How Would You Answer?
Max Craddock

            The person, who has a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, has the most valuable possession one could possibility have. If you understand the value of that blessing you will want everyone you know to share in it. It would be more acceptable to many if everyone could have that blessing, obtained in whatever manner that appeals to them. The divided “Christian” religious world offers just that! Big groups have and are being formed on the basis that as long as a person believes in Jesus as the Christ, one is welcomed into membership by whatever means he or she chooses. The sinner’s prayer? OK. Confession of belief in Jesus as the Christ? OK. Baptism of some sort (sprinkle, pour, immerse)? OK. Of course, we do not have to worry about that happening in the Lord’s Church. Right? Sadly, this affirmation, right, seems to be being challenged by some today.

            How would you answer a person who came to ask you about their relationship with God. If they said something like this: “I have been doing some serious study of the Bible and have become concerned about my relationship with God. My parents were fine people and made sure we went to Sunday school and worship each Sunday. They had me ‘baptized’ when I was very young, so they have told me as I do not remember it. However, as I have been studying I have begun to wonder, even though I ‘feel’ like I have been saved, have I in fact been saved?

            Based on my recent study I have the following questions:  ‘Is Baptism necessary for salvation? If so, does it have to be immersion after the age of accountability/understanding?  I was baptized as an infant in my church at a public baptism but the Bible gives no examples of infant baptism. So, do I need to be re-baptised?”

            How would you answer? You could say, “I am not the judge of your salvation so I can not really answer the question.” Or, “The real issue is whether you really love God truly in your heart or not, and since I can not read your heart, I will have to leave that between you and God.” Or, as is being said by some in the churches of Christ today, “You seem very sincere in your belief in God and you are living a good life in accordance with what you have been taught so you are fine. You obeyed the Lord as you understood His command so you don’t need to be baptized again. After all, relationship with God is about the sincerity of one’s belief in Jesus as the Christ and not the keeping of these picky little rules!”

            Is it possible that the warnings of Paul are being reflected in the answers given in the previous paragraph? Remember he said to the Ephesian elders, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:28 – 30 ESV). Remember Paul also warned Timothy, “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:1 – 4). Has the fox/wolf gotten into the henhouse?
            The questions in the third paragraph above are not hypothetical, but are quoted directly from a letter I received from a student who is studying the World Bible School course through Key To The Kingdom. He asked me those questions plus two others, seeking Biblical answers. The answers I gave in the second paragraph above are what seems to be the answers that are being given to such questions by some in our brotherhood, based on the books and articles they are writing and the sermons they are preaching. In the next few paragraphs I want to share the answers I gave to the questioner.
            I appreciate your question and your obvious desire to know and obey God’s will for your life. Baptism in the New Testament is clearly for the purpose of bringing salvation. When Jesus gave the great commission to His disciples, directing them to take His message to the world, baptism was to be a beginning result of the first teaching they did. “Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing 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. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age"(Matthew 28:18 – 20 ESV). In this text Jesus instructs His apostles to baptize those who desired to become disciples. Of course, this was only the beginning of living the Christian life so He instructed them to teach those converted to “obey everything I have commanded you.”

            We see the beginning of this message being taken to the world on the day of Pentecost, following the resurrection and return of Jesus to heaven, in Acts 2. The people heard the message and were convicted by it. Because of that the following took place: "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"  Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”(Acts 2:36 – 38 ESV). When these people became aware of their sin, they knew they needed to do something to get back in favour with God. The response of Peter is, that based on their faith, they were to repent and be baptized “...for the forgiveness of your sins.” Clearly here baptism was to be a necessary part of the plan the disciples had been given to teach people who desired to come to the Lord to receive forgiveness.

            In the conversion of Saul (later to be known as Paul) the Lord appears to him on his way to Damascus. He was told to go into the city and he would be told what he was to do. In Acts 22, when Ananias came to Paul at the direction of God, he told him to “...Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name”(Acts 22:16 ESV).

            There are other examples of conversion in the book of Acts and they all involved baptism. We should also take note of what Peter had to say about baptism when talking about the saving of people in the days of Noah (sadly, just the family of Noah) and water. He says the people in the ark were saved by water and then goes on to speak about the salvation of people today. Understand that Noah was saved by water, because he obeyed God. Peter speaks to us saying, “... and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ”(1 Peter 3:21 ESV).

Based on the examples and statements from scripture quoted here, I would understand baptism to be necessary for salvation.

From a biblical standpoint you have already answered the second part of your question. Those who were baptized in the New Testament were all believers at the time of their baptism. Each of these people responded as an act of faith to what they were taught. And, as you pointed out, there are no examples of infant baptism in the Bible. In fact, infant baptism is not even recorded in history until late in the second century. In the New Testament, baptism is administered to believers for the remission of sins.
            Finally, it would be my understanding that to fulfill obedience to God one must be baptized by immersion for forgiveness of sins. The New Testament word for baptism means to “dip, plunge, immerse.” English dictionaries will add such things as “sprinkle or pour.” However, the Greek word used in the New Testament does not have this second meaning as part of its definition. Paul underlines this “method” of baptism when he writes to the church at Colossae, in Colossians 2:12, “... having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.” Some today seem to want to argue that Paul is speaking in a symbolic way here and that the idea of being buried and raised is spiritual and not physical. It is clear from historical references to Christian baptism that the physical act of burial and raising took place in baptism. Certainly there was the spiritual burial and resurrection connected with it which depended on the heart of the person being baptized. The act of baptism can simply make one wet! However, if it is an act of faith, submission and obedience, it results in cleansing from sin and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit in new birth into the family of God. Paul says it like this, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life”(Romans 6:3, 4 ESV).

            I would answer, If one wants to obey God, he or she will be baptized by immersion for the forgiveness of sins and thereby experience “...the pledge of a good conscience toward God.”

            I ask again in closing, “How Would You Answer?”