Hi, you're listening to the Him We Proclaim podcast with John Fawnville. were in season six called Little Ones to Him Belong. We've been learning about why we baptize children of believers. And today, we're also going to learn about why Jesus was baptized and also see how baptism is good news for believers. It's an encouraging practice and assurance that God is welcoming His beloved children into His family and setting them apart.
Here's John with the next message on baptism. It's appropriate on Trinity Sunday to actually have a baptismal service and to confess our belief in the Holy Trinity because. Baptism is first and foremost Trinitarian. We need to recover the significance Of what it means to be marked with the name of the triune God. Because in baptism, we are all marked and set apart.
the name of the triune God in baptism, and it is a momentous and significant event. And I want us to look at baptism from the words of institution. And I want you to see this, is that baptism is Trinitarian in its administration and in its full nature. Baptism is explicitly Trinitarian in its administration and its nature. Jesus, in the words of institution, he commands his church, and listen carefully, he says to his visible church, make disciples of all nations by means of baptizing.
This is how you make a disciple through baptism. Make disciples of all nations by means of baptizing, and here's how we are to administer the baptism. We're to administer the baptism with water, and Jesus says, it is to be in the name. That is singular. Listen, we are to administer baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The triune God.
So in these words of institution, Jesus not only prescribes how to make disciples, but he also tells us how to administer a valid baptism. To maintain the pure administration of the sacrament, for a baptism to be valid, it must have water. Right? Because that is the sign, water. And it must be administered in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon said this about the Trinitarian nature and administration of baptism. He said this, he says, let me take you to the baptismal font where believers put on the name of the Lord Jesus. And he says, and you shall hear me pronounce the solemn words, I baptize thee in the name. And he says, Mark, in the name, not names. But I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Everyone who is baptized according to the true form laid down in Scripture must be true. Trinitarian. He says otherwise His or her baptism is a farce, it is a lie, and he himself is found a deceiver and a hypocrite before God. I know those words by this Baptist preacher sounds startling to us, but he is exactly right. Because Jesus has given to us in the words of institution the manner and the administration of how baptism is to be given.
So baptism, Jesus teaches us, takes place in the sphere of the revelation of the triune God. And we have to take note of Jesus' careful note of Jesus' words of institution. Listen to what he says: go therefore and make disciples, listen, by means of baptizing them. in the name. This word name in the words of institution is singular.
It's not names, plural. This word name denotes one God. Which Jesus, in the words of institution for baptism, identifies as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Baptize them in the name, and then he says, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And so Jesus is victorious declaration in Matthew 28, verse 18, which is part of the Great Commission.
Where he says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. He implies there that God is the Trinity, and what He implies in verse 18 becomes very clear in verse 19. He reveals to us, Jesus reveals to us, the triune God's full name. He tells us who God is. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is God's full name. He is one God, yet he exists in three persons. And God has so revealed himself in his word, his Trinity, that these three distinct persons are the one true eternal God. And so to speak of God's full name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, words which are so common to us. Listen very carefully.
In the first century, when this would have been uttered, it would have been blasphemous to the ears of Matthew's Jewish audience to whom he was writing. Matthew was writing his gospel to Jews to convince them that Jesus was the Messiah, the offspring of David, the offspring of Abraham. The fulfillment of the Devitic and Abrahamic covenants.
So that they would place their faith in Jesus the Messiah, Jesus as Christ, the anointed one. Send by the Father, the full revelation of the Godhead, Jesus. And so, to speak of God's full name as being God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which would be so common to us to a first-century Jewish audience, they would have said that's blasphemous. Why is that? Because they had been taught their entire lives over thousands of years that Yahweh, God's name, is one.
Israel's neighbors were all polytheistic. Israel's neighbors had gods for different seasons, they had gods for different wars, they had gods of peace, they had gods of vegetation, they had gods of the elements, they had gods for money and gods for sex. Each of these gods would manage this little corner of their universe. But in contrast, Israel was distinguished by its confession of one God, one Creator, one Lord, one Savior over heaven and earth. And so Israel's God, Yahweh, was the sovereign God of nature and of history and of redemption.
He didn't have these little junior apprentices like the polytheistic gods of the Israel's neighbors. And so here Jesus reveals to us Yahweh's full name. He is the one true eternal God, yet exists in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus teaches us that we are baptized in the name of each person of the Trinity. Again, from a first-century Jewish standpoint, the Shema, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And this was ingrained in every Jewish household, in every Jewish mind. The Lord is one. And now Jesus says: Yahweh is one, but three. But yet he's one. And Jesus says, we are baptized in the name of each person of the Trinity, underscoring, as the Athanasian Creed says, a consubstantiality.
That's a big word that means withov or the same substance of being. The three in the one essence of the Godhead. Christian baptism is a naming ceremony. The baptized person is given a name, and it's not the name on a baptismal certificate. It is the name of the triune God by which we are all marked as Christians.
The mystery of God's being, of this one essence and three persons, no human mind will ever fathom. How many of you completely understand anything I've said? I I don't either. But this is God's self-revelation. And listen, and though, listen, though God's being is a mystery, our triune God has revealed Himself to us in His Word through Jesus perfectly.
And we, because of that, we can know this triune God even though we may not be able to exhaust our knowledge of Him. We can know him. And ultimately, God reveals us, Himself to us, His Trinity, not so that we can fully comprehend and wrap our brains. Around him, but rather, as the words of the Athanasian Creed say, we confess this because this is how we worship him. You see, the Athanasian Creed, if you read it carefully, was not just about this cold stale theology.
