Title: 13
Author: Joe G
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Company: GDC

BAPTISM: Controversies & Schisms	05-06-22-A.SBC05-03 /

Resolving the Controversy: Verse Must Be Taken Prima Facie; Jews Are Saved in v. 37, They Rebound in v. 38; Baptisms of John & Jesus

IV.	Resolving the Controversy
		1.	It is important to understand the biblical meaning of the words “repent” and “forgiveness” in Acts 2:38.
		2.	“Repent” is the translation of metanošw (metanoeō).  The prefix meta- denotes a change of condition or disposition while the verb noeō means “to perceive, to apprehend, or to gain insight.”
		3.	Thus metanoeō means to change one’s perception regarding a state of mind.  This concept can be applied in several ways, for example: (1) at salvation: one changes his perception of Jesus from that of an historical figure to personal Savior; (2) post-salvation: one changes the perception of his lifestyle from acceptable behavior to unacceptable sins, this motivates Ðmologšw (homologeō) or rebound: confession alone to God alone; and (3) filled with the Holy Spirit: if one changes his perception of right and wrong through spiritual growth it brings his thinking into line with divine viewpoint.
		4.	In Peter’s response to the Jews in Acts 2:38 his first word is metanoeō which can refer to the change of mental attitude with reference to Christ as Savior or, for believers, with reference to personal sins.
		5.	The word “forgiveness,” is the noun ¥fesij (aphesis) and can refer to pre-salvation sins being forgiven at salvation or post-salvation sins being forgiven at rebound.
		6.	The situation in Acts 2:38 is complex in that the words used have various applications dependent upon the context in which they are used.  It is the resolution of this that will lead us to an accurate translation that maintains the harmony within Scripture with regard to all these subjects.
		7.	To sort this out we must first accept the verse prima facie: repentance and baptism are necessary for the forgiveness of sins and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit—in this context.
Acts 2:38 -		And Peter said to them, “All of you repent, and let each one of you all be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of the sins of all of you; and all of you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
		8.	The context finds Peter on the day of Pentecost, which is the birthday of the Church Age, addressing Jews: “men of Israel” (Acts 2:22).
		9.	His commands to repent and be baptized in verse 38 have nothing to do with salvation, justification, regeneration, or information about how to avoid eternal damnation.
		10.	Peter has the keys to the Church, and these initial converts of the Church Age (and a second group we will note later) did not receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit unless Peter granted it to them.
		11.	In Peter’s address to these Jews we find his recitation of the Gospel beginning in:
Acts 2:22 -		“Men of Israel, listen to these words.  Jesus of Nazareth [ emphasizing the humanity of Christ ], a Man exhibited to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—
v. 23 -	this Man, being delivered up by the decreed plan of God and His foreknowledge, you nailed to the cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
v. 24 -	 “God raised Him up, having put and end to the birth pangs of death, since it was impossible that He should be held under its authority.”
Acts 2:32 -		“This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.
v. 33 -	Therefore, having been seated at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear [ the events described in Acts 2:1-13 ].”
v. 36 -	“Therefore, let all the house of Israel know with confidence that God has made this Jesus, Whom you have crucified [ see verse 23 ], both Lord and Christ [ Messiah ].”
		12.	This presentation by Peter resulted in the Holy Spirit successfully convicting the souls of these Jews so that having realized they were complicit in the execution of Jesus they were simultaneously struck with guilt and responded positively to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah/Christ.
		13.	Their question to Peter was based on a desire to know what to do next, having believed in Christ:
Acts 2:37 -		Now when they heard this [ verses 22-36 ] they were pierced [ katanÚssw, katanussō ] in their hearts [ kard…a, kardia ] and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”
		14.	The word katanussō is a compound of kata- which intensifies the verb nussō which means “to stab” or “to pierce.”  The verb nussō is found in John 19:34 to describe the Roman soldier at the cross piercing the Lord’s side with his spear. 
