In His Image - Baptism

In His Image
Matthew 3:13-17

Baptism

• Jesus’ Model:
  • It revealed the approval of the Father
    
  • It was a conscious act of obedience
    
  • God exposed His participation
• Jesus’ Reasons:
  • To fulfill all Righteousness:
    
  • To be consecrated to God and approved by God
    
  • The public announcement of the arrival of the Messiah and the inception of His ministry
    
  • He identified with human sin and with the people responding to God
    
  • To be an example to his followers
• baptizw <Gk> baptizō to make fully wet; used only in the NT of ceremonial ablution
  
• The immersion or dipping of a believer in water symbolizing the complete renewal and change in the believer’s life and testifying to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the way of salvation.

What Baptism is not:

• an empty form
  
  • II Timothy 3:1-5
    
• a ticket to heaven
  
  • Ephesians 2:8-9

The Outward Sign of An Inward Reality

• What is the reality?
  
• Identification with God:
  
  • His image – our purpose
    
  • Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
• His Name
  
  • Our new identity, new family
    
  • Matthew 28:19-20
    
• His Son
  
  • His death, burial, and resurrection
    
• His church
  
  • Initiation into His ecclesia, His called out ones
• The work of the Holy Spirit!
  
• Colossians 2:9-12

A Funeral Service

• Romans 6:1-6
  
• This is God’s Divine object lesson, a Divine drama played out in our lives to leave a mark!
  
• Galatians 2:20

The Peter Package
Acts 2:37-39