By David Cox

[S04] v1 ©2005 http://www.davidcoxmex.com/tracts
you may freely print and dis­trib­ute this tract.

This is a free print­able tract explain­ing the major points of water bap­tism for a new believer. This tract is designed to be pho­to­copied and dis­trib­uted in evan­ge­lism and dis­ci­ple­ship. It may be repro­duced freely as long as it is given away free.

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A Study on Water Bap­tism for New Converts

Sec­tions:

• Why should we be baptized?
• Who should baptize?
• What are the require­ments for baptism?
• When should you be baptized?
• How or what is the method used?
• What is the for­mula used?

What is the Mean­ing of Water Baptism?

When we were saved by means of our faith in Jesus as our per­sonal Sav­iour, God united us into the group of the redeemed (the saved) to form part of the Body of Christ. In bib­li­cal terms this process of unit­ing us is actu­ally our spir­i­tual bap­tism in the Holy Spirit, which hap­pened the moment we were saved and had sav­ing faith, which is also when we actu­ally received Jesus Christ (Romans 8:9). Since that moment on, the Holy Spirit has dwelt within us (in our bod­ies) and will dwell there for­ever (1Cor 3:16: 6:19; 2Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21–22; Jer 31:33). This is earnest of the Spirit which is a deposit or guar­an­tee against a future trans­ac­tion (2Cor 1:21–22; 5:5; Eph 1:14) that God will com­plete on judg­ment day. The spir­i­tual bap­tism does not have any­thing to do with speak­ing in tongues as some teach, but rather we are sat­u­rated (bap­tized) with the Holy Spirit, and we cease sin­ning freely and begin to truly obey God and be a “saint”, holy, pious and just actu­ally before God.

Romans 6:2–10 and Gala­tians 3:26–28 define this spir­i­tual bap­tism as a spir­i­tual union with Christ. This spir­i­tual bap­tism which is what includes us into the group of the redeemed is tes­ti­fied to by the rep­re­sen­ta­tion by water bap­tism as a sym­bolic act. It is like a baby announce­ment, after the fact of the preg­nancy, and because of it.

Also it is some­thing that God has com­manded us to do as an ini­ti­a­tion of our ser­vice before God, because every­thing has to be sanc­ti­fied before God can use it. This “sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion” is sep­a­rated from the worldly pro­fane­ness and iden­ti­fies some­thing reserved for the spe­cial use of God. This refers to our min­istry before God, which is a require­ment for every Chris­t­ian (even though not every­body will leave sec­u­lar jobs to live of the ministry).

Why should you be baptized?

Why? When Jesus com­manded his dis­ci­ples to carry the gospel to all the world, one of his com­mand­ments for them was to bap­tize those that accept the Lord under their ministry.

Mat 28:19 Go ye there­fore, and teach all nations, bap­tiz­ing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Then we need to bap­tize every­one which is truly con­verted to Christ in order to be obe­di­ence to this com­mand. We should under­stand that no work saves us, but the act of sub­mit­ting our­selves to the will of God the Father is at the heart of our sal­va­tion and is what saves us (1 John 2:17). For the unsaved, the will of God is to believe in Jesus as the Christ (John 6:30), and for Jesus it was to save those who believe in Him.

John 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have ever­last­ing life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Bap­tism is our pub­lic tes­ti­mony (1 Peter 3:21) of our hope of sal­va­tion in Christ, and it rep­re­sents our pub­lic dec­la­ra­tion that we reject our pre­vi­ous sin­ful life and believe in Christ. In order to be saved, one must under­stand that we can­not be ashamed and hide our faith in Christ (Romans 10:11), but we must pub­licly and openly con­fess it.

Matthew 10:32–33 Whoso­ever there­fore shall con­fess me before men, him will I con­fess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whoso­ever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

Bap­tism is not a work that saves us because there is no good work that will save (Titus 3:5; Eph 2:8–9), but it is an announce­ment that shows sin­cer­ity on our part, and a sal­va­tion already retained.

Romans 10:9–10 That if thou shalt con­fess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto right­eous­ness; and with the mouth con­fes­sion is made unto salvation.

Also in the New Tes­ta­ment water bap­tism is a pub­lic pro­fes­sion of faith in Jesus Christ which marks the entrance of the per­son into the local church (Acts 2:41). Because of this, bap­tism should only be per­formed by the local church the per­son is join­ing or in other words within the struc­ture of the local church and by an offi­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the local church after they have estab­lished the sal­va­tion tes­ti­mony of that bap­tismal candidate.

When should you be baptized?

When: Bap­tism should be done as soon as pos­si­ble AFTER one accepts the Lord. The Bible pic­tures bap­tism as always after sal­va­tion, as a tes­ti­mony to what already has hap­pened, as soon as pos­si­ble after sal­va­tion like in the exam­ple of the jailer (Acts 16) which says “imme­di­ately” even though it was night, or in the case of the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8 ) which was the same day as he accepted the Lord. In other words, it was as soon as pos­si­ble. We should also men­tion the case of Cor­nelius in which Paul was bap­tized sev­eral days after sal­va­tion (appar­ently await­ing nec­es­sary arrange­ments which God imposed before being baptized).

