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Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today's preacher is Donald Gray Barnhouse, an evangelist of incredible intellect, extraordinary language skills, and a true expositor of the Scriptures. Today, Dr. Barnhouse presents a study on Mark, chapter one, verse nine, the baptism.
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Of Jesus, The first chapter of the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark is the gospel of action. In 11 short verses, he takes us through the birth of Christ, the ministry of John the Baptist, Jesus, temptation, and the call of the disciples, and is out in the midst of the work. But even though the truth is presented so succinctly, it is nevertheless packed with tremendous spiritual blessings. We read in verse nine. It was in those days that Jesus arrived from the Galilean village of Nazareth and was baptized by John in the Jordan. All at once, as he came away from the water, he saw the heavens split open and the Spirit coming down upon him as a dove. A voice came out of heaven saying, you are my dearly beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. First let us ask the question, why was Christ baptized? Certainly not for the same reasons that men are baptized today. Baptism was a figure of the remission of sins. It was for the remission of sin that John the Baptist was proclaiming the necessity of his baptism, and Christ had no sin, and therefore he needed no baptism. Now, the meaning of why Christ was baptized has been obscured by those who teach that baptism is nothing more than the death, burial and resurrection of the believer with Christ. The true meaning, the spiritual meaning of baptize goes far beyond a method of water, far beyond the setting forth of a rite. The true meaning of baptism is the identification of the believer with Christ. In fact, the word itself has a much older meaning than to immerse, which is, of course, as everyone knows, its common meaning. But you can possibly think that a thousand years from now there might be people in America who never knew that bottles were made out of glass. And if they heard of a bottleneck, they might think it belonged only to traffic jams or places where construction was fouled up in a factory. And someone would have to teach them. Well, way back in those primitive days of the earliest 20th century, before they made all containers out of wax, paper or plastic, they used to use glass, of all things, and they had bottles in them, and their necks were narrow and the liquid gurgled out of it. And so they took that idea of a narrow place and applied it to a narrow place in the road. And so, way back in those primitive days, bottlenecks were in bottles. Well, 500 years before Christ, there was no immersion. But Everybody used the word baptized, and they used it for something else. They used it for the process of turning a piece of pink cloth into blue cloth or yellow cloth into black cloth. It was the process of dyeing, cleaning and dyeing. And the Baptist was the dyer. And John the Baptist would have been called John the dyer. Undoubtedly in Athens, 500 years before Christ, you would probably see Theophilus the Baptist. And it meant someone who would take your cloth in and change its identity. And there, of course, is the great spiritual meaning which has been obscured by the warfare that has taken place over the centuries on whether the water should be applied to the person or the person should be put into the water. As far as I am concerned, the methods of baptism do not count for anything. There have been denominations that have been founded on immersing people. There are in Pennsylvania, among the Pennsylvania Dutch, denominations that split over whether they should be baptized three times face forward or three times head backwards. It seems utterly absurd and ridiculous that people would do such things. But man is addicted to splitting hairs on unimportant things in a way that can give glory to his mentality. But let us go aside, and I am not discussing the mode or the method of immersion or sprinkling or pouring. These things are relatively unimportant. There was an identification, and our identification in baptism is our identification into the whole of the work of Jesus Christ. But Christ's baptism was an identification with humanity. The Lord Jesus Christ was becoming flesh for us. John came and began to baptize men in the desert, proclaiming baptism as the mark of a complete change of heart and of the forgiveness of sins. That's the way Phillips translates this verse in his 4 repentance for the Remission of Sins. John was proclaiming baptism as the mark of a complete change of heart and of the forgiveness of sins. Now, of course, this could never have been applied to Christ. This verse 9 cannot be understood apart from Galatians 4:4, where we read, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law that he might redeem them that were under the law, a Jew would have understood the choosing of a lamb. When John the Baptist ultimately looked around and said, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. This was as common to the Jews. The language of choosing a lamb was as well known to them as the language of baseball is known in the United States in World Series week. For, you see, commonly every year, every family had to take a lamb. They had to examine it and Identify it as the Passover lamb. If it had the mark of a broken leg or a scratch on its ear, a torn place on the flesh, a ren or a deformity, it was put aside until they got a lamb that was without spot or blemish. They took it into the house for three days, looked it over again, and then killed it. And when John the Baptist came, he knew that he was to pick out the lamb. He said, there cometh after me one who was before me, whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. And he must have looked at many a man a second time. Is. Could that be he? Is that he some noble Pharisee, magnificent in his physical appearance. But then suddenly he strikes at a child. Get out of my way. And John turns away. That cannot be the Lamb. There's a flaw