Word of Salvation – Vol. 21 No.14 - January 1975

 

Being Christened

 

Sermon by Rev. J. J. C. Westera, B.D. on 1John 2:20

Scripture Reading: 1John 2:18-29

Psalter Hymnal: 146, 94:1,3; 286:1,4; 463; 375; 395

 

The word anointed in our text is a very interesting one and a very peculiar one too.  It is connected with one of the names of our Redeemer, namely His second name, Christ, and we know what that means.  Christ means the ‘anointed one’ and when our catechism explains it, it says that Jesus is ordained of God the Father and anointed with the Holy Spirit.

We should keep that in mind when we say that we are Christians and when we say we have been anointed – for then we say the same thing.  It means that we are appointed by God and that we are anointed with the Holy Spirit.

In the Old Testament, prophets, priests and kings were anointed with oil.  So was David anointed by Samuel.  We know the story as it is told to us in 1Samuel 16: "Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.”

Prophets and priests and kings had to realise that God appointed them and that they could not do their work without the Holy Spirit, without HIS power and HIS wisdom.

The people of Israel had to realise that their prophets and priests and kings were ordained by God and that they, as such, had to be obeyed and honoured.  They had to be respected, as David did, when he refused to kill Saul.

Can we still see the same thing as far as we are concerned?  Does this text still speak to us and do we realise what it means when God says to us, you have been anointed?  Or when we call ourselves and others ‘Christians’?

We must realise that we cannot be Christians without the anointing and that we must respect the meaning of that word.  God has called us.  He has appointed us, ordained us to be prophets, priests and kings.  It is His work.  Not mine, or yours.

Some people say when their children are baptised that they are ‘christened’.  Without knowing it perhaps, they say a great truth.

Being baptised means being anointed.  It does not mean that you receive your Christian name as most people think, but it means literally being anointed.  Why don't we see that anymore?  When Jesus was baptised the Holy Spirit came upon him as a dove and rested on Him.  And it is said of Jesus that He did not come to baptise with water but with the Holy Spirit.

If the baptism with water is a sign and seal of God's covenant and if it tells us, shows us, what God has done, and still is doing, in Jesus Christ (viz. that He washes us from all our sins and incorporates us in the body of Jesus) how can that be if it is not by the mighty work of God's Holy Spirit?  HE washes us and cleanses us, not the water.

Do we still respect that?  Do we still see our baptism in the right light?  Why do we empty it and having emptied it, throw it away?  That's what we have done, and still are doing, when we use the name "Christian" for ourselves and others and don't know what it means.  That is what we do when we say we are Christians or that we live in a Christian country and yet have no idea what is the anointing by the Holy One, Jesus Christ with His Spirit.

Being incorporated into His body by our baptism we share the anointing of our Head, Jesus.

Do we still respect it?  When the Holy Spirit was poured out it became clear to the congregation what Jesus had done and what baptism means.  It became evident that the anointing was very necessary for without it there was no life and no light.

Many things, even in our church and in our "Christian" life, have become empty; so empty in fact that they become worthless, and the next step is that we throw them away.  They don't speak to us any more.  They have become meaningless and powerless.

It is our holy duty to see their meaning again and to respect the work of God with us and in us.  It is our holy duty to pray for God's Holy Spirit that He may work and dwell in our hearts and minds.  That He may dwell in the midst of us as a congregation so that we together may realise what it means to be anointed by the Holy One with HIS Spirit.

Please let us understand our baptism again and let us respect what GOD does, what He has done and still is doing.  Remember what Paul says in Philippians 2:12 and 13, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for GOD IS AT WORK IN YOU both to will and to work for His good pleasure."

When we say that we are christened let us realise what we are saying and do what we can to fill that empty word again.  When we say that we are baptised let us see the Holy Spirit Who is the only One Who can wash us from all our sins and that He was poured out that we may be anointed by Jesus with Him.

Why have we made it so empty?  The same is happening with our Christ-mas.  Who knows or realises that Christ means the anointed One and that Christmas is the celebration of HIS coming to this earth.

Is it coincidental that we see in our advertisements and in our shops the name X-mas and that people say and pronounce it as X-mas?  We have completely forgotten that the X of X-mas is the first letter of Christ, the Greek ‘Ch’.

Is it coincidental?  No it is not!  Jesus has become the Unknown One, the -X- in our Christmas celebration.  He is not in it anymore and without Him the whole celebration of Christmas has become as empty as it can be.

