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Now, let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. I was flying On my way back here, I don't remember exactly where I was, but I remember distinctly pulling out of the seat pocket in front of me on the airplane. A magazine I I've looked at it a number of times. And that is the Sky Mall magazine. You ever done that?
I look through the Sky Mall magazine, and honestly, I find some things in there that I think are pretty cool. I think, oh, that's a great idea. But then there are other things that I look at in the Sky Mall magazine, and I really honestly have the question: is there anybody that would buy that? And I made a little list as I went through the magazine last time: the shower head that lights up and changes color while you shower. Really?
I don't know, anybody any of you have one?
Okay. I won't judge you. The zombie yard statue for a hundred dollars, a zombie yard statue. We had one guy sitting in the front row last night, waved his hand, go, I want one. I had the ushers look after him.
One that caught my attention is the standing toilet paper holder. that also holds an iPad.
Okay, you're in there way too long if you got that going on. Or the toilet flush handle shaped like a dolphin. But What takes the cake for me, and I wonder if there's anybody who's bought one of these: the life-sized Garden Yeti. A Yeti is an abominable snowman or a Bigfoot. Life-size garden Yeti, seven and a half feet tall.
It costs $2,250. And the good news: if you order today, it will be delivered curbside. That's what it says, it will be delivered. to your house. Wonderful, wonderful.
I'm perplexed by that.
Now, I was looking through that and I was looking at these things, wondering, this is perplexing. Does anybody ever buy those things? But then I was thinking of this study. And I'm thinking of the unbeliever looking at believers. baptizing one another.
And how Odd how perplexing that must seem to somebody looking at us put people in water. I honestly was in Israel one time at the Jordan River with a group from our church, and we were baptizing. And after it was all done, there was somebody on the other side of the fence. And she was waving her hand. She wanted me to come over.
And she said, Excuse me. Yeah. What are you doing? And I said, well, we're baptizing. And she said, Well, what is that?
And why are people singing while other people are getting soaking wet? And it just dawned on me how perplexing this was to the uninitiated. It's like the zombie statue for a hundred bucks. Who does that? Who puts people down in the water and for what?
Now, to make matters a little more complicated, not only do we baptize people, we don't even agree on how you should baptize people. We don't agree on who should be baptized. We don't even agree on how much water you ought to use to baptize. Christians that practice baptism Select one of three methods. Immersion, put somebody totally under the water.
Affusion, pour water on top of a person. or aspersion. where you sprinkle a person. There was once a little boy who wanted a Turn his cat into a Southern Baptist by full immersion.
So he prepared the bathtub. Got it all ready for that cat.
Well, in holding the cat and filling the bathtub, he inadvertently sprinkled some water on the cat.
Now, you know what cats do with just a little bit of water, they run, and this cat just darted out of the bathroom, ran down the hall. And so the little kid could be heard saying, Fine, be a Methodist, see if I care. See, that stuff actually goes on between denominations in terms of baptism. All right, in 1 Peter chapter 3, the text we've been looking at is both encouraging and perplexing. Encouraging because he writes to suffering people, real people going through difficult periods of time in their life.
And he writes about Jesus Christ who suffered greatly, but great benefit came out of that suffering. And then Right in the middle of that passage, he writes verse 21. There is also an anti-type which now saves us. Baptism. Not the removal of the filth of the flesh.
But the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have difficulties when we read that. Difficulty number one. He calls baptism an anti-type. What is that?
And what is Peter a fisherman doing saying anti-type? How did he get all theological and stuff all of a sudden? Number two, he says there is a baptism that saves us.
Well, that's interesting. Baptism saves us, and if so, what type of baptism? And number three, he calls baptism the answer of a good conscience toward God.
So all of these things perplex the modern reader, so we want to bore down a little bit and find out what he's saying. Jesus said 2,000 years ago, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Ever since he said those words, ever since those words were uttered, for the last 2,000 years, people have been dunking people in rivers, streams, swimming pools, jacuzzis. Uh baptismal fonts.
Oceans. Because Jesus said to do it. And there have been some notable baptisms throughout history. The most notable being on the day of Pentecost, Acts chapter 2, when 3,000 people were baptized. In one day.
Some years later, in the year 404 AD, John Chrysostom baptized 3,000 soldiers on Easter in Constantinople. In 430 AD, Patrick of Ireland. That's right. Saint Patrick of Ireland. These St.
Patrick Baptized the king, his son, and 12,000 men with them. In 597 AD, Augustine baptized 10,000 men who in turn baptized their wives and their children. And then Between 680 and 755 AD, that's 75 years, a guy by the name of Boniface, an English missionary to Germany, in that 75-year span, it is told that he baptized 100,000 people. people. All because Jesus said, to do it.
Now, quite honestly, I don't even remember my baptism, my first baptism. My first baptism, I was just a little baby. I don't remember. They say it happened, I believe them. But I was baptized as an infant because my parents.
