the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
Acts 10:48
‘Baptized in the name of the Lord’
Read Matthew 3:1-17
What is baptism? It is a public confession of faith in Christ. By baptism, believers symbolically show their union with Christ in his death, his burial and his resurrection. Going down into the water, we confess that we are crucified with Christ. The old man, being dead to the law through the body of Christ, is buried in the watery grave. Coming up out of the watery grave, we testify that we have been raised with Christ to the newness of life by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Who should be baptized? Baptism in the New Testament was never administered to anyone but believers. I refuse to baptize babies, or unbelievers, because it was never done in the New Testament. Only those who believe the gospel are to be baptized (Acts 2:41; Acts 8:37). Show me one case in the Bible where any baby was ever baptized, and I will start baptizing babies tomorrow.
How is baptism to be performed? Some say, ‘sprinkle’. Some say, ‘Pour’. The Bible says, ‘Baptize’. The word ‘baptize’ means to immerse, to dip, or to plunge into water. Baptism is a burial of believers in water. Not until you can bury a man by sprinkling a few grains of sand in his face can you baptize a man by sprinkling a few drops of water on him. Immersion is not a mode of baptism. Immersion is baptism. Anything other than immersion is not baptism. Why be so dogmatic? Because I recognize the authority of the Word of God. Show me one case where baptism was administered by the apostles by ‘sprinkling’, and I will start sprinkling believers and quit baptizing them. But, unless you can find at least one example of ‘baptism by sprinkling’ in the New Testament, you must not tolerate such a practice. (ReadMatthew 3:13-17; Matthew 3:13-17; Acts 8:38; Colossians 2:12.) Baptism is the immersion of believers in water as a public confession of faith in Christ.
Can a person be saved without baptism? The answer to that question is obvious. All of God’s people are saved without baptism. We are saved, like that penitent thief, by grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). Yet no saved person will refuse to obey Christ and follow him in baptism.
