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Baptism: What's It For?

This book is going to be in desperate need of another chapter that I can't write. Hopefully, by publication time, there will be a chapter that covers the "what for" of baptism in a more spiritual manner. This chapter will deal only with the theology of baptism, because that's all I can write. Heaven knows I've given thought to how to write a more spiritual chapter, and it's just not in me.

The theology is in me, though, because the theology of baptism is very simple. Despite the almost universal rejection of baptism's role in the salvation process by evangelicals¹, baptism's role in the New Testament writings is consistent and clear.

Let's begin with the first mention of baptism in the church, and we'll get back to Jesus's statements about baptism afterwards.

"Then Peter said to them, 'Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit'"(Acts 2:38²).

This is towards the end of the very first Christian sermon recorded in the Bible. Much is made of the word "for" in this verse, which is the Greek word eis, which normally means "into." Prepositions are notoriously difficult to translate from one language to another. I speak German, and the German preposition zu, for example, often means "to." However, if you want cream in your coffee at a German restaurant, zu replaces the American word "with." If you're sitting in your living room, then zu means you're "at" home, while you need nach to indicate that you are going "to" your home, despite the fact that nach also means "after."

Koine or New Testament Greek is no different. It's prepositions do not line up neatly with American ones. That leaves room for us English speakers to argue about the word eis in Acts 2:38 and other places. I'm going to spare you the reasons that I would argue that eis is accurately translated as "for" in Acts 2:38. Instead, we'll just go on looking at all the verses on baptism and seeing that they consistently agree that baptism is for the remission of sins. I'll simply point out to you that eis is comfortably and naturally indicates "for" in that verse, and you'll see as we go along that this allows Acts 2:38 to agree with everything else said about baptism in the New Testament.

After Peter tells the crowd in Jerusalem that they are to be baptized "for" the remission of sins, Luke (the writer of Acts) tells us that "they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day about three thousand souls were added" (Acts 2:41). So we see that two things happened. One, the people who listened to Peter were baptized that very same day, without waiting, and two, they were thus added to the number of the disciples.

In Acts 8:12, we read of the Samaritans:

"When they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women."

Again, the response to the Gospel is baptism. You probably know already that later in that chapter we read that these same Samaritans had not received the Spirit, despite being baptized in water. Numerous reasons are given for this, but none of them are pertinent to our discussion. Suffice it to say that baptism for the Samaritans happened before receiving the Spirit, something which doesn't fit into any denomination's theology except as an anomaly.

Immediately afterwards, Philip left Samaria and was sent by the Spirit of God into the desert. There he ran into the Ethiopian eunuch, who was reading the scroll of Isaiah without being able to understand it. Philip preached Jesus to him, beginning with that passage in Isaiah. Apparently, baptism was important enough to Philip to be included in his preaching of Jesus, because when Philip and the eunuch came to water, the eunuch said, "Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?" (Acts 8:36). Philip, if the much debated verse 37 is original to Luke, told him that nothing was preventing him if he believed with all his heart, and the eunuch was immediately baptized and went on his way rejoicing.

Acts 9 describes Saul's conversion, where he became the apostle Paul, but his baptism isn't mentioned until Paul gives his testimony in Acts 22, so we'll leave that until we get there.

In Acts 10, we read of the redemption of the first Gentile converts, Cornelius's household. This, too, has an unusual occurrence for Scripture, though it is not uncommon in practice today. Here, Cornelius receives the Spirit before he is baptized (Acts 10:44-48). This one, however, is very easy to explain. Peter and the Jews with him would not have baptized Cornelius had they not seen the visible manifestations of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Notice Peter's words: "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as we did?" (10:47). Why would Peter have used the word "forbid," except that the Jews with him would have forbidden Gentiles to be baptized? This is made even more clear by the fact, made known to us in the beginning parts of the chapter, that Peter would not even have gone into Cornelius' house if he had not received a vision letting him know it was okay (10:28,29). Even afterward, when Peter returned to Jerusalem, he was not received with rejoicing but with rebuke. The Jewish Christians there wanted to know why he went into a Gentile's house and ate with him (11:3).

The Jews with Peter, however, did indeed recognize that they could not forbid baptism, so, as in all the previous conversions we've seen, he baptized Cornelius and his household on the spot.

The next incident highlights the importance of baptism to the apostles even more clearly. It's in Acts 16, and it reads:

"And he [the Philippian jailer] took them the same hour of the night, washed their [Paul and Silas] stripes, and was baptized, he and all his, immediately" (Acts 16:33).

Note the words used: "the same hour of the night" and "immediately." We know from the story that "the same hour of the night" was midnight or shortly thereafter. Paul was back in prison by morning when the magistrates wanted to release him. When you are performing baptisms at one or two in the morning, it is important to you!

