Sermon: Is Baptism Necessary for Salvation?

October 11, 2009
Acts 2:38 - 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.

One of the criticisms of the Baptist Church centers around the meaning of baptism. Some people think that Baptists do not believe in salvation apart from baptism. In fact, the people who broke away from the Anglican Church in England in the 17th century, Separatists who eventually were called Baptists struggled with the mode of baptism for decades. In reading the Scriptures for themselves, they came to believe that salvation resulted from a personal profession of faith, and baptism to symbolize salvation occurred after that profession of faith. For that teaching Baptists were persecuted, imprisoned and killed.

What do the Scriptures Teach? Is Baptism necessary for Salvation?

I. The history of Baptism
• First profess your faith, then you get baptized.
• History of baptism goes back into most religions.
• Most religions have some sort of ritual to indicate cleansing as a new form of a new life
• Lustration: form of Baptism used by the Jews on the Gentiles and they were henceforth admitted to all the privileges
 Immersed in water
• Taught that Baptism washes away the old life symbolically
• It was never taught as effective, that baptism made the person a Jew
• It was a symbol that the old life has been washed away
• John was Baptizing as a Jew, baptized for the repentance of sins
• Mark 1:4
• It was a symbol that they repented and were preparing for the messiah
• Jesus came meeting all the right requirements
• Came and got baptized, and sacrificed, He was the messiah
• Final commandment from Jesus:
• Matthew 28:19-20
 Make disciples and baptize them
 Did not say, make disciples by baptizing them
• Sacramental baptisms are practiced by other Christian faiths:
 They baptize to bring in grace of life to the children
 Way of saving that child
 Sin of child is forgiven
 Its effective, not symbolic
 Predestination b/c they were predestined by God to be saved
• Church of Christ:
 teaches that you don’t have a complete experience with Christ to be saved until you are obedient to get in water and when you come up out of water, then you are saved
 use Acts 2:38 as authority for Baptismal regenerates
 Baptism regenerates you
 Teach at same time, when you come out of water, then the Holy Spirit dwells in you
 Alexander Campbell forms disciples of Christ in Church of Christ in 1830’s
• Early Baptists didn’t believe that you cant sing in church, no music
• Campbell: formed Church of Christ, based theology on Mark 1:1-10 (Jesus came out of water, saw Heaven and Spirit descend on Him)
• See that Holy Spirit doesn’t come to life till you come out of water, b/c that is what happened to Jesus Christ
• Jesus was Father, Son, Holy Spirit all at once
 Holy spirit was giving testimony
 Acts 2:38 – repent and be baptized

II. Is Baptism necessary for salvation?
• Some don’t want to be dunked
• Does that mean you are not save?
• No
• Not according to scripture
• John 3:16 -
 You profess your faith, you are saved
• Luke 23:43
 2 thieves on Cross, says to Jesus, remember me
 And Jesus says, that he’d be in Paradise
 That man never had the opportunity to be baptized
 That one incident that person does not have to be baptized to be saved
• Nothing about baptism in John 3:16

III. Why is baptism important to believers?
• Baptists were called “dunkers” at first
• Because purpose behind baptism is to declare publicly one’s personal faith in Jesus Christ
• Acts 2:41 –
 Those who accepted message were baptized
 Believe, then were baptized
• Acts 8:12-13
 Believe, then baptized
• Acts 16:13-15
• Acts 18: 7-8
• Opened heart to message, then were baptized
• Anglican church says sprinkling and they are believers
• But the bible doesn’t teach that
• The book of acts is the history of the early church
• The early church never baptized before they believed
• Romans 6:3-5 (baptism is symbolic)
 Cant get that out of sprinkling/pouring water
 Get that out of dunking someone
• Baptize: created by those who translated by KJV
• Baptizio: to dip, immerse, or submerge (never says pour, sprinkle)
• When translators were translating, they recognized they could not translate it or they would have to start dunking believers, they made new word
• Resurrection: to stand and again (to stand again)
 Will die, but will stand again
• Baptism: depicts death, burial and resurrection
• Symbol of passing from death to life
• Cant get that symbol out of sprinkling
• Baptism: (John 5:24)
 Go Down: death
 Up: Resurrection
• Galatians 3:26-27
• Baptism is at the heart of the Christian faith
• It is a symbol that one belongs to Jesus Christ; included being into the church
• It gives us a new identify
• Baptism is identified with the belonging to Christ
• Important because it is being Obedient to the command of Christ
• Last command by Jesus was to baptize
 Very important because it comes from Jesus Christ
• We don’t have to be baptized to be saved
• It acknowledges the inward grace outwardly
• It is your choice

• Baptism symbolizes that it is God who has saved us
• It is not the water nor the act of baptism that saves
• The outward act does no produce the inward grace
• Grace is not something we ear, but something we receive as a gift
• Baptism simply acknowledges that inward grace in an outward symbol
~ Dr. Phil Lineberger