Acts 22:16 — ‘Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.’
1 Peter 3:21 — Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
No matter what mode of baptism is used, the obvious visual picture presented is that of cleansing. Water is applied to the candidate and we are clearly to understand from passages like those above that the picture thus created is one of cleansing from sin. So by performing an outward cleansing from dirt by means of water, baptism does not save us but points to what is needed for us to be saved - an inner cleansing from sin.
It may be stating the obvious, but no-one spends time washing something that is already clean. Rather, the things that we wash are soiled or stained and we wish to make them clean. So the sign of baptism points clearly to a corruption and defilement of the heart and to a cleansing that is applied. The Scriptures consistently tell us that our sins make us all filthy before God - unacceptable in His sight and liable to His wrath:
Isaiah 64:6 — For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Psalm 51:4–5 — Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me. .
This uncleanness resides deep in all our hearts and cannot be cleaned away by our efforts. Many years ago, there was a printed poster in doctors' waiting rooms that sought to persuade people not to smoke. It showed someone with a scrubbing brush and soap, removing the yellow nicotine stains from their hands that were caused by smoking cigarettes. The text below the picture was large and clear: "You Can't Scrub Your Lungs Clean." Yet it would be an infinitely simpler thing to clean our lungs from the effects of tobacco than for us by our own devices to clean our hearts from the effects of sin.
Sin is vile, foul and repulsive in God's eyes. It is a stench in His nostrils. It is utter rottenness and corruption - an offense to His very being and character. He cannot bear even to look upon it - it provokes Him to act in justice against the sinner, and but for His patience and grace, we would all perish instantly and justly for our sins. If we are to see heaven, we must be made clean from sin, but this is something only God can do. How? Through the sacrifice of Christ:
Psalm 51:6–7 — Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom. 7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Isaiah 1:18 — “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.
Isaiah 43:25 — “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.
2 Corinthians 5:21 — He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus, God the Son, came to this world in our likeness. He lived a perfect life in our place (keeping all of God's Holy commandments, and establishing a righteousness that He could give us) and then He died on the cross in our place (receiving the punishment that our sins deserved). If we trust Him, His goodness and His spotless life are credited to us, and our sins are taken away by His sacrifice on the cross.
So baptism teaches us that we are vile, filthy sinners, but that there is a way (secured at incalculable cost to God) for our sins to be washed away - and that way is through the life and bloody death of Jesus Christ. What a rich theme to meditate upon concerning baptism! Surely this should encourage us to pause and glory in these truths!
The question for us today, though, is whether we have received in reality the thing that baptism proclaims to us as a sign - the complete cleansing of our sins through faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ.
