Fultz kinds of sermon. I recognize one sermon will not cover all of your questions. If you look around, we are a congregation from newborns to 90 with people of all kinds of church backgrounds. Some have thought about these issues in a deep and serious way, and others, this may be brand new. So all I have to say, extend charity, not just to me, to one another in a topic that sometimes is greatly misunderstood. We look to read God’s word. If you would please join me in prayer. Father Almighty, as we come before you this day, that you would speak to us your words of truth, according to the promises that you’ve given to us all through your Jesus, because in him, the Alpha and the Omega. Father, he is the yes and the amen. We pray that you would give us insight and understanding that in doing so, Lord, that we would continue then to improve upon our baptism as we walk before you, blameless in the righteousness of Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Colossians 2, In him, Jesus, also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.
And you who were dead in your trespass, classes and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us. Especially in the world where we live in protestants, there is a tendency to downplay the significance of rituals. Make no mistake, we are a very ritualistic people, to be sure, but we’re not in a very reflective way. We don’t actually like to think that the rituals we do do anything, especially when it comes to religious beliefs. I’m sure you have heard that from many people before or even questions like, Well, our church doesn’t do liturgy. And you say, Well, liturgy is the things that you do, so everybody does something. But they mean something by that when they say that. We don’t do liturgy. We’ll hear this from 1 Peter 3. 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. That language now saves you. Now, for some, when they hear that for the first time, it might send shivers down their spine. Like, What? That can’t be.
I’m not saved by something that’s done to me. I’m saved by my belief, not in something that I do. Well, let me introduce you to a word. Typology. The Bible is filled with types, things that point to something else. They foreshadow, they prefigure. Using very compressed language, Peter is telling us that the outer act of baptism points us to an inner reality. Don’t downplay the outer and don’t forget the inner. We run in this perennial problem of objective and subjective parts of our faith all the time. The Bible tells us both of these are important. Because none of us are balanced, we tend to swing to one side of the pendulum to the other. For most currently, we tend to be on the side that’s very subjective. We want God to judge us, to evaluate us by our inner subjective intent, not by the actual outer objective actions that we do. This was the intent of my heart, Lord. Judge me according to it. All of this gets played out and how we think about sacruments in the Bible. Because the Lord ties his inner promises to an outer covenantal act, we maintain both in our understanding.
And that question immediately, well, what exactly is a sacrament? A holy ordinance? Well, that’s not too helpful. What’s that? Well, we often speak of sacraments as a visible sign of an invisible grace. A sacrament us the gospel in a visible and tangible way. They are instituted, they are ordered by Jesus himself. Calvin gives a really quick definition. A sacrament is an external sign by which the Lord seals in our consciences his promise of goodwill towards us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith. Now, in the New Testament, two sacraments are baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These are sensible signs, means that you see them and touch them through the senses. They represent what they’re speaking about. They are sealed, they are applied to us. A seal was used in the ancient world, particularly to show that something was authentic. If a king sent a letter and it traveled a long distance, he would put a piece of melted wax on it in his ring, the seal of who it was to say, This This is from me. This is official. It shows ownership as well. We put our mark on things that are ours.
We seal them. It is a sign of ownership, sealed. To put it all together, a sacrament is an act, it’s a ritual given by God, which points us to a greater reality. The sign participates in the very thing it points to. It’s not just a mental reminder. We speak of it, and you hear this a lot, as a means of grace. How does that work? When you eat or drink the Lord’s Supper, you are now participating in part in that great celebration feast which is yet to come. The promises that God has made to us in Jesus are represented in the very act. We participate by believing those promises. Our faith is strengthened by the Lord working through these very visible signs. It’s Jesus who makes them work. By themselves, there are empty signs. Jesus is always the one who gives grace through them. The sacruments are visible signs of what God does. They are about him and about his saving work. And today we’re just looking at baptism. And to understand baptism, we need to see how it begins in the Old Testament in the act or the ritual of circumcision. We’re going to look at the nature of circumcision, and I totally intend to keep this as PG as possible.