We also should under­stand that it is of grand impor­tance and pri­or­ity to obey Christ with the bap­tism step as soon as pos­si­ble, but also always remem­ber that we are not saved by this act, so even if some­body is not bap­tized, and they hap­pen to die, they are still saved by faith.

Who should be bap­tized? And what are the requirements?

Require­ments: Bap­tism should come after repen­tance and sal­va­tion (Acts 8:37), and so the only peo­ple that should be bap­tized are believ­ers. The peo­ple who do the bap­tiz­ing should only be those who are act­ing under the offi­cial capac­ity of the local church where the per­son will become a mem­ber after his bap­tism. Always the bib­li­cal order is preach­ing of the gospel, sav­ing faith, sal­va­tion and con­ver­sion, and then water bap­tism imme­di­ately after­wards (Acts 2:41; 8:12, 36–38; 18:8; 16:14–15).

Who: The com­mand­ment to be bap­tized is for every­body that believes unto sal­va­tion, Thus as the mul­ti­tudes went look­ing for John the Bap­tist (Luke 3:7), we should under­stand that there should be desire on the side of the indi­vid­ual to be bap­tized in obe­di­ence to God’s will. It is your respon­si­bil­ity to ask and seek it from your pas­tor.  Bap­tism of infants is not found in the Bible, but the bap­tism of any child that truly under­stands the gospel with sav­ing faith may be bap­tized. (Mark 10:14)

What is the Method of Baptizing?

METHOD or MODE: Bap­tism is always by immer­sion. The word in Greek was used of a boat that sunk which clearly means being totally sat­u­rated with water, because it went under water. This rep­re­sents our being totally sat­u­rated with God’s Spirit of Holi­ness, and the only method that iden­ti­fies cor­rectly with this is immer­sion. The sym­bol of bap­tism accord­ing to Romans 6:4 and Colos­sians 2:12 is to be buried (which is to say that you are com­plete under dirt, sur­rounded on all sides by dirt and rock). The idea of bury­ing the dead, is because after death, and as a con­se­quence of death, there begins an inter­nal process of putre­fac­tion. A dead body is some­thing unclean that can cause dis­ease.  Bury­ing has the idea of seal­ing it off by means of totally sur­round­ing it with earth.

The only bib­li­cal mode then is total immer­sion, which cor­re­sponds to the sym­bol­ism of bur­ial. John chose a river to bap­tize (John 10:40) and fre­quented places where “there was much water there” (John 3:23). In Acts 8:38–39 Philip bap­tized the Eunuch by going down into the water and com­ing up out of the water. The com­mon sense under­stand­ing of these things is that their bap­tisms were by immer­sion. In every verse deal­ing with bap­tism, we always find that the per­son is put into the bap­tiz­ing medium (water) and never do we find lan­guage that would indi­cate that the medium is put on the per­son (as in sprin­kling or pouring).

Those who wish to make bap­tism a covenant rela­tion­ship of the par­ents with God, effec­tively sav­ing their new­borns to later lose their sal­va­tion and need to renew their sal­va­tion some­how, always want to open bap­tism to other modes because total sub­mer­sion doesn’t work well with new­borns. This hereti­cal doc­trine of infant bap­tism is the dri­ving force behind mul­ti­ple modes of baptism.

What is the for­mula used?

For­mula: If bap­tism is a con­fes­sion of the individual’s faith in Jesus Christ (never is it the con­fes­sion of their par­ents faith), in other words it rep­re­sents a union with some­one (Acts 19:3–5), then the for­mula used to bap­tize is impor­tant. Bap­tism accord­ing to Mat 28:19 (the com­mand) should be in the name of the Tri­une God, “in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” This for­mula takes prece­dence because it is in the com­mand. As God raised Jesus from the dead giv­ing him life, also the Tri­une God gives us life. Zech 12:10; John 2:19,21; 1 Peter 3:18; Rom 8:11; Acts 3:26. One also sees the Trin­ity in the exam­ple of Christ’s per­sonal bap­tism (Luke 3:21–22).

But con­trast this with these exam­ples of peo­ple bap­tized in the name of the Lord – Acts 22:16; 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; 1Cor 1:13, 16. Even though there are three per­sons of the Trin­ity who bring sal­va­tion, the key per­son in sal­va­tion is only Jesus. With­out con­fess­ing Jesus, there is no sal­va­tion (Mat 10:32–33). The under­ly­ing sym­bol­ism is that the death of Jesus is the only way we can be saved, but the for­mula can also be in the three per­sons of God. This is because God the Father and God the Spirit did not die on the cross for us, only Jesus, and because of this we see this syn­onym in the bap­tismal formulas.