Audio Transcript

The apostle Peter says of Paul’s writings, “There are some things in them that are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16). That’s true. But dare I say this is also true of Peter? And speaking of hard texts in Peter’s writings, we looked at 1 Peter 3:19 last time, on Friday, in APJ 1863.

Today, we are back at it to ask, Why does Peter say that we are saved through baptism? That’s his claim in 1 Peter 3:21. Why does he say it? A listener named Josh wants to know. “Pastor John, hello! My question is this. Why do we say baptism does not save, when 1 Peter 3:21 clearly says it does?” So also writes a listener named Tom. “Pastor John, hello! I sometimes meet people from church backgrounds that say water baptism is necessary for salvation, and they cite 1 Peter 3:21 to prove it. I know that we are saved by grace through faith, and not by any work of ours, including baptism. But could you help frame a response to those of us who engage with people from church traditions that believe in baptismal regeneration?”

One of the great divides between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant evangelicals is the way each understands how God’s saving grace comes to the human soul in a saving way. Protestants believe that God’s saving grace comes to the soul decisively by faith alone. In other words, the only act of the soul in the instant of new birth — or in the moment of passing from spiritual death to new life, in the moment of being counted righteous by God, being decisively adopted into his eternal family — the only act of the soul in that instant, which is decisive from the human side, is faith.

“Protestants believe that God’s saving grace comes to the soul decisively by faith alone.”

All other acts of obedience, all other acts of symbolism of what happens spiritually, all other acts of expression or demonstration or confirmation of that new birth or justification or adoption — all those other acts are the results of faith, made possible by faith. They are not part of faith, and so they are not the human instrument by which we are born again or justified or adopted.

Roman Catholic Sacramentalism

Now, Roman Catholics don’t see it that way. Rather, Roman Catholicism says that God’s saving grace comes to the soul essentially through the physical acts of sacrament administered appropriately by a human priest or his authorized substitute. The two clearest examples of how this works are baptismal regeneration (that is, born again by means of the act of baptism) and transubstantiation in the Eucharist (that is, the bread and wine actually become, get transubstantiated into, the physical body and blood of Christ). The actual bread you’re holding in your hand is the physical body of Christ; the cup that you drink is the physical blood of Jesus — that’s transubstantiation, so that this physical dimension of imparting saving grace is preserved.

So in baptism, the priest or his authorized representative applies the water to the infant. And by that ecclesiastical and sacramentally physical act, the child is saved. Here are the very words of the Roman Catholic Catechism (part 2, section 2, chapter 1, article 1, paragraph 1213):

Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit, and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: “Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word.”

By Faith Alone

Now, Protestant evangelicals would protest. (That’s where we get the name: we protest.) No, we say. Baptism does not free from sin. It does not cause one to be reborn. It does not unite to Christ in a saving way. All of that happens through faith alone in the first instant of saving faith, after which all acts of obedience confirm faith, and confirm new birth, and confirm forgiveness of sins, and confirm membership in Christ.

When Josh asks this question, he puts his finger on a couple of key Bible texts that underlie this evangelical position. Josh says, “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.” Paul writes, “We also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16).

Now, the reason this text is so important is that the context has to do with whether circumcision in that day was effective for justification, the way you asked whether baptism was effective for justification. We know that because Paul says in Galatians 5:3–4, “Every man who accepts circumcision . . . is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law” — that is, by circumcision.

In other words, the issue was this: if the first act of true saving faith is the point at which justification happens, then you simply can’t add anything to faith to make it happen. You can’t add circumcision — and by implication, you can’t add baptism. The decisive act of justification and adoption and new birth are performed by God through that first act of saving faith. Therefore, no other acts can make those divine acts happen. They’ve already happened at that first act of saving faith.

What Is Baptism?

So how, then, are we to understand baptism? Let’s consider two passages, first a passage in Colossians and then the one in 1 Peter.

“Baptism is described as an act signifying the new birth, of burying the old self and rising from the water with the new self.”

Here’s Colossians 2:11: “In [Christ] also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ” (Colossians 2:11). Now, that is a picture of the new birth, described as a kind of spiritual circumcision. The old, unbelieving, blind, rebellious self is cut away, and a new person comes into being, a new creation. And he goes on now in the next verse to say, “. . . 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” (Colossians 2:12). So here, baptism is described as an act signifying the new birth, of burying the old self and rising from the water with the new self.

