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Sunday 03/20/25
Title: False gospels make it just about heaven
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False gospels make it just about heaven
There is a reason why baptism is mentioned through the New Testament accounts of the preaching and acceptance of the gospel.
- Mark 16:15-16, “(15) And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. (16) He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”
- Acts 2:38-41 – In Peter’s message after the Holy Spirit was poured out in the upper room, he testified “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”.
The account in Acts goes on to say…
“So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
- Acts 8:12-13 when Philip evangelized Samaria he “preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.”
- Acts 8:34-38 later when Philip was traveling from Samaria he ran into a man on a chariot who was reading the prophet Isaiah. Philip explained to him that the passage was about Jesus the Messiah. When the man believed Philip baptized him.
- Acts 9:17-18 Paul after having his sight restored was baptized. Paul’s account of this is recorded in Acts 22:16 where he says that after Simon had shared the gospel with him said to Saul, “And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.”
- Acts 16:14-15 Lydia of Thyati’ra, believed and was baptized.
- Acts 16:32-33 The Philippian jailer was witnessed to by Paul and Silas and was immediately baptized after believing.
- Acts 18:8 “Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.”
- Romans 6:3-4 Paul asks “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 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.”
- 1 Peter 3:14-22; 4:1 “Baptism … now saves you …”
1 Peter 3:21-22, “(21) There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, (22) who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.”
Now this is not to say that water baptism is required for salvation.
Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2:18-22,
“(18) For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, (19) by Whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, (20) who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.
(21) There is also an antitypewhich now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, (22) Who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.”
The word antitype means “represented by a symbol” which I think makes clear that baptism is NOT the means of salvation, but the outward symbol of having already been saved. Furthermore, Peter clearly states here that baptism is NOT the means of the removal of the filth of the flesh, but rather the answer of a good conscience before God.
A person who is lost does not possess a good conscience. That is the RESULT of the work of salvation as Hebrews says.
Hebrews 10:1-2, “(1) For the law possesses a shadow of the good things to come but not the reality itself, and is therefore completely unable, by the same sacrifices offered continually, year after year, to perfect those who come to worship. (2) For otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers would have been purified once for all and so have no further consciousness of sin?”
Furthermore we know that the thief on the cross was saved apart from baptism.
The point I am making is not that baptism is necessary for salvation or even that it holds the importance it once did, since it can be easily argued that the importance it had in the early church was due to it being a symbolism used by MANY pagan faiths as well. So for one to be baptized back then truly communicated a change of life and belief. Most people today hardly understand the symbolic nature of baptism at all. As such it is far less powerful of a public confession than it used to be.
The point I am making is that salvation was not just something privately accepted while everyone around had their heads down and their eyes closed.
Their baptism was a very public declaration that they had died to all they were and have surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
This was such a powerful declaration that it was often based upon this more than any other thing that early Christians were persecuted and rejected by family, friends and other Jews.
Baptism was not just a private ritual; it was a public declaration of one’s faith in Jesus Christ! It was a significant act with its symbolic meaning which publicly declared and reinforced an individual’s commitment to Christ and the Christian community. It marked a person’s entry into the Christian community, creating a sense of shared identity and shared responsibility, which also made them more visible to authorities and potentially more vulnerable to persecution by both Rome, the Jews and even pagan gentiles.
So again I say, there is a reason why baptism is mentioned through the New Testament accounts of the preaching and acceptance of the gospel.
Because the gospel is not simply a passive belief that Jesus died FOR you, but an honest dedication and declaration that you have entered into Jesus’ death with Him and a lifelong commitment to choose death with Christ over this world and sin every time!
It was not merely a verbal acknowledgement that Jesus is Lord, but a surrender to that reality in a life lived in submission to Him, His words and the person of the Holy Spirit.
Without these there is no salvation, because any other message is not really the gospel of the kingdom.
A kingdom means nothing without two things – a King and subjects.
The gospel in its most basic form, meaning when everything additional or peripheral to it is stripped away and all you have remaining are the bare facts as they relate to you, is very simple.