What has happened to our being Christians, to our being christened, has happened to our Christmas as well.  It is our holy duty to see this and to ask ourselves whether we still know what it means to have been anointed by the Holy One.

To answer this question is not to seek for all kinds of experiences but it means that we have to seek the meaning of what God has given to us in church and in the ceremonies of the church.  They are His gifts to His people and He has made them true by His Holy Spirit with Whom we are anointed by Jesus, He is THE Christ and after Him we are called Christians, people who are anointed with the same Spirit as Jesus was and is.

Only in that way we can live our Christian life.  That may be very different for we are not all the same.  But it is the same God Who works in us and it is the same Holy Spirit with Whom we are anointed.  Paul makes that very clear in Ephesians 4 where he says, "There is one body and one Spirit but grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift."

There is unlimited power in the electric cables but a bulb burns only as much as its wattage and no more.  There are a lot of different bulbs of 40, 60, 100 and some 1000 watts and maybe even more, but it is the same power that makes them all burn.

Although we are small in our own eyes, and great sinners, remember what God did and what Jesus did and that He poured out His Holy Spirit to save you and to make you share the benefits and the blessings of Jesus.  You are anointed by the Holy One with His Holy Spirit.  That is what it means when you say that you are a Christian and that you are christened.

Don't make it empty, meaningless, but see that it is God's work.  Respect it in yourself and in others.  Respect it in your church and in the members of the church from the little ones to the older ones, from the weak to the strong ones.  Keep it holy as it is holy!  We don't have to MAKE it holy but we must see that it IS holy for GOD'S SAKE, for what HE IS and for what HE DOES IN THE MIDST OF this world!  We must see Jesus again in our being Christians and in our Christmas celebration, in our church and in our church life.  He is the reality of our faith, its truth!

When John wrote this letter, there were people who denied that Jesus was the Christ and he called them antichrists.  They did not see that Jesus was the Son of God Who became man.

That was the lie of those days.  And it is the lie of our day too.  All our knowledge of God depends on that one confession and only on Jesus as the Christ we know.  Only in Him we share the anointing.  Therefore it is called in verse 27 the anointing which you received from HIM, that is from Jesus.  It is in Him that we know... the Father.

Our text says "and you all know!"

That is an amazing but true statement.  We all know, when we are anointed by the Holy One with His Holy Spirit.  That knowledge becomes a personal one.  We have been taught by our parents, by our Sunday School teachers, by our ministers, by our missionaries.  We have heard about Jesus by means of sermons, of catechism lessons, of Bible reading, by means of radio etc.  God can use all kind of ways, but they are all HIS ways to come to us and to make us come to Him.

There will be a moment that you say, I don't believe because I am taught but because I know it myself.  I have accepted it myself and am assured that Jesus is mine and that I am His.

What happened to the Samaritans will happen to you: "It is no longer because of your words" – they said to the woman – “that we believe for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world." (John 4:42)  And John here in this chapter says: "but the anointing which you received from Him abides in you and you have NO NEED that any one should teach you, as His anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie....!"

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth, to open your eyes so that you may see Jesus and the Father.  You are saved; you have become a child of God.  That's a great knowledge far beyond all other knowledge.  We say that knowledge is might, and we do our utmost at our schools and at our universities to gather knowledge.  We need it for otherwise we can't take part in the life of our world.  It requires knowledge!  This is so demanding that we seem to forget the knowledge of God and yet THIS is the knowledge that makes us possessors of life and of this world.  For they are all God's and we can't possess them without Him.  He has created life and all that is and He has redeemed them.  We lost them by our own sins and we receive them back only in Jesus Who delivered us and them from the power of the evil one in whose hands we are and who rules this world.

Let us not be mistaken as if we can live without JESUS.  That may seem so but that is not true.  We need Him and we need this knowledge of Him.  All of us do.  There is not one in our midst who can live without this knowledge of Jesus as the Saviour of the world, as the Son of God Who became one of us to save us from our sins.

This knowledge is a SAVING knowledge.  It delivers us from the power of sin and out of the hands of the evil one.

Test all other knowledge, test all other spirits as John says in chapter 4 and ask yourself, examine yourself whether you possess that knowledge of Jesus as your Saviour and as the Saviour of this world.  Are you free or not?  Do you still belong to this world or are you a pilgrim on the way to the other world that is to come?  Have you dug yourself so deep in the trenches of this life that you don't know how to come out of them?  You have no idea why you are here on this earth except to eat and drink and to have fun.  Really that's what people are after as they have no other goal.  Are you one of them?

