Ceremonial washings were found in both pagan and Jewish rites. What makes Christian baptism different?
Category: Salvation
When Paul met the disciples in Ephesus for the first time, he asked, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit?” Amazingly, these disciples of Jesus had never heard of the Holy Spirit. Paul then asked, “Into what were you baptized?” What does baptism have to do with having the Holy Spirit?
I’m a Kansas City Royals baseball fan which means I have watched a lot of bad baseball for the past 25 years. Like many of my fellow KC seam-heads, I thoroughly enjoyed their return to relevance in 2014-17. What made the Royals’ championship in 2015 especially satisfying was their emphasis on tried and true baseball principles — speed and defense — combined with exploiting a facet of the game undervalued by the market: an outstanding bullpen. The Royals reminded an industry dominated by saber-metrics that there are multiple ways to reach the same goal.
In the previous two posts we established that everyone has sinned. We also determined that our sin has significant consequences. It leads to spiritual death, and it causes us to be separated from God. The key is that by sinning we have entered into an inescapable situation. We cannot save ourselves! Some claim that a righteous deed will erase a bad deed. But that simply is not true. Isaiah 64:6-7 reads; “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
What are the consequences of Sin?
In the previous post we determined that Sin is a transgression of the Law and that everyone has committed sin. Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Except Jesus I Peter 2:21-25) In this post I would like to consider the consequences of Sin.
One of the unifying characteristics of human kind is sin. Paul said in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” It is this common failing that unifies us all in our need for salvation in Jesus. So, what is Sin?
In Jeremiah 18, God sends the prophet to a potter’s house. When Jeremiah arrived, the potter was at his wheel refashioning a ruined piece of clay into a useful vessel.
Some concepts in the Bible are difficult to understand. This one is not. Jesus told his disciples in John 14:15: “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” You believe in Jesus, you love him, so what’s next? Jesus makes it pretty simple – keep his commandments. In our relationship with the Lord he expects the same kind of love that we want in our human relationships. Love that lives. Love that grows. Love that works. Love so pure, so fervent, so focused that it moves us to keep the commandments of Christ. And if our earthly relationships are ample evidence, not all love is like this.
One of God’s most remarkable qualities is His power to foresee human events. In Isaiah 46:9-10, God says this power sets Him apart from all other gods:
Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure.’