In modern terms it is an RSVP only invitation to enter into life with Christ, by dying with Him.
Without a willing death there can be no resurrection!
Now you are all VERY familiar with all of this. We’ve taught this for years, and this past year we observed Eastertide which is a way of walking out the truths of the Palm Sunday, the week of Jesus’ passion, His death, resurrection as well as the teachings regarding His rule and authority in the Kingdom of God which Jesus capitalized on during the 40 days He walked with them following His resurrection.
Eastertide is a powerful defibrillator to the modern, cavalier approach to Christianity and we wound up spending a year on it and today we will bear down upon it once more, only in the form of a rejoicing!
Possible passages:
Romans 5:20-21,
“(20) Now Law was brought in later on, so that transgression might increase. But where sin increased, grace has overflowed; (21) in order that as sin has exercised kingly sway in inflicting death, so grace, too, may exercise kingly sway in bestowing a righteousness which results in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 6:1-23,
“(1) To what conclusion, then, shall we come? Are we to persist in sinning in order that the grace extended to us may be the greater? (2) No, indeed; how shall we who have died to sin, live in it any longer?
(3) And do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?”
I don’t think it unfair to say that it is not commonly known by most Christians that this symbolism of baptism was very well known by both Jews and Greeks and was therefore a strategic and powerful tool to elicit understanding in the hearers.
We need preaching like that today!
Paul was pressing an understanding upon the Roman believers which I fear we either miss entirely or only grasp in a very diluted way.
Barclay characterizes it this way,
“Now, when we try to understand what Paul goes on to say, we must remember that baptism in his time was different from what it commonly is today… A man came to Christ as an individual in the early Church, often leaving his family behind.
Baptism in the early Church was intimately connected with confession of faith.
A man was baptized when he entered the Church; and he was entering the Church directly from paganism. In baptism a man came to a decision which cut his life in two, a decision which often meant that he had to tear himself up by the roots, a decision which was so definite that it often meant nothing less than beginning life all over again.”
If we are to take Barclay’s words at face value – do you really think this is the understanding or experience of most in the Christian church today?
Barclay is saying that the baptism experienced in the early church is both quantifiably and qualitatively different from what is experienced by most people today.
Why is that important? Because it places us in a grave disadvantage in even grasping the very gospel itself.
This is proven true in the base, childlike ways in which the gospel is presented in today’s world.
With catch phrases like –
“accept Jesus into your heart”
or
“just acknowledge you’re a sinner and in need of Jesus”
or
“if you will just believe this set of facts about Jesus”
…then the result will be that you will go to heaven when you die.
It is a quid pro quo gospel of the most base form.
“If I do this, I get heaven.”
It is set forth almost as a set of arbitrary rules God came up with to divide the “haves” from the “have nots” – regarding salvation. A set of initiation catch phrases one must memorize and agree to in order to join some juvenile sorority.
“Those who say the right words and offer Jesus the privilege of saving them are destined for heaven when they die.”
Does it not occur to people that if hell is so terrible and eternal, that escaping it should be made possible by so trivial a means?
Paul’s words here are rife with meaning that is nearly lost on this generation or such childish religious ideas would never have seen the light of day, much less be adopted into common use.
Barclay continues…
“Commonly baptism was by total immersion and that practice lent itself to a symbolism to which sprinkling does not so readily lend itself. When a man descended into the water and the water closed over his head, it was like being buried. When he emerged from the water, it was like rising from the grave. Baptism was symbolically like dying and rising again. The man died to one kind of life and rose to another; he died to the old life of sin and rose to the new life of grace.
Again, if we are fully to understand this, we must remember that Paul was using language and pictures that almost anyone of his day and generation would understand, It may seem strange to us, but it was not at all strange to his contemporaries.”
The entire point was to deal a bludgeoning death blow to one’s former identity and life.
The result would have been similar to having your entire identity stolen so that you essentially do not exist anymore. You can reap no social security benefits, your Driver’s license would be useless, you would be locked out of all of your accounts and could not even access your own money in your own bank account. For all purposes that means anything – that person would be dead! Not metaphorically, but in every real metric that counts!
