Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

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16 February 2010
Passage: Acts 2:22-47
Focus: “Brothers, what shall we do?”  Acts 2:37.

            “What shall we do?”  Good question.  For anyone hearing the Gospel, who observes the evidence of changed lives that declare “the wonders of God,” and who understand something of the consequences men face who reject this incredible gift of God, that remains an extremely important question.  No one can be truly non-responsive to the Gospel.
            Peter gives a good answer.  It’s just as pertinent today as it ever was.  “Repent and be baptized” (2:38).  Repentance means a decisive turning away from the natural and normal way of governing one’s life—membership in good standing with a “corrupt generation” (2:40).  It calls for subscribing to and submitting to a completely new way (paradigm shift) where God governs, where He becomes Lord of one’s goals, values, and behavior.  And as far as being baptized goes, I believe it is intended to be a public pronouncement of the same.  And in this regard, I judge that it is safer to focus on the meaning of baptism more than the act of baptism.  Prioritizing the act of baptism gives rise to all kinds of distorted forms of religious legalism (like Jewish circumcision).  There is no evidence that the act of baptism is going to change much of anything by itself—other than make one wet who was previously dry.  It is intended to be an outward (public) testimony of an inward change.  In fact, I judge that true baptism of the heart is virtually the same as repentance of the heart.  At least they go together.  In simple terms baptism means being made “dead to sin (dunked in the water that represents sin and death), and alive to God (lifted out of the water of sin and death to new life in Christ) through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:11).  The whole equation centers in Jesus Christ, His provision, and His Lordship.
            “What shall we do?…repent and be baptized.”  Just understand that the goal of this doing is being.  What you do does not determine who you are, but who you are determines what you do.  “Yet to all who received him (doing)…he gave the right to become (being) children of God…born of God” (Jn. 1:12-13).