“He that Believeth and is Baptised”

Apart from the fact that we have seen the gradual spread of the Gospel in the chapters we have considered, we also note that the apostles baptised all those who believed. It is clear that they were following in exact detail the commission that Jesus gave to them when he commanded them to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Only those who believed and were baptised could be saved (Mark 16:15).

Is Christening Baptism?

In all the incidents recorded in The Acts we have seen that belief was essential for salvation. After careful instruction in the gospel, the motivating force that caused a person to seek baptism was their conviction that the things they heard were true. In every case it was those who were mature enough to understand what they were doing who were baptised.

What of ‘christening’ then? Christening of babies or children is not taught in the Bible. It is another one of those false teachings which has become popular in Christian churches, but is contrary to Bible teaching. Christening commenced as a practice in the Christian Church about 1000 years after Christ.

Even immersion in water is not true baptism unless it is preceded by belief in the two elements of the Gospel as defined in Acts 8:12, and a confession of sins. It is absolutely essential that a person who desires to be baptised understands that he or she is entering into a new relationship with God.

Baptism—Full Immersion in Water

As we have followed through the teaching of baptism from the days of John the Baptist through to the acts of the apostles, we have observed that those who were baptised “went down into the water” and came up “out of the water” (Acts 8:38–39). This is why John baptised “in the Jordan” (Matthew 3:6) and at Aenon, “because there was much water there” (John 3:23). We read of Jesus “coming up out of the water” after he was baptised (Mark 1:10).

Baptism is a full immersion in water because, as we have seen, it symbolises burial. It is the means God has chosen for us to identify first with the death and then with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So Paul writes: “We are buried with him [Christ] by baptism into death”. In the act of baptism we demonstrate to God that our “old man”—a figure for our old way of life—has been put to death and we rise up out of the water to walk in newness of life in Christ (Romans 6:3–6).

Adapted from “The Exploring the Bible Course” by David Evans