Baptism 101: Mark 1:4-11

Baptism 101
Mark 1:4-11

INTRODUCTION:
Benone Simeonescu. He is a Christian from Iasi, Romania. He came to us from another religious group after we had lived in Romanian for little over a year. Benone is a zealous student of the Bible and when he came to me, he wanted to know what was different between the church of Christ and his religious group. So, we opened the Bible and we studied. He would come back with questions and we would open the Bible and study some more.

One Saturday night, we were studying intensely the subject of baptism. There is a lot of confusion and a lot of various ideas about baptism floating around in the religious world. We were reading and discussing and finally, Benone said, “I have been immersed! What else do I need to do?” My response was: “You need to quit listening to what man tells you to do and you need to do what Jesus tells you to do, in the way Jesus tells you to do it, and for the reason Jesus tells you to do it.” Our study had taken us up to midnight so around midnight, we immersed Benone using our bathtub, immersing him into Christ for the forgiveness of his sins.

Baptism is first mentioned in the NT in connection with John the baptizer’s ministry. That’s where we’ll begin this morning…

JOHN IS THE MESSENGER SENT BEFORE THE MESSIAH - 1:1-3:
Mark begins his account of the life of Jesus, reflecting to some degree the words of Genesis 1:1, writing: “In the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.” Then, Mark says that Isaiah predicted God would send a “messenger” before the Messiah, who would prepare the way for the Messiah. He would be a “voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord. Make His paths straight.’” That prophesy comes from Isaiah 40:3.

John understood that was his role, his purpose. When some Jews from Jerusalem went to hear him preaching in the wilderness, they asked him who he was. He responded by quoting this same passage: “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said” (John 1:23).

When the angel Gabriel appeared to John’s father, Zachariah, in Luke 1 to tell Zachariah that his wife, Elizabeth, was going to have a son in her old age, Gabriel told Zachariah what John’s role was going to be: “He will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:16-17).

So, John’s role was to get the sinful nation of Israel to quit sinning against God so they could be ready for the coming of the Lord, the Messiah. They needed to “get prepared.”

THE BAPTISM OF REPENTANCE FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS - 1:4-5:
That messenger from Isaiah 40 is identified here in Mark as being John the baptizer, the relative of Jesus of Nazareth. John “appeared” in the wilderness of Judea preaching. John’s role was to preach and teach. While we presume he did good things besides that, this was his role: to preach and teach and get people ready for the coming of the Messiah. The specific message of his preaching is found here:

“Baptism” - Baptism is defined simply as a burial, a submersion. The Jews were familiar with the idea of being “washed with water” before they could be holy in the eyes of God. The tabernacle had a bronze laver built in front of the tent of worship and the priests had to wash in the water before they could enter the tent and worship God (Exo. 30:18-21). From that time for the next 1,500 years before Jesus came, the Jews had developed lots of rituals dealing with washing with water, for various reasons, in order to be holy in the eyes of God.

It is clear that this baptism John preached and performed was a complete burial, submersion in water. In John 3:23, the apostle tells us that John baptized in a specific location, in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there. Man, through the influence of Satan, the great deceiver, has corrupted the word “baptism” so that it refers to sprinkling water on the head or pouring water on the head. However, the Greek word itself means an immersion, a burial. We’ll come back to this point shortly.

Back to John’s preaching… This baptism was “of repentance.” The word “repentance” literally means a “change of mind.” You change your mind about how you are living, relative to God, and then you change your behavior, which reflects your changed mind. The “changed behavior” is the “fruit in keeping with repentance,” which is how Matthew describes John’s preaching (Matt. 3:8). In Luke 3:10-14, we have some examples of what John required of Jews before they could be baptized: share what you have with others; don’t be selfish. Don’t extort from people and don’t cheat people. Be content with what you have.

Repentance is a biblical word that means we stop living against the laws of God and start living according to the laws of God. It is not hard to understand what repentance means. It’s just hard frequently to do it because our wills get in the way.

So, John was preaching “baptism of repentance,” and notice the third aspect of his preaching: “for the forgiveness of sins.” Ever since Adam and Eve gave in to the temptation of Satan, humans have had a problem with sin. In 1 John 3:4, John the apostle identifies sin very simply as “lawlessness.” Sin is living outside of the boundaries of God’s commandments. It means we are either doing things God has not told us we can do, or it is not doing things that God has told us to do.

The Bible pictures sin through lots of metaphors:

Transgression - literally “going beyond” what God has authorized
Iniquity - “perverting” what God has allowed or created
Sin - “missing the mark,” not living up to God’s expectations
Disease
Burden
Slave driver
Insanity
Filth
Debt
Stain
Darkness

It put it simply, sin separates us from God (Isa. 59:1-2) so it will keep us out of heaven and condemn us to spend eternity in hell which was originally prepared for the devil and his angels. Something has to be done about sin. That’s why Jesus came into the world (1 John 3:8).

But, God has always required man to do something in order to show his faith in God’s commands; that is, God has always required obedience from man. When God put Adam and Eve in the garden, God put that one tree in the garden - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - with the one command: Don’t eat that fruit. One command to test their faith in God’s commandments, one act of obedience required.

John’s act of obedience required for the Jews to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah was “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Please observe that preposition “for.” That preposition means only one thing, one thing and one thing only, in this context. It means: “baptism of repentance in order to receive the forgiveness of sins.” If the Jews wanted to be right with God, if they wanted to be holy in the eyes of God, if they wanted to be spiritually prepared for the coming of the Messiah, they had to have their sins washed away, which was done through the act of immersion (baptism) in water.

