#DailyDevotion If You Don’t Understand Baptism How Will You Understand Heavenly Things?

John 3:9-13 ⁹“How can that be?” Nicodemus asked Him. ¹⁰“You are the teacher in Israel,” Jesus said to him, “and don’t know this? ¹¹I tell you the truth, We tell what We know, and We testify to what we have seen. But you people don’t accept our testimony. ¹²If you don’t believe the earthly things I told you, how will you believe Me if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³No one has gone up to heaven except the One Who came down from heaven — the Son of Man.

So, this teaching of being born from above, born of God, through the water and the Spirit is an earthly thing. By earthly thing, I guess Jesus means pretty basic stuff. Yet many who call themselves Christians can’t, like Nicodemus get past this basic stuff. People will argue over whether or not it is a real baptism if you do it this way or that but never get to the meat of the matter, what does baptism do. If you don’t understand what baptism does, it is a moot point on whether you sprinkle, pour or immerse in water. How can water do such great things? It is not the water but the word connected to the water, i.e. the Name of God, which the Spirit uses to make us born of God, give us faith, regenerate us, and make us children of God.

Now Jesus says an interesting thing here. “We tell what we know, and We testify to what We have seen. But you people don’t accept Our testimony.” Who is the “We” that Jesus is talking about? If we go to the name in which we are baptized into, we see it is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We can see this all the way back in Genesis 1 when God says, “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness.” There is a plurality in the God-head. Jesus is claiming to be one with this plurality in the God-head.

This is a claim Jesus makes particularly in the Gospel of John though it is certainly in the other Gospels. John 10:21 “I and the Father Are One” John chapter 5 beginning with verse 19 it a good testimonial to this. In verse 18 the Jews understand Jesus is equating himself with God. Verse 19 does give a nice summary of the chapter, “the Son can do nothing by Himself but only what He sees the Father doing. You see, the Son does exactly what the Father does.” John 14:9 also makes a great statement of it, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” Jesus clearly claims a plurality in the God-head, which includes also the Holy Spirit. Scripture has clearly revealed in the name of God in baptism there is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each a distinct person existing at the same time, each person God and LORD. We see this in the Old Testament revealed as well. The Spirit of God is treated as God throughout the Old Testament. The Word of the LORD (sometimes revealed as ‘the’ Angel of the LORD) is God. And of course there is always just God or the LORD (YHWH).

I imagine this is some of the heavenly things Jesus would like to reveal to Nicodemus. We truly do not understand it ourselves. We simply believe and confess it as true for that is what the Scriptures have revealed to us. Thankfully, we don’t have to understand it. The One who has descended from heaven and ascended to heaven, Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God, the Son of Man has revealed this to us by his Spirit. By the same Spirit he gives us faith to believe and confess it as so. In such confession of our faith we show we indeed have been born of the water and the Spirit, born of God, born from above and are children of God who are one with God in Christ Jesus.

Heavenly Father, grant us your Holy Spirit so we may understand the earthly and heavenly things Jesus has revealed to us and so believe and confess them as the truth, through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.