{"id":182,"date":"2026-02-15T19:26:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/?p=182"},"modified":"2026-02-15T19:26:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:26:57","slug":"but-ive-already-been-baptized-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/15\/but-ive-already-been-baptized-2\/","title":{"rendered":"But I’ve Already Been Baptized! (#2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Last week\u2019s article considered the importance of baptism and introduced a common statement, \u201cI\u2019ve already been baptized.\u201d It concluded with a look at two things that do not affect the validity of baptism: who performed the baptism, and where it was done. Now let\u2019s begin examining some questions that make a real difference between Biblical baptism and the various baptisms practiced in the religious world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First, someone might assure us, \u201cI\u2019ve already been baptized \u2013 my parents had me baptized as a baby.\u201d This would probably mean water was sprinkled or poured in him. The Greek Orthodox church understands the meaning of the words baptisma (immersion) and baptizo (immerse). Along with other branches of the Orthodox Catholic Church, it actually immerses infants. Most advocates of infant baptism in our area, however, practice \u201caffusion\u201d (sprinkling or pouring).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Biblical baptism is immersion, a burial in water (Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12), which matches perfectly with the New Testament term baptisma (immersion). Perfectly good Greek words were available to the Bible writers for sprinkle (rhantizo) and pour (cheo). Obviously neither sprinkle nor pour means immerse. To say, \u201cI was baptized by sprinkling\u201d would be like saying \u201cI walked to town by swimming.\u201d The two simply are not the same! Neither sprinkling nor pouring is baptism.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Proper subjects for baptism in the New Testament are people who need their sins washed away (Acts 22:16); they are people who believe the gospel of Christ (Mark 16:16), have repented of their sins (Acts 2:38), and have confessed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (Acts 8:37). Infants cannot believe or confess Christ, and they have no sins of which to be forgiven or cleansed. Clearly, infant \u201cbaptism\u201d is not the one baptism of Ephesians 4:5).<\/span><\/p>\n

Joe Slater<\/span><\/p>\n

More next week . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Last week\u2019s article considered the importance of baptism and introduced a common statement, \u201cI\u2019ve already been baptized.\u201d It concluded with a look at two things that do not affect the validity of baptism: who performed the baptism, and where it…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading… But I’ve Already Been Baptized! (#2)<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":183,"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakesidecofc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}