JEWS RESPOND TO JOHN’S PREACHING - 1:5-11:
Let’s see how the Jews responded to John’s preaching…

The “whole” country of Judea was going out to John.
“All” the people of Jerusalem were going out to John.

These are statements of hyperbole, exaggeration - we know many Jews refused to be baptized by John (Luke 7:29-30) - but Mark is illustrating that many, many, many Jews were baptized by John, getting ready for the Messiah by having their sins forgiven. Here (vs 5), Mark writes they were also confessing their sins.

In verse 6, Mark describes John in words that had described the great OT prophet, Elijah. He does this because another prophet, besides Isaiah, had predicted that Elijah was to come before the Messiah - that is someone like Elijah. That prophecy is found in Malachi 4:5 and I’ve already pointed you to Gabriel’s statement that John was to preach in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17).

One more important aspect of John’s message was that he was pointing the Jews to the coming of the Messiah and greater gifts that would be given by the Messiah (vs 7-8). John said that the Messiah would baptize with the Holy Spirit. The great OT prophet Ezekiel, prophesied in Ezek 36:26-27 that the Jews would finally have the motivation they needed to obey God, which would be provided by the Holy Spirit.

JESUS CAME AND FULFILLED THE MESSAGE OF JOHN:
Jesus, of course, came to fulfill all that John, as well as all the OT prophets, had predicted. The Gospel of Matthew really emphasizes that point, quoting the OT more than any other Gospel writer, to show that Jesus fulfilled everything predicted of the Messiah. At the end of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says that He had fulfilled everything which had been written about Him in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:44). This was after the resurrection so it was time for Jesus to return to His Father in heaven.

But, before Jesus returned to the Father, He told His disciples they were to continue the same type of work John the baptizer had been doing. Except this time, it was not to get ready for the first coming of Jesus, as John did. No, the disciples of Christ and all future generations of Christians now preach and teach that mankind has to get ready for the second coming of Christ. But, we prepare for the second coming of Christ in much the same way as John got the Jews to prepare for the first coming of Christ.

In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus tells His disciples…

In Mark’s account (16:15-16), Jesus says…

So, when Peter and the other apostles receive the Holy Spirit directly from God in Acts 2, they tell the Jews there what to do to be prepared for the second coming of Christ. They weren’t prepared for the first coming; they were hard hearted and crucified the Son of God. But, there was still a chance for them to get ready for the second coming of Christ. Peter told them (Acts 2:38), and 3,000 responded to Peter on that day. Please observe that “for the forgiveness of sins” here is the same phrase as found in John’s preaching from Mark 1:4.

We have already had an extensive study on the plan of salvation as it is presented in the book of Acts, which is summarized under these commands of Christ:

Hear
Believe
Repent
Confess faith in Christ
Be baptized, immersed into water, for the forgiveness of sins

We give again those verses in the NT which teach on the role and necessity of baptism so that there should be no misunderstanding:

Romans 6:1-7
1 Corinthians 12:13
Galatians 3:26-27
Ephesians 4:5; 5:25-27
Colossians 2:11-12
Titus 3:5 (Acts 22:16)
Hebrews 10:22
1 Peter 3:21
Revelation 1:5 (Acts 22:16)

JOHN’S “BAPTISM” HAD AN EXPIRATION DATE - Acts 19:1-7:
I have emphasized that many, many, many Jews heard John’s preaching and obeyed his message. They confessed their sins, repented of their sins, and were baptized for the forgiveness of their sins so they would be prepared for the coming of the Messiah. Well, the Messiah came, did His work, and returned to heaven.

But there were some Jews who were still preaching the same message John had been preaching, even after the coming of Christ but they did not know that Christ had already come!

One of those Jews is named Apollos and Luke introduces us to Apollos in Acts 18. Apollos was an eloquent man and knew the OT extremely well. He was well instructed in the ways of God and those things about Jesus Christ that John the baptizer had been preaching, and Apollos was an energetic preacher. But, his knowledge was deficient. He knew only the baptism of John and did not know that that baptism had been fulfilled and Jesus had gone to heaven.

In the city of Ephesus, two Christians, a husband and wife couple, heard Apollos preach, took him aside and taught him more accurately (Acts 18:24-28). From there, Apollos went on Corinth.

But, the apostle Paul came to Ephesus in the shadow of Apollos. While there, Paul met some of the people whom Apollos had taught and Paul was going to lay his hands on them and give them miraculous abilities but, come to find out, these people had not been baptized into Christ! They had only been baptized in anticipation of Christ! So, Paul taught them more accurately and then baptized them into Christ and then he could lay his hands on them and the Holy Spirit came over them. There were a dozen of them at that time.

Acts 19 is very instructive. It shows us that we can be baptized but we can be baptized incorrectly. If you were sprinkled as a child, that’s not what the Bible teaches. If you had water poured over your head, that’s not what the Bible teaches. If you were baptized to become a member of a denominational church, all the while believing that you were saved by faith alone when you prayed and invited Jesus into your heart, that’s not what the Bible teaches.

All I’m encouraging you to do is to make sure you have obeyed Jesus Christ. Listen to what Jesus tells you to do and do it. Have a clear understanding of the Scriptures and do what Jesus says to do. Because you can’t believe what man teaches and then obey God. You can only obey God by doing what God teaches.

Take home message: Confession. Repentance. Immersion in water for the forgiveness of sins. Those are necessary steps in order to be ready for the second coming of Christ. Do it.

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