true of baptism.
Of course, there is the important distinction to make that would separate us Protestants from the Roman Catholic tradition—baptism does not produce or effect the salvation of the baptized.
Again, the Sovereign Grace Statement of Faith is helpful here…
Although commanded by Christ and a true means of grace, grace is not so inseparably tied to baptism that one can be saved without it, or that everyone who is baptized is thereby saved.
—Sovereign Grace Statement of Fait
In other words, it is not baptism that saves us. Christ and Christ alone saves us. But now that we have been saved, our Lord Jesus gives us his Spirit which enables us to obey his commands—like the command here in Acts to repent and be baptized.
1 John 5 makes this clear…
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
—1 John 5:2–3
Obeying God’s commands, beginning with being baptized, is not a means to the love of God, but rather the right response to God’s love and an expression of our love for him and all he has done.
So is baptism necessary? Yes. And it has wonderful, far-reaching effect beyond the person being baptized and to the entire body of Christ.
The Effect of Baptism
David Mathis in his book Habits of Grace recalls the phrase given the sacraments during the Protestant Reformation: visible words. Baptism is a declaration. It is speech that declares and dramatizes the glorious gospel. It engages not just our minds, but all of our senses.
Like a wedding, baptism is a public event. Like the other corporate habits of grace—gathering together, singing, sitting under the preached word, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper—this is meant to be a shared and witnessed event. Although individual in nature, its effect is corporate. If, in their baptism, the new believer declares their union with Christ, the gathered body, together, receives them into the body.
And also like a wedding, you are reminded of your own wedding, the vows you made, the love you share with your spouse—the same is true of every baptism you witness. Remember your own baptism, the vows you made, the young, newborn faith you had, and resolve again, by God’s grace, to keep those vows.
The objective nature of baptism can also serve as a tremendous means of assurance. Again, the marriage analogy is helpful—if I’m short with my kids or and impatient with my wife, I don’t lose my “husband” status. I don’t become “unmarried”. I don’t need to “recommit” myself to my wife. No, of course not. My failures and sin do not negate or void my marriage status. The same is true for our salvation. Our baptisms serve as an objective means to know that I belong to the people of God, regardless of how I feel. And even if I sin—when I sin—I need not question my own salvation. Rather, I repent and believe, and am restored into fellowship with the family of God.
Another effect of baptism is that it helps distinguish who I am to extend all the “one-another” commands to. Yes, of course, we are to love all of our neighbors as ourselves, but there are unique commands to be obeyed between believers.
Consider Galatians 6:9–10…
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
—Galatians 6:9–10
How do we know who belongs to the household of faith? Who belongs to the visible church? The NT answer to that is those who have been united to Christ by faith and have joined his physical church through physical baptism. These are the people that God uniquely calls me to be in unity with, to bear their burdens, to serve, to comfort, and to encourage. So baptism, although often a means of division and debate, is meant to function for our unity, reminding us every time we witness it that we belong to a family, a people, a body of believers.
And the thing that unites us is what Peter promises in Acts 2:38…
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
—Acts 2:38
That Holy Spirit is the thing that unites the people of God. It is the divine glue that holds us together, keeps us together, produces the fruits of the Spirit among us, and empowers us to keep going. What a promise. What is the ultimate effect of these habits of grace? God himself dwelling among us
Remember what the effect of the gospel preaching was in Acts 2…
So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
—Acts 2:41
This is the birth of the church. And this is not the formation of some bureaucratic institution, but souls, 3000 souls. Real people, like you and like me, with real stories, who were cut to the heart with the depths of their sin and the majestic work of Christ on their behalf, and they responded. They were not just hearers of the word, but doers as well.
And notice the number—it’s knowable. Those who were baptized now belonged to something greater to themselves, they belonged now to Christ. No longer do they identify first and foremost with their family, or their race, or their sex, or their occupation, or their wealth, but their identity belongs to the one who they crucified and who God raised to life. And it was not just something they were willing to nod along and agree, but were willing to enact that great drama in their baptism.
Of all the incredible, sweet effects of baptism, don’t forget that baptism is a means of grace—we get grace! Not the salvific, regenerative grace we received at our conversion, but grace, amazing, sweet grace nonetheless. And don’t you want that grace? Don’t you want more of his Spirit manifest among us? Then just like all the other habits of grace—prayer, meditation, fellowship, bible-reading, gathering together on Sundays—in baptism we receive more than we could possibly deserve.
So my friends, if you belong to Christ, if you are united to him by faith, and you haven’t been baptized, I would encourage you to heed the command of Peter. Repent and be baptized! Commit yourself publicly to the body of Christ. Don’t withhold that blessing from yourself and from the gathered church. If you have questions, speak to one of us pastors. There is nothing we would love more than to discuss this with you and to answer any questions you might have regarding it. So please do reach out.
And the next time we have a baptism, which we are hoping to do, Lord willing, on Easter Sunday in March, take note of what is happening. Rejoice in the gospel work that is being done and being witnessed! Marvel at the grace of God to us that he would give us such marvelous means of his grace to see, hear, and experience the gospel of Jesus. So commit to his people, as Christ has committed himself to you! Belong to his people, as Christ has transferred you from the kingdom of darkness into his kingdom, where we have redemption and forgiveness of sins.