In order to start with a clean slate, we have tried to put ourselves in the position of Cornelius the Centurion. Cornelius had every reason to put his hope and trust in all things Roman. He was, after all, a Centurion based in Caesarea, the Roman capital for the Judaea Province. There he commanded at least 100 Roman soldiers, and maybe many more.
Roman culture, Roman politics and Roman might permeated much of the known world. The sacrifices the Romans had made to their many gods resulted in many conquests, and indeed in world domination.
Despite having every reason to offer his sacrifices to Rome's pagan gods, somehow, somewhere along the way Cornelius came to believe in the one true God -- the Hebrew God. "He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly." Acts 10:2.
Cornelius knew that there was one true God -- although he did not know God's name. He was devout, prayed regularly and gave to the poor.
One thing Cornelius did not know before his encounter with an angel of God, however, was that he was not saved. He may not have even known that that he needed to be saved. And, he certainly did not know that his righteous living would never be enough to save himself. Can you imagine how excited Cornelius must have been first seeing the angel of God, and then being told that a man named Peter would bring him a message that would save him and his entire household?!! See Acts 11:14.
The message that Peter shared, of course, was that faith in Jesus was the only means of salvation. Sola fide: “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Acts 10:39-43.
We know that when Cornelius, his family and his friends heard the good news, even before Peter had finished speaking, they began "speaking in tongues and praising God." Acts 10:46. Indeed, it is this moment that convinced Peter, the other Jewish believers with him and later the brothers in Jerusalem that "God ha[d] granted even the Gentiles repentance into life." Acts 11:18.
Despite the fact that Cornelius and those with him believed and indeed were filled with the Holy Spirit, there was one more thing that Peter wanted to be done. Peter then "ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." Acts 10:48.
Again, trying to put ourselves in the position of Cornelius -- at this point knowing nothing but Christ and him crucified -- I think we need to ask ourselves a simple question -- why? If I have faith and the power of the Holy Spirit of God, why be immersed in water in the name of Jesus? To answer that question, we began where anyone would -- Genesis!
We all know the story of Adam and Eve, and how they disobeyed God by eating the fruit of the tree that gave them knowledge of good and evil. Sin had come into the world, and Adam and Eve -- along with every generation that would follow -- would live in that sinful state. Genesis 3-20. Indeed, it takes very little looking today to see the sin that continues to permeate all of humanity.
In the very next chapter of Genesis Cain kills his brother Abel -- and the killing has not stopped since. There are those today who would say that people are basically "good" -- but television, radio, the internet and the newspapers all tell us otherwise. There are those who would say we don't need a savior, or worse that we can save ourselves -- but the entire history of mankind cries out that this is a lie.
What we may have missed from the story of Adam and Eve was that there was another tree in the garden that God was equally concerned about. It was the tree of life. And so, after God punished Adam and Eve for their disobedience he banished them from the garden: And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:23-24.
God banished Adam and Eve from the garden not as a further punishment, but to save them. If they had eaten of the tree of life, it is true that they would have lived forever -- but they would have lived forever in sin. They would have lived forever separated from a Holy God. The problem, as we will see, is that in order to experience true life one needs to experience death. For Adam and Eve, only death could free them from the sin they had brought on themselves.
Think about Joshua and the Israelites as they entered into the promised land. Before entering into the land God ordered Joshua "to make flint knives and to circumcise the Israelites again." We don't need to ask why here, because the Bible tells us: Now this is why he did so: All those who came out of Egypt—all the men of military age—died in the wilderness on the way after leaving Egypt. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness during the journey from Egypt had not. The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord. For the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land he had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed. Joshua 5:4-8.
The sin that began with Adam and Eve accompanied the the Israelites out of Egypt and into the wilderness. They were freed from the bondage of Egypt, but not from the bondage of sin and disobedience. In this case, an entire generation had to die in order that a nation might live. It is a shadow of what was to come -- a shadow of the new life promised to each of us through Jesus. But, it is a shadow that also tells us that in order to experience new life we must also experience death. And, this is what baptism is all about.
For Cornelius, the gift of salvation was free. He heard the gospel preached, and he was moved by the Holy Spirit of God to speak in tongues and to praise God. Nothing was required on his part other than to listen with an open heart. The next step in the journey, however, would cost him everything. To experience new life he would have to share in Jesus' death.
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
Romans 6:1-10.
When we look at the church in America we see a divorce rate that is more or less in line with people of other faiths or no faith at all. If we look around the church in America all too often we see people who are mostly indistinguishable from their neighbors -- sharing in common the same aspirations, the same desires, the same interests ... the same idols and the same sin. The question that we need to ask is "why"?
My own belief is that for most people early on in the journey the train came off the track. Maybe we claimed faith in Jesus to honor the beliefs of our parents before us or because someone promised us that Jesus would give us a better life. Maybe the magnitude of what Jesus did for us never pierced us at a heart level -- maybe that reality never brought us to our knees. Maybe we never really believed that we brought nothing to the table and could not save ourselves.
Or, maybe we never understood that in order to experience true life in Jesus we also had to share in his death. It is the confusion that Nicodemus had. John 3. How could he, a teacher of Israel, not know that discovering new life meant experiencing death and rebirth?
When the brothers in Jerusalem heard what had happened to Cornelius and his household they praised God saying "So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life." Acts 11:18. To experience new life, we must repent of our old ways and begin the process of allowing God to put our old self to death. It is a new life in which we are more than conquerors of sin. It is a life of victory, of freedom, or joy and of grace! This is what baptism is all about.
Praise God that you are on this journey with us.
No comments:
Post a Comment