Believed in a teaching known as baptismal regeneration. Baptismal regeneration is that the waters of baptism themselves save a person, regenerates a person. And some will even cite verse 21. for that belief system.
So, what I like to do by looking at this one verse essentially is to unravel this thing of baptism. And there are three separate threads we need to unravel in this rope. Number one, baptism relates to the past. That's the first thread. Baptism relates to the past.
And the past event that Peter relates it to is the flood of Noah. Look at it. Scoot back to verse 20. Notice he introduces the days of Noah, the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved. Through water.
There is also an anti-type which now saves us. Baptism. What is an anti-type? An antitype is something formed After some pattern, a thing formed after some pattern, or that which corresponds to a type.
So you have two things that correspond to or relate to each other: a type. And an anti-type. The flood waters of Noah are the type, the baptismal waters of the believer are the anti-type.
So baptism then corresponds to, resembles somehow the waters that Noah and his family sailed on.
Now I say correspond. That doesn't mean they correspond in all aspects. The quantity of water does not correspond. The application of the water does not correspond. No, it didn't even get wet.
Nor did his family. But Just as Noah was placed in the ark, A safety capsule that kept him from the flood of judgment.
So too, we are immersed in Christ. And Jesus Christ is the same. is our arc of safety that enables us to sail over the sea of judgment. Simply put then, Noah in the ark. is a figure Of believers that get baptized.
You're listening to Connect with Skiff Heitzig Weekend Edition. Everyday friends like you help connect people around the world to the life-changing truth of God's Word through clear, verse-by-verse Bible teaching. Our world constantly tells us we need something more. But the book of Colossians reminds us that everything we truly need is found in Jesus Christ. That's the heart of Pastor Skiff's resource, Expound Colossians.
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Now, let's return to today's teaching. I was reading um The blog of a pastor. In Elwood, Indiana. I don't even know where Elwood, Indiana is. I know where Indiana is.
Some of you know where Elwood is, perhaps. And in his particular church denomination, the formula they use for baptism, and he's baptized hundreds of people. Is I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. They use that old terminology, Holy Ghost.
So One Sunday afternoon, when that pastor was visiting friends, his whole family was there visiting another family. Adults were inside, the kids were outside playing, and after a while, the adults said, So I haven't heard from the kids, let's go find out what they're doing. They found the kids behind the barn. Playing church. And the pastor's little six-year-old daughter was acting the part of the preacher.
And she was holding a cat. I don't know what it is with kids and cats, but she had a cat over a barrel. of water. And she was practicing her father's part, trying to remember that formula that she heard him say so many times before. And as she held the cat over, she said, I baptize you in the name of the Father.
The sun and in the hole you go. Yeah. Cute, huh? That's the way it is with Noah. Noah, you want to be saved?
In the hole you go, or in the hole you go. How's that? Right in the ark you go, right in that. There was only one hole, one doorway that led into the ark, one way of salvation. You got to go through that hole, that door.
And so it is with Jesus Christ. As our ark of safety, he said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. He and He alone is that door.
So baptism relates to the past. The flood of Noah. Here's the second thread to unravel. Baptism recalls a principle. You see, It's a visual practice.
You're doing something visually so people can see it and you can feel it. but it speaks of an invisible principle.
So it recalls a principle.
Now, look in verse 21, and I just want you with your own eyes to read that single word. Baptism. Let your eyes fall on the page. There is also an anti-type which now saves us. Baptism.
When you read that word, Or you hear that word, what comes to your mind is some. religious practice. That's the only connotation you have of the word baptism. Oh, yes, that's what Christians do. That's a religious word, baptism.
The word baptism or baptize is the Greek word baptizo, and it means to dip. To dunk or to drown. It simply means to be immersed in something, and it could be anything. It was never a religious word at first. It was a secular Greek word.
It meant to just be totally immersed in something. For instance, Aristotle writes about the Phoenicians that sailed beyond the rocks of Gibraltar and came to the uninhabited land, a seacoast full of seaweed, that when the tide comes in, it is wholly baptized. Immersed.
So it just means to be dipped or immersed in. Anything. And the Bible uses it several different ways. Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 10 speaks of the nation of Israel, saying they were all baptized into Moses. into the cloud and in the sea.
They were totally immersed in that experience. out in the d wilderness. Then Jesus speaks of his own Suffering, his own crucifixion is being baptized. A total immersion in pain and death. Luke chapter 12, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished.
Speaking of his suffering, his death. Remember those two disciples that said, Jesus, in your kingdom we want to sit one on your right hand, one on your left hand? And Jesus said to them, you don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? And be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with.
And it says that he was speaking about his own death. Then salvation is itself a baptism. 1 Corinthians 12, we were all baptized by one spirit into one body, one group, one community. The body of believers. John the Baptist spoke of three baptisms when he said, I baptize you with water.