there. There is sin. There is the mark of sin. But suddenly, under this eternal urge from the Holy Spirit who was upon him, John had the eyes of his spirit open. And he saw Jesus Christ. And he said, behold the Lamb of God. And he identified him as the one who was to come. And Jesus said, suffer me to be identified. John said, I have need to be identified by you. Why then should I identify you? And Jesus said, suffer it to be so, for thus it behooveth me to fulfil all righteousness. And thus the Lord Jesus was baptized, identified. Now, may I say to our dear Baptist friends, we're delighted to have you here, but permit me to be a Presbyterian once in a while. I don't think there's any doubt of the fact that the Jordan had a very high bank. And that Jesus went down into the water. And that when he came up. The English says he came up out of the water. But the Greek word is apo, not ek. In Matthew, where we read it, he came away from the water. Quite a different word would have been used if he had gone under the water. And what happened, I am convinced, was that John reached down into the waters of the Jordan and poured some water upon his head. But it's unimportant. The point, spiritual point, that is involved is that thus he was being identified as the Lamb. This is the Lamb. The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Now, just as a Jew picking a lamb out of a flock could tell perhaps that there was no scratch in the skin, no wen. No broken bone, but could not tell if there was some tumor or something wrong within. So John could point to Jesus and say, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin. Of the world, but he could not see within. So at the very moment that the Lord Jesus came away from the water, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove upon him and said, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. What a wonderful, wonderful word it was. For this was the very voice of God speaking so that men could hear. John had identified Christ as the Lamb, but that was an identification that was exterior. And now God looks upon the heart and speaks from heaven and says, yes, this is my lamb, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. I want you to notice that the wording of it in Mark is a statement made by God to Jesus. Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. It was the Father talking to the Son. You know, the heart of God is wonderful. And as we study the word of God about the thought of God, the heart of God, the love of God, you can see the delight that God has with Jesus Christ. Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. In John 3:35, we read, the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand. The Father loveth the Son. Now here then, is in this phrase, thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. There is, first of all, the guarantee of the person of Christ. Who is Jesus? Well, he's Jehovah, God. God could never thus speak of any other person until men come through redemption. We know that modernists have taken the Bible and attempted to tear it apart. And always their attack has been against Jesus Christ. Sometimes they come and say, is the doctrine of the virgin birth important? If Jesus were not born without a human father, then he had a nature of lust and deceit, as you and I have. But the minute that we know that God Almighty begot him without a human father, that he came into this world, the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, then we can listen to God say, thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice from heaven gives us first then the guarantee of the person of Jesus Christ. And secondly, this statement out of heaven expresses to us the solidarity of the Father with the Son. In all of the purposes of the incarnation. Jesus Christ did not go out of the Father's house on his own. It's possible for a son to leave his Father's house and to take the car and drive off and to do something alien to the thought of a Father. But when the Lord Jesus Christ left heaven, he was followed by the Father. And at the very outset of his work, the voice of God speaks and and says, what is happening here on earth? I am back of it. What the Savior is about to do, I am doing it. He will announce, the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost. This pleases me. He is about to say, the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. This pleases me. I am well pleased with what my son is doing. It will be said of him, there is one mediator between God and man. The man, Christ Jesus. This pleases me, says Dot. I will never hear the prayer of any other. He was to go to the cross and become the substitute. This pleases me, says God the Father. He was to offer his life as the surety of the New Covenant, as the guarantee of our acceptance with the Father. This pleases me, says the Father. You need never be concerned whatsoever about the stability of your faith. There may be a moment when you say, well, am I really saved? Listen to the voice saying to Jesus, thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And in that moment you can be calm and filled with joy. In Liverpool about a hundred years ago, there was a bishop in the Church of England, Bishop Rylee, who wrote this sentence about the word spoken at the time the dove came upon Christ. There is a rich mine of comfort in these words for all of Christ's believing members, in themselves and in their own doings, they see nothing to please God. And surely that is true. We find in ourselves nothing that can please God. They are daily sensible of weakness, shortcoming and imperfection in all their ways. But let them recollect that the Father regards them as members of his beloved Son, Jesus Christ. He sees no spot in them. He beholds us as in Christ, clothed in his righteousness, invested with his merit, accepted in the Beloved. And the holy eye of God looks upon us as he looks upon Christ. He is well pleased. The Spirit of God came and abode upon Jesus. And the voice of the Lord said, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. It's necessary to bring into our study at this point something