A Believer’s Photo ID (Mark 1:1-11)
“Baptism is an outward, physical symbol of the inward, spiritual conversion of Christians.” - The ESV Study Bible
Where & When?
- Acts 2:41 “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
- Acts 8:36-38 “And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?’ And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.”
- Acts 16:33 “and he was baptized at once’
- Mark 1:2 “I send my messenger before your face…”
- Matthew 3:14 “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’”
- “Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord's Supper.” www.sbc.net/bfm
What about baptism? Why is it so important?
The Meaning
- Matthew 3:15 “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
- Mark 1:10-11 “when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
- Mark 1:4, 5 “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins… confessing their sins”
- Mark 1:8 “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”
- “Do you not know that all of us who have 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. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Romans 6:3-5
- Matthew 28:19-20 “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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
