Redemption Part 8: Water Baptism, Buried With Christ and Raised to Newness of Life

Redemption Part 8 teaches that water baptism is far more than an outward expression of an inward experience. The pastor shows from Romans 6 and Colossians 2 that in baptism believers are identified with Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, and then uses two Old Testament pictures, Noah’s ark and Israel crossing the Red Sea, to explain how the blood saves us while the water delivers us from the world. It closes the series that continued from Redemption Part 7: Redeemed from the Curse of the Law and Free from Condemnation.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary, a side-by-side look at the two Old Testament pictures of baptism, every Scripture he uses (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline and practical steps for anyone preparing to be baptized.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was posted by NTC Ministries on June 11, 2024, a couple of weeks before a church water baptism and picnic. The pastor explains that many evangelicals define baptism as only an outward expression of an inward experience, and that this definition falls far short. His goal is to give enough Scripture for a right understanding of how gravely important baptism is.

He moves from the Great Commission in Mark 16 into Romans 6, then Colossians 2, the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, and two Old Testament pictures from 1 Peter 3 and 1 Corinthians 10. He ends with the baptism of Jesus, practical answers about the upcoming baptism service, and communion.

He Who Believes and Is Baptized

The pastor begins after the resurrection. He teaches that Jesus first went and purified heaven with His own blood, then walked the earth forty days doing miracles before giving His final charge.

That charge is Mark 16:15–16: go into all the world and preach the gospel; he who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. The pastor asks the church to make a mental note of the words believes and is baptized.

In this sermon on water baptism, the word saved, he explains, carries the ideas of being delivered, protected and even healed. If baptism were not important, Jesus would simply have said that believing is good enough. Instead He tied the complete experience of salvation to believing and being baptized, and that is what this Redemption Part 8 message sets out to explain.

He notes how often Paul writes do you not know, and observes that many Christians simply do not know what happened to them in water baptism.

Buried With Him Into Death

Romans 6:3–4 says that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death, buried with Him through baptism, so that just as Christ was raised by the glory of the Father, we also should walk in newness of life. The pastor puts it simply: when He died, I died; when He was buried, I was buried; when He rose, I rose.

Verse 5 adds that if we have been united in the likeness of His death, we shall certainly be in the likeness of His resurrection (Romans 6:5). That resurrection life, newness of life, is not only for one day in the future; it is for now.

The pastor tells of meeting lifelong churchgoers gripped by fear of death. That, he says, is not what salvation looks like. Someone walking in newness of life knows that death only leads to something better, which is why Paul could say that to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21).

Then come verses 6 and 7: our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he who has died has been freed from sin (Romans 6:6–7). That is why, he says, calling yourself just a saved sinner is impossible. It is like calling yourself an honest thief. A person does not have two natures; when we become alive to God, we receive the nature of His life.

Spirit, Soul and Body: How Redemption Works

The reason so many Christians are confused, the pastor explains, is that they do not realize they are three-part beings. You are a spirit, you have a soul made up of mind, will and emotions, and you live in a body. He calls the body a suitcase, or an earth suit, like the space suit an astronaut needs for an environment the body was not made for.

The body is the least of who we are, and God will redeem it last. The spirit, the most important part, was redeemed the moment you gave your life to Jesus. You are not God, but you are like Him, in His image and likeness, the righteousness of God.

The soul is where we apply ourselves, letting redemption change how we think. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7). Changing the way you think is repentance. Every man in the Northwoods, he says, has thought he had better not go farther down an old road, kept going anyway and needed a four-wheeler to pull him out. He had the thought but did not apply it.

Applying God’s way of thinking is what lets the spirit man flow out of you like the rivers of living water Jesus promised. To be carnally minded is death, while to be spiritually minded is life and peace (Romans 8:6).

Water baptism illustrates that our rebellious nature was done away with at the cross. We are not rebels against God anymore, which is why we can come boldly to the throne of grace for mercy and help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). Many people receive forgiveness and go on living exactly as before, and that, the pastor says, is precisely what water baptism deals with.

He addresses the law with an illustration. A man shoots and assumes he must be hitting something. Put up a target, walk out a hundred yards, and there is no hole in it. Nobody blames the target; it shows the shooter missed. That is the meaning of sin, to miss the mark, and the law was the target. It was good and holy, a schoolmaster to bring people to Christ.

