Baptism

Yesterday I posted about the importance of water in the scriptures. I used almost all Old Testament scriptures in that post. In the New Testament, water takes on a new importance, which is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Let me start by pointing out what Jesus said to Nicodemus: "Except a man be born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." There are basically two schools of thought on what Jesus meant by that. Jesus had already told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again, and Nic asked a question that indicated that it seemed to him that Jesus was talking about a physical birth. Of course, we know that Jesus was not, but this was a whole new idea to Nicodemus. So, one school of thought is that Jesus was answering Nic's confusion by making a reference to the 'water,' or amniotic fluid, that is released at childbirth. The other school of thought is that, certainly Nic would have known about the water of childbirth, so either Jesus is treating him like an idiot who doesn't know, or Jesus is deliberately trying to confuse Nic by making an obscure reference to physical childbirth. The point is, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. He wanted to know what Jesus had to say, and he seems to have had a good idea that Jesus had some answers; that He knew something (perhaps several things) that the Sanhedrin didn't. But Nic also didn't want the other Pharisees to know that he was seeking out Jesus. So Jesus isn't going to send him to John the Baptist; to be honest, I'm sure Nicodemus knew about John the Baptist's ministry, anyway, but, again, he wouldn't have wanted his peers to know that he was seeking something from these rabble-rousers. Quite frankly, in the long run, John's baptism wouldn't have done Nic much good, anyway. In Acts chapter 19, Paul found a group of 'believers' who had been baptized by John, but had never been baptized into Christ. Paul pointed out that John taught them to believe in Him that should come after, that is, Jesus. So they got baptized all over again. John's baptism was all there was until the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but then it really didn't even apply anymore. There was this new baptism, not of repentance, but of remission of sins, which is a whole lot better.

Moving on, we find that baptism is something that Jesus didn't talk about until after His death, burial and resurrection, other than His own. The apostles, in the Book of Acts, certainly seemed to think that baptism was important: Each time they made a new convert, they baptized him or her immediately. They didn't wait until they had 50 people that wanted to get baptized, or wait until the annual baptismal gala, or wait three weeks to see if the new convert was really serious; they always baptized immediately (or, straightway, in Biblical terms). In Acts chapter 2, Peter preached a sermon to a large group of people, and then they baptized them. In Acts 8, Phillip preached to a group of people, and baptized them; then went on to preach to a Eunuch on his way back to Ethiopia, and baptized him. In Acts chapter 10, a Roman named Cornelius was praying, and an angel told him to send for Peter; when Peter got there, he preached the word, and baptized Cornelius. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas were imprisoned in a Thessalonian jail, and were able to share with the jailer, and baptized the jailer, and the jailer's family at an unreasonable hour of the morning. I think that it is very clear that the Apostles believed that baptism was important.

So, we have baptism as an extension of the ritual washing in the Old Testament. It again symbolizes cleansing, and purification, and again, is something that must be done in faith for it to have any effect. Some have referred to the rite of baptism as simply being an outward sign of an inward change, but I have to wonder, can one have the inward change without the outward sign? I understand that one can have the outward sign without the inward change, in which case one has simply gotten wet. But, if one truly believes, and is willing to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior--knowing that Jesus taught baptism--why would one not get baptized? I also know that some people like to get into hypothetical situations (what if I got hit by a car before I had a chance to get baptized? etc.), but I'm not going to get into that right now. If you have accepted Jesus as your personal savior, and you have the opportunity to get baptized, why in the world would you fight against getting baptized?