Circumcision was done by different Semitic peoples in the ancient world, Egyptian groups of various ones as well. It was done for different reasons. It was not invented in Genesis 17, but that’s where it comes into the Jewish world. Genesis 17:1, When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. The word blameless is also where we get the word righteous. Blameless. And then just a little while later in verse 10, This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. Well, what covenant is the Lord speaking of? It’s the that he made with Abraham back in chapter 12. God said that through you, Abraham, I’m going to bless the whole world. Through you and through your descendants, your offspring. Specifically in Hebrew, that word is through your seed. Well, who does this act involve? Says there in Genesis 17, all of his male descendants are part of his household. All male, slave or free, starting at eight days old. But the question still is there is why circumcision?
It seems such a strange thing to make a sacrament. Let’s back up to Genesis 3:5. 15, familiar to us, God’s first promise of redemption right after the fall of Adam and Eve. And what does God do? He pronounces a curse on the serpent and a blessing at the same time to humanity. I will put enmity between you, the serpent and the woman, between her offspring, literally her seed, and between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. That use of the word seed, speaking of the woman, is singular. It speaks to a specific offspring. Now, that word seed is used in the plural all throughout the Bible, your offspring, your descendance, plural. But here it is singular. A very curious thing to do. A specific seed. God. Audely, that’s what we also find in Genesis 17, verse 7. And I’ll establish my covenant between me and you and your seed, your offspring, after you. Singular. Where you would expect the plural, it’s not. It’s singular there. God commanded to Abraham to apply the sign of the covenant of circumcision. It’s the very place of reproduction where spiritual corruption is passed from one generation to the next.
At this specific place, a visible sign is given of God’s promise of justification by faith. We’re going to look at that in Romans 4. But it is a bloodright act because circumcision anticipates is the sacrificial system that is to follow. How are Abraham and his ascendents to walk after God blameless? As God has commanded him here, you will walk after me blameless. They can’t. God has to provide a way. How? Through a seed yet to come. What are they to do until then? The sacrifices to the Lord all point to the greater sacrifice who is coming, the a son of promise. Paul tells us in Romans 4 that Abraham was reckoned by the Lord to possess what he did not yet possess. He was counted righteous because of his faith. So circumcision was a sign that came later of this faith, of this justification. It was a visible reminder that the hope of the world was in the seed of Abraham. Singular. That’s why it’s males alone. Women have always been included in the covenant, but this sign looks ahead to a second Adam who is yet to come. Women are included in the sign by virtue of procreation, of inclusion in Israel.
The visible sign pointed to an invisible reality. And that’s why we see repeatedly in scripture, God telling his people they’re to circumcise their hearts. Deuteronomy 10, 16, Jeremiah 4. They were to walk in faith and trust in the Lord of God, not going their own way, but they were to walk in obedience before the Lord, an outward obedience that marked God’s people in the flesh. Deuteronomy 30:6, The Lord your God will circumcise your heart in the heart of your offspring, your seed, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul that you may live. Who is doing this? It’s God doing this because they are incapable. That’s why there’s always this tension in scripture in this covenant that God gives to his people. Walk before me blamelessly. I will be your God. You will be my people. And yet at the same time, it’s like, we can’t do this. We keep messing up. How is God going to bring this about because God is going to have to take both sides of the covenant to perform them faithfully because we can’t. And circumcision speaks to this. It’s the sign, the entry of this covenant.