What keeps us from misunderstanding that act as a physical cause of new birth is the phrase through faith. You were raised with Christ through faith. In other words, Paul is jealous not to picture the physical act of baptism as the decisive cause of this new birth. It’s an acted-out picture of what is happening, and the spiritual effect of what is happening is through faith. That’s a crucial phrase there in Colossians 2:12.

First Peter 3:21 should be understood in the same way. Peter has just referred to Noah’s flood and the rescue of eight people in the ark. And then he says, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you [notice how he qualifies this], 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” (1 Peter 3:21).

In other words, the waters of baptism are like the waters of Noah’s flood. We are saved from that judgment. How? Peter clarifies and qualifies, lest we think it’s the actual physical enactment of passing through the water that saves. He says salvation happens “not [a big not] as a removal of dirt from the body,” and then he gives baptism a particular slant: “but as an appeal to God for a good conscience” (1 Peter 3:21). This appeal is an act of the heart looking away from itself and from all human instruments and calling on God, appealing to God, for grace to save.

This appeal is the heart’s cry of faith. That, Peter says, is the instrument that receives the saving grace of God. The physical act of baptism is the parable, it’s the drama, it’s the emblem, but the reality of new birth is not physical and is not received by physical acts. It’s received by faith and faith alone. Then baptism follows as a beautiful, obedient enactment of the effects of faith.

What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

The title of this message is Everyone Is Everlasting — But Where? Where will everyone be beyond death, forever? I would like us to think together for a few minutes about your everlasting future — your future beyond this earthly life — including how your life now relates to the everlasting future of other people, especially those groups of people who, as we speak, have no access to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the good news of everlasting life through him.

Everlasting God

God is everlasting in both directions, past and future.

Before the mountains were brought forth,     or ever you had formed the earth and the world,     from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

That’s where we start. We start with God. Because everything starts with God. Little children will always ask, “Daddy, who made God?” And their eyes get wide when you say, “Johnny, nobody made God. He was there before everything. He was always there. He never had a beginning.” Glen Scrivener recently said, “Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Materialists believe in the virgin birth of the cosmos. Choose your miracle.”

I remember at a critical point in my life pondering the mystery of the existence of absolute reality and thinking, Something has existed forever in eternity past; otherwise, we wouldn’t be here, because nothingness produces nothing. So is the eternal reality some kind of gas, or is it a Person? It struck me with tremendous force that there is nothing before that reality to make it more or less likely that it is a person or a gas. In other words, there’s no reason to think that it’s unlikely that ultimate reality is a person.

Since we can’t think forward from causes to the nature of ultimate reality, because there are no causes of ultimate reality (nothing existed before ultimate reality), therefore we must think backward to the nature of ultimate reality from what we see now. And what do we see? We see the order and design and beauty of the creation declaring the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). And our own human personhood bears witness that the image of God is stamped on the human soul. And we look at the witness of Scripture as Jesus Christ stands forth compellingly from its pages and wins our confidence, and we know that he, and his Father, and the Holy Spirit are one God — ultimate reality. That’s what is everlasting — in both directions.

Before the mountains were brought forth . . .     from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

Everlasting People

But we are not everlasting the way God is everlasting. We are everlasting only in one direction — namely, toward the future. We came into existence; God didn’t. But like God, you will never go out of existence. That’s breathtaking. In Acts 24:15, Paul said, “There will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” That’s everybody, the good and the evil. And Jesus said,

An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:28–29)

Nobody stays in the grave — nobody. Everyone is everlasting. But where? In the resurrection of life or in the resurrection of judgment? Cut off from God in everlasting misery or with God in everlasting ecstasy? Will you be in the new world of everlasting happiness or in the hell of everlasting torment?

Path of Eternal Misery

Why do people use the word hell the way they do? “Hell no, I won’t go.” “What the hell is going on?” Hell has become a linguistic intensifier. Why? It’s not because modern people don’t believe in it, but because we once did.

Jesus uses the word hell more than anyone else in the Bible. It wasn’t made up by the church to scare people. It was given to the church by Jesus. And he uses it to refer to everlasting misery. He refers to it as fire, outer darkness, wrath, and eternal punishment.

Jesus says, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire” (Matthew 18:9).
In the parable of the wedding feast, Jesus said about the man without the proper garment, “Cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13).
In John 3, he shows that this fire and darkness is God’s wrath: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36).
And in describing the final judgment, Jesus says of the disobedient, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).