Jesus came and fulfilled it all. He only did what He saw the Father do and only said what He heard, so everything He did fulfilled the law. Then He took our curse and penalty, and since cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Galatians 3:13), the only way out of the old nature was execution. He rose as the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).

Reckon Yourself Dead to Sin

Romans 6:8–11 says that if we died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him. Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all, and the life He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The pastor jokes that Paul brings out his Southern slang with the word reckon. He teaches that it means to come to an understanding, to reason it out, to reach a conclusion. I have come to the conclusion that I am dead to sin and alive to God. He can teach it, he says, but he cannot make anyone conclude it; that part is each believer’s repentance.

Because the law has been fulfilled, he no longer carries a standard of perfection he must maintain. His job is to listen to the Lord, do what He asks to the best of his ability and trust what He is doing. Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:29–30). Our work is to enter that rest with Him and walk in newness of life.

Believing in Jesus, he adds, is more than knowing stories about Him. It is believing that He is changing you right now, washing and renewing you by the Holy Spirit and the Word.

Colossians 2:11–12 ties this to circumcision. Under the old covenant, cutting away a small piece of flesh declared commitment to the law. In Christ, the heart itself is circumcised, not by human hands, and we are buried with Him in baptism and raised through faith in the working of God.

He uses a sober picture. Even in war, armies stop to bury the dead, because unburied bodies breed disease. If you died with Christ, do not walk around unburied. Since water baptism only works for those who believe, he calls infant baptism a dedication rather than a replacement for it.

The Ethiopian in Acts 8:34–37 shows the pattern. Philip preached Jesus from Isaiah, and when they came to water the man asked what hindered him from being baptized. Philip answered that if he believed with all his heart, he could. The pastor reasons that Philip must have taught baptism as part of the gospel, or the man would not have asked.

Galatians 3:27 says all who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. He applies it as putting on the strength of the One who fulfilled the law. In 44 years of ministry he has met churches that insisted on baptism into their own denomination, but water baptism is into Christ, not a church.

Two Old Testament Pictures of Baptism

The first picture of water baptism is in 1 Peter 3:18–21. Christ died for sins once for all, put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit. In the days of Noah, eight souls were saved through water, and the passage says there is an antitype which now saves us, baptism, not the removal of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Does that contradict being saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9) and by confessing Jesus as Lord (Romans 10:9–10)? No, the pastor says. You are saved, but the delivering comes through water baptism. The good conscience means no guilt and no condemnation. The flood was God’s judgment and the ark is Christ. God Himself shut Noah’s family in, and they passed safely through the waters into a new life.

The second picture is 1 Corinthians 10:1–2: all the fathers passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Israel was saved in Egypt by the blood of the lamb, but they were not delivered from Egypt until they passed through the water. Hebrews 11:28–29 joins both: by faith Moses kept the Passover, and by faith they passed through the Red Sea, while the Egyptians drowned.

Here is how he lays the two pictures of water baptism side by side with the believer’s experience:

He sums it up this way: “the blood saves you in Egypt and the water separates you from Egypt.” People who never understand water baptism, he says, often wonder why their lives feel like a soap opera, one catastrophe after another.

Redemption, he reminds the church, has always been from something and to something. Water baptism delivers from this world and its effects, and believers come up to newness of life. When the Holy Spirit says to read your Bible instead of turning on the TV, do it, and watch resurrected life flow into your day, your family and your work. He came to give life more abundantly (John 10:10).

Baptized Under a New Authority in Redemption Part 8

Why were the Israelites baptized into Moses? Because he was the one in authority for the kingdom of God at that time. Though Moses protested that he could not speak, once he stood before Pharaoh he went for it, because he was under God’s call.

Then he turns to Jesus in Matthew 3:13–17. What would Jesus do? He would get water baptized. John tried to stop Him, but Jesus said, permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. John was the authority for God’s kingdom on the earth at that moment.

When Jesus came up from the water, the heavens opened, the Spirit descended like a dove, and the Father said, this is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. The pastor points out that Jesus did not begin His ministry until He came up out of the water. Later He could say that the ruler of this world was coming and had nothing in Him (John 14:30).

For us, it means committing our lives to the ruler of the kingdom now and being baptized under Jesus. Believing unites us with God; water baptism, as Redemption Part 8 teaches, separates us from the world and brings us under a new authority, not the authority of the flesh and an evil conscience. That, he stresses, is a process, not an overnight change.