It was about worship. And it says it twice throughout this that This is the God that we worship. You see, it's all about worship. And so, in the words of the Athanasian Creed, listen to what it says. We Comprehend.
We get it. We understand this. No, no, no, no. Listen. It says, we...
worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. It's about worship as we're marked with the name of the triune God. There's one more little point that I want you to understand about baptism in the Trinity. The last time in Matthew's gospel that we actually heard about Trinitarian baptism is back in Matthew chapter 3. If you have your Bibles, you can turn back there.
If not, you can just listen. But in Matthew chapter 3, John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River. And Matthew wants his believers, wants his readers in Matthew 28 in the Great Commission, he wants us to recall the baptism of Jesus in connection with our own baptism.
So listen to what Matthew chapter 3, verses 17 and following, or verses 16 and 17 says. When John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, Matthew tells us: listen, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved son. with whom I am well pleased. Yeah.
And Jesus' baptism was his assurance of his sonship. Jesus is declared by the Father to be the beloved Son with whom the Father is well pleased. This is very significant because in Matthew's Gospel, Matthew reminds us. In Matthew chapter 2, verse 15, that God called Israel the nation, my son. In Hosea chapter 11, verse 1, the prophet Hosea recalls how God faithfully brought Israel, my son, out of the Egyptian exodus.
In Matthew chapter 2, verse 15, Matthew cites Hosea 11, verse 1, and he applies it to Jesus. And what Matthew is telling us is that Matthew regards Israel, the nation, as a type of the Messiah, God's beloved Son, but who was Israel as God's Son. The whole story of the Old Testament tells us that Israel was God's disobedient son. What did Israel do when they were brought out of the wilderness? They complained and sinned and griped and wandered in the wilderness, and God wiped them out.
In the whole history of Israel, what do we see? Israel, God's son, being unfaithful. But Matthew presents Jesus as the obedient son. He is the true Israel. He is showing his Jewish readers and he's showing us how Jesus, the obedient son, repeats the history of Israel, God's disobedient son, and does for Israel and for us what we've never done once in our life.
You see, John's baptism was not a Christian baptism. It was a baptism according to the Mosaic covenant. It was a baptism of law. It was perfect turning repentance from sin. And Jesus' baptism of repentance was not necessary because he was sinless.
This is why Matthew writes in Matthew chapter 3, verse 14 of John the Baptist. John, Jesus comes to John and says, you must baptize me. And John says, John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you. And do you come to me? Jesus, I'm the sinner.
I need to repent of sin. You don't have anything to repent of. You're sinless. But as the father's obedient son, Jesus' request to undergo John's baptism of repentance affirms Jesus' willingness to identify himself with every sinner that day at the Jordan River coming to John to be baptized and to identify himself with my life where I've never once perfectly repented of my sin. Jesus, by submitting to John's baptism, Publicly identifies himself with sinners.
It's what Isaiah 53, verse 12 says. Jesus was numbered. with the transgressors. Jesus was entering the waters of baptism of John to be counted as a sinner, to identify with sinners, to be numbered with the transgressors. And as he enters the waters of judgment of John's baptism, Jesus enters confessing our sins and repenting for us.
By submitting to John's baptism, Jesus is affirming his willingness to take upon himself. all our sins. And so here's Jesus. He's done no sin. And he is identifying himself with sinful men and women in the waters of baptism as a picture of what he had come to do and would do.
Years later, worked out in blood and tears when he died on the cross. How do we know this? Because listen to Mark chapter 10, verse 39. Jesus. calls his crucifixion A baptism.
Jesus' cross was his baptism. And so, immediately following his baptism, what happens? Listen. The heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
And this is the good news. This is the gospel that Matthew is giving us, where Israel had failed. Where you and I, our entire life, have failed in our testing. Jesus prevailed. He was faithful.
And because of that, he receives the Father's full approval and delight. Jesus, in other words, Matthew says, was baptized with God's wrath so that by Matthew 28, we could be baptized with God's grace. And so, what is behind every baptism that we're going to see this morning? Behind your baptism, behind every baptism is the baptism of Jesus. The baptism of Jesus, his death and his burial and his resurrection, which opens up for us a new creation.
And this is exactly what Paul says in Romans chapter 6, verses 1 through 4, as he connects Jesus' death with our baptism.
So, what Jesus is by nature the eternal Son, we are by grace of adoption the beloved adopted sons of God. Jesus is the unique Son of God, and we by grace become His beloved adopted sons of God. And that's what baptism signifies and seals. This is one of the most profound meanings of baptism. The Apostle Paul says, when the fullness of time had come, God the Father sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive adoption.
as sons. And so a baptism that we're about to witness. Signifies and sells to us the highest privilege of the gospel, and that is this. God the Father receives us as His beloved sons, and He speaks over our life in baptism. You.
are my beloved son. in whom I am well pleased. And that's really good news.
So Father, we thank you for the wonderful truth of Baptism. We thank you for his trinitarian nature that we are marked forever. By the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that we are marked in such a way that we are received by grace. as beloved sons of the Father.
So I pray today that every person here, as they witness this visible gospel, would encounter your Holy Spirit and receive the assurance and confirmation. that you are speaking over their life as they see the water.
So let them see you speaking over their life. You are my beloved son. And hope might be well pleased. We ask this in the name of the Father and of the Son. and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen. Thanks for listening to the Him We Proclaim podcast with John Fawnville. We proclaim as a ministry of John Fondill of Paramount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. You can check out his church at paramountchurch.com. We look forward to next time.
