Fundamentals: Salvation

     "For by grace you have been saved through faith," Paul explains in Ephesians 2:8.
     Jesus Christ "released us from our sins by His blood," according to Revelation 1:5.
     "So faith comes from hearing," Paul writes in Romans 10:17, "and hearing by the word of Christ."
     "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord," Paul notes in verse 9 of the same chapter, "and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."
     "Repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations," according to the instructions of Jesus in Luke 24:47.
     "And corresponding to that," Peter says in 1 Peter 3:21, "baptism now saves you-not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience-through the resurrection of Jesus Christ."
     Through the grace of God, we are saved by the blood of Christ.  As we saw last time, conditions for this salvation are hearing, believing, repenting, confessing and being baptized.  But who can be baptized?  More specifically, can infants and small children be baptized?  Do they NEED to be baptized?
     Let's start from the beginning.  Are infants able to hear the word of God and understand it?  Are they capable of believing?  Can they repent of sins?  Are they able to confess Jesus?  Obviously, the answer to each of these questions is "no."
     To try to baptize someone who is not capable of fulfilling the other conditions is to give to water a power which it simply does not have.  Water cannot save anyone.  That's exactly what we just read from 1 Peter 3:21.  Baptism saves when it is an appeal to God for a good conscience.  Are infants able to make this appeal?
     But others can make this appeal for them, some claim.  This philosophy was already discredited by God through Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31:34.
     In this passage, Jeremiah looks forward to the new kingdom, the church.  Under the old system, children were born into the Jewish nation and later taught to believe in God.  This would no longer be true under the new system, Jeremiah points out, since they would believe before being brothers.
     Well, the faith of these children when they grow up is retroactive and validates their earlier baptism, others state.
     Read Acts 19:1-5 and see whether this idea holds water.  Here we find about 12 men who were baptized by the baptism of John.  When Paul taught them about Christ, they were baptized in the name of Jesus.  Why couldn't their later faith validate their earlier baptism?
     Do children need to be baptized, anyway?  On various occasions, including the one recorded in Matthew 18:1-5, Jesus takes children and points out that the kingdom, the church, consists of those who are converted and become like children.  What does this tell us about children?  Children have no sin.  Sin is a conscious act of disobedience against God.  Children simply are not guilty of this rebellion.
     Romans 3:23 and 5:12 are two of the verses that make it clear that there is no such thing as "original sin."  We all pay for our own sins.
     Adults who have sinned and have met the other conditions of salvation can be baptized.  Children cannot be baptized...nor do they need to be.
     Another misunderstanding about baptism involves its form.  This misunderstanding is unfortunate, since it is not necessary and was, in fact, created on purpose.
     The Greek word that is translated "baptize" means simply to dip or plunge, to immerse.  That's not hard to understand, is it?  But by the time the translaters were working on an English version of the New Testament, they were already involved in a religious body that praticed an act that was not immersion.  To translate the word correctly would have conflicted with their practice.  So they created a new word, "baptize."  This mistake does not exist, by the way, in Greek-speaking countries.  "Immerse" still means "immerse."
     Does it really matter what form is used?  Acts 8:38-39 says that Philip and the Ethiopian went down into the water.  Romans 6:1-11 says that baptism is a burial.  Colossians 2:12 says that baptism is a burial.  A burial is a burial.  And immersion is immersion.
     
     Naturally, some of you are going to be skeptical.  "You're just making that up," some may be saying.  "That's just your interpretation," others are undoubtedly thinking.
     To get to the bottom of this discussion, let's do something a little unusual.  Writings of men are of no use in proving biblical matters.  Only the Bible can speak with real authority.  But let's look for a moment at what some authors have to say about the subject of baptism.  None of these is from the church of Christ.  Few, if any, believe in immersion of adult believers for the remission of sins.  They are not making theological judgements.  They are simply making statements of historical fact or of clear biblical interpretation.
     Before looking at these comments, let's see what Paul has to say in Romans 6:3-7.
     "Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?" the passage points out.
     "Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
     "For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin."
    "When, it may be asked, did this all-important death take place?" the Expositor's Greek New Testament asks in its discussion of Romans 6:3.  "The answer is: It is involved in baptism," the commentary continues.  "There is no argument in the passage at all," it states a few sentences later, "unless all Christians were baptized."
     "Therefore we were buried with Him (in the act of immersion) through baptism into His death," is the comment at verse four, "burial being regarded as the natural sequence of death, and a kind of seal set to its reality."
     "Baptism," it continues at verse five, "inasmuch as one emerges from the water after being immersed, is a (likeness) of resurrection as well as of death."
     Volume one of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament defines the Greek word for baptise as "to dip in or under."
     W.E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines "baptism" as "the process of immersion, submersion and emergence."
     Bartmann admits in his book on Theological Dogma that "the oldest method of baptism is that of immersing the person being baptized in water."
     In his book "Modern Man Facing the Bible" a Dutch monk tells of his trip to Palestine and his experience at the traditional site of the baptism of Jesus.  While trying to wade in the river, he finds himself immediately in deep water.
     "It is noted," he writes, "that in the first three centuries of christianity baptism was administered to adults by immersion.  It was a real disappearing in the water, that made one think of burial, while coming out of the water could be considered a return, and not without reason be called a resurrection."
     There are many other works that point out the same thing, but the clearest is The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
     "But the New Testament makes the whole matter perfectly plain," it states starting on page 386 of volume one.  "The uniform meaning of 'dip' for baptizo and the use of the river Jordan as the place for baptizing by John the Baptist makes inevitable the notion of immersion unless there is some direct contradictory testimony.  It is a matter that should be lifted above verbal quibbling or any effort to disprove the obvious facts."
     It goes on with references to Matthew 3:6, Mark 1:9-10 and Acts 8:38.
     "If one should still be in doubt about the matter," it continues, "Paul sets it at rest by the symbolism used in Romans 6:4."
     "There is nothing in the New Testament to offset this obvious and inevitable interpretation," it concludes in the next paragraph.
     What have you been taught?  What explanation can be given by those who teach that baptism can have any form other than immersion?  The only excuse is that "it doesn't matter."  Does it matter?  Does your soul matter?
     Salvation through the blood of Christ by the grace of God is conditional upon hearing, believing, repenting, confessing and being immersed.  Only adults can meet these conditions; only adults need to.
     This is what the Bible teaches.  This is what the early church practiced.  It is the truth.  And only the truth can make you free.

Unless otherwise noted, "Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(R), (C) Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission."