Last week’s article discussed “infant baptism,” concluding that infants are not proper subjects for baptism even if baptism is correctly defined as immersion. Now let’s consider the vital question of what one is to believe prior to baptism.
God’s word teaches that baptism is “for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). It is to “wash away” sins (Acts 22:16). It is to receive salvation (1 Peter 3:21). Baptism puts one “into Christ” (Galatians 3:27; Romans 6:3), where salvation is (2 Timothy 2:10). Despite such crystal-clear teaching, many professing Christians deny the connection between baptism and salvation from sin. When one says, “But I’ve already been baptized,” that person may well have believed he was saved prior to his baptism, and that his baptism was for the purpose of declaring his salvation.
One prominent denomination states: “All who repent and believe in Christ as savior and lord are to be baptized. Thus they declare to the world that they have died with Christ and that they also have been raised with him to walk in newness of life” (direct quote from the Assemblies of God website). According to this statement, dying with Christ and being raised to a new life occur before baptism, whereas Paul taught in Romans 6:3-4 that they occur AT baptism.
How can one obey the command to “be baptized for the remission of sins” if he believes his sins were forgiven before baptism? Brother Tommy Hicks posed that very question in an interview with Dr. James T. Draper, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Brother Hicks asked: “If someone told you that he was saved before you baptized him, he could not have been baptized for the remission of sins, right?” Dr. Draper answered plainly: “That is right.”
With sincere love for their souls, let us urge people who have been baptized “to decare their salvation” to correct that error by being baptized for the remission of sins as God teaches in His word!
Joe Slater
