man studies God's values

Repent &
Be Baptized

The first public sermon after the resurrection of Jesus is recorded in Acts 2 and sets forth the message of the Gospel concluding with the answer to the “What shall we do?” question prompted by the conviction of that message:

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 1

This simple message not only convicted but led to life-changing dynamics in the hearers. The core of the message was about the possibility of changed lives in Jesus, the forgiveness of sin, the answer to the dilemma of how to live a life which would satisfy God. Peter sums it up in the three: Repent, Be Baptized, Forgiveness. These were not new messages but the inclusion of the agency of Jesus was new although it had been promised ever since the Fall of mankind. Now, with the life, sacrifice and resurrection, it had become a present rather than future hope.

All the way back in the time of King Solomon and the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem, the waywardness of man and the need for return to God was a public concern. Repentance had been needed ever since the Fall and was meant to be part of the Law, system of sacrifices and is evident in personal conviction before God in many passages but Solomon reiterated the necessity in 2 Chronicles 7:14:

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 

Repentance is not quite as easy as we would like to make it. First is the humbling, the acknowledgment that what we have done is wrong, that it does not agree with the LORD, that we have separated ourselves from the LORD by our acts or thoughts. The humiliation continues in that we must come to Him without the possibility of resolving our fault and seek Him as the way of resolution with the commitment that we will turn from our sins. The Greek word for repentance is metanoeō which literally means ‘change of mind’ not just as a thought but as a belief, to think differently, to reconsider and commit to believing and acting upon a new course going forward. It is so much more than being sorry for the past and while it is sorry, it is even more committed to God’s desire going forward.

In both 1 Kings 8:483 and 2 Chronicles 6:38,4 the phrase “if they repent with all their heart and with all their soul” is used to quantify repentance—it is the entire being, both belief and will, carried out into action. “If” is followed by the promise that if they repent in this full sense, the LORD will enter in with them and restore relationship with Him. Yet, over and over again we find the response to this offer being rebuffed. No matter how God tried to draw them back, first by goodness and then by the consequences of their actions, they refused to repent:

Though they say, “As the LORD lives,” yet they swear falsely. O LORD, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent. 5

We are like that, we do not like to be humbled, to admit our faults, to depend upon the mercies of God to provide forgiveness, and especially, to change our beliefs and actions. After almost 1,500 years since the giving of the written Law to Moses during which mankind proved quite successfully our inability to live sinless, the LORD incarnated His plan since the beginning by showing us a ‘better’ way—Jesus. But, first He needed to renew our focus that there was a need. God had promised all the way back at the Fall a future way and now it was to be made manifest, demonstrated in the flesh such that we could comprehend His participation and the value He placed upon repentance and restoration. With the restatement of His purpose, He provided a spokesman, John call the Baptist, to announce something people would consider either a new thing or the fulfillment of something promised from the ages.

…the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” 6

Forgiveness of sins is what we need but first comes the baptism of repentance. Why baptism? Again, the change agenda. Prepare and change: straight path, filled valley, leveled ways are all pointing to changing our wayward journey to align with the LORD’s straightness. Sin is like our wandering through life doing whatever is easy and comes next without keeping our aim upon God’s desires. Baptism was only an expression of the degree of commitment to changing our ways into God’s way. John’s baptism was not to save but to demonstrate both the intent and serve as a first fruits of that commitment to change:

[John] said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 6

Those who accepted this message had that honest question of “How?”.

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”  Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” 6

While their personal situations were different, their need to respond with both belief change as expressed in the “What shall we do?” and expression change but the changing of life sins were adamant. There was no less humbling way to bear fruit keeping with repentance. And the act of baptism was the public acknowledgment that they were repenting, that the commitment was made, that they were committed to living out that repentance.

Lest we leave John the Baptist as some Old Testament prophet doing an Old Testament thing, then comes Jesus who not only was baptized by John in identification with we sinners but then Jesus from the beginning of His public ministry began,

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 7

And if we would like to think Jesus’s message was maybe a little softer,

Then He began to denounce the cities where most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. 8

It is not enough to have a new thought, to be agreeable with multiple options, to embrace possibilities, to give assent to interesting alternatives—this is to be decisive, deliberate, dedicated and without regard to going back to former ways if we become dissatisfied with the lack of ease of the committed way of the LORD. Jesus gave a parable of commitment that lasts; the decision must be measured by the commitment acted out:

“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him. 9

It is not the words but the change of mind and commitment to actually do the will of the Father. Jesus was clear on the necessity of the change that accompanies repentance.

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” 10

As important as the commitment declared in baptism is, it must be more than regret for the past. John’s was a baptism of repentance but it pointed toward Jesus, a preparing of the way to the Way. In the early church, there were those who did not know all that John was proclaiming and thought that his baptism of repentance was enough.

And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 11

Paul elaborated further on the ultimate nature of baptism in Romans 6:1-4 and Colossians 2:11-12:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 12
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13

The Apostle Peter clarifies baptism as the desire for a clear conscience from the LORD, our dependence upon Him and accepting the need for the death of Jesus and His resurrection on our behalf. It is humbling but it is submission and acknowledgment of how much we needed and all He provided.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,  who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. 14

While baptism doesn’t save us and repentance doesn’t save us—both are works—and only faith in Jesus saves, the two together are part of that coming to solidity of faith that we need Him, that we can’t save ourselves, and that we are dependent upon Him for our identity with Him. Words are not enough, the commitment must be lived out.

And now, a humorous aside on the word baptize from Blue Letter Bible:

This word should not be confused with  baptô. The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be ‘dipped’ (baptô) into boiling water and then ‘baptised’ (baptizô) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptising the vegetable, produces a permanent change. 15

Now you can consider yourself in a real pickle if you resist repentance unto baptism.

FOOTNOTES & LINKS:
 1 Acts 2:37-41 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 2 2 Chronicles 7:14 (ESV) – Blue Letter Bible
 3 1 Kings 8:47-50 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 4 2 Chronicles 6:38 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 5 Jeremiah 5:2-3 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 6 Luke 3:2-14 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 7 Matthew 4:17 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 8 Matthew 11:20 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 9 Matthew 21:28-32 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 10 Luke 13:1-5 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 11 Acts 19:1-5 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 12 Romans 6:1-4 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 13 Colossians 2:11-12 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 14 1 Peter 3:18-22 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
 15 Blue Letter Bible note on baptizō Outline of Biblical Usage

KEY TEXT: Acts 2:37-41 (ESV) Blue Letter Bible
All Scripture references from the Blue Letter Bible, ESV
at https://www.blueletterbible.org
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016, 2025 by Crossway Books and Bibles,
a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved.

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