He speaks of the hell of fire, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, divine wrath, and eternal punishment.

And the apostle John adds in Revelation 14:9–10 that this everlasting punishment is conscious torment. It’s not the punishment of annihilation. Annihilation wouldn’t be punishment; it would be relief.

If anyone worships the beast . . . he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Revelation 14:9–10)

That’s one path of everlasting existence, the path of misery. That’s one answer to the question “Where?” The other path is everlasting ecstasy.

Path of Eternal Ecstasy

The ultimate purpose of God for his people is the exaltation of his glory in the everlasting happiness of his people. God’s glory and our happiness climax together, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. God created the universe for the happiness of his people in him, because nothing shows the greatness and the beauty and the worth of God more than a people who are completely satisfied forever in him.

Jesus said in the middle of his ministry, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). And at the last day, when we stand before him, he will say to all his faithful followers, “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21).

Jesus Christ, our Savior, died for this — for your joy in the presence of your Creator. The apostle Peter said, “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). And what do we find when we enter the presence of God clothed in the righteousness of Christ? We find this: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). There is no greater joy than full joy. And there is no longer pleasure than forevermore. The presence of God, with Jesus Christ, is the place and the source of happiness beyond imagination. It cannot be otherwise for the children of God, if God is infinitely glorious.

The Bible itself reaches for the best possible language to help us to feel that our everlasting life with God is the greatest and everlasting happiness. Psalm 36:7–8 says, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! . . . You give us drink from the river of your delights.” Why a river? Because great rivers have been flowing for thousands of years, and they never stop. I live within walking distance of the Mississippi River. I stand there and watch this mighty river flow. There are ninety thousand gallons per second flowing at St. Anthony Falls near my house. And I ask, How can this be? Century after century, and it never runs dry. That’s amazing. That’s what we are to feel when we read, “You give us drink from the river of your delights.” God’s resources of happiness are inexhaustible. And the result?

The ransomed of the Lord shall return     and come to Zion with singing;everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;     they shall obtain gladness and joy,     and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35:10)

Everyone is everlasting. But where? It’s either everlasting misery apart from God or everlasting ecstasy with God.

Life in the Son

You have heard in all these messages what makes the difference between those two outcomes of your life.

The Creator of the universe — no beginning, no ending — sent his eternal Son into the world so that “whoever believes in him should not perish [not experience everlasting misery] but have eternal life [experience everlasting ecstasy]” (John 3:16). How did he do that? “He bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “All of us like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

“The ultimate purpose of God for his people is the exaltation of his glory in the everlasting happiness of his people.”

So, he will deliver us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). You do not have to perish. I offer you, in the name of Jesus, everlasting happiness in God. Jesus said (and I say to you), “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). Everlasting happiness.

And the connection with world missions, world evangelization, is Romans 10:13–15:

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

You have the best news in all the world. Virtually all of you have it in your heads because you’ve heard it. And many of you have it in your hearts and are saved by it from everlasting misery. You are destined for everlasting happiness no matter how much you suffer in this world. You have the news that saves from eternal destruction. And there are thousands of peoples, tribes, and languages where the church has not yet been planted and the news has not been spread.

And the Bible says, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). There is one God over all, one mediator for the world, one message for salvation, and one plan for the nations: You. Us. Missions.

Here’s what Jesus said to Paul, the Christian killer. Perhaps you will hear it as a call to you:

I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26:17–18)

Implications of Existing Forever

As we move toward a close of this message and this conference, let me draw out five implications of this truth that everyone is everlasting, in misery or in ecstasy.

1. No Ordinary People

Everyone you know and everyone you will ever meet will one day either shine so brightly that, if you saw them now with your natural eyes, you would be blinded, or they will be so deformed that, if you saw them now, you would shrink back with loathing. Jesus said, “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). And he said of those who are thrown into hell, “Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). That’s a picture of maggots feeding on flesh.

Someone will surely say, “You don’t take that literally, do you?” To which I respond, “What difference do you think that makes?” If it’s literal, it’s horrible. And if it’s metaphorical, it’s horrible. Because that’s why you use horrible metaphors. You grope for words to describe a horrible reality. Jesus chose the words. We didn’t. You are sitting right now beside future kings and queens or future devils. C.S. Lewis put it like this:

It is a serious thing . . . to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. . . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization —these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. (The Weight of Glory, 46–47)

If you believe that, it changes everything.