John 19:34 -	One of the soldiers pierced [ nÚssw, nussō ] His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.
			Both katanussō in Acts 2:37 and nussō in John 19:34 are hapax legomina (¤pax legÒmenon): they are each used only once in the corpus of the New Testament.
		15.	Consequently we see a correlation between the two.  The thrust of the soldier’s spear pierced the Lord’s physical heart out from which flowed blood and water and revealed that he was physically dead.
		16.	The realization by the Jews that they had a complicit hand on that spear whose point pierced the Lord’s physical heart caused them to be “pierced” in their hearts: kardia, the stream of consciousness of the soul.
		17.	The word katanussō is used here metaphorically to describe the pain connected with the realization of guilt accompanied by remorse.  Where on the one hand the Lord’s “physical heart” was pierced, on the other hand these Jews’ “steams of consciousness” were convicted of wrongdoing.
		18.	Peter’s final statement, “God has made this Jesus, Whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ,” caused the Jews to respond with the question, “Brethren, what shall we do?”
		19.	It is from their question that we are able to conclude that these men are now saved—in verse 37!  Two resources support this:
Longenecker, Richard N.  “The Acts of the Apostles.”  In The Expositor’s Bible Commentary.  Frank E. Gaebelein, Gen. Ed.  (Grand Rapids: Regency Reference Library, 1981), 9:282:
Acts 2:37.  [Katanussō] connotes a sharp pain associated with anxiety and remorse.  The way the men address the apostles, “Brothers,” shows that their hearts had already been won over. 
Hodges, Zane C.  The Gospel under Siege: A Study on Faith and Works.  (Dallas: Redención Viva, 1981), 101:
This text [Acts 2:38] seems clearly to say that the hearers must be baptized to get their sins forgiven and then, but only then, will they be given the gift of the Holy Spirit.  An effort is sometimes made to avoid this conclusion by rendering the word “for” (Greek, eis) as “because of,” but this procedure lacks adequate linguistic substantiation.
What the text does not say is how the hearers were “regenerated” and “justified.”  But the Pauline and Johannine answers to this question are the only Biblical ones that can be given: they were justified and regenerated by faith.  There is nothing in Acts 2:38 to contradict this!
On the contrary, Peter concludes his address with the assertion that “God has made this Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (2:36).  His hearers then reply, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (2:37).  But such a reaction presumes their acceptance of Peter’s claim that they have crucified the One who is Lord and Christ.  If this is what they now believed, then they were already regenerate on Johannine terms, since John wrote: “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1; cf. John 20:31)
It seems plain that in Peter’s audience there are many who accept the claims of Christ.  But they are enormously convicted of their guilt in the crucifixion and ask what they need to do now.  Acts 2:38 is the answer.
20.	It must be remembered that when one is saved he is immediately justified before the Supreme Court of Heaven.  Justification is the judicial verdict based on the imputation of divine righteousness to the believer.
21.	Since these Jews responded positively to Peter’s revelation that Jesus is both Lord and Christ then what happens next must be considered unique to this specific generation of Jews.
22.	This generation is exhorted by Peter in Acts 2:40, “Be saved from this perverse generation.”  The word “perverse” is the adjective from skoliÒj, skolios, which literally means “crookedness of a bodily part.”  It is the word from which we get the English medical term “scoliosis” for the lateral curvature of the spine.
23.	In verse 40, Peter uses it metaphorically to describe the mental attitude of the present generation of Jews: crooked in the sense of being unscrupulous, dishonest, unjust, wicked, or perverse.
24.	Perverse is the best word to describe their disposition: these Jews have turned away from what is right, they have been obstinate in doing so, and as a result they are corrupt.
25.	For these Jews forgiveness—not salvation— is based on two factors: (1) repentance and (2) water baptism, both related to the baptism of John the Baptist.
26.	Therefore, Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 and the response to it by the Jews in his audience require a system by which they can be transitioned from the dispensation of the Incarnation and John’s offer of the Kingdom to the dispensation of the Church and the offer of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

