This month we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Over the next several posts, we will look at different passages of Scripture relating to the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The first is Genesis 3, which is the account of humanity’s fall into sin through Adam’s transgression and the place where redemption and salvation became necessary. Prior to Genesis 3, we did not need a crucified and risen Savior because there was no sin. 

When sin entered the world, though, everything changed, and it required radical action from God if humanity was to be rescued from destruction and death. The only solution to the problem of sin was a crucified and risen Savior. 

The key verse in the passage is Genesis 3:15. God said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Here we have, what theologians call, the first Gospel proclamation. Immediately after Adam sinned, God promised there would be warfare between the offspring of the devil and the offspring of the woman, and the offspring of the woman would prevail. 

We know the offspring of the woman ultimately refers to Jesus Christ. One of the surest evidences of this fact is the battle Jesus waged against Satan throughout His earthly ministry, culminating with the cross. The crucifixion, then, was not merely a work of men against Jesus, but an epic battle between Satan and Jesus. Satan, the serpent of old, sought to crush Jesus but only bruised His heel. Jesus, though, on the cross and through the resurrection, crushed Satan’s head.

Let us look, then, at four problems caused by sin that are presented in Genesis 3 and consider why Jesus had to die and rise again to resolve them. 

First, when sin entered the world, humanity believed Satan’s lies.

Satan’s strategy in the garden was to distort the Word of God and to call God a liar. Eve believed this lie, and she was deceived disobeying God. Paul wrote in Romans 1:25 that mankind has “exchanged the truth of God for a lie.” When sin entered the world, humanity fell into deception, no longer believing God’s Word, but Satan, the father of lies. 

The good news of the gospel, though, is that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil – his lies and deceit! The world is hostile to God because people believe the devil’s lie that God is out to suppress, harm, oppress, and stifle humanity. At Calvary and the empty tomb, however, this lie is completely undone. 

When sin entered the world, all humanity fell into the devil’s deception; but Jesus died and rose again to overcome Satan’s lies.

In 2 Peter 1:4, Peter writes, “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.” Satan says, “God doesn’t want any rivals, so He is suppressing you.” God’s gospel promise, however, is that in the resurrection we will be made like Jesus in every way possible for a creature to be like his Creator. We will be perfectly conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29); and God in Christ will give us all things. When sin entered the world, all humanity fell into the devil’s deception; but Jesus died and rose again to overcome Satan’s lies.

Second, when sin entered the world, humanity became alienated from God.

When Adam and Eve sinned against God, shame entered into their experience, and intimacy with one another was broken. Adam’s first response to God was to hide out of guilt and fear. Adam also compounds his first transgression with the sin of lying about why he will not come before his Creator. Later, Adam blames God, saying Eve, whom God had created, was the source of the problem. This is how sinners always relate to God apart from Christ. Option one: Hide. Option two: Lie. Option three: Make excuses to shift blame.

God, however, didn’t accept any of Adam’s tactics. Instead, God promises to redeem Adam through Eve’s offspring by defeating and condemning the serpent. God promises reconciliation. How do we know God promises reconciliation? Because the offspring of Eve and her children are going to be enemies of Satan, not of God.

In 1 Peter 3:18, Peter writes, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.” We were alienated from and hostile toward God because of sin; but God gave His Son for us, and Jesus rose from the dead to end the hostility and bring us to Himself. 

Third, when sin entered the world, humanity incurred guilt before God for sin.

After Adam’s transgression, sin became a barrier between man and God. The problem sinners have with a holy God is not a psychological problem, or something internal we merely need to convince ourselves to get over. Rather, the problem is sin and the guilt we incur because of sin. God is so holy that He cannot even look upon evil.

Christ’s death and resurrection guarantees our future resurrection.

To reconcile us to God, Jesus had to deal with the problem of sin. He took our guilt and very sin upon Himself and paid its penalty so we could be reconciled to God.

In Galatians 3:13, Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’”  The curse we deserve was borne by Jesus when He hung on the cross and dealt with our objective guilt before a holy God.

Finally, when sin entered the world, humanity became subject to death.