2. Life as a Vapor

This life is very short, a vapor. James 4:14 says, “You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” Psalm 103:15–16 says,

As for man, his days are like grass;     he flourishes like a flower of the field;for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,     and its place knows it no more.

If you devote your entire life to making your life on earth more comfortable and more secure, and to helping others do the same, without any vision for how your life counts for eternity and how your life helps other lives count for eternity, you’re not only a fool — you’re a loveless fool. Love seeks its happiness in what is the greatest and longest happiness of others, and God has shown where that is: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

3. Future Dominion

Your life after this earthly life is infinitely long and, therefore, infinitely significant. You may feel very insignificant now. You may think presidents of countries and CEOs of big corporations are significant — that people with power and influence, like kings and rulers, are significant. Here’s what John said about ordinary Christians in the everlasting age to come:

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:4–5)

You think ruling now on earth, like a vapor, is significant? Actually, reigning with God forever is significant. And as if we could add anything to that, Jesus promises to those who conquer the evil one and keep the faith in this life, “I will make [you] a pillar in the temple of my God” (Revelation 3:11). I don’t know all that that means. But this I know: if you remove a pillar, the temple collapses. That’s not going to happen. And that is significant.

4. Eternal Significance

This short life on earth determines how we spend our everlasting future. Therefore, this life is infinitely significant. You can waste it by following blind, famous people who make millions of dollars and don’t know their right hand from their left. Or you can lay up treasures in heaven by pouring out your life for the temporal and eternal good of others. The apostle Paul said,

We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:16–17)

How you spend this life, with all its possibilities for love and afflictions, prepares an eternal weight of glory. Your life now really matters. It’s a gift. Don’t waste it.

5. Sending and Going

One of the most significant ways not to waste your vapor-like life is for the next sixty years to seek your happiness in helping others be eternally happy in God, even if it costs you your life. You enlarge your own happiness in God by drawing others into it. The apostle Peter said to the early Christians, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). This is our life. We say to everyone who will listen, “Here are the excellencies of my Savior, my God, and my Friend. There is no happier place than to be in his forgiveness, his fellowship, and his everlasting joy.”

Don’t misunderstand. This is a missions conference, but none of us who speak here believe that all of you should be missionaries. You shouldn’t. You are not walking in disobedience if you become a God-centered, Christ-exalting, people-loving sender. There are three kinds of Christians: goers, senders, and the disobedient. The vast majority of you are not called to cross a culture, learn a language, and plant the church where it doesn’t exist. You are called, rather, to display the excellencies of Christ in all you do — to magnify his worth in the way you study, marry, raise a family, run a business, do your job, build relationships, enjoy your food and God’s other good gifts, love your neighbors, and serve your church.

The Bible says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14). Every Christian centers on the glory of God, exalts Jesus Christ, and loves people. That is our pathway to everlasting happiness with God.

But this is a missions conference, and God has been at work in hundreds of you to loosen the roots of your tree so that it could be pulled up and planted in a place, and among a people, where there’s no gospel. That’s the main reason why this conference exists. That’s why many of you are here. He brought you here. These messages have been awakening in you, or solidifying for you, a sense that God’s call on your life is to be a missionary. When you hear the Bible describe a missionary by saying, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:15), your heart says, “God, I want feet like that.”

Discerning God’s Leading

Here’s how we are going to close. We’re going to pray for a couple of minutes in quietness so that you can deal with the Lord about these things. And then I’m going to have some of you stand up so that we can focus our prayers on you and so that you can drive a stake in the ground, saying, “Lord, I mean this.” What you would be saying by standing is this:

I am not infallible, but to the best of my knowledge, I believe God is leading me toward a life devoted to him in cross-cultural missions. And by my standing, I simply indicate that when I go home or back to my campus, one of my next steps will be to seek out the leadership of my church and ask them to help me discern God’s leading and, if they see God’s hand on my life, to help me forward in my sense of God calling to be a missionary.

Simply put, it’s two parts: I believe God is at work in my life to lead me toward vocational missions, and I will seek the counsel and help of my church.

Some of you find yourself in the situation where you are not tied into a healthy church where you could do that. We don’t think that’s a healthy situation for you. But if you sense God leading to vocational missions, and you commit to finding a church where that kind of counsel and help can be given, I want you to stand also after we pray.

All of us have serious things to talk to God about at the end of a conference like this: your own salvation, your own holiness, your own compassion for lost people, and the glory of God.