Can I suggest to you that this is NOT the way people understand the New Birth or baptism which symbolizes it?
Most thoughts which are communicated to the world regarding salvation make it sound like it’s a simple matter of intellectually believing the right stuff. Most would agree that living a cleaner life would be ideal, but they do not see it as essential.
Now I could bend your ear for some time with facts about this which would curl your hair but I am going to believe you are smart enough to get the idea so that you will look for it in all the verses we examine this morning.
Moving on…
“(4) Well, then, we by our baptism, were buried with Him in death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from among the dead by the Father’s glorious power, we also should live an entirely new life.
(5) For since we have become one with Him by sharing in His death, we shall also be one with Him by sharing in His resurrection.
(6) This we know–that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him, in order that our sinful nature might be deprived of its power, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin; (7) for he who has paid the penalty of death stands absolved from his sin. (8) But, seeing that we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him; (9) because we know that Christ, having come back to life, is no longer liable to die. (10) Death has no longer any power over Him. For by the death which He died He became, once for all, dead in relation to sin; but by the life which He now lives He is alive in relation to God.
(11) In the same way you also must regard yourselves as dead in relation to sin, but as alive in relation to God, because you are in Christ Jesus.
(12) Let not Sin therefore reign as king in your mortal bodies, causing you to be in subjection to their cravings; (13) and no longer lend your faculties as unrighteous weapons for Sin to use.
On the contrary surrender your very selves to God as living men who have risen from the dead, and surrender your several faculties to God, to be used as weapons to maintain the right.
(14) For Sin shall not be lord over you, since you are subjects not of Law, but of grace.
(15) Are we therefore to sin because we are no longer under the authority of Law, but under grace? No, indeed!
(16) Do you not know that if you surrender yourselves as bondservants to obey any one, you become the bondservants of him whom you obey, whether the bondservants of Sin (with death as the result) or of Duty (resulting in righteousness)?
(17) But thanks be to God that though you were once in thraldom to Sin, you have now yielded a hearty obedience to that system of truth in which you have been instructed.
(18) You were set free from the tyranny of Sin, and became the bondservants of Righteousness– (19) your human infirmity leads me to employ these familiar figures–and just as you once surrendered your faculties into bondage to Impurity and ever-increasing disregard of Law, so you must now surrender them into bondage to Righteousness ever advancing towards perfect holiness.
(20) For when you were the bondservants of sin, you were under no sort of subjection to Righteousness. (21) At that time, then, what benefit did you get from conduct which you now regard with shame? Why, such things finally result in death.
(22) But now that you have been set free from the tyranny of Sin, and have become the bondservants of God, you have your reward in being made holy, and you have eternal Life as the final result.
(23) For the wages paid by Sin are death; but God’s free gift is the eternal life bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8 devotion to repentance (changing the mind) resulting in victory over sin and glory (including physical resurrection)
Do you know that in Romans 8 alone there are 10 statements which are conditional?
Romans 8:9
“…you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.”
“Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”
Romans 8:10
“if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
Romans 8:11
“if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.”
Romans 8:13
“ if you live according to the flesh you will die;”
“if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
Romans 8:17
“if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”
Romans 8:25
“if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.”
Romans 8:31
“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Paul –
2 Corinthians 5:14-21,
“(14) For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; (15) and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
(16) Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.
(17) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
(18) Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, (19) that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
(20) Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.
(21) For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Notice the imploring is not to save yourself from hell but TO God!
Gal. 2:15-21,
“(15) We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, (16) knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.
(17) “BUT IF, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not!
(18) For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
(19) For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.
(20) I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.
(21) I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
Now you may remember that we read in Romans 8 last week that the righteousness revealed under the law was STILL a requirement and that it is ONLY fulfilled in us IF we walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.
Because we are under obligation! Not to live according to the flesh, for any Christian who does that WILL DIE!
