I.  The Word: 

Romans 6:4-5: 

4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,

Colossians 2:11-12

11  and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;

12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

I Peter 3:20-21

20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.

21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

I Corinthians 10:1-2

1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea;

2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;

II.  Reflection Questions:

1.  Do you continue to struggle with sin in your life even after repenting and believing in Jesus? Do you still feel enslaved by sin?

2. Have you been baptized in water?

3. If you have already been baptized in water, did that baptism occur before you repented?

There is a way humans are to be born. Sometimes there are complications. A Caesarean birth may necessary. Sometimes children are still born or die in the birthing process.

Jesus used human birth as a metaphor for spiritual regeneration and reconciliation with God. See John 3:16. Like childbirth in the natural, there is a normal pattern for a healthy spiritual birth.

Normal spiritual birth is a four stage process: 1) repentance toward God; 2) faith in Jesus; 3) baptism in water; and 4) receiving the Holy Spirit. Just like human birth, sometimes—too often—spiritual rebirth does not occur the way it should. Sometimes people repent but never put their faith in Jesus. Sometimes people never get baptized in water or in the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the process occurs over a number of years.

I repented and put my faith in Jesus at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes’s meeting when I was twelve (12) years old. I was baptized in water in a Baptist church in college when I was eighteen (18) years old, and I was baptized in the Holy Spirit the day before my Constitutional Law exam in law school when I was twenty-two (22) years old.

The point is that this four-step process is what God intended because it is what we need for a healthy spiritual birth, and baptism in water is an essential part of that process. This is not to suggest that water baptism is necessary for salvation.

The New Testament uses different metaphors to describe what happens in water baptism. In writing to the Roman Christians, Paul described baptism in water as being buried with Jesus and resurrected into new life. See Romans 6:4-5. Paul described water baptism to the Colossian Christians as God circumcising or removing our sinful nature (“body of the flesh”). See Colossians 2:11-12. Peter wrote that getting baptized in water was like the Great Flood, wherein God destroyed the wicked part of humanity with water, while allowing only the righteous part of humanity to survive. See I Peter 3:20-21.

But my favorite illustration is in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where he references Israel’s escape from Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea as a picture of what happens in baptism. See I Corinthians 10:1-2. The Israelites had been enslaved by the Egyptians, but they went out of Egypt and into the Red Sea. As they exited on dry land on the other side, the waters buried the Egyptians behind them, allowing the Israelites to come out of the Red Sea free forever from those who had enslaved them.

What all these New Testament descriptions of baptism have in common is the core truth that baptism in water brings about the cutting away of our old sinful nature so that we no longer have to live enslaved to sin. Accordingly, it is an indispensable step in the spiritual birthing process. Knowing that, what believer would want to delay being baptized in water?