With guilt incurred because of sin and with alienation from the life of God came death. As Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” When Adam sinned, the entire human race was subjected to death.

But the curse doesn’t end with death; Jesus died and rose again to give eternal life! Incredibly, Adam somehow knew this was the meaning of God’s promise in Genesis 3:15. When God vowed to defeat Satan through a man, Adam knew it meant life for his posterity. That’s why after God pronounces the sentence of death on Adam and all humanity, Adam names his wife Eve “because she was the mother of all the living.” Even in the face of death, Adam had hope that God promised life. 

This is why we need a crucified and risen Savior. Sin created problems that human nature could not solve. Adam’s response was not to solve the sin problem, but to hide from it. The only one who can solve the problem of sin is God, and He has done so through His Son. Christ’s death and resurrection guarantees our future resurrection.

This month as we reflect on Jesus’ death and resurrection, we should remember what He accomplished for us. Consider how hopelessly condemned we were without Christ. Rejoice that He loved us and gave Himself for us, so we might have life and a real relationship with the Lord, that we might even know God Himself. This reality should cause us to live even more for Him who died and rose again on our behalf.

In Romans 6:1-14, the Apostle Paul gives Christians, among other things, one of the purposes of believer’s baptism. This blessed ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ is a beautiful picture worth a thousand words! While much ink has been spilled over the mode, subject, and purpose of baptism, let me give you three simple, yet profound pictures, that this ordinance gives the church. 

First, it displays for us an:

Overwhelming Covenant  

In Romans 6:14 we see that believers are not under law, but grace. Consider those two words there: “law” and “grace.” 

The Apostle Paul is one of my favorite Baptists. And what we see him articulating for us here are the two great covenants of the Bible: The covenant of works and the covenant of grace. 

This is how your Bible is divided. Old Testament and New Testament. This comes from the Latin Testamentum and just means covenant. Literally your Bible is divided into two sections known as Old Covenant and New Covenant, or, Law and Grace. 

Now, this doesn’t mean there’s only law in the Old Testament and only Grace in the New Testament. Of course, that’s not true at all. But what it does help us see is that these two covenants, Law and Grace, help set the framework for the whole Bible. 

In fact, I would go so far as to say that without understanding these covenants well, we do not read our Bibles well. Listen to how Spurgeon put it: 

The doctrine of the divine covenant lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace is a master of divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenants of law and of grace.

The Covenant of Works

So, in our text we have law and grace. All persons born in Adam are born into law, that is, under a covenant of works, a covenant that has been broken because of Adam’s sin (cf. Romans 5:12).

Adam is what we call our legal representative. He is the federal head of the human race. And in Adam, all die. We are born under a broken covenant of works and held guilty due to Adam’s sin all the while the moment we are able we choose volitionally to sin and rebel against our holy God.

It is our nature to sin and run away from God. We have nothing left within us willing or able to do any spiritual good before God. 

Being under the law as a covenant of works, leaves us in a hopeless condition. It shows us the perfection God demands but only moves us to rebel (see Romans 7) and is unable to remedy our situation. What then is left for us to do? Well, all we can do, and all we want to do, only heaps up more condemnation. 

The Covenant of Grace

This brings us to the overwhelming covenant and by that, I mean the covenant of grace. 

In eternity past the triune Godhead agreed to save an unworthy people for His own glory. This agreement theologians call the covenant of redemption. But this is enacted in time by the promise of grace. We see this in Gen. 3:15 after the Fall: God will send the seed of the woman to crush the serpent’s head.

That same language is used again in Genesis 12: This Redeemer will be the Seed of Abraham and then later the offspring of David. 

These promises, and so many more, point us forward to the covenant of grace which is inaugurated in Christ – Jesus is the One promised of old. He is the one in time, born of the Virgin Mary, fulfilling all righteousness in His life, dying the death of covenant breakers, bearing the wrath of God for His ppl, and rising again in victory over death, hell, and the grave.

The covenant of grace says there is nothing you can do in and of yourself to reconcile you to God. Not your going to church or taking the Lord’s Supper or reciting the Bible or prayers or creeds. 

