Baptismal exhortation

1 Corinthians 12:12-13: Even as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slave or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

In a few moments, I am going to ask both of you a series of questions concerning your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior and your commitment to follow and serve Him as your Lord. This is different from most of the baptisms that take place in this church, which are baptisms of infants. And the fact that you both can answer these questions for yourselves may give you the impression that this event is something that you are doing for yourselves rather than something that is being done to you.

That would be a false impression. Even though you are answering questions and making promises, this baptism is still being done to you rather than being done by you. This is one of the important differences between Christian baptism and the various “baptisms” or washings of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, someone who became unclean could bathe himself in order to be cleansed. But since the time of John the Baptist and throughout the history of the church, baptism has never been self-baptism. Multitudes went out to the wilderness to “be baptized” by John, and you are coming here to “be baptized.”

That’s part of what Paul is saying in the verses I’ve just read, but he goes further. He talks elsewhere about baptizing people himself. He recognizes that there is a human agent for baptism. But here in 1 Corinthians says that behind this human agent is a divine agent. You are not baptizing yourselves. But it’s not the whole truth to say that I’m baptizing you. I am only an authorized representative of Christ, not the baptizer. Jesus is the one who baptizes you, through His Spirit.

So, something is being done to you, rather than by you. But what is being done? What happens at your baptism? You trusted in Jesus before. What more can baptism do? There are two ways to answer that.

First, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, baptism not only unites you to Christ, but to the body of Christ. In fact, Paul teaches that these two are identical. United to Jesus, the body of Christ, with all its members, is Christ. “Christ” is Paul’s name not only for the Head of the church, but for the combined reality of Head and Body. This shows one of the things that baptism does. It connects you to a community of believers, and marks you with the membership badge of that community. It makes you a member of Christ, the body in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female.

As we read in Genesis 2 this morning, the Lord saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone. And it’s not good for believers to be alone either. Once you are baptized, you are not alone. You are among others, to serve and to be served, to be built up and to build up.

Second, baptism marks you as one who belongs to Christ. When you are baptized, Jesus is marking you as one who belongs to Him. This goes back to the point I made a moment ago: This is not something you are doing, baptism is something Christ is doing to you. In this event, Christ publicly, visibly, ritually marks you as His own children. He declares His love for you before the world. In this bath of baptism, He declares before the world that you are part of His bride, washed by the water of the word, without spot or wrinkle. He shows before these witnesses that He is not ashamed to call you His sisters, His bride.

One of the most beautiful expressions of what it means to be a believer is found in the answer to the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism. The catechism asks, “What is thy only comfort in life and death?” And the answer is: “That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.”

This is what your baptism declares to you. From this day on, you wear His name Trust the Lord Jesus, who baptizes you today. Trust what He says about you in baptism, and wear His name well.