The next mention of baptism is in Acts 19, where Paul came across some disciples of John. They had received John's baptism, but after Paul preached Christ to them, he baptized them in the name of Jesus (19:4,5). As in Acts 8, Paul only afterward laid hands on them and they received the Spirit. There is a long gap in Acts 8, where Philip apparently had to wait for the apostles to come from Jerusalem, while with Paul present, there is no delay in Acts 19, but otherwise the passages are the same.

Finally, we come to Paul's conversion. It happened back in chapter 9, but he describes it, including his baptism, in chapter 22. After his dramatic experience on the road to Damascus, Paul had gone to Damascus blind and helpless. He simply sat and waited for three days until Jesus sent Ananias to Paul. Ananias's words are startling to those of us who typically regard baptism as an afterthought, done solely for public testimony. He tells Paul:

"And now, what are you waiting for! Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord" (Acts 22:16).

Now you tell me. When Ananias tells Paul to be baptized and wash away his sins, do you really thing he spoke of "washing" as something different than the baptism that he mentioned in the same sentence? Can a water baptism and a washing, when mentioned in the same sentence, really be interpreted to mean two different events? Surely you would be embarassed to suggest it! I would! And, mind you, I was a typical evangelical for years. I was saved in an Assembly of God church and affiliated with both Charismatic and Baptist churches. I had heard, and I had believed, that baptism has nothing to do with washing away sins, but could I, and can you, really deny that Ananias was tying the two together? Especially in light of all the rest of the passages on baptism in Acts? You won't find any passages on baptism that indicate anything contrary to this. In fact, we are about to look at several more that tie baptism to the initial experience of salvation. As I said, the New Testament is remarkably consistent on the matter, especially considering that most of us born again evangelicals believe something completely different about it!

Let's just line all most of these remaining Scriptures up so that we can all choke on them together.

Let me apologize here for making light of such an important issue. However, surely it has to be humorous to any objective onlooker that we who say that the Bible is "the sole rule of faith and practice" go to such incredible lengths to deny something that is so ridiculously obvious in Scripture. You do not have to be particularly spiritual or insightful to grasp the New Testament teaching on baptism. The Bible beats us over the head with this teaching!

"Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:3,4).

"For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27).

"Buried with him in baptism, in which you are also risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead" (Col. 2:12).

"The like figure whereunto even baptism does also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the request for a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 3:21).

Okay, first let me say that I know we'll have to look a that last verse again. I adjusted the King James translation of it, because it's so pitifully bad and confusing, but I promise to justify my translation so conclusively later that you won't be mad at me. But putting 1 Peter 3:21 aside for a moment, look at those verses! It's those who have been baptized into Christ that have put on Christ! We were put to death with him in baptism, and thus we are raised with him into newness of life! Could Paul have been any plainer?

And look where those verses are? Are any of them in Hebrews or James, the supposed "works" books of the New Testament? No, these verses are in Romans, and Galatians, and Colossians, great foundational books of salvation by faith.

Okay, let's step back a bit and look at Jesus's statements about baptism, and then we'll address the objections that we evangelicals are so fond of using against what the New Testament plainly says. I'm sure all of you have noticed, for example, that I have not 1 Corinthians chapter 1. I promise I'll get to that. It's a pretty weak objection, though, and it's not nearly as difficult to deal with as you might be hoping. Of course, I know that none of you would be "hoping" that the Bible would turn out to be teaching any particular doctrine, and instead you are just wanting to receive anything it teaches because it's your "sole rule for faith and practice."

There's really only a couple of applicable verses from the Gospels about baptism. I know it's typical for articles about baptism to talk about what baptism meant to the Jews and then go deeply into the way that John the Baptist used baptism. That's all interesting, but it really has nothing at all to do with this article. We're looking at what the New Testament says about Christian baptism, and it's so clear and consistent that nothing in the way John baptized is going to change it.

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19).

"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that does not believe shall be condemned" (Mark 16:16)

All I'm going to say about that is that Jesus clearly did not disagree with what the apostles said. You don't need me to explain those verses to you. We will, however, talk about Matthew 28:19 when we talk about what name to baptize in, which I will address, and we will talk about Mark 16:16 when we address objections, which is next.

Objections

It is amazing, with such a consistent New Testament teaching, that there are any objections, but there are. Therefore, we'll look at them.

1 Peter 3:21

"The like figure whereunto even baptism does also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the request for a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

When I was clinging to the "baptism is a public testimony only" doctrine, I used to interpret this in such a way that it would read, "...baptism does also now save us (but really it doesn't)." Friends, Peter did not insert parentheses³ into the last half of that sentence so that he could disagree with what he said in the first half of the sentence. Please tell me that's as obvious to you as it is to me. Peter stuck those parentheses in to explain how baptism saves us, not to deny that it saves us. He just told us it saves us. He did that himself. Why would he deny it?

