There is a great problem for many Christians who have been baptized without really knowing what they were doing. I have found that often people were baptized somewhere else without really understanding it — perhaps thinking it was some way of joining a club or society, as a ceremonial rite of initiation. As a result, they have carried their spiritual problems with them for years, and I have often had to counsel people who have dragged their spiritual problems into a very unhappy sort of Christian life. The church is full of nominal Christians, so-called Christians, half-Christians. The result is defeat and unhappiness — and that is not what the Christian life is about. Today I want to expound to you from Scripture what baptism means spiritually, under four headings.
The first point concerns the passage that was read in 1 Peter 3 verse 21. The Revised Standard Version reads: "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience." However, this translation is problematic. If you have a New International Version, you will have the correct translation: "Baptism that now saves you also — not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God." That is the accurate translation, and I will explain briefly why.
The Greek word translated "appeal" here is erotema. The authoritative full-size Liddell and Scott Greek lexicon gives three meanings. First, a question. Second, an answer to a question, and therefore — especially — an affirmative answer to a question, and hence having the meaning of sanction or approval. Third, it is equivalent to the Latin stipulatio, meaning an obligation, a contract, a commitment, or a pledge. Moulton and Milligan also support this understanding. The word "appeal" nowhere appears in these definitions. A question and an appeal are by no means the same thing. It rarely even has the meaning of "question" — it generally means a response to a question, specifically an affirmative response, and from there it developed the meaning of agreement, contract, commitment, and pledge.
Those who would like to study this technically can refer to E.G. Selwyn's standard commentary on the Greek text of 1 Peter, which carefully discusses this matter. I can find no linguistic evidence whatsoever for the meaning "appeal" given in the RSV translation. Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich list "appeal" as a definition but fail to provide any evidence for it — which is unusual, because normally they cite their evidence. Suffice it to say that the NIV's translation of "pledge" is correct: baptism is a pledge of a good conscience toward God, not an appeal. The genitive in the Greek text means a pledge made from a good conscience — that is, a pledge made with no double-mindedness, no deceitfulness, no fraud or lie, in full honesty and truthfulness.
The word erotema is particularly interesting because it expresses a question and a response. You make a pledge in answer to a question, and the response amounts to a commitment, a pledge — just as when someone says "I do" at a wedding. In the early church, it was the practice to ask baptismal candidates certain specific questions which they must answer in the affirmative. The word erotema, as a response and specifically an affirmative response, makes this choice of word beautifully appropriate.
This is also the reason why baptism in the church is called a "sacrament." Do you know what the word sacrament means? It comes from the Latin sacramentum. Look it up in a Latin dictionary and you will see that a sacrament means basically an oath — an obligation, a vow. In legal terminology, it means a pledge — for example, money deposited by the parties before a legal suit. But the particular and most characteristic meaning of this word was used of the military oath of allegiance. When Roman armies made their oath of allegiance to their country and their emperor — sometimes by raising their hands, sometimes with a clenched fist over the heart, sometimes with a drawn sword — this was called the sacramentum.
Many of you may have seen in documentary films of the Nazis where German soldiers stood to attention, raised their arms, and swore their oath of allegiance to the Führer. That is the sacramentum. Why was baptism called the sacrament? Precisely because in baptism we take our oath of allegiance to Jesus as our King. We crown him King of our lives. We own our loyalty to him once and for all. It is a pledge made to God from a good conscience.
Now it is very important that the conscience is good. If you make the commitment but not from a good conscience — if you have not severed your allegiance to the old life — how can you serve God and the world at the same time? "No man can serve two masters." If your heart is divided when you take baptism, you have not done it from a pure heart and a good conscience. And by the way, the Lord's Supper was also called a sacrament. From an early Roman military governor's report to the emperor about Christians he had arrested and interrogated, we learn that at the communion they renewed their vows to the Lord — vows to live a life of holiness, and vows to love one another. The Lord's Supper in itself contains the essence of a renewal of commitment to God. This is why it is still called a sacrament, though we seem to have forgotten that aspect today.
Baptism, therefore, is not something you can take or leave. Peter's words here are significant: "Baptism now saves you." This is where the doctrine of baptismal regeneration came from — "born of water and the Spirit," as we read in John chapter 3. Not only water but also Spirit; not only Spirit but also water, because it is there in the flesh that the commitment is made. My friend Robert Danks, recently teaching at a university in Sydney, wrote in a book on community and Paul: "It was by means of baptism that the individual actually committed himself to God." That is coming very close to the scriptural teaching.
And Paul says in Romans 10 verse 10 that two things are essential to salvation: "For a man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved." Not just one — two things: believe with the heart and confess with the lips. In the early church, the confession was made at baptism, in response to the question placed to the baptismal candidate. "I confess Jesus as my Lord, as my King." That was the confession. And through that confession, Paul says, he is saved. There must be faith in the heart, but there must also be confession. This confession is no ordinary confession — it is precisely the pledge of baptism, the oath of military allegiance made to Jesus as King.
You may ask, "Did I not already confess Jesus before baptism?" Indeed you did — but that is not the same as the oath of allegiance. A soldier may love his country and emperor before he makes the oath of allegiance, but it is at the making of the oath that it takes on a legal aspect of commitment, a binding vow. He places himself under oath — the sacramentum. Up to that point he loved his country, but he had not yet made any vow or pledge. Similarly, at baptism the Christian's commitment becomes as it were legally established in God's sight, confirmed forever. I hope you understand this thing very clearly. Any person who is not clear about what they are doing should not proceed with baptism until they understand: you are pledging your oath of allegiance to God as King. This is the first point.
