Saved by Baptism?

Last week while serving at the food pantry, I was asked by a sweet lady if I would baptize her baby. It gave me an opportunity to share with her our conviction of what we call “Believers Baptism” and that we do it according to Scripture. I will explain this at another time. However, what she was alluding to was that her baby needed to be baptized in order for her salvation.

I encounter this “belief” quite often as I talk with people. I will ask them if they have a relationship with Christ and they will often answer that they were baptized at such and such time, often when they were younger.

Much of the confusion comes from taking Scripture out of context and not looking at the whole of Scripture and what it teaches in reference to water baptism. One example is in Acts 2:38 where it seems that Peter states that those who respond must not only repent and believe but also must be baptized in order to receive the Holy Ghost. However, this is contrary to many teachings in the whole of Scripture. Paul states that baptism is not part of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 1:17) (That’s important to remember and know what the Gospel is and isn’t!) and that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ (Romans 4:4; Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-7).

So in order to resolve this we must consider the possible meaning of being baptized for the remission of sins. In this usage, again, we must take the whole context of what Scripture teaches. In close study you will see that first of all the word for (eis) can mean a couple of different things. It could mean “with a view to” or even “because of.” In this verse, water baptism would be because they had been saved, not in order to be saved.

It also needs to be understood that people are saved by receiving God’s word, and Peter’s audience “gladly received his word” before they were baptized (Acts 2:41). In addition, it says later on of “all who believed” (Acts 2:44) as constituting the early church, not all who were baptized.

In looking further at the context, those who believed Peter’s message clearly received the Holy Spirit before they were baptized. Peter said, “Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” (Acts 10:47). Paul here separates baptism from the Gospel, saying in 1 Corinthians 1:17 “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel…” and that “the gospel of Christ…is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). Therefore, baptism doesn’t have any part of what brings us to salvation.

Jesus himself, in context, referred to baptism as a work of righteousness (Matthew 3:15) and that is further emphasized in Scripture how salvation is clearly “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his [Jesus] mercy he saved us…” (Titus 3:5). Not once in the Gospel of John does it give the idea that baptism is a part of or a necessary condition of salvation. It simply says over and over that people should “believe” and be saved (John 3:16, 18, 36, 20:31).

In looking at all of these explanations it seems best to understand Peter’s statement like this: “Repent and be baptized with a view to the forgiveness of sins.” That this view looked backward to their sins being forgiven after they were saved is made clear by the context in Acts chapter two and the rest of Scripture. Believing and or repenting and being baptized are placed together, since baptism should follow belief. But nowhere does it say, “He who is not baptized will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). Yet Jesus said emphatically that “he that believeth not is condemned already” (John 3:18). So neither Peter nor the rest of Scripture makes baptism a condition of salvation.^[1]

It would also indeed be a mistake to link the words “for the forgiveness of sins” with the command “be baptized” to the exclusion of the prior command to repent. It is against the whole teaching of the New Testament to suppose that the outward rite could have any value except insofar as it was accompanied by the work of grace within.^[2] Baptism symbolizes that which has already taken place through grace by faith in Christ and once that happens you are born again or baptized with the Holy Spirit – our water baptism is an outward expression or public testimony to the fact that we have already believed!

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^[1] Norman L. Geisler and Thomas A. Howe, When Critics Ask : A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, 1992), 428-29.

^[2] F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 70.