BAPTISM: WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

Matthew 3: 11 “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. But he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.”

By Van Yandell

As with many subjects connected to Biblical teachings, baptism is as disagreed on as much as any. Such subjects seem to attract personal opinion and notions. Speculations are good in some areas but not when God gives us specifics.

Revelation 22: 18 “For I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.”

Many appear to place their own interpretations and opinions in the extreme and fail to realize only the opinion of One really matters. God wrote the rule book, not any of us. And it is not our place or right to reinterpret what our Creator has said as truth and fact.

In the leading scripture, the statement by John the Baptist “there is one that comes after me” is of course referring to Jesus. John humbles himself in saying “whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.”

“He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost” is a direct factual statement of spiritual baptism. This is the first baptism. The scriptures tell us, at the moment we believe, we become indwelt with the Holy Spirit ((Acts 19: 2-6).

1 Corinthians 6:19 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own, you were bought with a price?” That price was the shed blood of our precious Savior Jesus.

Numerous scriptural references point to the supernatural as fact and indications are that our bodies are indeed the home of God here on earth. His desire is to dwell in us; and that he will do if we believe (Romans 10: 9-10).

A very profound confusion exists among Christians in Mark 16: 16. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” This is referring to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, not water baptism.

John’s water baptism is the baptism of repentance. Repentance is described in several ways. A repentant life is a changed life. We transform from physical beings to spiritual beings.

2 Corinthians 5: 17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” An evangelist friend once said “If you haven’t been changed, you haven’t been saved!”

We must not confuse water baptism as a requirement for eternal salvation. Belief is a requisite and belief initiates the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Water baptism is an act of obedience and signifies an outward action of an inward intention. In the scripture many refer to as “The Great Commission,” Matthew 28: 18-20, Jesus instructs His disciples to “Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

It could easily be confused into the thinking that water baptism is required for salvation. The “on the cross salvation” of the thief that was crucified at the same time as Jesus (Luke 23: 43) disproves that assumption.

Water baptism also signifies a public statement of one’s steadfast belief in the death, burial, resurrection and live ascension of Jesus Christ.

Water is essential for all life on earth; both plant and animal. The significance of water in water baptism is much more than getting wet or a cleansing symbolism.

King Solomon describes water as a recycled substance. Ecclesiastes 1: 7 “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”

Meteorologist and other scientist have long realized that the water on earth is recycled. When God said in Genesis 2: 1, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” He was referring to creation.

That creation referred to all the atoms, chemical elements, any and all substances on earth and that includes water. We are using the same water Abraham Isaac and Jacob used four thousand years ago.

If you drank a glass of water this morning it may be the same water Jesus drank 2000 years ago. When you were baptized, the water may have been the same in which Jesus was baptized.

That water flowed from the River Jordan to The Dead Sea from where it evaporated into the atmosphere to fall again as rain somewhere on the earth.

A man in Brazil once told me he knew he was saved because he was baptized when he was two weeks old. Infant baptism does not save any more that adult immersion saves.

Many in our world are living under false or in some cases, incomplete teachings. Belief in Christ Jesus saves; nothing else (John 14: 6, Acts 4: 12).

The Bible clearly states that we can have forgiveness of our sins and eternal salvation if we confess repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, crucified for the remission of sin, resurrected and ascended alive into Heaven.

Always determine your beliefs on what the Holy Bible says. God’s Word is authoritative and final.

Van Yandell is a retired Industrial Arts teacher, an ordained gospel evangelist and missionary, from Fredonia, Kentucky. His email is vmy3451@gmail.com