What Is Baptism and Why Do We Do It?
We have just come through Holy Week. We’ve celebrated resurrection Sunday, been reminded of the resurrection of Jesus, felt encouraged in our faith and spiritually refreshed.
But where exactly do we go from there?
How do we respond to the resurrection? How do we step out of the celebration of Jesus’s resurrected life and into the life he has brought us into and called us toward?
What I believe the Bible teaches is that after being saved by Jesus, reconciled to our God and Father, filled with the Holy Spirit, and having placed our faith in him — the next step is the biblical practice of water baptism.
A Word Before We Start
I know we have people here from a wide range of church backgrounds and upbringings.
Some of us were baptized as infants because our parents believed that was right. Some of us were saved and then baptized right away or soon after. And some of us have never been baptized — either because the opportunity never came, or because we don’t consider it important to our walk with Christ.
Wherever you land on that spectrum, if you feel like I’m stepping on your toes today, please know I’m not coming from a place of judgment or self-righteousness. I’m coming from love and a genuine desire to help you grow in obedience to God.
Start With Jesus
Before we look at the first steps of followers of Jesus, we need to look at the life of Jesus. To understand what he’s calling us to, we have to look at what he did.
Every one of the Gospels records the moment Jesus is baptized by John the Baptizer. (Notice I said Baptizer. He isn’t wearing khakis and a polo. He baptizes people.)
This is where Jesus is ushered onto the stage of history publicly, for everyone to see. It’s where he is openly recognized and identified as God’s Son — we hear the voice of God the Father declaring his love for God the Son through God the Holy Spirit. And at that moment Jesus is inaugurated into his public ministry, his mission to proclaim and bring the kingdom of God.
And as we’ve been walking through Mark, we’ve watched what Jesus can do. He heals people of every kind of sickness. He casts out demons and they tremble before him. He teaches with authority — not the borrowed authority of the teachers of the law, but the authority of the Creator and King of all things.
And the most significant part of his mission to redeem sinners like you and me is his sinless life, his substitutionary death, and his glorious resurrection.
As we heard from John 10 last week, Jesus says he lays down his life so that he may take it up again — that no one takes it from him, but he lays it down of his own accord, having authority both to lay it down and to take it up again, a charge received from his Father.
The Commission
After the resurrection, Jesus spends roughly forty days proving he is alive. Then he ascends, promises the Holy Spirit, and commissions us as witnesses to the world.
In Matthew 28 he tells his disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him — therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything he commanded, and behold, he is with us always, to the very end of the age.
What Happened at Pentecost
Which brings us to Acts 2, where after Jesus has ascended, the Holy Spirit rests on his disciples at Pentecost — a Jewish harvest festival.
The Spirit causes them to speak in the native languages of Jews gathered from everywhere. And those listeners are astonished: aren’t all these men Galileans? How is it that each of us hears them in our own native language, telling the mighty works of God?
By the power of the Spirit they were speaking not only in these people’s languages but in their own dialects. So people are hearing what Jesus has done in the precise speech of their childhood.
Many were amazed and perplexed. And some in the crowd mocked, claiming the disciples were simply drunk.
Peter Stands Up
That’s what prompts our passage. Peter stands with the eleven, raises his voice, and addresses the crowd.
He points out that these men aren’t drunk — it’s only nine in the morning. Rather, this is what the prophet Joel described: that in the last days God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh, that sons and daughters will prophesy, young men will see visions and old men dream dreams, that even servants will receive the Spirit — and that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Then he turns to Jesus directly. Jesus of Nazareth, attested by God with mighty works and wonders and signs done in their midst, as they themselves knew — delivered up according to God’s definite plan and foreknowledge, and crucified by lawless hands. And God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for death to hold him.
Peter quotes David, then notes plainly that David himself died and was buried and his tomb remains among them — so David was speaking as a prophet, foreseeing the resurrection of the Christ, who was not abandoned to the grave and whose flesh saw no decay.
And he concludes: let all Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ — this Jesus whom you crucified.
“Brothers, What Shall We Do?”
When they heard it, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the apostles: Brothers, what shall we do?
And Peter answered: 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. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off — everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.
And about three thousand souls were added that day.
What Repentance Actually Means
The idea of repentance begins with recognizing that the way I have been thinking — which directly shapes the way I have been living, apart from Christ and apart from his good news — was wrong.
Paul writes in Romans 3, quoting the Psalms, that none is righteous, no not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God; all have turned aside and become worthless; no one does good, not even one.