Baptism does not save us, Peter says, by giving us a bath, washing dirt off our body. It saves us by being the request to God for a good conscience. He's giving us an explanation. Baptism is the "sinner's prayer," which you find everywhere in evangelical circles, but is unheard of in the New Testament and the early church.

Here I better tell you why I translated eperotema as "request" rather than "answer" as the KJV has it. I am not a Greek scholar. I have taken only one year of Greek and read a few books. I am not an expert. However, I can use helps. I can read lexicons that define Greek words and explain the "why" of their definition. Eperotema is a unique word. It's only in the New Testament once, and it can't be found in secular Greek literature, either. However, eperotema is simply the noun form of a rather common verb that means "to ask." What do you think the noun form of "to ask" is? It's "request," "petition," or "question," or at least something similar. It is not "answer."

That seems obvious to me, but if real Greek scholars agreed that it meant "answer," I would assume there was something I didn't understand. I'd go with the Greek scholars. But Greek scholars don't agree that it means "answer." In fact, every lexicon I checked, five or six of them, said it means "request." For some reason, a lot of modern translations choose "pledge" to translate eperotema. I don't know why that is. None of the lexicons I checked offered that as a possibility. They all said "request." The New American Standard, probably the best translated American version there is (in my humble opinion), uses "appeal," which is a synonym for "request." So I feel very safe saying that "request" is an excellent translation of eperotema and that Greek scholars agree with me.

It also makes sense. Baptism is the apostles' sinner's prayer. They didn't tell new converts to ask Jesus into their heart. They told them to be baptized for the remission of sins. Thus, for Peter to explain that baptism saves you by being the appeal to God for a good conscience is consistent both with the meaning of the word eperotema and with the teaching of the rest of the New Testament.

1 Corinthians 1

Let's write out the pertinent verses here, so they're in front of us.

"I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I had baptized in my own name. I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides, I don't know whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel" (1 Cor 1:14-17a).

Is there really anything here that contradicts anything we've been saying? Obviously, the Corinthians were baptized, just not by Paul. If it's not obvious, it's okay, because Acts tells us that they were baptized. Acts 18:8 says, "Many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized." They were baptized. We find out from Paul's letter that they were not baptized by him, but they were most certainly baptized. If they were baptized, were they baptized for any different reason than the Jews of Acts 2, the Samaritans of Acts 8, the Gentiles of Acts 10, the Philippian jailer of Acts 16, the disciples of John of Acts 19, and the Romans, Galatians, and Colossians were baptized? If we ever find a 3 Corinthians, will it say, "As many of you as prayed a sinner's prayer have put on Christ, unlike those Galatians, who were baptized to put on Christ"? Or will it say, "As many of you as were baptized after Christ have given a public testimony to your faith"? I don't know about you, but I don't think so.

I don't think we have to go any further on this objection. Besides, I don't think this chapter or the parenthetical statement in 1 Peter 3:21 is the real objection. I think the only one real objection is the next one.

So Am I Saying That If We're Not Baptized We're Not Saved?

Herein lies the real objection. The thought that if we're not baptized we're not saved is offensive to evangelicals, myself included. Great men of God like A.W. Tozer, Watchman Nee, Jim Elliott, and others (pick your own favorite) did not baptize for the remission of sins. Does the New Testament teach that they are not saved?

God forbid! Now you really aren't free to object here. You, if you are a good evangelical, almost certainly don't think that experience is a reliable authority. So the experience of Tozer, Nee, Elliott, and your own favorites don't matter. You are supposed to be rejecting experience in favor of Scriptural authority. I, on the other hand, believe that experience is a great authority, and it's used all the time in Scripture. Peter, for example, used experience to argue that it was okay for him to baptize Cornelius's household (Acts 11:1-18). And I believe that experience testifies that Tozer, Nee, and Elliott most certainly were saved, and were even favored by God.

So how does this jive with anything I've said up to this point? There's not a short answer to that question, so let's talk about it.

Let's take a look again at the household of Cornelius, the first Gentiles to experience "repentance to life" (Acts 11:18⁴). Everywhere else, when the baptism of the Holy Spirit is mentioned, it occurs after baptism. Acts 19:5 shows us what appears to be a pattern. Paul baptized the new converts, then he laid hands on them to receive the Spirit. This was the norm in the church for centuries⁵.

