Romans 6:3-4

Deut. 21:10-14. The gospel in taking a wife from the captives.

POST OVERVIEW. A careful exegesis of Deuteronomy 21:10-14 reveals that the gospel of Jesus Christ is foreshadowed here.

(Scriptures covered: 1 Pet. 1:1; 2:10; 3:4, 5; Eph. 2:12-13; 4:19; 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 6:3, 4; Phil. 3:19, 20-21; 1 John 3:2; Rev. 7:9; 20:11-15)

Deuteronomy repeats much of the Law that has been revealed in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, but the book also adds laws that are only declared in Deuteronomy. In Deut. 21:10-14, we encounter one such law as Moses gives instructions about the lawful procedure for taking a wife from a captive people. As I read and re-read this passage carefully, I began to see in this situation and in these procedures a clear foreshadowing of the gospel.

BEGINNING AND ENDING SITUATIONS. The law in Deut. 21 concerns what happens when Israel defeats its enemies in battle. When the LORD delivers an enemy into Israel’s hands, the enemy will be made captive. Now, among the captive people there is a beautiful woman. This woman is an orphaned (21:13) member of a defeated people, a people who do not know the LORD. She has no reason for hope. Yet by the end of this short passage, the woman has a husband and has been enfolded into the covenant people of the LORD. When we see such a turn of events in the Scripture, we should sit up and pay attention and see if there might be hidden here a picture of the gospel of our salvation.

We will explore several New Testament passages to see the gospel here.

FROM GODLESS PEOPLE TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD

1 Peter 2:10a. Peter says of those who reside as aliens (1:1; figurative for all disciples of Jesus), “you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” The woman is part of an unnamed people who have been defeated and made captive to Israel. She is part of “not a people.” Her people have no laws, they have no tabernacle, they have no knowledge of the LORD. They have no past and they have no future. They are a people who are “not a people.”

And so are we before we know the Lord Jesus. No matter what Genealogy.com tells us about our ancestors, we are part of “not a people.” We have no glorious past and we have no idea of our future. We are “not a people” heading nowhere. But then the Lord calls us by His grace and we are made part of the people of God. Now we are part of the covenant people. We are now those who will be gathered around the throne praising the Lamb (Rev. 7:9f) rather than those who will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:11-15).

In Deut. 21, the woman once was not a people, but now she was part of the people of God. In the gospel, this is our story as well.

FROM NO MERCY TO IMMENSE MERCY

1 Peter 2:10b. “You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” The beautiful captive woman in Deut. 21 was a part of a conquered people. Beautiful women who are part of a conquered people do not anticipate mercy from their conquerors. So this woman expected the worst. Defeated people receive the consequences of being defeated. In these situations, being beautiful was a curse. But instead of abuse and humiliation, she is adopted into the midst of the conquering people. Instead of the shameful treatment usually given to conquered women, she becomes the wife of one of the people of the LORD. She had not received mercy, but now she has received immense mercy.

And so it is with everyone who has come to faith in Jesus. Before we know Jesus as Lord, we are among the condemned, justly deserving the LORD’s wrath. We are guilty of the crimes of which we are accused and expect to receive a just recompense for those crimes. But instead of the judgment we deserve, we hear the amazing words of the grace of God contained in the gospel. From the ranks of the condemned we are raised to new life, are cleansed from our filthy sins and are adopted into the kingdom as members of the true church, the bride of Christ.

FROM EXCLUDED, HOPELESS STRANGERS TO WASHED AND SANCTIFIED SAINTS

Ephesians 2:12-13.

12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

In her captive state, the beautiful woman was “separate from Christ.” She had no knowledge of a Messiah or a Savior. Her people were separated from the Holy One of Israel. No connection. She was “excluded from the commonwealth of Israel.” She was not a Hebrew and therefore could not enter into the covenant with the LORD. She was not just separated from Christ by her ignorance, but she was excluded from Israel because of her people of birth. She was a Gentile, and so she was excluded from Israel. And she was a “stranger to the covenants of promise.” Because Israel was in the covenant with the LORD, they had access to all the amazing promises that the LORD has given to His people, but this captive woman had never heard one single promise from the LORD. She was a stranger to all the riches of the LORD’s grace. She knew nothing about forgiveness, salvation, joy, fellowship, holiness, grace, mercy, hope or peace. As a captive these were beyond her imagination. She had no hope and was without God in the world.

