BAPTISM

 

1.  God’s grace brings salvation. Every person who has ever been saved has been saved by grace through faith alone --- plus nothing. In this respect the Gospel is an everlasting covenant of grace also extended to Old Testament believers.

 

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

 

2.  As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, God Himself offered a sacrificial type of Christ and covered their nakedness.  From Adam to Moses sin existed and men died. Those, like Enoch and Noah who were saved were justified as a result of their simple faith and God extended grace to them. Those who were saved during the period of the Law were justified through God’s Passover Lamb. “When I see the blood” --- NOT “when I see the baptism.”

 

Gen 3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

 

Ex 12:13 And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you….

 

 

3.  The Law was not given until after the Red Sea “baptism” experience and was given only as a means of sanctification, not justification. Therefore, in the typical Old Covenant, Justification by faith alone comes first through God’s Passover. Baptism comes second through the Red Sea experience. Sanctification and Life come third through the generation in the wilderness. And eternity comes last as prefigured in entering the Promised Land. Baptism was not essential for justification.

 

4.  John the Baptist baptized adults only because only adults could repent willfully.

 

Matt 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

 

5.  Jesus’ baptism which was superior to John’s baptism with water is a baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 

Matt 3:11 … he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.

 

 

6.  Although not a sinner, Jesus was baptized for all believers “in order to fulfill all righteousness.” Our own baptism cannot and does not save us.  The righteous act of Jesus’ baptism becomes part of the imputed righteousness of the believer. Therefore even the thief on the cross received the imputed righteousness of Christ’s baptism.

 

Matt 3:15 But Jesus answered and said to him, "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."

 

Rom 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

 

7.  At the moment one repents and accepts Christ as Lord and Savior the Holy Spirit indwells the believer. This is the spiritual baptism essential for salvation.

 

The phrase “for the remission of sins” means “because of the remission of sins.” It is comparable to an athlete being rewarded “for a victory.” Baptism is given “because” sins have already been remitted and not to effect that remission. God has not changed his eternal plan of salvation. All O. T. saints were saved without being baptized by water.

 

Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for [because of] the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of [which is] the Holy Ghost.

 

8.  The sequence of events in the life of a believer is (1) become a disciple, (2) be baptized and (3) be taught. The Bible does not teach infant baptism and neither does it teach that a period of catechism must precede baptism.

 

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

Matt 28:20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.

 

9.  Water baptism by immersion best portrays our spiritual death and burial with Christ.

 

Rom 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

 

10.  The Greek word “baptize” means “to hold under water” and that could merely mean sprinkling or pouring. Many argue that Salim had “many waters” in the form of springs and fountains and this proves that John sprinkled or poured. In reply (1) the presence of many springs could produce deep pools around those springs. (2) Many very old Roman Catholic churches still have deep water baptisteries. (3) Although baptism is merely symbolic, immersion is highly suggestive of a complete transformation at salvation.

 

John 3:23 And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.

 

11.       Baptism follows belief (faith).

 

Acts 18:8 And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.

 

12.  Spiritual circumcision and spiritual baptism both symbolize the “putting off the body of the sins of the flesh.” It is inconsistent to interpret New Covenant circumcision as symbolic and New Covenant baptism as a literal act.

 

Col 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

Col 1:12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

 

13.  The baptism which saves is emphatically NOT water but the answer of a good conscience through faith in Jesus Christ.

 

1 Peter 3:19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

1 Pet 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

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