It was done in faith. It was a part of the greater promise of a descendant. Isaac was the type of this. Abraham’s son Ishmael was circumcised, but he was not a part of the covenant promise. It was only to Isaac. Circumstition was the visible right of entry into the covenant. It brought people into the visible Israel, though not all were a part of spiritual Israel. It was an act of obedience shown in the flesh. A particular people, Israel, was identified as belonging to God through the covenant that he established with Abraham. And what circumcision pointed to was ultimately fulfilled by Jesus. Jesus was also circumcised on the eighth day to fulfill all righteousness. He was the obedient Israelite to the law in both flesh and in spirit. And that takes us then to the nature of baptism. Peter in Acts 2, when he gives this incredible message of evangelism to the people, and they are responding to what he has said, And Peter then tells them what they are to do, Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy spirit for the promises for you and for your children, for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord calls to himself.
Baptism became the universal act, rite, R-I-T-E, for entry into the visible church. It started with John the Baptist. John’s baptism was something new, very new, in fact. There had been small types of baptism before. If you converted to Judaism, you were expected to be baptized as a right of purification. And there are some groups that would perform a baptism periodically for a ritual cleansing, but not a one and done. Something new had come to God’s people, and John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He was preparing Israel for the fulfillment for all that their history was a type for. When the Jewish people came to be baptized, it was because of a preparation for them entering into God’s covenant, a new in Jesus. The first generation of those baptized would naturally be older, just like and in his household. But this largely changes as the next generations continue forward. When Jesus himself was baptized, it was to fulfill, as he says, all righteousness. A sinless Jesus identifies with sinners in order to be their savior. Jesus was the one who was the obedient one to the sacruments, circumcision and baptism. The true and faithful Jew, the righteous seed had arrived.
And Paul then tells us, as we read earlier in Colossians 2, In Jesus also, you were circumcised, speaking to Gentiles. It was a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. Paul is speaking that, Jews included, but largely to a Gentile audience there. He’s saying that you in your baptism, you have been now identified with Christ, with what he has done. He refers to it as a circumcision. He’s tying these together. It’s not so much that baptism has replaced circumcision, but that Jesus has taken the fulfillment in himself. Think of it like a tadple develops into a frog, a seedling develops into a tree. It’s the fulfillment, not a replacement. Because through Jesus, everything that that pointed to has now been fulfilled. The bloody right gives way to a water right. The blood of Jesus had purified us now once for all. There’s no for any more sacrifices. The sign changes from blood to water, but the water still symbolizes the blood of Christ.
The sign is now extended visibly to women as well who are always a part of the first sign, but the sign extends to those who now are a part of Abraham’s family by faith, too. Let’s take a tangent. I think that’ll help us understand this. In Acts 16, we read Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him on his evangelistic efforts. And so Paul took Timothy and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in these places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. His mother was a Jew. Now, that’s surprising. Paul uses such strong language against circumcision in Romans and in Galatians. It’s like, well, wait a minute, Paul, that’s weird. Why are you circumcising Timothy? Because Paul is not anti-circumcision. He’s anti-anything that gets in the way of the gospel. He’s against the wrong understanding of circumcision. He circumcised Timothy here in Acts because his mother being Jewish, it would have been an impediment to his evangelistic efforts. Paul, as his habit, was first to go to the synagogue to the Jews, and in that area that he was in, they all knew. Timothy is Jewish, but his dad’s a Greek. That would have been offensive to them if he had remained uncircumcised because it was a sign of his Jewish heritage and identity a sign of his faithful obedience.
In the Jewish world, that sign still has, and it still has, significance and meaning to it because it also identifies you as belonging to Israel as a people. In the Gentile world, Paul is very out of it. It carries no weight. It doesn’t. So in this place, yes, in this place, No, you have to understand what it signifies. Because the seed of Abraham, singular, the seed, singular promise to Adam and Eve is Jesus. He’s the son of promise that Isaac pointed to. He’s the prophet that Moses pointed to. He’s the king that David pointed to. All of them were types of he who was yet to come. Jesus fulfills the Abrahamic covenant by becoming the means of obtaining righteousness through faith. He’s the once for all sacrifice. The New Testament then shifts the meaning of obtaining righteousness status from the sacrificial system found in the Old Testament to trust in Jesus, death and resurrection, now in the new. And baptism is the new right to speak of this, not circumcision. Several implications for us. One, what is significant about baptism is that it’s about identity. It does not speak so much about what you do.