But when she was chosen out of the captives and brought into the house of the covenant people and had been cleansed from her former uncleanness and had been given a new identity, then she had been brought near to the LORD.

And this is exactly our story, for in this passage in Ephesians 2, Paul is writing to Gentiles like you and me. We were separate from Christ and we had no hope and were without God in this world. But then the Lord brought the gospel to our ears and He graciously chose to open our hearts to Christ and to His salvation (Acts 16:14). Spiritually He brought us into His house and shaved our head and trimmed our nails (Deut. 21:12). We removed the old filthy clothes of our old life (Zech. 3:3-5; Col. 3:9) so that “we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).

NEW IDENTITY

2 Cor. 5:17. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” Formerly this woman identified with a rejected, outcast people who “did not know God and were slaves to those which by nature are no gods” (Gal. 4:8). Her past identity was full of superstition and idol-worship and confusion; peace and joy and hope were not even possibilities. But then she was taken captive by someone who followed the LORD and her past identity was put to death and forgotten. Notice that she shall “mourn her father and mother a full month” (Deut. 21:13). This period of time is given for her old identity to die. This mourning indicates that her old life and her old identity are irretrievably gone. The mourning punctuates closure and finality. Mourning here serves the same purpose as burial. Whatever is appropriately mourned will never come back again. “The old things passed away.” But now a new life replaces the old life, the life of a member of the people of the LORD. Now she identifies with the covenant people of God who enjoy His blessings and hold to His promises. Her new identity includes hope, joy, and peace and now she can be among “the holy women who hoped in God” and “adorn themselves with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4, 5).

Again, this picture is a foreshadow of what we who worship Jesus have received in Christ. Before we knew Jesus as Lord, our identity was to “glory in our shame and to set our minds on earthly things” (Phil. 3:19). We were trapped in a life of “giving ourselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness” (Eph. 4:19). We had been born in Adam, our failed federal head, who had given us our slavery to sin. We carried the guilt of sin and wore the label of “sinner.” Our identity was a shameful identity, yet there seemed to be no escape. “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24). It seemed that the only out was our death.

“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death” (Romans 6:4a). “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” (Rom. 6:3). Since the only way out of our trap was to bring about our death so that we could rise again to “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4c), the Lord made our death possible through the gospel. “Now if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:5). The old things of sin and shame have passed away and, in the future, we have been promised an eternal glorified body with which to worship Jesus forever (Phil. 3:20-21; 1 John 3:2).

SUMMARY

One of the delights of carefully and thoughtfully reading the Old Testament is the discovery of these foretastes of the gospel sprinkled throughout. We have seen that in Deuteronomy 21:10-14, in this story about the law of marrying a beautiful captive, the gospel is displayed in the mercy that this woman received and also in her new identity with the privileged people of God.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 12/26/2023                 #686

Why does Paul not explain the form of baptism? (Rom. 6:4)

POST OVERVIEW. An examination of why the apostle Paul did not explain the proper form of baptism nor define the proper subjects of baptism. This article will be part of a future book on the subject of baptism.

FORM INSTRUCTED IN THE LORD’S SUPPER

In 1 Corinthains 11:23-34, Paul goes to considerable length to explain how the Lord’s Supper is to be done. He talks about the bread, that it is broken as a representation of Christ’s body broken for us (11:24). Then the apostle talks about the cup (“the fruit of the vine” in Luke 22:18), that it represents the new covenant in Christ’s blood which has been shed for us (11:25). We take these elements in remembrance of Christ. Then Paul teaches the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, this taking of the bread and the cup. “For as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (11:26) Thus, in this fellowship meal, God’s people proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. The point to notice, though, is that Paul is very careful to give instruction on the form of the Lord’s Supper. This must mean that the form is important and that there is one correct, God-given form to be followed. To do anything else and call it the Lord’s Supper would be unthinkable. Obviously, the form matters.

FORM EXPLAINED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT SACRIFICES

This precision of form was also a prominent part of the Old Testament sacrificial system. The instructions given to the priests for how the various sacrifices were to be done (Leviticus chapters 1-5) seem almost impossibly complicated. The burnt offerings, the peace offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings each had their own separate set of instructions, and the instructions within a particular offering (e.g., the sin offering) varied depending on what animal was being sacrificed. The procedures for the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16 were so critical that the priest who did not follow the instructions to the letter would die in the temple. Following the God-given form was literally a matter of life and death. Obviously, the form mattered.

NO FORM GIVEN FOR BAPTISM

It is, therefore, very curious that Paul, in Romans 6:3-4, in this foundational doctrinal text about the meaning of baptism and about how baptism relates to our salvation and relates to the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, does not give any instructions or guidelines for how baptism is to be done or about who the proper subjects of baptism are. Instead, Paul’s entire emphasis is on the meaning of baptism. Why is this so? Why no mention of form or subjects?

As we consider this question, we know that, if there had been confusion or controversy about the way baptism was done, or if some believers did baptism one way and other believers did baptism in an entirely different way, it would have been incumbent upon Paul, as an apostle and therefore as a final authority on baptism, to give authoritative instruction on this matter. But he doesn’t. In fact, there is not in this passage even a hint of explanation or discussion about these crucial questions of the prescribed form of baptism or the proper subjects of baptism. Remarkably, as we expand our search into the rest of the Pauline corpus and then into the entire New Testament, we search in vain for a single mention anywhere about these two questions. This would be a glaring oversight unless one of two things were true: either the form of baptism and the subjects for baptism (i.e., the people who were to be baptized) did not matter and was of no consequence, or there was universal agreement in all the churches “from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum” (Romans 15:19) on the answers to these two questions.

Exploring the first option, we ask ourselves, “Is it possible that the form of baptism and the qualifications of the people being baptized do not matter?” Maybe Peter baptized three thousand people on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) using one method of baptism but then used an entirely different means to baptize Cornelius and his friends in Acts 10. Maybe Paul, since he was going to the Gentiles, did something more “Gentile-oriented” when he baptized them. Maybe each apostle had his own form of “baptism” that he preferred and that he then taught to the people to whom he preached the gospel. Maybe Jesus had no particular form of baptism in mind when He commanded His church to make and baptize disciples until He returned at the end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20). Maybe.

Of course, this suggestion is beyond absurd. When the risen Lord Jesus Christ gave His Great Commission to His church, He commanded baptism of disciples. Our King thus explicitly declares the proper subjects of baptism (disciples), and it is certain that He also had a very specific form of baptism in mind. We can, therefore, reject the first option, that the form of baptism and the subjects of baptism do not matter. As with every other major component of our faith, there is an orthodox position that is given to us in the Scriptures and that we are obligated to obey. The form and the subject of baptism matters.

We are, therefore, led to conclude that there is no apostolic instruction about the form of baptism or about the proper subjects of baptism because there was universal agreement in all the churches, whether mainly Jewish or entirely Gentile, whether “barbarian, Scythian, slave or free” (Colossians 3:11), on the answers to these two questions. It is unnecessary to give instruction or correction when there is universal understanding and complete agreement. When the New Testament speaks about “baptize” or “baptism,” there was no ambiguity in anyone’s mind about what was being said. No one was asking for clarification or demanding that the author define their terms. There were no metaphorical quizzical expressions on people’s faces as they wondered what the writer or speaker meant. In the second half of the first century in any place that had been reached by the gospel, there was universal agreement on the form of baptism and on who got baptized. Believer and unbeliever alike understood that when a person believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and thus became a disciple of Jesus, the new disciple testified to their faith in Jesus by being publicly immersed under water and being raised to newness of life. No one was confused about that. That is the baptism that Jesus commanded, that was what the apostles taught and practiced as they established churches, and that was, therefore, what was universally understood and done. This explains why we have no scriptural instruction on the form of baptism.

A SUBMARINE LECTURE

Imagine we are visiting a classroom at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, where the instructor is giving a lecture on submarines to these Navy officer trainees. Would the trainer spend the first third of his lecture telling these men what a submarine was and where a submarine operated? Of course not. That would be beyond absurd. There is universal agreement among all the men in that classroom of the word “submarine” and there is universal knowledge about where a submarine operates. The trainer is not going to waste time telling these naval officer trainees things that he should assume to be common knowledge. No one at the Naval Academy is confused about submarines.

Why is this? First of all, the word “submarine” itself supplies a description of the object. “Sub” means underneath something or below something. Anyone who speaks English knows that. “Marine” is a word that has to do with water, specifically anything associated with the sea. Thus, just by the word itself, “submarine” must be something that is under the sea. So, if these cadets knew nothing else about these things called submarines, they could figure it out just by their knowledge of English.

