What is baptism?

Baptism is the washing in water that Jesus commanded for those who follow Him. After His resurrection, He gave His disciples their commission: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 28:19). From the earliest days of the church, baptism was woven into the life of everyone who received the good news. When the gospel was first preached at Pentecost and the crowd asked what they must do, Peter answered, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:38). Baptism is not a human invention or a passing custom; it is a command given by the risen Lord and gladly obeyed by His people.

At its heart, baptism speaks of union with Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul ties it directly to the Savior's death, burial, and resurrection: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3-4). In Paul's picture, the one baptized has died with Christ to an old life of sin and is raised with Him to walk in a new one. To the Colossians he writes that we are "buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God" (Colossians 2:12). Baptism puts the gospel itself before our eyes.

Throughout the New Testament, baptism is bound closely to faith and repentance. It is the glad response of a heart that has turned from sin and trusted in Jesus. When the Ethiopian official heard the good news and asked, "See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?" Philip replied, "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest" (Acts 8:36-37). Faith and baptism belong together, as Jesus Himself declared: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). Baptism is never set against the grace of God, for salvation is always His gift, freely given and received by faith. Yet Scripture never treats it as a small thing either; it is woven into the way the first believers confessed Christ and gave themselves to Him. Ananias urged the newly converted Saul, "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord" (Acts 22:16). The faith that receives God's gift is a living faith, and it shows itself in glad obedience to all the Lord asks.

The early believers spoke of baptism as a clothing of the soul and a good conscience before God. "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Galatians 3:27). The image is of laying aside the old self and putting on Jesus like a garment, so that we are wrapped in Him. Peter speaks in striking terms, saying that "baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21). He is careful to point past the water itself: the power Peter names is not the washing of the body but the risen Christ to whom the believer is now joined, and a conscience cleansed before God.

Because baptism unites us to Jesus, it also unites us to one another. Paul reminds the church that there is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5). To be baptized is to be received among a people who share the Savior's name, no longer standing alone. And it is meant to be a beginning, not an end. It marks the start of a whole life of following Jesus, of learning to "observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:20). Whenever we remember it, we are called back to the truth it proclaims: that we have died with Christ and been raised with Him, and that the life we now live, we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us.

If you have trusted Jesus, the witness of Scripture about baptism is warm and inviting. Like the believers of old, you can come to the water with joy, confessing Christ before others, and let what God says over you there speak to your heart for the rest of your days: that you are His, washed and welcomed, joined forever to the Savior who died and rose again for you.