By Reese Currie, Compass Distributors
Many mainstream Christian denominations teach that baptism is necessary for salvation. But is such a doctrine Biblically provable?
In John 11:26, Jesus made a statement and followed up immediately with a question. "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
If you believe that baptism is necessary for salvation, you would have to answer Jesus, "No, I don't believe that, not unless they've been baptized!" I for one would not want to be in church that required me to disagree with Jesus about doctrine, and I would not recommend it for anyone else. Surely Jesus Himself knows His own rules; it is pretty presumptuous (read: heretical) for a church to disagree.
The only thing that is necessary for salvation is to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. There are a lot of Scriptural examples that belief in Christ saves, but the most powerful ones come from the Gospel of John. Here is an abbreviated list of them.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." (John 6:47, KJV) "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." (John 20:31, KJV) "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:" (John 11:25, KJV) "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." (John 5:24, KJV) "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John 3:36, KJV) "That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:15-16, KJV)
So, you could reasonably ask, "Why do you have to repent, then, if faith is all that is required?" The truth is, we cannot believe unless we repent. We need to repent to acknowledge the truth about Jesus Christ. 2 Timothy 2:24-26 is taken in the context of preaching work, saying, "And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will." Note that repentance is a gift of God, and is aided by the instruction of His preaching servants.
Matthew 21:32, in all older Bible versions, says "For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him." (KJV) Jesus was telling them that unless they repented, they could not believe what John had said. The actual Greek word is a milder form of the word for "repent"; I believe it could be thought of as "reconsider" (and Strong's Concordance backs up this thought). The NKJV translates it "relent". This speaks more or less of a positive reconsideration, or repentance, away from either false beliefs or disbelief.
According to the Bible, then, you must repent before you can believe. My explanation for this is that sin so clouds our minds and judgment, that we cannot see the truth through our sin. It separates us from God, and we need to have our sin forgiven and cleared away before we can know the truth and believe.
Repentance is necessary for forgiveness of sins, but baptism is not, although there are many denominations that claim otherwise. To simplify the explanation, let's eliminate baptism from our thinking and ask, how does the Bible actually say sins are forgiven?
In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus said, "And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors." (Matthew 6:12) That means that Jesus said God forgives us the same way we forgive other people. So, how are we supposed to forgive other people?
Luke 17:3-4 says, "Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him."
If we are supposed to forgive people when they repent, and God forgives the same way we forgive, it logically follows that you must repent to be forgiven by God. What does it mean to repent? Basically, it means to feel regret for your wrong actions, apologize for them, and resolve not to continue them. Actually, Luke 17:3-4's resemblance to repentance between men and God is striking. We transgress; God rebukes us (that is, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin); we repent, and He forgives.
Consider a few things Jesus said about repentance. "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matthew 4:17, KJV) "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Matthew 9:13, KJV) "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel." (Mark 1:15, KJV) "They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Mark 2:17, KJV) "Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." (Luke 13:5, KJV) "I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." (Luke 15:10, KJV)
In all of these cases, Jesus describes repentance as the very thing that will cure our spiritual sickness, and it is indeed necessary for salvation. But you will note that baptism is never mentioned by Jesus Himself as being necessary for salvation. It is certainly true that Jesus commanded His believers to be baptized, but He did not ever make it a condition of salvation.
We've given a mass of Scriptural evidence that baptism is not necessary for salvation, but often we find that people take a verse or two here and there and make out that it disqualifies the mass of evidence. One such verse is Mark 16:16, which says, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
Most denominations that believe baptism is necessary for salvation cannot honestly use this verse in defense of their doctrine, because most of them helped translate the New International Version, and the NIV scholars state that this verse does not really appear in the Bible. It would be intellectually dishonest for the pastor of any church involved in the production of the NIV to make reference to Mark 16:16 in proving his doctrine, because his own denomination approves of a translation that says the verse isn't there.
I will not use that as a basis to sidestep this verse, however; Mark 16:16 is part of the Majority Text (meaning it appears in the great majority of Greek Bible manuscripts, about 95% of them) and is found in early church writings dating as far back as 150 AD. Its absence from the modern critical text is therefore no safe indication that the verse was not part of the original Bible. In fact, the opposite is true; textual critics frequently reverse their decisions about whether to include words and verses. The safest choice is to always consider the Majority Text as being true and complete.
Presuming then the verse's legitimacy, it is still incorrect to use Mark 16:16 to say that baptism is necessary for salvation. Those using this verse to prove the necessity of baptism to salvation interpret it as meaning, "if a person does not believe or is not baptized, he will be condemned." The verse actually only says that if someone does not believe, they will be condemned. Read it again carefully and you will see this is true: "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
Why would Jesus make such a vague statement about salvation? Well, He wasn't really talking about salvation, He was talking about signs that someone is a believer. One of the signs that someone is a believer is that they have been baptized. Note that Mark 16:17 starts with the words, "And these signs will follow those who believe:" To use Mark 16:16 to prove baptism is necessary for salvation requires that you commit a logical fallacy and ignore the context in which the verse occurs.
But what about Acts 2:38? Doesn't this verse say very clearly that we must be baptized 'for' the remission of sins? Acts 2:38 reads, "Then Peter said to them, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"
For those who believe baptism is necessary for the forgiveness of sins, the interpretation of the word "for" is "to obtain". It is not the only possible interpretation. The original Greek word, eis, has many shades of meaning. It can mean "in order to", or it can mean "because of". For example, in Matthew 12:41, it is written, "they repented at the preaching of Jonah". The word translated "at" is eis. Did they repent to obtain the preaching of Jonah, or did they repent because of the preaching of Jonah?
Likewise, when there are so many verses saying that only repentance is needed for the remission of sins, did they get baptized "to obtain" the remission of sins (contrary to other Scripture) or did they get baptized "because of" the remission of sins (in agreement with all other Scripture)? I think the answer is obvious.
Some of the churches in Christendom have credited themselves with powers that rightly belong only to the Lord Jesus Christ. They claim that their ordinances, like baptism, provide remission of sins, but only Jesus Christ can forgive sins. It is inevitable that any churches that will not take their rightful place, and continue to claim Christ's power as their own, will be put in their place forcibly when His Kingdom comes.
Is Baptism Necessary for Salvation? is Copyright © 1997 by Compass Distributors
All Scripture quotations marked KJV taken from The King James Version of the Holy Bible
All other Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.) 1982.