Water baptism, he adds, is a celebration, not a solemn ritual. You go down relating to Christ’s death and burial, but the key is coming up into newness of life. Those who had a water baptism without understanding may want to be baptized again in faith, which he welcomes. He also asks those being baptized to wear dark, modest clothing.

Living in Newness of Life

To close Redemption Part 8 before communion, the pastor reminds the church that the law was based on performance, while a covenant is love: God put Abram to sleep and made the first covenant Himself, and Jesus did all of the new one Himself. He encourages them to expect increase in their marriages, families, jobs and businesses. These steps come straight from the message:

• Get baptized as a believer. If you have been born again but never had a water baptism, sign up and do it in faith, not as a ritual.
• Reckon it settled. Come to the conclusion, out loud if needed, that you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
• Apply the thought. Repentance is not just a new idea but acting on God’s way of thinking before you get stuck down the old road.
• Stop calling yourself a saved sinner. You do not have two natures; you have been given the nature of His life.
• Obey the small promptings. When the Holy Spirit says read your Bible instead of turning on the TV, do it.
• Live free of fear. If death frightens you, meditate on Romans 6 until newness of life feels more real than the grave.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 More than an outward expression
• 1:10 Jesus purifies heaven; Mark 16:15–16
• 2:12 What the word saved means
• 3:17 Romans 6:3–4: buried with Him
• 4:27 Romans 6:5 and the fear of death
• 6:52 Romans 6:6–7: no such thing as a saved sinner
• 8:10 Spirit, soul and body
• 10:26 Repentance: applying the thought
• 14:30 Christ fulfilled the law
• 17:39 The target illustration
• 21:24 Romans 6:8–11: reckon yourself dead to sin
• 26:10 Colossians 2:11–12: circumcision of the heart
• 28:54 Don’t walk around unburied
• 32:41 Acts 8: the Ethiopian and Philip
• 34:50 Galatians 3:27: putting on Christ
• 37:29 1 Peter 3:18–21: Noah and the ark
• 42:16 1 Corinthians 10: baptized into Moses
• 47:25 Hebrews 11:28–29: blood and water
• 49:50 Matthew 3: Jesus is baptized
• 53:43 Questions about the baptism service
• 1:00:38 Communion

Redemption Series

This message concludes the pastor’s series on redemption at NTC Ministries. Start from the beginning or review the previous teaching:

• First message: Redemption Part 1: Behold the Lamb of God Who Takes Away Condemnation
• Previous: Redemption Part 7: Redeemed from the Curse of the Law and Free from Condemnation
• You are here: Redemption Part 8: Water Baptism, Buried With Christ and Raised to Newness of Life

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I be baptized again if I was baptized as a baby?

The pastor teaches that water baptism only works for those who believe, so infant baptism is really a dedication, the parents committing to raise the child to know the Lord. He encourages anyone who was baptized as a baby, or baptized without understanding, to be baptized as a believer in faith. He describes it as a celebration and invites them to sign up so the church can rejoice with them.

Can children be baptized?

Yes, but they need to be born again first. The pastor tells parents that if their child confesses the Lord, worships Him and shows belief in Jesus Christ in their life, they can be water baptized. The point is not age but genuine faith, since water baptism is for those who believe and is meant to be entered into in faith rather than as a ritual.

Is baptism into a particular church required?

No. In his years of evangelism the pastor met churches that believed people had to be baptized into their church or denomination to be truly born again. He rejects that view. Galatians 3:27 says we are baptized into Christ and put on Christ, not a church or denomination, and the authority we come under is Jesus Himself.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Mark 16:15–16 — he who believes and is baptized
• Romans 6:3–4 — buried with Him through baptism
• Romans 6:6–7 — our old man was crucified with Him
• Romans 6:8–11 — reckon yourselves dead to sin
• Colossians 2:11–12 — circumcision made without hands
• Acts 8:34–37 — the Ethiopian is baptized
• Galatians 3:27 — baptized into Christ
• 1 Peter 3:18–21 — Noah and baptism
• 1 Corinthians 10:1–2 — baptized into Moses
• Matthew 3:13–17 — the baptism of Jesus

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

If this teaching helped you understand your water baptism, there are many more messages from NTC Ministries to explore. Browse the full sermon archive and keep walking in newness of life.