Baptism

My son-in-law was baptized yesterday. I wrote him about it. I thought I'd share it with you.
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Christianity has very few sacraments (unless you're including the Roman Catholics), but one that we all agree on is Baptism. (The other is the Lord's Supper.) But what is it? What is its meaning and its importance?

The word, "baptize," means simply "to dip" or "to immerse." Christianity gave it greater significance. The Jews practiced it in the Old Testament times as a purification rite, but it was John the Baptizer that brought it to prominence (Luke 3:1-22). When Jesus asked John to baptize Him, he balked. Jesus said, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" (Matt 3:15). As our example, then, Christ was baptized. At the end of His ministry, He commanded, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit " (Matt 28:19). Baptism, then, isn't merely a symbol of being cleansed. It's commanded. Peter, writing about how Noah and his family were saved through water (1 Peter 3:20), wrote, "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 good conscience -- through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21). So the symbol of baptism doesn't save, but the thing it symbolizes -- an appeal to God for forgiveness through the resurrection of Christ -- does. It is, therefore, a commanded symbol exercised by the perfect Son of God and symbolizing our request by faith in Christ for forgiveness -- cleansing.

Baptism is a picture of Christ's death and resurrection. Paul wrote, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?" (Rom 6:3). He goes on to explain, "Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4). Baptism symbolizes our union with Christ in His death and in His resurrection. This isn't mere symbolism. It has intense significance.

For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. (Rom 6:5-7)

In baptism, then, we are "immersed" into Christ. We align ourselves with Christ, die to sin, and are freed from it. We have new life. This allows us to choose not to sin (Rom 6:11-12). That's astounding. As a symbol, it is meaningful in its cleansing significance and its identifying with Christ in His death and resurrection. Those two factors are our very salvation, so Christ commands the symbol be practiced. But when we do, remember ... we're freed from sin. We don't have to keep doing it. That's big. That's baptism.