Repentance says: I was so wrong that the way I was living would ultimately lead to my death and destruction. But God, in love and infinite wisdom, by his grace and kindness, leads me to turn from it.
But God doesn’t only work through repentance to turn us away from sin. He turns our lives toward himself. My life no longer belongs to my old fallen nature but to my risen Savior.
Because if I merely turned from one sin without turning to Christ, I’d find myself buried in some other sin. Well, I’m not doing that anymore — now I’m doing this instead. Hardly an improvement.
By his grace, God works through repentance to turn us away from the idols falsely occupying the throne of our hearts and toward the one true King reclaiming his people.
Repentance helps us face our frail condition and our futile efforts, and put our trust in Jesus alone — the one who exchanged our unrighteousness for his righteousness and our sin for his grace at the cross. There he put death to death, the death we deserved, so we could be spiritually reborn, renewed, and redeemed for his glory and our good.
And Baptism Puts That on Display
God works through repentance to help us believe. And baptism is putting that belief on public display.
Baptism joyfully declares: my life belongs to Jesus. My identity is now in him. Who I was — no matter how messed up — does not define me. Jesus Christ defines me.
To believe in Christ is to identify with Christ. Believing and identifying are not at odds; they go hand in hand.
Baptism is literally a picture of me dying to myself, my sinfulness, my wretchedness — and being raised to life in Jesus, in his sinlessness and righteousness.
Baptism boasts about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. Not about who I am or what I’ve accomplished. It tells the story of God and his glory and his work in our lives, as we publicly identify with Christ.
That’s what we see in the early church: sin is confronted, hearts are convicted, and those who receive the message — those whom God calls to himself — repent and are baptized.
Who Should Be Baptized?
The answer I’m convinced the New Testament teaches is: everyone who has been born again.
Note the key word — again. Not everyone who has been born.
This is where I’d respectfully differ with friends from other denominations who practice infant baptism. My challenge over the next few minutes is to summarize centuries of theological discussion without caricaturing or misrepresenting anyone who holds that view.
Some History
Before the Reformation, church and state were fused. When you were born you became a member of the church and a citizen of the state — and to be a citizen was to be a member.
During the Reformation, men like Luther and Calvin began preaching that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. They preached it at the risk of their lives, and some gave their lives for it. And yet many continued practicing infant baptism, for a variety of reasons.
Some continued out of devotion to tradition. Others practiced it looking forward — an infant baptized in anticipation of saving faith at some future point.
And what’s interesting is that most who argue for infant baptism do so in the framework of covenant — which is also the framework we come from.
The Covenant Argument
Under the old covenant, entrance into the people of God came through a marker: circumcision. And circumcision was performed on infants.
So the logic runs: new covenant, new marker. Entrance into the new covenant community is baptism. Circumcision and baptism parallel one another — therefore infants.
I think Colossians 2:11–12 addresses this well. Paul writes that in Jesus you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ — having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.
Catch the parallel Paul sets up.
Old covenant circumcision: physical, done by the hands of men.
New covenant circumcision: it still happens — but in an entirely different way. It is circumcision of the heart, as Paul develops at the end of Romans 2. It is performed by Christ, who takes your heart, cleanses it of sin, and transforms you from the inside out. That’s regeneration — our hearts washed clean when we come to faith.
So there’s a clear parallel — but not a one-to-one equivalence. The new covenant is unveiling a new picture.
Don’t Miss the Difference
Old covenant circumcision signaled physical birth into a physical community.
New covenant baptism signals spiritual birth into a spiritual community.
And that community isn’t only the Jewish people. It’s Jews and Gentiles — all of us united together in Christ.
Circumcision of the heart and baptism are physical markers of a spiritual birth into a spiritual community. And that birth happens when someone’s heart is transformed from the inside out — when we see our need, see our sin, trust God and his Son, turn from sin and turn toward Christ.
We repent, and we are baptized.
And I don’t want to minimize what happens when parents say they want to dedicate their child and themselves to raising that child to love and honor Christ, with a view toward trusting Christ for salvation. That is a powerful and beautiful picture. It is a dedication. But it is not what baptism is in the New Testament.
Why Should I Be Baptized?
If you’ve recently become a follower of Jesus, or you’ve been following for a while and never been baptized, this matters. Three answers.
One: To Follow Christ’s Example
In Matthew 3, Jesus comes to John at the Jordan to be baptized. John tries to talk him out of it — he’s performing a baptism of repentance, so he says, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”
And Jesus answers, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
Which raises the obvious question: if Jesus was sinless and had nothing to repent of, why be baptized at all?