But IF BY THE SPIRIT we put to death the deeds of the body we will have eternal live or eternal union and intimacy with God.
Just like Romans 6 said earlier!
Php 3:7-21,
“(7) But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. (8) Yet indeed I also count all things loss
for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ
(9) and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
(10) that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, (11) if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
(12) Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
I don’t know about you but this seems a LOT more involved than a simple prayer and letting God save me. I think the pivotal issue is what people think they are being saved FROM. They think they are being saved from hell – and they are, but that is only the destination and reward of what they have truly been saved from.
We have been saved from sin and death, from lawlessness and the dominion of the body over our allegiances.
And even these are secondary, because salvation is not really focused on what you were saved from but what you were saved to!
Paul just said that coming to Christ cost him EVERYTHING, but what he gained is Christ Himself!
Before reading further lets take a look at what coming to Christ cost Paul. I think you will find his confession of Christ in baptism had the same effect on Paul that he was explaining to the Romans chapters 5 & 6 like we discussed this morning.
So before continuing to verse 13, lets double back and read verses 1-7.
Php 3:1-7,
“(1) Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe.
(2) Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation!”
Jews took pride in the rite of circumcision. For them it put them in a place of superiority to the Gentiles. When Paul not only forsook the teaching of circumcision but actively began to teach against it he was living out his baptism.
“(3) For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, (4) though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so:
(5) circumcised the eighth day,
of the stock of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew of the Hebrews;
concerning the law, a Pharisee;
(6) concerning zeal, persecuting the church;
concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.”
What did it cost him?
- A connection with his Jewish brethren, even including some of his family more than likely
- A connection with his beloved Gamaliel – his teacher, instructor and mentor.
- His standing as a Pharisee
- His prestige as a Hebrist
- His connection with his tribe
- His respect as one who was well instructed in the law (like having a doctorate revoked)
- He lost his political standing because he at one time had both the ear of the Jewish religious elite as well as that of Rome itself.
- It placed him in the cross hairs of the very same type of people who slandered Jesus and paid off false accusers to get Him crucified.
- It made him despised by Jews and shamed due to his affiliation with the Gentiles. He would have been seen as the prodigal eating pig slop with swine!
I suggest that even if Paul had turned from Christ to regain what he lost they would never see him the same way again. He had lost ALL credibility with them. So he lost the praise and the respect of not only men in general, but more importantly his fellow Jews.
But how did Paul respond to all of this loss of identity?
“(7) But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
And this brings me to the thought I want you to consider.
There are two ways to view this loss.
You can view it as a loss or as a gain and which you choose will largely determine the success of your walk in Christ. It will determine whether God’s investment of grace in you was in vain and to no purpose, or if it yielded a harvest!
Let’s pick back up in verse 13…
“(13) Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, (14) I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
(15) Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.
(16) Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
(17) Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern.
(18) For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
(19) whose end is destruction,
whose god is their belly, and
whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things.”
Can you see that the things we covered in Romans 7 and 8 over the past few weeks are actually not isolated, but are prominently represented as the nuts and bolts of the gospel throughout!
“(20) For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, (21) Who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.”
Col. 3:1-17,
“(1) If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
(2) Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
(3) For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
(4) When Christ WHO IS OUR LIFE appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”
You see the gospel is never presented as something you add to your life – it replaces your life AND your former identity with Jesus Himself!
“(5) Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
(6) Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, (7) in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.”
But what if some who claim to belong to Christ still DO walk in them? Well Ephesians 5 offers a near identical list of sins, also mentioning the wrath of God on the sons of disobedience but explains the outcome of any Christian who does the same,
“(6) Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. (7) Therefore do not be partakers with them. (8) For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light!”
Returning to Colossians 3…
“(8) But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.
(9) Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, (10) and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, (11) where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but CHRIST IS ALL AND IN ALL.
(12) Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, PUT ON tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; (13) bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.
(14) But above all these things PUT ON LOVE, which is the bond of perfection. (15) And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.
(16) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
(17) And whatever you do IN WORD OR DEED, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
Blessings!
Tri
