Do I need to get baptised?
Few things have divided the church more historically than the question of baptism. These days, it is easy to choose a church denomination based on your position on the subject. But if you find yourself attending a church that holds a different position on baptism, or if you get into a conversation on the subject with someone who understands it differently than you do, you may find yourself with a whole lot of questions to answer.
Should we be baptising our children or only get baptised as believers? What if I was baptised before as a baby? Should I get baptised again as an adult? Is it necessary to be baptised at all? If we are saved by grace alone through faith in Christ alone, then why do some people talk like I need to be baptised in order to be saved? What is the role of baptism in the life of the believer? There are many questions that people have about baptism. And while we are much more tolerant of different positions on the subject today, that wasn’t always the case in church history.
In Europe in the sixteenth century, holding the “wrong” position could lead to persecution, and many people were in fact executed for going against the flow. When groups of believers became convinced by Scripture that baptism was something that first required a confession of faith, both Roman Catholics and Protestants alike considered this a heresy and labelled these groups “Anabaptists.” Anabaptist meaning those who baptise again.
Anabaptists didn’t see it that way, calling it rather “the right baptism of Christ which is preceded by teaching and oral confession of faith” (Balthasar Hubmaier). In an attempt to curb the growth of this movement, persecution increased and King Ferdinand declared downing (also called the third baptism) “the best antidote to Anabaptism.”
While you are unlikely to risk your life by believing one way or the other today, it is still important that we take the time to prayerfully consider these things if we want to act in good conscience before our Lord.
What is baptism?
“Baptism is an outward expression of an inward faith.” – Watchman Nee
Baptism is what many churches would call a sacrament. This is a big word that simply means it is a ritual that is believed to have been ordained by Christ and is held to be a means of divine grace or a symbol of a spiritual reality. (Other sacraments you may have heard of include marriage and the Lord’s Supper or Communion.) In churches that hold to the position of believers’ baptism, it is also known as an ordinance, or an act of obedience. This means that it is an act “ordained” by Christ to be observed as a sign of faith, commitment, and union with him in his death and resurrection.
Essentially, the term “sacrament” emphasises what God does in the act, while “ordinance” emphasises the believer’s obedience to a command. But almost all church traditions agree that it is a rite of initiation into the Christian faith, involving water and symbolising union with Christ.
What this means is that, in church talk, baptism is a pretty big deal and not an optional extra. It is something that has its origins in Scripture, and if Jesus commanded it, it would be wise to listen and obey.
What does the Bible say about Baptism?
If all it takes to be saved is putting your trust in Jesus Christ and what he has done on your behalf, what is the point of baptism? It can’t be that we are adding another requirement to salvation because it is clear that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13), and Romans 3:24 makes it clear that all “are justified by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:8-9 also says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”
So we can say from the outset that baptism is not a work that is required to be saved. We don’t do anything to achieve our own salvation; it is all a gift that we receive in Christ Jesus, and nothing we do can in any way add to that. Not even baptism. This is why Jesus is able to promise the thief on the cross that he would be with him in paradise, even though the thief had clearly not had a chance to be baptised after his moment of repentance.
So what then is the purpose of baptism? Baptism wasn’t an entirely new idea in Judaism by the time Jesus came along. This is why John the Baptist is able to baptise so many people in the wilderness before Jesus even started his public ministry. We see in Mark 1 that John was “baptising in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptised by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”
Prior to John’s baptism of repentance, there had also been a custom called mikveh, which was a ritual bath for cleansing that was practiced by priests and other individuals who went to the temple in order to meet the requirements of Levitical law. There was also a custom of immersion that was required of Gentiles who wished to convert to Judaism. And the Essenes, a Jewish sect that lived in seclusion around the time of Jesus (from around the 2nd Century BC to the 1st Century AD), practiced daily immersion in water for ritual purification.
But John added a new aspect to his baptism in that he was calling people to a once-for-all public baptism specifically for the repentance of sins in order to prepare for the coming messiah. This is the baptism that Jesus participated in, even though he was without sin, in order to “fulfil all righteousness” and in this way he identified with all humanity, publicly launched his ministry, and set an example of obedience to all who would follow him.
A step of obedience
When Jesus gave his disciples what we call the great commission, his call was “to make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20) Jesus commands his disciples to make more disciples of all nations and to baptise them in his name. So when we baptise a new believer, or get baptised as a new believer, we are taking a step of obedience to Jesus’ own command. Incidentally, we are to be baptised in the name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. What a beautiful acknowledgement of our triune God in that special moment!
Then in the book of Acts we see the first disciples obeying this command, first as a whole crowd of people responds to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost and he says that they should repent and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:37-38), and later as Peter orders that Cornelius and his household be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 10:48).
Interestingly, it is here that we first see the connection being made between baptism and the coming of the Holy Spirit. After God sent the Holy Spirit to his first disciples in the upper room on the first Pentecost, he sends the same Spirit to everyone who responds in repentance and faith.
We see an interesting switch in the situation with Cornelius and his family, because as they were Gentiles, it seems Peter needed a little extra convincing that these people were to be included on equal footing with the others who were following Jesus. And this God does by first sending a vision to Peter before he is called to go to their house, and second, by the people receiving the Holy Spirit before Peter had even finished sharing his message with them. So it seems that by sending his Spirit to the Gentiles too, God is publicly affirming the inclusion of Gentiles in his new people. And at this point, Peter sees no reason to deny them baptism.
So we see baptism as a step of obedience, and a response we make to the work that God has done in Christ Jesus. It is something that is done when new believers join the family of Christians. But is there anything more that the Bible tells us about baptism?
Baptism as a symbol
When you first become a Christian by trusting in Jesus and putting your faith in him and what he achieved on your behalf on the cross at Calvary, Scripture is full of the many things that happen in that moment. One of those is that your sins are forgiven.
Metaphorically we speak of your sins being washed away, and we see this symbolized in baptism, as is made explicit in the words of Ananias, when he commands Saul to “Get up, be baptised and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” (Acts 22:16) In the same way that Jews would immerse themselves in water for ritual cleansing before entering the temple, when you are baptised in water as a believer it is a symbol of the cleansing from our sins that we receive in Jesus’ name.
In addition, we see in baptism another truth that we experience when we put our faith in Jesus, that we become united with Christ in his death and resurrection. Similar to how Jesus identified with sinful people when he himself got baptised by John, there is a kind of union that the Bible speaks of between believers and Christ Jesus in which we identify with Christ in his death and his resurrection. This is how we are able to benefit from what he achieves in dying on that cross.
Romans 6:4 sees this pictured in baptism: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” This is why, often when people are baptised by immersion, we see it as a picture of dying as they go into the water and being raised to life as they come back out of it. And thus we are able to say as Paul does in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!”
In conclusion
While there is a long history of division around the subject of baptism within the church, this seems to us to be the most straightforward reading of the biblical evidence. Baptism is a sacrament that is given when a believer joins the family of God by believing in Christ Jesus. On our part, it is a step of obedience to what Jesus commanded. But it is also a symbol of the cleansing from our sins that we receive through our union with Jesus in his death and resurrection. And it is a reminder to us all of what he has done for us every time we see someone baptised.
There will be believers who differ from us in terms of some of the interpretations relating to things like baptising infants and sprinkling versus immersion, and on these things, it is wise to remember how Paul advised us to handle disagreements within the family of believers, to welcome one another, and not to quarrel over opinions. Each one of us will give an account of ourselves to God, so we should not be passing judgment or putting a stumbling block before anyone else. (Romans 14) Instead, we should act in faith and in obedience to what Christ has made clear to us.
Author | Hilary Mushambi