In and of yourself is only unrighteousness and sin. 

But the Lord Jesus came. He completed the work. Where Adam failed, where Israel failed, where you have failed, He fulfilled all righteousness. He substituted Himself in our place. He bore the wrath of breaking God’s law upon the wooden cross. He rose again in triumph. 

And God’s grace brings us out from under the law and places us within the new covenant, the covenant of grace (Romans 6:14).

Members of the Covenant 

Under the law, the sign of the covenant of works was circumcision. It was a reminder that those who did not keep the whole law would be cut off from God. That is, the children of Abraham were not part of the covenant of grace unless, they, by faith, looked to the coming Messiah. 

The true people of God have always and only been believers. It is only those who by grace alone place their faith alone in Christ alone who are God’s true Israel (cf. Rom. 9:6, Gal. 6:16). Someone’s physical birth or ethnicity does not bring them into the New Covenant. 

In Romans 4:16 we see that Abraham is the true father of only those of faith, whether Jew or Gentile. Only those of faith are the ppl of God. Only those of faith are brought into the New Covenant, the Covenant of Grace.

Those in the Covenant of Grace are no longer under Adam as their representative. Rather, Christ represents them! They have died in Christ and now live again in Him having His righteousness credited to their account by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. 

And, so, what is the sign, then, of this new covenant? This overwhelming covenant of grace? It is believers Baptism as Paul lays our in Romans 6:3-4.

This, of course, teaches us that Biblical Baptism is not for unbelievers. It is not for infants. It is only for those who have been brought into the New Covenant, dying to sin and self and rising again to newness of life as typified in Baptism which serves as a sign for God’s glorious grace upon a person’s life. 

Baptism is a picture worth 1,000 words! Baptism signifies, it is a picture of, our union with Christ. It shows forth our newness of life. It publicly identifies us with the death and resurrection of Christ.  Baptism does not perform these things. It does not create within us a new heart. It does not bring us into union with Christ. 

Rather, it displays on the outside what God, in His sovereign grace, has already performed on the inside. 

This is why we baptize by immersion (cf. Romans 6:3-4). Now, to say we “baptize by immersion” is like saying we “drink a drink.” Baptism and immersion are the same word. Baptism is really a made-up word in the sense that it’s just transliterated, brought straight over form Greek to English.

You can read John Dagg’s work on this Greek word but let me give you one quote from 17th Century Baptist, Henry Lawrence (1600-1664) who says: “the word Βαπτίζω signifies properly…to drowne, or sinke in the water, to dip, to overwhelme…”

You cannot signify the death and resurrection of Christ or the new believer by sprinkling water or by pouring water. Baptists baptize. That is, we immerse believers’ whole body down into the water and back up again. 

Baptism, then, reminds us of an Overwhelming Covenant. 

2ndly, it is a picture of an:

Obligatory Commitment

I love this quote from Sam Renihan: “Baptism is…a two-way declaration. On the one hand, it is God’s visible promise that all who are in His Son are new creations by virtue of their union with Christ in His death and resurrection. And on the other hand, it is the individual’s profession of faith in those very promises.”

Romans 6 shows us that by committing to the ordinance of baptism the new Christian is publicly declaring his or her death to sin and new life in Christ. He or she is declaring a commitment to follow Christ no matter the cost. The old man or woman has passed away and the new one has come being created anew in Christ Jesus by God’s grace. 

In Baptism we have symbolized taking off the old man and putting on the new and now it is our fight every day to continue to do this. Every day we continue to mortify the deeds of the flesh. We continue to look to Christ and seek to walk in newness of life. 

And this really is Paul’s argument in Romans 6:1-4. What he is encouraging the Roman Christians with is to, essentially, remember their baptism as a way of fighting sin in the present. 

Let me put it to you this way: In many places in America there are people who profess to be Christians. And one of the reasons many say they are Christians is because they have been baptized.

Thus, they look to their baptism as a trophy rather than as a flag. Let me illustrate it like this: In the movie the Patriot, Benjamin Martin’s oldest son, Gabriel Martin, is continually sewing an American Flag . And even in the midst of despair and defeat, that flag is a symbol of what they are fighting for in the American Revolution.

