WELCOME to CENTRALCHURCH OF CHRIST: Not a place, but a people connected by a common bond of Christ our Savior with a common mission to show HIS love, tell HIS story, and be HIS people! We’re on week 3 of an expository sermon series this week that I’m calling the “ROMAN ROAD.” Expository means we learn from the text, and bring out it’s points, rather than topical, which is where we have a point and use the text to support it. So here we are digging in for a while in the beautiful letter to the Romans from Paul. The first week we saw in Romans 1 about Creation that God is there and he really cares for us! Last week in Romans 3 we gained a more full understanding of the nature of &&&Justifying Grace in Salvation. This week, Romans 6 connects us to a very poignant image concerning God’s saving Grace.
Romans 6:3-4“.. don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his DEATH?
Romans 6:2 says “…We DIED to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”
Romans 6:6 says “For we know that our old self was CRUCIFIED with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin”
Colossians 3:3 “For you DIED, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
2 Timothy 2:11 “Here is a trustworthy saying: If we DIED with him, we will also live with him”
John 3:23 tells us – “Now John (the Baptist) also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was PLENTY OF WATER…”
“… both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.” Acts 8:38-39
DIDACHE***Chapter 7. Concerning Baptism
And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:19 in living water. But if you have not living water, baptize into other water; and if you can not in cold, in warm.
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm
Romans 6:4
“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
****Acts 16:26-33 tells us
“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.
The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”
The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.
He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved— you and your household.”
Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.
AT THAT HOUR OF THE NIGHT the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized.”
***ANCIENT WORDS: For the first 1500 years of the church’s existence everybody taught that baptism was part of the salvation act. Every early church leader who talked about baptism taught this.
- Justin Martyr (A.D. 110-165) said “We have learned from the apostles this reason” for baptism: “in order that we… may obtain in the water the remission of sins” (First Apology, 61).
- Tertullian (A.D. 145-220) said, “Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life” (On Baptism iii). Also “The act of baptism… is carnal, in that we are plunged in water, but the effect is spiritual, in that we are freed from sins” (ibid., vii).
- Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 315-386) said, “When going down… into the water, think not of the bare element, but look for salvation by the power of the Holy Ghost” (Catechetical Lectures III:4).
“baptized into Christ (you have) clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3:27
- 1 Peter 3:21 says “and this water (Noah’s Flood) symbolizes baptism that now saves you also— not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience towards God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
That’s what Colossians 2:12 that says “having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him THROUGH YOUR FAITH in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
Mark 16:16: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
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