Why was Cornelius an exception? As I said earlier, the reason is obvious. Had Cornelius not received the Holy Spirit, the Jews with Peter would never have baptized Cornelius. In fact, it's unlikely Peter would have, either. When he reported the incident to the church in Jerusalem, he said, "Since God gave them the same gift as he did us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?" (Acts 11:17).

God had to baptize Cornelius in the Spirit priot to water baptism, or the water baptism would never have happened. God has always been a God of exceptions. Who can miss this in Scripture? King Saul was rejected by God after unlawfully offering sacrifices on the battlefield (1 Sam. 13:11-14), yet David, who was not of Levi any more than Saul was, was commanded by God to offer sacrifices in order to avert judgment from his kingdom (2 Sam 24:18ff). In fact, Jesus himself used David to justify exceptions, stating that David was allowed to eat the show bread, which was unlawful for any but priests to eat (Matt. 12:2-5).

Have we evangelicals been in any different position than Cornelius. Due to the teachings we have received, none of us would be baptized unless there were some reason that we already thought we had received the Holy Spirit. Yes, this is due to bad doctrine, but was Peter's lack in Cornelius's house any less due to bad doctrine? Jesus had made it clear many times that his Gospel would go to the Gentiles⁶, but neither the circumcised believers in Jerusalem nor Peter himself believed it.

The subject of exceptions brings us to one last example that we ought to address.

The Thief on the Cross

We have often argued that the thief on the cross was saved apart from baptism. Jesus told him that he would walk with Jesus in paradise that day (Luke 23:43), and he wasn't baptized. Of course, we know that it would have been impossible for him to be baptized. He was converted on the cross that killed him. The thief, like David eating the show bread, was an exception. Exceptions are common in the Scriptures. This does not mean that we should make the exception the rule.

A Final Word: Baptism and the Church

Acts 2:41 tells us that the three thousand souls baptized when the day of Pentecost came to fullness were "added to" the church. Somewhere in the last few hundred years, as part of our rejection of state churches, we forgot about the church completely. The New Testament does not know about a Christianity that is separate from the church. We are members of one another, and together we form the body of Christ. We have spiritualized this so much that we claim to be members together of one another even if we disagree with each other so vehemently that we refuse to even hold meetings together.

We seem to have forgotten that "just me, my Bible, and God" is a formula for a hard heart, not a formula for power in Christ, according to the very same Bible that we claim to be trusting in (Heb. 3:13). Growth comes "together," according to Ephesians 4, and it only happens as "each part does its share" (Eph. 4:16). We read, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'" (1 Cor. 12:21), but we don't appear to believe it. Somehow, we think that an eye and a hand that never communicate and live in different cities or attend different churches in the same city are joined. They are not joined. The alone person needs the hand. He doesn't just need to know that the hand exists. He actually needs the hand, and Scripture says he needs the hand to encourage him every day, as long as it is called today. As far as I know, it is still called today, and if the eye and the hand never see each other, then both will very likely be hardened by sin's deceitfulness (Heb. 3:13).

Just because you have read Scriptures on baptism doesn't mean that you are authorized to baptize. I'm not talking here about returning to the Roman Catholic church and obtaining the pope's blessing for any baptisms you have performed or received. I am talking about the church really being in existence. Surely every ordinance of the church comes from Christ. The authority to baptize lies in Christ, and Christ's authority is in the church, not in self-appointed Bible interpreters.

Does this mean your baptism is not valid? I don't know. Does this mean I am questioning your baptism? Knowing that is the year 2007 and that I'm writing in the English language, I also know that it's very likely your baptism was performed by some dead organization that even you don't accept as the church, or that you were baptized by some Lone Ranger. Yes, I question such a baptism. The church is far more important than you could ever realize. Most Americans who claim to be Christian have made no real commitment to Christ. They feel no obligation to "deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow" (Luke 9:23). Since Christ made it clear that such as these cannot be his disciples (Luke 14:26-33), they are not ready for baptism by any Scriptural standard. But even the ones who have made a real and whole commitment to Christ are usually struggling, fighting with the world, feeling lost and lonely in the world, tossed around not only by winds of doctrine (Eph. 4:14) but also by numerous other ills, maladies, and temptations. God, in his mercy, has committed some grace to those of us who committed ourselves to him, but those of you still struggling on in denominations with weekly meetings have no idea of the "great grace" (Acts 4:33) that is committed to those who are truly joined by the Spirit to other disciples in a new family—the household of God—having left their old families and lives behind.

I exhort those of you in such a situation to seek out the church—the disciples of Christ knit together by his Spirit—and experience its baptism. After that, it will not be so difficult to understand the things the Bible says about that baptism.

Appendix A

I promised to comment on the name in which we are to be baptized, but I think one more section would detract from this page, so I am supplying it as a link.

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