Because he is setting an example. An example of obedience. A picture of Jesus identifying with us and with everyone who would follow after him.
Here is the Son of God stooping to be baptized by a man, showing all who follow him that he is identified with us and we are identified with him. He is our perfect substitute for sin and death — and because he did that, we get to experience his righteousness.
Two: To Obey Christ’s Command
Having been baptized himself, Jesus commands us to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And Peter echoes it in Acts 2: repent and be baptized, every one of you.
Notice what Peter does not say. He doesn’t say repent and consider baptism. He doesn’t say think about it. He doesn’t even say pray about it. He says repent and be baptized. Full stop.
That’s Jesus’s own command, and in Matthew 28 he commissions his disciples to make disciples and baptize them.
As far as the New Testament is concerned, there is no such thing as an unbaptized believer. It’s a contradiction in terms — like jumbo shrimp.
So baptism is primarily an obedience issue. And this is the central reason every follower of Christ needs to be baptized — because to remain unbaptized by your own choice is to willfully live in disobedience to Christ.
Three: To Unite With Christ’s Body
If you follow Jesus, you are part of the body of Christ. You are not an island.
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul writes that just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members though many are one body, so it is with Christ — for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
And in Ephesians 4, urging unity, he writes that there is one body and one Spirit, just as we were called to one hope — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
So what unites us is one Lord, one faith, one God and Father — and one baptism in Christ.
If we say baptism isn’t really that important — that surely God doesn’t mind either way, that Jesus was merely extending an open invitation without expecting anything — what we’re actually saying is that we have one Lord, one faith, one God and Father, but not one baptism. Which runs directly against what Jesus and the rest of the New Testament teach.
The picture the New Testament gives us is that water baptism and Spirit baptism are inseparable, in the sense that everyone baptized by the Spirit is baptized in water. Throughout Acts and the letters that follow, everyone following Christ has been immersed with him and with the rest of his people. There is no category for an unbaptized believer.
Christ is the head of the body — and when you unite your life to the head, you are automatically united to the body. So if you come to faith in Christ, you don’t only get Christ. You get us too. I hope that doesn’t frighten anyone.
And for someone to say “I’m not getting baptized” is to say “I won’t publicly identify with Christ” — and it says to the rest of the church, “I won’t identify with you either.” Which is entirely contrary to Scripture.
Baptism is a celebration of the grace of Christ and an illustration of the gospel. When we go down into the water we identify with his death, and when we come up we participate in his resurrection.
How Should I Be Baptized?
What we see in Scripture is immersion. Not sprinkling. Not dipping your toes.
The Greek word is baptizō, which means to immerse, to submerge.
Christ set the precedent and his people follow the pattern, because it’s a picture of the gospel — dying with Christ and being raised with him. Jesus was immersed. His disciples immersed people. Three thousand at Pentecost. And when Philip meets the Ethiopian official who comes to saving faith, the man asks to be baptized in the nearest body of water.
I do understand that some people face genuinely extraordinary circumstances. Some cannot leave a bed due to illness. In some cases a person is near the end of life when God saves them, and immersion is physically impossible. Those are circumstances beyond anyone’s control, not acts of disobedience.
Baptism does not save you — it doesn’t function that way. So in those situations, sprinkling or pouring water to represent baptism is an appropriate exception. But what we see clearly and consistently in the New Testament is people being immersed.
When Should I Be Baptized?
As soon as you trust in Christ. As soon as you can best publicly proclaim your salvation in him.
There’s no waiting period in Acts. No probationary season. People hear, believe, repent, and go into the water.
So Where Does That Leave You?
If you have never trusted Christ, that’s the first step — not baptism. Baptism doesn’t wash away your sin. The cross does. Your part is to see your sin, recognize that Jesus died in your place and rose again, turn from that sin, and put your faith entirely in him.
But if you have trusted Christ and never been baptized, then the New Testament’s answer is simple and direct. Not consider it. Not think about it. Repent and be baptized.
You don’t do it to make anyone happy. You don’t do it to join an organization. You don’t do it to earn anything. You do it to follow the example of Christ, to obey the command of Christ, and to unite publicly with the body of Christ.
Because baptism was never about boasting in who you were or what you’ve done. It boasts entirely about who Jesus is and what Jesus has already done — and declares to everyone watching that your life now belongs to him.