But somebody is coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
So it means to be immersed.
Next question. How did it come from then the secular world into the religious spiritual world? It wasn't the Christians. It was the Jewish people. If you wanted to become a Jewish person, you were a proselyte, a convert.
There were three requirements. Instruction by a scribe, a teacher. Circumcision if you were a male. an immersion in water or baptism. J.B.
Lightfoot, a New Testament scholar, describes a Gentile coming to be converted. Into Judaism. And he writes this: as soon as he grows whole or is healed of the wound of circumcision. They bring him to the baptism. And being in the water, they again instruct him in some of the weightier and some of the lighter commands of the law.
Which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold. He is an Israelite in all things.
So it symbolized a Gentile. Leaving the pagan world. And coming to a whole new life, whole new identity, whole new community, a covenant relationship with God. Also, the Jews had these things they dug out of the rocks, pools. One was called a mikvah.
Several were mikvah. They were They were pools dug out of the rocks for Baptism.
So, if you wanted to go up to the temple to worship, you would first immerse all the way in and out, dry off, and go up. to the temple. If you had become defiled by touching somebody dead or touching someone with a bloody flow, you also had to be ritually cleansed before you could attend worship.
So if you were a Gentile converting to Judaism or you needed ritual purification, You were baptized.
So here's the next question. If it had a secular connotation, that the Jews took and practiced Then how did it Come to be a Christian thing.
Well We open up the New Testament, and one of the first characters we come to is this crazy hippie out in the desert. Eating bugs. And his name is John the Baptist. I think John the Baptizer would be a better term because otherwise you'll just think he's a Southern Baptist or something. He was John the Baptizer.
He was dunking people in the Jordan River. Why the Jordan River? because rivers were considered living water. They're not stagnant, they're moving. They're alive, they're going from one place to the other.
So it was perfectly appropriate to baptize people in living water, flowing water.
So there he is. Baptizing people, but get this, he's not baptizing Gentiles to make them Jews. He's baptizing Jews. And that's why the Jewish leaders said, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's up with this? We're sons of Abraham.
And John the Baptist said, Don't think within yourself we're sons of Abraham. God can make sons of Abraham out of rocks. He said, The Messiah is coming, and you need to repent and get ready for him. And this is a baptism unto repentance.
So, For a Jew. To get baptized by John the Baptist, since baptism was for outsiders to become insiders, they had to essentially admit. I'm an outsider. I may be religious. I may be sincere, but I'm an outsider who needs repentance, and my religion isn't enough.
So baptism recalls a principle.
Now let's look at the third thread and then we'll tie it all together. The third threat of this is that baptism reveals power. And the power that it reveals is in your power. There's only one power to give you new life, and that's Jesus' power. From his resurrection.
When he rose from the dead, he conquered death. And when he says, I can give you new life. He proved it by his own resurrection. That's the power. That's Also, in verse 21, there is also an anti-type which now saves us, baptism, not the removal of the filth of the flesh.
But the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Peter doesn't want his audience thinking that going down in the water itself. is what saves you. Because he said it's not the removal of the filth of the flesh. He wants them to know that he's referring to a spiritual reality when he says it's the answer, or as some translations say, the appeal of a good conscience toward God.
So just like Noah, And his family walked into that ark. You know what happened when they did? They said goodbye to the old life. What was left of the old life? Nothing.
It was drowned. It was gone. They walked into the ark, said goodbye to their old life. And hello to a new life wherever that boat is going to land.
So, when we come to Christ, we leave the old life, we enter Jesus Christ and start a brand new life. And the new life we start, Is the life that we are enabled to live by his resurrection. When we believe that he died, we believe that he rose. We have a good conscience. We have a clear conscience before God.
So the only baptism that saves is a dry baptism, not a wet baptism. Being baptized in Christ The wet symbolizes what we've done.
Now It brings up this question or it really answers the question. Do you have to be baptized? to be saved. Nope. You have to be saved To be baptized.
Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skiff Heitzig Weekend Edition.
Now, here's how to pre-order an exciting resource from Pastor Skip that's coming next month. Have you ever wanted to understand the Bible better but felt overwhelmed by where to begin? In Soaring Above It All, Pastor Skip Heitig guides you through the big picture of scripture in short daily devotionals designed to help you better understand God's word. Pre-order your copy of Soaring Above It All today, wherever books are sold. Before we go, remember, your generosity helps share God's word with people around the world through clear, verse-by-verse Bible teaching.
And this month, when you give $50 or more, we'll send you Expound Colossians as our thanks. In this five-message study, Pastor Skip explores one of the Bible's clearest pictures of the supremacy of Jesus Christ and shows how being rooted in Him changes the way you live every day. Gift today at connectwithgift.com slash offer. or call 800-922-1888. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition.
Make a connection now. Yeah. Of the crisis. But you have so burnt. It's on you.
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