It is hard to hold on to this true knowledge, but we have to, and we are not left alone.  God has sent His Son and His Holy Spirit and He has given us the Bible that we should know and live!  And see things in the light of that knowledge!

The words of our text – you all know – can also be translated as "and you know all things."  Both versions are possible and they both make sense.

This knowledge of Jesus and in Him of God, opens your eyes so that you see all things as they are and why they are there, and what will happen to them!  You will see that we don't live in a miserable situation as if there is no hope.  More than ever before we will see that it is true what Jesus says that HE IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD,

People, and among them many scientists, say that we live on an explosive planet.  I don't know how many years they still give us to live but some say that the end is pretty near.  That is not very hopeful, is it?  Maybe that the word of Jesus will penetrate us.  Could it be true that He is our only hope?  Our only light?  HE IS!

WHY?  Because He is the only one who has taken away the cause of all our misery, our revolution over against God, our disobedience, our lawlessness.  He is the only one who could take the book of history out of the Hand of God and read it, that means work it out!  And bring it to a good end! (Rev.5)  And that's the only way for us to read the history of our world.  Then you know all things.  Of course that does not mean that you have an answer to all problems and questions people can ask you.  We are not like the oracle of Delphi.  But it means that all things come into the light of the gospel of Jesus and find an answer there and there alone!

People are disappointed in Jesus.  People are disappointed in the church.  May be we are too!  But what did we seek, what did we look for?  Did we come to church or did we come to Jesus because we had some very difficult problems and we expected that the church and that Jesus could help us?

Do we think that Jesus has come to solve all our social and political problems?  I don't say that He did NOT, for I strongly believe that when Jesus will reign on our earth that all these our problems will belong to the past!  BUT JESUS CANNOT REIGN EXCEPT BY HIS CROSS EXCEPT VIA CALVARY!!

Is that what we don't want to see?  Then it can happen that we cry for Jesus and He does not answer.  Then it can be that we are very much disappointed and turn away from Jesus and from the church, as many people do in our days.

When Jesus had fed the 5000 people He withdrew Himself.  They looked for Him, they wanted Him to be their king but Jesus said to them, "You seek me because you have eaten your fill of the loaves.  Do not labour for the food which perishes but for the food which endures to eternal life." (John 6)

Who do we think Jesus is?  Why did He come to us, sent by God?  Christianity today seems to make a swing.  The so called liberation theology stresses the point that Christians must side with the oppressed even to the point of sometimes backing violent revolution.  We remember the decision of the World Council of Churches to support financially the Liberation Front in Africa!  We are aware of the social interest of the churches in the many problems of underdeveloped countries and we don't judge.  But we must ask ourselves where are we going with our Christianity?

With the proclamation of the gospel, with the message of the Kingdom of God?  One thing is sure that Jesus did come to save us from our sins.  But if sin is not our problem no 1, Jesus can do nothing for us or to put it a better way: we don't see in Him what He really is and we are disappointed.  To our world SIN is not a problem anymore and Jesus becomes just a reformer but He is NOT!  It could be that the Jesus about Whom we talk so much today and Who has become a street-picture, so to say, is different from the real one, the Jesus of the Bible!

John finishes this part of his letter by saying that we have to abide in Him so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming.  We can only have confidence in Him as the One Who has saved us from our sins and makes us walk in His ways, in the path of righteousness.  That may be very hard in our world.  There is so much confusion so that we hesitate, there is so much darkness so that we fall and stumble but Jesus is there to encourage us and to lift us up and to let His light shine by His Word and His Holy Spirit.

We think of the antichrist often as a person of violence.  2Thess.2 pictures him as the son of perdition and of rebellion but we know that he also can appear in sheep's clothing.  He is just a nice teacher and a good preacher.  But that one thing is missing the gospel of Jesus the SAVIOUR, the Son of God Who became man to bear our sins, and our punishment of the WRATH of God which is upon us.

To know this is such a great blessing.  It is beyond all understanding and yet it is true.  Abide in that knowledge, grow in it and let it not be taken away from you.

May the 2 things mentioned in our text be there in your life, THE ANOINTING AND THE KNOWLEDGE.  You can't separate them.  The Holy Spirit leads you into the truth of JESUS so that you see all things in Him Who is the Light of the world, by saving it from its sin!

Being christened is being anointed by the Holy One that all of us may know.  There is hope for us, for ALL of us if we ABIDE IN JESUS and seek Him with all our heart as sinners who are in need of Him, the Saviour!

Amen.