Baptism is essential to salvation. We all need to be baptised in order to obtain eternal life.
“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5)
When we are baptised we put off the old man, and dedicate our lives in the service of God. It is not a light commitment, but one that will last our whole lives. Romans 6 is all about the subject of baptism. It says in verse 3 that we have been ‘baptised into his death’. By being baptised we are associating ourselves with the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The principle of baptism has been around since the law, though not in the form that we are now familiar with. Circumcision acted as the sign of a commitment to God. In Colossians 2:11 we are told that we are:
“...circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ”.
The children of Israel were to cut off their foreskins as a symbol of cutting off of the flesh. Baptism requires the exact same thing. When we are baptised we are to cut off fleshly thinking and raise our thoughts to a spiritual plane. Baptism is simply an outward display of this commitment, and is essential if we want to enter into God’s kingdom.
For the unbaptised, baptism is the first step. It comes after a realisation that without God we are nothing. It comes after the realisation that we are sinners and that we need the grace of God in order to have salvation. However, it must be a decision that we want to undertake, not something that we are pressurised into doing, whether that is directly or from peer-pressure. We must understand the gospel, and believe it! If we don’t have both of these things, then baptism is just a meaningless ceremony.
A common response to baptism is ‘I’m not good enough’. Well that’s the point! None of us are ‘good’ enough. We all sin and fall short of God’s glory (Rom 3:32). But it is His mercy that allows us a path to salvation, and that path begins with baptism.
For the baptised, baptism is just the beginning. Our baptisms symbolised the start of our discipleship, one that we must strive at every day of our lives. Romans 6:11 says:
“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
We should view our lives before our baptism as being completely separate from our lives after our baptism. The old man is dead. We have a completely fresh start, a new opportunity to serve God, and to resist sin reigning in our mortal bodies (Rom 6:12).
Baptism doesn’t change us. God requires of us a conscious decision to put off the old man. Romans 6 continues in verses 20-22:
“For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”
Before baptism, we were ‘dead to sin’. Once we are baptised we must be ashamed of our old lives. And we must strive to become servants of God, and to build our lives around the aim of providing fruit unto holiness (our works), because this will lead to everlasting life.
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23)
Questions
If you are unbaptised, what is holding you back? What can you do to address these things?
If you are baptised, is there a noticeable difference between your old lifestyle and your new one? Do we still have the same zeal to do what is right as we did straight after our baptism?
Think of examples in the OT of types of baptism (e.g. Red Sea crossing etc).