that happened three years later. For three years later the Lord Jesus was taken up on the mount of Transfiguration. And Moses and Elijah stood by him. And once more there came the voice out of heaven. And with these same words, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And he adds, hear ye him, how wonderful this is. Now in the taking of a lamb into the Jewish house, as I pointed out the man could find out that the lamb was without any exterior spot or blemish, but could not know what there might be of malignancy within. And at the end of three days, some sore might have developed upon the lamb that they had in the house. But with the Lord Jesus Christ, who was identified by the Father at the beginning. At the end of the three days he identifies him once more before Jesus, the Lamb is taken out of the house of Israel to be put to death for our sins. In those three years the Lord Jesus had walked with men. The Lord didn't live in fundamentalist circles far away from the world. If Jesus had been in Philadelphia today, you'd have found him down in the beer halls and around the saloons, sitting down with publicans and harlots. Places where some of you people have never been once in your whole life. And yet it is the firm testimony of the word of God that Jesus commonly associated with the men and women that were the outcasts of the warrant. The false respectability that we have gathered around the practice of Christian is totally alien. I say the false respectability is totally alien to our position as being in Christ. He left heaven to become a man and to live among men. And I believe more and more that it is necessary for us to realize that we must the Word become flesh, dwelling among people of great need and seeing that need, and there ministering Christ in the Word, but not of it, not among them as oh, dear me, you shouldn't do that, but for you wouldn't last long if you went in such places with such an attitude. But the Lord Jesus Christ moved among men with a readiness and an ease that made them know that certainly here was someone who was not of them, but. But that here was someone who loved them. For there is the heart of the whole thing. The love of Christ toward them was manifest. And that was why men and women were drawn to him as our eyes are drawn to the sun when it rises in the morning. The love of Christ that passeth knowledge, this was the thing that pleased God. For God's very name and nature is love. God is love, we read in the Epistle. And he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. God is love. And when Jesus came, the Son of God's love, it was God so loved the world. And thus when he came, God the Father says, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Now the pouring out of love pleases God the Father. I believe we must be practical in all of this matter. As Christians, that if we take our faith and live apart from the world in some ivory tower, if we live as though the alien world could go on its merry way to hell, and that we would have none of it but hold ourselves aloof, we have not understood that in the heart of Christ which caused him to come and be baptized and identified with men. I think that too long we have failed to understand the significance of the baptism of Jesus Christ as heaven become earth for us without becoming earthy of heaven, walking with man and living with man. And that we are to become one with the world round about us, not one in its aims and not one in its methods, but one with it in love, ready to touch its infirmities, ready to meet with its needs, ready so to live that men would recognize at every moment that we possess that which they so, so need. There's a hymn that I remember having heard when I was but a boy. I don't think it's in any of our hymn books that we have around the church here, but it was a hymn that was sung a great deal many years ago. Do you know the world is dying For a little bit of love Everywhere you hear them sighing For a little bit of love for the love that rights the wrong for the love that brings a song they have waited oh, so long For a little bit of love now that love cannot be brought to the world round about us if we're not willing to be baptized into the world as Jesus was baptized into the world, to be identified with it, to grow our lives rooted in Christ but living, O Spirit, living in the midst of the world that is alien to him. Years ago, I was preaching up in Canada And a man, Mr. A.J. stuart, who is in connection with Christian work up there, and a wonderful old Scotsman said to me, you know, I have a story that I think you may use sometime. He said, we moved into a new house in North Toronto. And he said before we even had the blinds up the first morning we were there, I went into the bathroom to shave, and I looked out of the window into a lawn that was covered with weeds 2 or 3ft high, and everything needed to be done. But there in the midst of that, I saw a beautiful rose scarlet in the midst of all the weeds. And he said, I went down and made my way out into the place and looked for it and I couldn't see it. So I went back upstairs and. And got the angle and saw that it was 10ft from here and 8ft from there. And by triangulation, I went into the spot and found the rose. And then he says, as I pulled it out, I saw it had a long stem. And I went to get the stem. And the stem was longer and longer. And finally I discovered that the roof was about 8ft away across the property line in the beautifully tended garden of my neighbor. And there was the roots. But the rose had grown out in the midst of the weeds and was blooming beautifully there in the midst of all the tangled skein of that garden. And there is indeed the perfect picture of the way God wants us to be baptized. In the baptism of John the Baptist, as well as in our identification with Jesus Christ. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us Heaven's scarlet rose blooming in the midst of the weeds of our lives. And thus it is that you and I must go and take Christ out to the world that is round about us. The day is going to come when we stand before Christ. And I know beyond any question that the thing that will be of most moment to us at that time, that he will be able to point to us in the presence of the Father and say, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. For the Lord Jesus will do that. He says that he will say, well done, thou good and faithful servant, Enter into the joy of thy Lord. But he goes on beyond the realm of servant and says, henceforth, I have called you servants. Now I call you friends. Now I call you sons. And it is this identification of the Lord with man in all his need that must set the tone of our life. Peter says he has left us this example that we should follow his steps. This week I happened to be in Toronto. And I had the chance this week myself to be a good Samaritan in peculiar circumstances that gave me an insight into the tremendous loneliness that is in the heart of people who dwell in the city. I went into the subway to go back to my hotel. And as I walked down a staircase, it was parallel with an escalator coming up. And as I was going down, there was a cry. And a man fell in the escalator. And people looked and I happened to be tall. So I was able to put myself over the partition and to catch the man. And the escalator kept on going up. And I had to walk up the whole escalator carrying him till we got to the top. And then the thing that amazed me was the rapidity with which the crowd looked and walked its other way. Everybody was hurrying to go where they had to go. I don't know what important Things there were that was taking all that crowd of people, many of whom had stood and seen him. And many of whom stood for a moment while the attendants went to get the ambulance and so on. But as I talked to the man, whose name is. I know, but is useless to my illustration here. As I talked to the man, I saw that he was undoubtedly a man who had had the distinguished past. He was a man of character in his face of distinction. And he introduced himself to me as doctor. And he gave me an address that I knew to be in a poor, poor part of the city. He had a neat suit on, but threadbare. He was carrying a sample case of medical instruments. And he said, the university has. Has given me this little job to go and sell these things to the doctors. He said, I was 32 years in my own office with my own practice. He said, but I cannot operate anymore. There was the tremble in his hand. And I said to him, do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? And tears came to his eyes. And, oh, you could tell at once that you touched the heart of his great need. And while we were waiting for the ambulance, he stood there and he cried. And he said. I said, you know, I detect that you have been drinking a little. Oh, I know, he said, but I'm so lonely. I'm so lonely. He said, you know, my wife is dead. And I had two sons. And they were both killed for Canada during the war. And he said, I'm all alone. And as we saw this man and he went on to the ambulance, I couldn't help thinking of the lonely hearts in Philadelphia. I don't think there's any doubt of the fact that there are probably 50 or 100,000 people that are as desperately lonely as that in the boarding houses of our city today. I don't think there's any doubt that out over the city that there are tens and tens of thousands of people who would expand like a flower after the rain. If you could only come to them with some knowledge of the fact that they are loved and that Jesus Christ died for them. Now, this is the meaning of the baptism of Jesus Christ. He was not baptized for the remission of sins. He had no sin. But he said, father, I'm going down there and be identified as a human being. And John said, oh, no. I have need. No, says Jesus, suffer it to be so, for thus it becometh me to fulfill all righteousness. And the Father said, that's my boy. I love him. That's what God the Father said of Jesus Christ in Him. I am well pleased. He's gone down there to meet the need of the world. To meet the loneliness of the world. To bring love to the lovelorn. To bring calm to the frustrated. To bring peace to those who are in such desperation in the midst of the world. And he has no other method of doing it today except through you and through me. He left no other method of carrying it on. Except that he might project Himself through you. And when he called you to Himself and when he asked you to come. And when you are identified, baptized, the right is so unimportant. But when you are identified with Christ, then you stand as little Christs out in the midst of the world. In your school, in your office, in your store, in your shop, in your factory, in your apartment house, in your neighborhood, over the back fence, at the supermarket. As you're talking, in the trolley, as you come in contact with people wherever they are. I am so sure that if your heart is overflowing with that utmost love for Christ, he will open the way whereby you can speak the Word. You don't have to go around with a sandwich board saying, brother, are you prepared to die? But if you go around with the love of Christ in your heart, baptized into that love, identified with Jesus Christ in what he came to do, I tell you what happens. All of a sudden somebody becomes aware that you have something that they do not have. And they say just a little bit of a word. Because people are so sensitive. They're not going to put their heart out on a sleeve. But they say just a little thing. And if you're sensitive, you can say just the word that will cause the next petals of the flower to open up. And before long you have the word of the Gospel which can come like rain upon them. And they will understand that God is speaking to them through you. And then, as the Father said, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. You will know I am in Christ. And with me God is well pleased. And he can never be otherwise. Because he does not look upon me according to my sin. But he looks upon me because I have been accepted in the beloved. Let us pray.
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You've been listening to Dr. Donald Gray, Barnhouse. Listen to Faith of Our Fathers each Saturday and Sunday to hear more great 20th century preachers.