And looking at the flag is what sort of turns the battle at the end of the movie. 

Well, in a similar way, we look to our Baptism to remember what we are fighting for. We have died to sin and risen with Christ! This fight is worth it. Keep pressing on. You are dead to sin and alive in Christ. Christ is King. He is King of your Life. Keep up the fight.

If you look at Baptism as a trophy you just say, “Well, I’ve got my ticket into heaven and it doesn’t matter how I live.” If you remembering your baptism means you just live a life of unchecked rebellion and sin but you’re clinging to your baptism as your hope, you are foolish. This is not the purpose of Baptism. 

But for those who have been born again, our Baptism serves as a reminder of who we are so that we can continue our growth in the Lord Jesus Christ. Being in the New Covenant does not produce passivity or carelessness but commitment to holiness. 

Baptism is an obligatory commitment. It is our commitment before others that we are following Christ no matter the cost. He is worthy!

And by obligatory, I mean what my friend Jeffrey Johnson writes:

Although baptism is not essential to salvation, it is highly unlikely that a person has been truly born again without an eager desire to follow the Lord in this first command that God gives the new Christian. Baptism is a public confession of Christ that evidences to the church and the world that there has been a radical transformation within. Baptism is also a visible sermon. It demonstrates a spiritual reality of one’s death to sin and resurrection to the newness of life in Christ Jesus.

So, Baptism reminds us of an overwhelming covenant. It is an obligatory commitment. And finally, Baptism is an: 

Open Commemoration

In Romans 6:3 Paul uses the phrase “all of us”. Paul is able to speak to the Church at Rome with the common understanding that Baptism was ordinary part of the Christian life. 

That is, “all of us” were baptized. All of who? All Christians. Not that Baptism is what “makes” a Christian, but Baptism is what, in essence, publicly commemorates one as a Christian. 

This is why Baptism is an ordinance of the local church. The local church has the keys of the kingdom from Christ Her Lord (cf. Matthew 16:19). And it is her duty to open the door to Baptism as it were for all who repent and believe the gospel.

So, when a local church baptizes someone, it is saying, in essence, “We receive this man or woman as a brother or sister in Christ.” In Baptism, the church is publicly declaring a person as a Christian. 

Thus, in Baptism, the local church is committing to love this man or woman as a brother or sister in Christ, to watch over him or her in the Lord, to hold this person accountable in the Lord, and to humbly have him or her watch over us and hold fellow church members accountable as well. 

Baptism is an open commemoration. It is not to be done in a secret closet unbeknownst to anyone else. It is not to be done on a whim in someone’s backyard separated from the local church. 

Baptism is a local church ordinance where we perform this great event in the midst of the gathered church. That may be at a lake or in a river or even in a pool, but the point is, it’s properly done when the local church is gathered under the leadership of her pastors. 

Fred Malone reminds us, 

Away with the individualistic ecclesiology plaguing America which minimizes baptism and church membership, leaving Christians the freedom to float around without feeling responsible to a pastor or a church. Such an attitude feeds the antinomian spirit we see growing today. Yet, the whole teaching of the NT is that Christians need the ministry of a committed body of believers (church membership) which baptism calls them to. Church membership is required after baptism and believer’s baptism is required for church membership.

Thus, Baptism is an open commemoration. It is a public ordinance of the church whereby those baptized as well as the local church celebrate Christ together even as they mutually pledge themselves to one another in grace.

Fred Malone also states: “Baptism is the outward sign of entrance into the New Covenant by the inward circumcision of the heart, evidenced by one’s confession of faith in Christ.”

This reminds us that Baptism is a picture worth a thousand words. It cannot save in the sense of effecting regeneration or faith or justification or any such thing. Rather, it points us to Christ and is a picture of new life in Him (cf. Rom. 6:1-4). 