But also, these men are future Navy officers. They have immersed themselves in all things Navy because this is part of their identity. They have seen submarines in movies and magazines and books. They watched “The Hunt for Red October” five times. They have probably been onboard submarines and may have already taken trips on these vessels. All of this makes basic definitions an unnecessary waste of time. This also means that if the instructor begins telling these men things that are true of battleships and aircraft carriers but that have nothing to do with submarines, there will be mutiny in the classroom. They will not be convinced that a battleship is a submarine simply because the instructor insists that it is so.

THE ANALOGY WITH BAPTISM

Using this submarine illustration as an analogy will help us understand more about why baptism was so well understood during the apostolic era. In that time, the common language of the Mediterranean world was koine Greek. This was the language used for the New Testament. So, if someone in Rome were reading the letter of Romans to the church, the reader would have encountered the Greek word βαπτίζω (baptizo). This is a common word in the New Testament which anyone who knew koine Greek would understand as meaning “immerse” or “submerge.” Thus when the listeners hear the reader telling about “baptized into Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:3), they hear “ ‘immersed’ into Christ” or “ ‘submerged’ into Christ.” Even if they had never seen a baptism or heard anything else about baptizing, just because they knew Greek, they would know that baptism had something to do with immersing or submerging someone. That’s just what the word means.

(NOTE: I plan to write a future article speculating about why the original translators of the Greek New Testament into English chose to transliterate βαπτίζω rather than translate it.)

But also, the people who were listening to the Bible being taught and who were listening to βαπτίζω being used in epistles and in sermons were also those who had seen baptisms done. They would have been exposed to the practice of Christian baptism. They had witnessed that, when any person became a disciple of Jesus, that person made their commitment public by confessing Christ before the gathered church and then being immersed under the water and raised up out of the water. Their old life was gone, their “old man” had died, and they rose out of the water to a new life in Christ. The apostles had done that, now the elders of the church did that, and it was expected that, when anyone came to faith in Jesus, they would be baptized. There was no ambiguity or confusion. That was baptism. The word βαπτίζω means immerse, so the new believer was immersed into Christ.

CONCLUSION. Since the immersing of the new believer in water before the gathered church is the God-given means for Christian baptism, I appeal to those who practice a non-biblical means to abandon their disobedience and follow Christ’s command.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 10/6/2023                   #674

Romans 6:3-4 – Paul teaches meaning and form of baptism.

POST OVERVIEW. This article is the first in a series of articles on Romans 6:1-14. This section of Scripture is packed with theological truths, and in this series, we hope to explore many of these doctrines and to understand what Paul is teaching in this powerful section of Scripture.

This first article is focused mostly on Romans 6:3-4 where Paul teaches about the meaning and the form of baptism.

3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 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. – Romans 6:3-4 (NASB)

As we move through the book of Romans, we must keep in mind that, as God’s chosen instrument (Acts 9:15-16), Paul the apostle is communicating divine truth. In other words, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul is teaching unchanging doctrine. And in Romans 6:3-4, it is clear that the doctrine in view is baptism. In these verses, the apostle Paul gives his clearest teaching on the meaning of baptism and, by implication, its form. So, what does the apostle teach about the form?

THEN. From the pages of the New Testament, it is clear that the apostle Paul knew only one form of baptism, and that was the form which was inaugurated by John the Baptist and received by the Lord Jesus in His own baptism (Matthew 3:16), the form that, upon profession of faith, immerses the subject in water and then raises them up out of the water. This was certainly the baptism that Paul himself received (Acts 9:18). The point here is that, to Paul’s original audience in Rome or to any other professing believer who lived at that time, the only known baptism was the immersing in water of the believer upon the believer’s profession of faith. That’s what the apostles taught and that’s what the apostles did, so that was baptism. This baptism was the common experience of all believers. There simply was no other baptism in existence.

NOW. And there is no reason that baptism should be different for us today. Baptism is still the immersing in water of the believer upon the believer’s profession of faith in Jesus. This is the apostolic, God-given form of Christian baptism and is therefore the only acceptable form. Any “baptism” that deviates from this is meaningless and man-made and is done, whether knowingly or ignorantly, in disobedience to the one God-given ordinance. Only this baptism illustrates the theological truths about salvation taught in Romans 6 and in the rest of the New Testament. Therefore, the form cannot be changed. Anything else is simply not baptism.

What, then, are the theological truths taught in Romans 6 that are so well illustrated by immersion into water and being raised from the water? Discovering these theological truths will be the subject of the next several posts as we explore Romans 6:1-7.

Soli Deo gloria            rmb                 9/25/2023                   #673