V.	The Baptisms of John & Jesus
		1.	First of all the word “to baptize” is the Greek verb bapt…zw, baptizō and means literally “to dip.”  Homer in his Odyssey (Book 9) used baptizō to describe the blacksmith’s act of dipping hot iron into water to cool it.
		2.	By dipping the iron into the water the hot metal is identified with the water.  The first thing, the hot iron, is identified with the second thing, cool water, thus changing the first thing, the iron which is no longer hot.
		3.	In the dispensation of Israel the High Priest before entering the Holy Place of the Tabernacle and later the Temple stopped at the brazen laver and washed his hands and his feet.
		4.	This was a picture of rebound or confession of sins in order to insure fellowship with God before entering into His abode.
		5.	The act of washing or cleansing at the brass laver was an act of baptizing.  It recognized that forgiveness of sins was associated with being identified with the water of cleansing provided to the believer.
		6.	In the Church Age this cleansing water is the water of the Word through which we are able to identify our own sins, confess them to God, and resume our fellowship with Him.
		7.	The mission of John the Baptist was to announce the arrival of the Messiah and His kingdom.  Those who believed in Messiah were to prepare themselves for fellowship with the Messiah which required them to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.
		8.	They were among the “perverse generation” which would become guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus.  For this generation—and this generation alone—forgiveness was linked to repentance and baptism.
		9.	Remember that the kingdom which John was commissioned to introduce made reference to the Millennium since he was ignorant of the Church Age.  His mission was “to prepare the way of the Lord.”
		10.	This preparation involved taking those in Judaism and cleansing them for service in what he perceived was an earthly kingdom that was soon to be administered by the arrival of the Messiah:
Matthew 3:1 -	Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying,
v. 2 -		“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
v. 5 -		Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan;
v. 6 -		and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.
v. 7 -		But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
v. 11 -	“As for me, I baptize with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
		11.	John knew the Messiah’s appearance was imminent and his baptism was designed to prepare those who believed in Messiah to enter His kingdom.
		12.	Repentance in this context refers to salvation and as they confessed their sins John baptized them in the waters of the Jordan at the very site Joshua and the second generation entered into Canaan, the central geographic location of the kingdom.
		13.	But John’s baptism was also designed to identify the Messiah Who would set up this kingdom, a Man John was told to expect but whose identity he did not know.
		14.	John was instructed to baptize the repentant of Israel until One came to him Who had no need for baptism.
Matthew 3:13 -	Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him.
v. 14 -	But John tried to prevent Him saying, “I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?”
v. 15 -	But Jesus answering said to Him, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  Then John permits Him.
v. 16 -	And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him,
v. 17 -	and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
		15.	The baptism of Jesus was a confirmation that He was Messiah.  Going under the water identified the Lord with the sins of the world for which He would be judged through substitutionary spiritual death on the cross.  Coming up out from the water symbolized His resurrection.
		16.	The dove is the sign of the Holy Spirit which points to Jesus as Messiah.  At this point John knew the true identity of his first cousin, Jesus.
		17.	Since Jesus had no need to be baptized because of His impeccability the ritual announced His submission to the Father’s plan to become our substitutionary sacrifice.
		18.	John elaborates further in his Gospel:
John 1:31 -		“And I did not recognize Him [ as the Messiah ], but in order that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water.”
v. 32 -	And John bore witness saying, “I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.
v. 33 -	“And I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’
John 1:34 -	“And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
		19.	Thus, John’s baptism was designed to prepare believing Jews for the kingdom while the Lord’s baptism was intended to introduce Him to these repentant Jews as their Messiah
		20.	Further, the Lord’s baptism was designed to publicly demonstrate His commitment to the Father’s plan for salvation.
		21.	Notice that immersion into the water symbolized his substitutionary death on the cross while his emersion out from the water was an illustration of His resurrection.
		22.	The implication is that the cross must come before the crown.

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