The Southern Baptists Convention (SBC) needs a change of direction. Over our 177-year history the Lord has enabled the churches of the SBC to accomplish some amazing things for the kingdom of God. But over the last few years, the good work that our association of churches is doing has been somewhat disrupted and is in danger of being derailed by the subtle infiltration of secularism and godless ideologies into our ranks. I am convinced that the vast majority of Southern Baptists do not want to see their convention (the largest Protestant denomination in America supporting the largest Christian missionary force in the world and educating one-third of this nation’s seminary students) follow the path of our increasingly secular culture.
I have spoken and written about the rise and spread of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality in the evangelical world for many years (see here and here for more examples). I joined with John MacArthur, Voddie Baucham, and several other men to write the Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel to sound an alarm in 2018. In 2019, at the urging of Al Mohler and others, I tried to stop the SBC from adopting Resolution 9 “On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality,” but was rebuffed by the Resolutions Committee and then the messengers. Later that year, in the face of a great deal of attempted intimidation and even threats to cancel the project, I helped produce By What Standard: God’s World…God’s Rules, a cinedoc that documents many of the ways that godless ideologies have infiltrated our ranks.
Two years later, at the 2021 annual meeting in Nashville, I joined 1300 other Southern Baptists in offering a resolution on “The Incompatibility of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality with the Baptist Faith and Message.” Despite that overwhelming and unprecedented support from Southern Baptists across the convention, the Resolutions Committee refused to allow the messengers even to debate it much less vote on it. In that same meeting I offered a motion, which I had been told by the official parliamentarian was in keeping with Roberts’ Rules of Order, to rescind the 2019 resolution “On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality.” A lawyer was given the platform to declare that the motion could not be considered, and President J.D. Greear ruled me out of order.
By God’s grace, in that Nashville meeting, the convention overruled the Resolutions Committee and insisted on hearing and ultimately adopted the strongest prolife, anti-abortion resolution in the history of the SBC. But its adoption came only after various Southern Baptist ethicists spoke against it. Later, a group of Southern Baptist theologians and ethicists wrote a lengthy statement arguing against the resolution’s call for the abolition of abortion.
In 2020, when several professors were fired from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, I learned that two of them, Jim Scott Orrick and Russell Fuller, were denied severance payments (money which many claimed they were contractually owed) because they refused to sign the seminary’s NDA statement. After reading the statement I called the chairman of the seminary’s board of trustees and asked him why such an unrighteous, secular instrument was being used to punish two inerrantist professors who had served Southern Baptists with distinction for decades. He admitted that he had never read the document and said that its use was acceptable because “our lawyers tell us that it is legal.” So, I joined with others in raising money to cover the lost wages of those professors.
I am convinced that the vast majority of Southern Baptists do not want to see their convention follow the path of our increasingly secular culture.
I am an ordinary pastor of a regular-sized SBC church that I have pastored for 36 years. Like most other Southern Baptist pastors I know, I love shepherding the flock of God and am amazed that God has called me to this work. I have never aspired to serve as President of the SBC or in any other denominational office. But God, in His inscrutable providence and through my involvement with Founders Ministries, has put me in a position to engage various issues as I have described above. Though I have doubtlessly failed at many points along the way, I have tried to honor Christ and encourage His churches through these efforts.
Over the years I have been repeatedly encouraged by pastors across the SBC to “run” for the presidency. It has been easy to politely dismiss those requests until recently. Over the last couple of weeks men whom I love and trust have prevailed on me to do so. Donna, my precious wife of 42 years, said she was willing. My fellow elders at Grace Baptist Church – men whom I trust implicitly – said they think I should do this. After much prayer, reflection, and counsel, I agreed. If the Lord would be pleased for me to serve as the President of the SBC, then I will do my best to do so in ways that help us change the direction where it is needed so that we can better carry out our joint mission of making disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and teaching them to observe all that King Jesus prescribes.
Throughout all our history the Lord has enabled Southern Baptists, in the language of our original charter issued in 1845, to stay united “for the purpose of eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the Baptist denomination of Christians, for the propagation of the gospel, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary not withstanding [sic].” My hope and prayer is that, by His grace, we may continue this mission with zeal and faith as we serve our Lord together.
To my fellow Southern Baptists, I hope to see you in Anaheim. Let’s pray and work together to make our Lord Jesus Christ known throughout the world.

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