It’s not about your profession, your life getting squared away. It’s a sign about what God does for you. We get that backwards much of the time. God draws us to himself through his son. He marks us as belonging to him. His seal is upon us. You belong to me. I have marked you in the waters of your baptism. I have named you. It’s a naming ceremony. It’s about his grace upon us. The faith you have Even that, says Paul in Ephesians, is a gift given to you. Another implication then is baptism is more extensive than circumcision, not less. Jewish people would have understood that this New Covenant promise was for them and their children just like circumcision was. If it wasn’t, very clear and explicit instruction would have had to been given to them for them to understand there had been a change. We don’t see anything like in the New Testament. That’s why the church has baptized infants of believing households from the beginning. Whole households in acts were baptized, including slaves and all those in the house. If you’re wondering, the first reference to actual infant baptism explicitly comes around 180 AD from an early church father named Irinaus.
Whole households. Why? Because baptism is a sign that speaks to what God has done for his covenant people. It is not a sign about your public confession of faith for the decision that you made to follow Jesus. That certainly can be true of what you have done, but baptism is not a sign of that. Like search and decision before, it’s not about you. It’s about what God has done on our behalf. Well, why is that good news for us? Because Jesus identified with you a sinner, and he did so in his baptism in order that we could now be identified in him, the righteous one. A transfer took place. The seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the son of promise, he took upon himself through his bloody death our unrighteousness so that we would be counted as righteous through faith in him. That is to good news of Jesus. We are saved from our sins, and baptism is a sign that speaks of that. Paul then says in Romans 6, Do you not know that all of us who’ve been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
That’s a glorious promise. And Paul is speaking, and this is a type. That your baptism is a type of that death that we have in Christ Jesus, who was raised again from the dead. We are identified with him The promises of God to Jesus rest upon us, and our baptism is the sign in the reality of that. It should strengthen us. It should also cause us, as our catechism says, to improve upon. What does that mean? How do you improve upon that? It means in your walking before the Lord in faithfulness and obedience and a desire to please him and all that we do because of what Jesus has done for us. It’s a result, a flow from a thanksgiving that’s offered to us because I cannot walk blameless before my God on my own. Neither could Abraham. His belief in God’s promises was counted, Paul tells us, accredited to him as righteousness. Righteous by faith, justification by faith. Your baptism flowing from what circumcision was a type of tells you that. The Old Testament saints were trusting in the one who was yet to come, even though they saw that dimly at times. And We who now have had that veil removed and now the reality of the type is before us.
We see more clearly, but we are saved no differently. It’s still in the personal work of Jesus. And so when the Father looks down upon you, the mark that you have received, identifying you as my child, my son, with all of his privileges, all the privileges given to Jesus now belong to his people who bear his name. That is really good news. That’s why we do not diminish the sacrament of baptism. We hold it in its esteem, given to us by God, a picture for us of justification by faith, renamed in Him, where you can now say, I have been baptized in the name of the Father, the name of the Son, the name of the Holy spirit. I belong to Him because my savior has walked before me and I have received His righteousness by faith. Pray with me. Father, as we come before you this day, we do thank you and praise you. Lord, you alone could have orchestrated all of these types and promises through thousands of years to come together in the person or work of Jesus Christ. As a Father, we just simply say thank you. Thank you that you have pulled us from darkness and delight.
And Father, we do pray that where we have stray from you, Father, where we have walked in our own rebellion, Lord, we ask not only that you would forgive us, but that you would continue to circumcise our hearts, to wash us a clean in the waters of your son. Father, setting us aside as a people for you, belonging to you as heirs of the promise, because, Lord, you have declared it to be so in your son, whose name we pray. Amen.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.