Over the years, particularly since I was a student at Bible
college, I have found myself involved in many debates about the
Bible and theology. The one that seems
to come up the most and stir up the most emotions, often anger, but sometimes
even anxiety or sadness, is baptism.
Is baptism necessary for salvation? Is it not?
I believe that 99% of the time, the answer to the question shouldn’t
really matter. Scripture says in
multiple places that baptism is part of the process. Whether it is “necessary” or not, it should
be done.
At the end of Peter’s famous Pentecost sermon, Luke, who is
the author of Acts, tells us what the people’s response was.
“Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart,
and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brethren, what shall we
do?’ Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and
each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your
sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” Acts 2:37-38 (NASB)
At the end of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples, “All
authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy
Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with
you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20 (NASB)
When I was in junior high, I occasionally attended church
with a friend of my mother and her family.
Since I had grown up in a Baptist church, I had seen many baptisms over
the years. I asked my mother’s friend
why they didn’t have a baptistery in their church. She told me that they don’t baptize in their
church. As a good Sunday School student
and VBS participant, I had memorized many Bible verses, including the Great
Commission quoted above from Matthew. I
asked her why they wouldn’t baptize since the Bible says we should, mentioning
the Matthew verse. She simply told me
that they didn’t do it.
That was the first time I had realized that baptism was an
issue in the church universal. Of
course, I didn’t know the ideas behind why they didn’t, but to hear that a
church would just . . . not do what is stated so plainly surprised me. To some degree I understood sin and being
disobedient to God, but it’s not like baptism was all that hard in itself,
especially for someone who claims to be committed to Christ. What’s the big deal? If they couldn’t add a baptistery to their
building, go out to the river or someone’s back yard swimming pool. But there they were, this whole church of
people who decided that Matthew 28:18-20 was invalid, or at least that one part
of it, and many, if not most, had never taken the time to be baptized.
My baptism was a great moment of my life. I was 15, in my freshman year of high
school. I was a member of a wonderful
youth group at a small Christian church with a youth minister who was
encouraging me along. Not only was my
baptism a cornerstone in my relationship with God, but it bound me closer to my
youth minister who baptized me, a man I consider to be a spiritual father. It also brought me into the church body in a
way that I hadn’t been before. It was a
signifying moment in my life that I can look back on, where I chose to believe
in and follow Jesus and to be a part of the body of Christ, both those in that
building and throughout the world.
Beyond that, I was displaying a picture of the death, burial
and resurrection of Christ. Baptism is
not just getting in a pool, river or baptistery for the purpose of getting
wet. It is displaying to the world what
Jesus did on the cross.
“Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him
through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:3-4 (NASB)
Baptism is such a beautiful picture of the cross that it
astounds me that someone who has chosen to follow Jesus would choose not to
participate.
As I mentioned before, the question of whether baptism is
necessary for salvation should not matter 99% of the time, but I realize there
is that 1%. I know that sometimes
circumstances don’t allow for someone to get baptized immediately, and during
the intervening time between choosing to get baptized and actually being baptized,
accidents can happen. I believe that we
serve a God of grace, and even if I believed baptism was necessary for
salvation, I would have a hard time believing that God would not allow someone
into the kingdom of heaven simply because he was in a car accident on his way
to get baptized. Or maybe she decided to
follow Jesus on her deathbed and was unable to be baptized.
One of my professors in college, while talking about this
issue, likened it to a caesarean section.
Natural birth is done in a certain manner, as is becoming a
Christian. Sometimes a c-section is
medically necessary, just as sometimes a person is unable to get baptized for
whatever reason. Both are ways to be
born. One way is the normal, natural way
and the other is a sometimes necessary alternative. It gets
the job done, but that’s not how it was meant to be. But just as c-sections are becoming a birth
option rather than an emergency procedure, there are Christians walking around
that are just choosing to not follow God’s word in this regard.
Most times a c-section does not affect the life of the child
as he or she grows. But does not being
baptized affect a person’s relationship with God? I can’t answer that question with any
certainty, but I can’t imagine that trying to live in relationship with God
while blatantly disobeying such an elementary instruction can be
beneficial. And I can say with absolute
certainty that taking that step to get baptized will only grow your
relationship with God.
You talk:
As a believer, what encouraged your decision to be baptized or not be baptized?
You talk:
As a believer, what encouraged your decision to be baptized or not be baptized?
Nicely done. It is important that we allow room for God's mercy. I would still say to someone, this is how they responded to Christ in the NT. I love expanding how the beauty of baptism - not just a subject for debate. Good work.
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad you like it. The whole issue has really bothered me for a long time because I couldn't find an answer I was comfortable with (because God wants us comfortable, right? Haha.) I finally realized that obedience is at the heart of it. If you're obeying, the rest of it seldom matters.
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