Skip to content

Christian Baptism

Acts 2:38-41 Pre-membership Class

Pastor Albert N. Martin delivers the fifth message in Trinity Baptist Church's pre-membership class, focusing on Christian baptism. He expounds on Acts 2:38-41, Romans 6:3-4, Colossians 2:11-12, and 1 Peter 3:20-21 to explain that baptism is a symbolic ordinance signifying a believer's union with Christ in His death and resurrection, and a declaratory ordinance where the baptized person publicly confesses faith. Martin argues that only converted adults who have attained to 'majority' should be baptized, based on the New Testament's apostolic pattern of baptizing 'men and women' who have believed, and not minor children.

2 illustrations in this sermon

Baptism as Immersion in Water
compare analogy

Shower vs. Bath for Baptism Mode

Driving home: The difference between sprinkling and baptism is simply the difference between a shower and a bath. Sprinkling, that's a shower. The baptism, that's a bath.

Martin uses the analogy of a shower (sprinkling) versus a bath (immersion) to explain the difference in the mode of washing, arguing that the Greek word for baptism (baptizo) implies immersion, like taking a bath.

It is an institution, it is an ordinance involving washing. Now, there are two ways to wash. Is it not so? You can either take a shower, or you could take a bath.

10:11 - 10:29 Read in full sermon
Pastoral Application of Adult Baptism
compare analogy

15-Year-Old Joining the Marines

The point: It is not doing your children a disservice to wait according to the apostolic pattern until they come of age before they're brought into church membership.

Pastor Martin uses the analogy of a loyal 15-year-old wanting to join the Marines but being told to wait until he's older. This illustrates that waiting for a child to reach adulthood before baptism is not a disservice but a favor, aligning with the apostolic pattern.

But a minor child should not be brought into the rigors of public confession of faith and baptism and membership and discipleship. Not until they come of age and they can speak for themselves and then they can make a public declaration of their faith and be baptized and join the church. I remember to this day illustration that Pastor Martin used when these things were mentioned in the Sunday school class. He talked about a young man in a time of war who was loyal to his country and wanted to go out and join the Marines but he was 15 years old.

50:29 - 50:59 Read in full sermon
headphones Listen to full sermon