Philip Baptises the Eunuch

PHILIP AND THE EUNUCH – ACTS 8:26-40
The story of Acts chapter eight concerning Philip’s ministry in Samaria and the account of all the people there receiving the power of the Holy Spirit continues to unfold in a most powerful way.

Acts 8:26. The angel of the Lord then spoke to Philip and told him to travel south on the road that goes from Jerusalem down to the desert region of Gaza. When he got there, he saw an Ethiopian man, a eunuch who was a high official of Candace the queen of Ethiopia, and who managed her treasury. He had been to Jerusalem to worship, and He was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading Isaiah the prophet. 
29. The Holy Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over and join that man sitting in the chariot. Philip went directly to the man and heard him reading out loud from the book of Isaiah. He asked him if he understood what it was that he was reading. The man said ’The only way I can understand this is if somebody explains it to me.’ He asked Philip to come up and sit next to him. The passage of Scripture that he was reading was “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His justice was taken away, and who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.” (Isaiah 53:7ff)

34. The eunuch said to Philip ‘Who is Isaiah speaking about here, is it himself, or some other man? Philip began to share with the man from that very passage of Scripture, that it was Jesus who was being spoken about, and he preached about Jesus to him.  As they continued to travel, they came to a watering place and the eunuch said to Philip ‘Here is some water, what is stopping me from being baptised?’ Philip replied, ‘If you believe with all your heart, nothing is stopping you.’ The eunuch said ‘I believe that Jesus is the Son of God’ Then he commanded the drivers to stop the chariot and he and Philip went down into the water together and Philip baptised him.

39. When they came up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away to Azotus (60 Km – a short flight) and he vanished from the sight of the eunuch, who resumed his journey, rejoicing all the way (The journey of the rest of his life).  Philip then passed through the area of Azotus, preaching in all the cities there till he arrived at Caesarea.

The Ethiopian was obviously a man who had converted to Judaism and had been visiting for the Jewish feast in Jerusalem where he would have heard about Jesus. He must have had a seeking heart and so God arranged for the truth of the gospel to be brought to him, and Philip was given by the Spirit, the words to say to the man, explaining that the Scriptures were talking of Jesus as the promised Messiah. He must have explained to the man the truth of water baptism as being the picture of his old life being buried with Jesus into death and then rising into new life in Christ, because the Ethiopian had asked to be baptised. He was then fully immersed in water as it states that they went ‘down into the water and came up out of the water’.
There is no talk of any ‘follow up’ after the man’s conversion so Philip would have had to commit the Ethiopian into The Lord’s hands for his future growth in his walk with The Lord. But it is a known fact that Ethiopia became ‘Christianised’ very early in the history of the church, so it appears that Philip’s ministry was very effective, and the message of water baptism that Philip would have taught him would have been enough to allow that man to walk in the freedom of the exchanged life of Jesus within him.
The beautiful outcome of the experience of salvation and revelation that came to the eunuch on that road has another most likely and astounding outcome. As the eunuch would have continued to read Isaiah from chapter fifty three onwards his eyes would have alighted on the following words from chapter fifty-six.
Isaiah 56:3 And my blessings are for Gentiles, too, when they accept the Lord; don’t let them think that I will ever overlook them. And this is for the eunuchs too. They will be as much mine as anyone. For I say this to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths holy, who choose the things that please me and obey my laws: I will give them—in my house, within my walls—a name far greater than the honour they would receive from having sons and daughters. For the name that I will give them is an everlasting one; it will never disappear.
As for the Gentiles, the outsiders who join the people of the Lord and serve him and love his name, who are his servants and don’t desecrate the Sabbath, and have accepted his covenant and promises, I will bring them also to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and make them full of joy within my House of Prayer.
I will accept their sacrifices and offerings, for my Temple shall be called “A House of Prayer for All Nations”! For the Lord God who brings back the outcasts of Israel says: I will bring others, too, besides my people Israel. (what a unique passage of Scripture)

Just before Jesus ascended in Heaven, his last words included the following command about doing all the things he told them to do, emphasising being baptised, and we can see this being done throughout the Book of Acts.
Matthew 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples in all the nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and then teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you; and be sure of this—that I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” 
Philip would have faithfully obeyed that command and explained to the Ethiopian the picture of water baptism as being buried into the death of Jesus by being submerged into the water and rising up with Jesus in newness of life when coming up out of the water. 
But it is Paul who brilliantly describes to us the essence of this life changing act of faith. He speaks to the Romans about how God’s grace and goodness outweighs all the sin and unbelief in the world because the new life of Jesus that lives within us is available to all those who believe in that and commit to living it out. 
Romans 6:1 But does this mean that because God’s goodness outweighs our badness so much that we should stay bad so that more of God’s goodness can be seen? Definitely not. How can we, who want the old sin and unbelief life to die off, also want to keep it alive at the same time? 
As many of us as were baptised (submerged and soaked) into the life of Jesus and identified with his life are first immersed into his death, and soaked in what his death means. It means that we were buried with him when we were immersed as one with him in his death, so that just as he was raised into new life by the power of The Father, we will also be soaked with the power of his new life. 5 For if we have shared the death with him, we will also share the risen life with him. Be aware of this, that the entire previous order of humanity in Adam has been crucified with Jesus, so that humanity’s alliance with sin and unbelief might be made redundant (katarge??), and that from now on we don’t have to serve in that old alliance of humanity in Adam. See yourselves as being as dead, as Jesus was, to the world of sin and unbelief, but alive and living for and with and in God, through what Jesus has done on our behalf.

Jesus said that the holy Spirit would be sent into the world to convict the world of sin because of their unbelief – the word sin ‘hamartia’ means to miss the mark, so to convict the world of sin means to reveal to the heart of everyone what is causing them to miss the mark of the target for their life – believing in Jesus and letting his life live within them. 
The big sin is unbelief. 

12 Sin and unbelief are no longer in control of you, because you are not answerable to the penalties and judgements of the Commandments, but you are answerable to the empowerment of God’s goodness and grace. And being set free from sin and unbelief’s hold over you, you have become the servants of godly welldoing, so now you can give yourselves over to a life of integrity and devotion to demonstrating the goodness of God.

The Ethiopian eunuch would have been a competent man of high status in the royal courts of Ethiopia but would always have felt deprived of privileges like having a family, that other less prestigious individuals would have enjoyed. But assuming he read the astounding words of Isaiah that revealed the unique graciousness of God to him he would have felt lifted into a realm of faith and grace to be able to love and bless all the people of his world back home in Ethiopia. He had no one to disciple him except for the Holy Spirit, who would have taken him into the endless depths of the work of transformation that began when he arose out of the waters of baptism into a new life in Christ. 
He was now empowered to give himself over to a life of Godly wisdom and devotion in demonstrating the goodness of God to all he knew and influenced in his world.