Imagine you are a new convert. Someone told you about Jesus, you believed, you were taken to a river, and you were immersed. You thought you were baptized. But then a preacher comes to town, hears your testimony, asks a few questions, and tells you that what happened at that river was not baptism at all. You need to be baptized.
How would you feel? Insulted, maybe. Confused. That preacher would have enemies by sundown. That is exactly the situation Paul walked into in Ephesus, and that is exactly what the enemies of truth accuse him of: rebaptizing people who had already been baptized.
But Paul would say: no. I simply baptized once. Whatever happened before was not true baptism.
Big Idea: Scriptural baptism requires scriptural authority and a clear understanding of the gospel it represents, and where that is missing, it has not truly happened yet.
The Setting: Paul Comes to Ephesus
The title of this sermon is "Paul the Anabaptist." That title was chosen because Paul is doing here what many of those who came before us were accused of doing. The enemies of the truth would accuse Paul and others of rebaptizing, and Paul would say: no, I simply baptized once. Whatever happened before was not true baptism.
Apollos was in Corinth at this point. Thanks to Aquila and Priscilla, he went on to do great things there, so much so that by the time Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, there were some who claimed to be followers of Apollos. Meanwhile, Paul passed through the upper regions and came to Ephesus.
Ephesus was no small stop on the map. John MacArthur writes that it was "an important political, educational, and commercial center, ranking with Alexandria in Egypt." It was the site of the temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The gospel had likely come first through Priscilla and Aquila, and Paul would spend three years there establishing the church. It was a city at the center of the early church's expansion.
The Question Paul Asked
Paul ran into some disciples in Ephesus. Commentators have long debated who they were. The word "disciples" as used throughout Acts refers to saved individuals, so the assumption here is that these were believers. But something was not quite right about this group, and Paul, the missionary that he was, began to ask questions.
"Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" Their answer must have surprised him. They had not even heard whether there was a Holy Spirit to receive.
That answer sent Paul to a follow-up question: "Into what then were you baptized?" The two questions are connected. Baptism is a church ordinance, given in Matthew 28:16–20 in the context of the Great Commission and the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If it was done rightly, they ought to have heard about the Trinity. They ought to have known there was a Holy Spirit. So Paul pressed them on what they had actually received.
What appears to have happened is that these men had been baptized by someone who had himself been baptized by John. He had received his authority directly from God, but that authority did not pass forward to his disciples. The Great Commission was given to the church, not to random individuals.
Even if you interpret the problem differently, the conclusion is the same. Perhaps the difficulty was not with the administrator but with the candidates themselves. Either way, the result is unscriptural baptism followed by scriptural baptism. That is what Paul gave them.
What Baptism Is a Picture Of
Before we look at what this passage does not teach, we need to pause and ask: what is baptism actually a picture of? Because if we are going to discuss whether a baptism is valid, we ought to first understand what a valid baptism is pointing to.
Baptism is a picture of the gospel. When a believer goes under the water, it is a picture of burial. When he comes up, it is a picture of resurrection. Paul writes in Romans 6:
Baptism says: I was a dead man. Christ died in my place and bore the wrath I deserved. He was buried, and he rose from the dead, and because I am united to him by faith, I died with him and I live with him. That is not a small thing. It is not a ritual you go through to join a club. It is a public declaration of what Christ has done for a lost sinner.
If you are reading this and you have never trusted Christ, that is the message baptism is preaching to you. You are a sinner. God is holy. You cannot stand before him on your own. But Christ went to the cross, bore the penalty for sin, died, was buried, and rose again. God calls you to repent and believe on him. If you do, that is what baptism will one day say about you.
What This Passage Does Not Teach
Acts 19 has sometimes been read in ways it was never meant to support. Two corrections are in order.
First, rebaptism is the exception, not the rule. Out of all the men and women baptized in the New Testament, only twelve are recorded here as being baptized a second time. We ought not to rebaptize "to be sure." This should only be done where there is clearly an error in baptism, such as what you find in this text.
We are not, nor can we be, the police for other churches. There may be times when a church receives a member in a way you might question. That is between that church and the Lord. Sovereign Grace Baptist Church has no authority over our sister churches on how they receive members. We cannot dictate their policies, and we cannot determine their standing before Christ. AC Dayton, one of the men who stood alongside J.R. Graves and J.M. Pendleton, wrote this:
Each Church is by the Lord constituted sole judge of who shall be its members, and of all matters relating to its internal polity and discipline. To its own Master it standeth or falleth. Let each Church, therefore, be careful for itself to conform to the teaching of the Word, and leave its sisters in peace to do the same. If we disagree about these teachings, let us not quarrel like enemies, anxious to criminate each other; but, in love, let us bear each other's burdens, in brotherly affection, point out each other's faults, and by the faithful witnessing for the truth, we will soon drive out all error. AC Dayton, "Alien Baptism" or "Pedobaptist and Campbellite Immersions"
Second, this passage does not teach that tongues or the gifts of prophecy continue. We should not expect that when we are baptized we will also receive sign gifts like these men did. What we read here in Acts 19 is the final episode of tongues in the New Testament. Paul himself addresses it directly when writing to the church at Corinth:
Tongues shall cease. Have they? Absolutely. We know this for two reasons. First, we have the complete canon of Scripture. "The perfect" in verse 10 is a neuter noun. Paul would not have spoken of Christ as a "that." The context of the passage has nothing to do with the return of Christ and everything to do with differing degrees of revelation. Partial revelation came through the sign gifts. Complete revelation came through the completed Word. The Bible is spoken of as perfect in James 1:25, and it is telling that sign gifts receive no further mention in the New Testament after 1 Corinthians.
Second, consider the charismatic movement in light of Scripture. As Tom Pennington writes in A Biblical Case for Cessationism, the book of Acts presents tongues as authentic human languages used for a unique and limited purpose in the early church. What takes place in the modern charismatic movement bears no resemblance to the New Testament gift as described in Acts.
So What Do We Do with This?
First, examine your own baptism. Not to create anxiety, but to create clarity. Was it administered by a scripturally constituted church? Did you understand what you were doing and why? Did you know the one into whose name you were being baptized? These are not trick questions. They are the same questions Paul asked those twelve men in Ephesus.
Second, do not make yourself the policeman of every other congregation. As AC Dayton wrote, each church stands or falls to its own Master. We can hold our convictions firmly without appointing ourselves the court of appeals for every baptism in the county.
Third, remember what baptism is about. It is about a Savior who died and rose again. It is about sinners who have been united to him by grace through faith. Get that right, and the rest follows. Get that wrong, and no amount of water will fix it.
Many who came before us did what Paul did, and they were called Anabaptists by their enemies. Paul would have said: I have only ever baptized once. What he meant was this: the real thing has requirements, content, authority behind it. Where those things are missing, you do not have a baptism yet, no matter what anyone told you at the river.
May God give us the clarity to honor his ordinances rightly, and the grace to do it with the love and conviction that Paul himself displayed.