Preaching Jesus Versus Preaching Baptism

Some thoughts on THE INVITATION

It’s 11:27 on a Sunday morning. The sermon has been going on for 27 minutes. Every kid is looking at the clock. One kid near the front figured out that cough drops will dissolve in around fifteen minutes, so if he pops another one into his mouth around 11:15, then the second one will dissolve just before the invitation song as long as he doesn’t bite into it.

“So the story of Abraham having Ismael circumcised is all about covenant identity, which brings me to the main point of my sermon. If you want to…”

*the sound of Bibles being put away and song books being taken out*

“…enter into a covenant relationship with God, you need to hear the gospel (Romans 10:17). You need to believe it (John 3:16). You need to repent of your sins (Luke 13: or 5); since Jesus said it twice, it must be important! You need to confess that Jesus is the Son of God (Acts 8:37, KJV). You need to then be baptized for the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38). And then you need to live faithfully (Revelation 2:10b). If you need to be baptized this morning to be added to the body of Christ or if you have strayed from the path of righteousness and need to confess your sins, please come forward as we stand and as we sing.”

Besides the tie in from the sermon to the “invitation” and maybe a few verses exchanged for a handful of others, this was the script I heard recited for the first twenty years of my life before I took over and began quoting it myself Sunday after Sunday when I first started preaching.

If a preacher didn’t give this “plan of salvation” at the end of his sermon, I thought he wasn’t worth much. How could a minister of the gospel end a sermon without telling the people exactly what they needed to do in order to be saved? Every sermon needed to end with these “five steps of salvation” plus the command to remain faithful to God unto death.

Even if the preacher knew his audience and figured he would have to sit through all six (or seven) verses of “Just as I Am,” he’d still need to give that invitation because “what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?”

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with offering a time during worship service for people to ask the congregation for prayers or even to ask to be baptized.

BUT…

There is one problem I have with the attitude I had towards preachers who didn’t give the five steps of salvation or at least mention baptism in their sermon: not a single sermon in Acts ends with the command to be baptized. The only person who comes close is Paul who mentions his baptism in Acts 22:16. Besides that, the command to be baptized comes because the audience asks, “What must I do to be saved?”

And the answer to this question varies. Sometimes baptism is mentioned explicitly, like in Acts 2:38, and sometimes it is not, like in Acts 16:31.

Now, baptism is almost always administered in Acts when someone hears and believes the gospel. And outside of the original 120 who were in the house on the Day of Pentecost, Apollos, as far as I’m aware, is the only one we have no record of being baptized in the name of Jesus (Acts 18:24-26).

So, baptism is important. I really believe it is. But I think sometimes we go about getting to baptism the wrong way.

As Paul said in 1 Corinthians, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel—and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power” (1 Corinthians 1:17).

In Acts, people are baptized because someone preaches Jesus and calls the people to repent and follow the Way. This call to change one’s life in light of who Jesus is raises the question, “What exactly do we need to do?”

The answer usually given, if the question is even asked, that they need to believe in Jesus and be baptized to demonstrate their commitment to God, be added to the Christian community, and, as Paul explains later in his letters, to die and be raised with Christ.

The order, then, is typically

Preach Jesus > What do we need to do? > “be baptized”

But we usually do this:

“Be baptized” > “What are you going to do?”

Is one way better than the other? One way is definitely more “biblical.”

But I wouldn’t go as far to say that the other way is wrong.

But I do think that it can cause some confusion. While you can’t eliminate this “problem” totally, preaching baptism and saying that you have to be baptized or you’ll go to Hell will end in a lot of baptisms, but are these baptisms out of fear of Hell or love of Jesus? Do they come from knowing that one needs to repent, and has things of which to repent, or because they were told they needed to do this or that?

This may be an article for a different time, but I think if we consider the story of Israel in the wilderness and who was allowed to enter the Promised Land after they worshipped that golden calve in the wilderness, then our understanding of who needs to be baptized might change.

Everyone under the age of twenty was allowed to enter the Promised land because they “had no knowledge of good and evil” (Deuteronomy 1:39; Numbers 32:11). Now I don’t think there was a strict cut off date, and I think this may vary from person to person, but as “bright” as I may have been at thirteen, being able to answer questions about what baptism is for and what passages might back that up well enough to satisfy my parents, there was a lot that I did not know.

I’m happy when a teenager or pre-teen wants to follow God and be baptized. I’m not going to “forbid water” for someone like that. But I also just don’t think putting the pressure week after week on anyone that young to be baptized is good.

Preach Jesus. Tell them the good news. And when they’re ready and come with their questions, explain baptism to them, if they haven’t already picked up on it.

But don’t make a teenager think they’ll drop dead and go to hell because they haven’t been baptized. If the Lord was merciful to those twenty and younger in the wilderness, I bet he’ll be merciful to us today, maybe even more than we know or can imagine.