# Baptism: A Pledge of Good Conscience to God (Part B) — United with Christ, Incorporated into the Body, and Death to the Old Life
The second point concerns being united with Christ through baptism. In Romans chapter 6 verse 4 we read: "We were buried therefore with Christ by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." Here for the first time we have the expression "with Christ" — not just for Christ, but with him.
Now there is a big difference between being "for" Christ and being "with" Christ. Many people are for Christ — they cheer him on. You see your team playing on the field and you cheer them on from the stands, quite safely. But if you are with someone in a fight, you are right there in the ring with him. You are the one who has no time to shout because you are trying to duck the punches. There are lots of people who are for Christ today — who think Christianity is a good thing for society, who are happy to send their children to Sunday school while declining to come themselves. But to be with Christ is to be beside him on the battlefield, standing with him, taking the wounds. At baptism we stop being spectators and join with him. We have identified ourselves publicly with him.
When I became a Christian, my worldly friends could not imagine it. I was a very worldly fellow in my time. My friends' minds boggled — how can this Eric Chang become a Christian? Many of my friends who spent their time on dance floors simply could not imagine me ending up in church. I remember a very long conversation with one close friend — a handsome, popular fellow — who sat sunk into the sofa for two hours, just trying to figure out why I had become a Christian. And two or three months later, he himself became a Christian. He had finally figured it out, and the big day came when he too took his stand with Christ.
In Romans 6 verse 5: "For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." Three times in verses 3 to 5 we find this phrase: "with him." Not just for him. Our part is to die with him of our own free choice — no one compels us — and he on his part raises us up by his power, by his grace, into the new life. When you are united with him and only when you are united with him — not when you are just cheering him on — does his life begin to flow into you. You then know what John 15 means: "Abide in me, and I in you, and my life will flow through you and you will bear much fruit."
The third point is that through baptism we are incorporated into the body of Christ. This is very important to grasp. The church is not a club that you join by means of some fancy rite called baptism. You can join a church and get membership in a religious organisation without becoming a member of the body of Christ. Many church members are not members of the body of Christ in the true biblical sense. The body of Christ is a spiritual reality — not an organisation, not a society organised by man. The only way to become a member of it is through the work of the Holy Spirit.
And this is what we read in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 13: "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit." Notice carefully that here it is not we who are baptized into the Holy Spirit (as though the Spirit were the water we are immersed in). The Holy Spirit is the active agent — he is the one who baptizes us into the body of Christ. It is the Spirit who takes us and places us into the body. And Paul uses the specific word "baptized" here, not just "placed" or "put." Baptizo means to immerse, to dip — it generally refers to placing something into a liquid. Paul chooses this word because he is making an allusion to water baptism: just as we are immersed in the water of baptism, so also the Spirit of God baptizes us — through this act and through his power — into the body of Christ. It is at baptism, when we made our pledge out of a good conscience to God, that the Holy Spirit takes us and makes us members of his spiritual body.
The fourth point is that baptism already very early in Scripture symbolises death. In Mark 10 verses 38 to 39 and Luke 12 verse 50, the Lord Jesus says, "I have a baptism with which I must be baptized." Everyone knows he is referring to his death. And 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17 gives us the key to why this matters: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come." Why the stress on death? Simply this: if the old does not pass away, the new cannot come.
This was precisely the problem that our sister was testifying about — the old had not passed away, so the new could not come. She had entered into baptism but not with a good conscience, perhaps because she had not been fully instructed as to what was involved. I beg of you to understand clearly: if you are still holding on to the old sins, the old mentality, the old way of thinking, the new cannot come.
When I became a Christian, I still tried to cling to my military ambitions. For years I had lived with that dream — disciplining myself, training my body, working hard at mathematics as mental discipline. All my life was geared to those ambitions. And when I came to the Lord, all this selfish ambition had to go. What a battle it was. I fought and struggled and wrestled and kicked for over two months. I knew I could not be wishy-washy. I knew I could not be a true Christian if I brought that old mentality into the Christian life. Unless the old passes away, you will never fully experience the resurrection life.
Your problem may not be military ambition. Maybe it is the love of money. But unless that mentality goes from you, you cannot be a true Christian. As the Lord Jesus plainly said, "You cannot serve God and mammon." And so baptism means death — death to the old way of life, so that we can enjoy the freedom from sin and enjoy the Christian life. If you cannot enjoy the Christian life, what is the point? I believe in clean-cut living. There is no point in being a half-dead Christian. Either die to the old life once and for all and enjoy the Christian life — or don't drag yourself into the church and be neither here nor there. A soldier's life may be tough, but there is the glory. The Roman soldiers who were outnumbered and surrounded and wounded refused to surrender. They had made their allegiance; they would stand to the last man, still triumphant, even in the moment of death. Do you understand the joy of the Christian life?
I have known communist soldiers charge straight into machine-gun fire because they had a vision to live and die for. I was prepared to die for my own vision — a foolish one. And now I have something far greater: not a vision but a reality, the living Christ. Therefore, only he who has wholly died can be wholly resurrected. By definition, you cannot be resurrected until you die. You cannot be resurrected when you are half dead. Only when you have determined to put off the body of flesh — as Paul says in Colossians 2 verses 11 to 12 — when your thinking is no longer dominated by the flesh but by God, can you be born of the Spirit. "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10).
So here is the summary. What does baptism mean? First: baptism is a pledge of allegiance to God as our King, made out of a good conscience. Second: we are united with Christ through baptism. Third: we are incorporated into the body of Christ through baptism. Fourth: we enter into the new life, into the resurrection life of Christ through baptism. Let us be quiet before God in prayer. Amen.