Lesson 14 - Must We Be Baptized For The Forgiveness of
Our Sins?
"Men and brethren what shall we do?"
In Acts 2:38 (KJV), "Then Peter said unto them, repent and be
baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of
your sins." Here people were told to repent and be
baptized for the remission of their sins. Only when we submit to
baptism as the Lord has commanded, that is for the remission of sins to be
saved, do we show our faith in the Lord. Only then will He save us.
Man today has a sin problem. It is our sins that separate
us from God. We are to repent and be baptized for the remission of our sins.
This is God's instruction on how we solve our sin problem. When Peter told
them to "Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins,"
whatever repentance is for in that verse, baptism is for the same reason.
Repent and be baptized are joined by the coordinating conjunction and, which
joins words of equal grammatical importance. Certainly Acts
2:38 does not teach that lost people are to repent because they
have already received forgiveness of their sins. Neither does it teach that
lost people are to be baptized because their sins are already forgiven. Satan
would like you to believe that baptism has nothing to do with the forgiveness
of your sins. Have you been baptized for the remission of your sins?
Again, the choice is yours; either believe what God has said and be saved, or
believe what men say and you will continue to be lost. We only have two
choices, and the choice that we make will have eternal consequences. But
please make the right choice.
In the book of Acts we have the account of the conversion of the Apostle
Paul. In Acts chapter 9, Paul is traveling on the road up to Damascus to
persecute Christians. The Lord appears to Paul on the road and strikes him
blind. In verse 5 he tells Paul, "I am Jesus whom you
are persecuting." In verse 6 Paul asks, "Lord
what do you want me to do? Then the Lord said to him (Paul), Arise and go
into the city, and you will be told what you must do." The
Lord did not tell Paul what he must do, but that someone in the city would
tell him what he must do. In Acts 9:9, after Paul went into the city, "And
he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank."
Paul was worried sick and very upset. He had just found out that all the
years in his zeal, while persecuting the Lord's church, he had actually been
persecuting the Lord. Paul was devastated and broken-hearted in finding out
that he had been wrong all these years.
Let's see now what Paul was told what he must do. In Acts chapter 22, a man
named Ananias, who was sent by the Lord, came to Paul and miraculously
restored Paul's eyesight. Notice what Paul was told by Ananias what he must
do. Acts
22:16, "And now why are you waiting? Arise, and be
baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord."
Paul was not saved three days earlier while on the road to Damascus. Paul up
to this point was still lost, because he still had all his sins that needed
to be washed away. Paul still had a sin problem. Obedience to the Lord's
command to be baptized was necessary to wash away Paul's sins. At the point
of baptism every sin that we have ever committed will be taken away if it is
done for that purpose. Have you been baptized for the purpose of having your
sins washed away? If you have not, then you still have a sin problem. You are
still lost.
Paul was not told "to pray the sinners prayer and ask Jesus to come into
his heart in order to be saved." This is foreign to the scripture. You
cannot find anywhere in the Bible where anyone was ever told to do this.
Since God in the Bible has never told anyone "To pray and ask Jesus to
come into your heart in order to be saved", who else but men could have
come up with such an idea? Forgiveness occurs in the mind of God and not on
the basis of man's feeling in his heart. Only when we have done what God has
said that we must do, will God forgive our sins. We cannot devise our own
plan as to how our sins are to be forgiven.
Do not misunderstand. We do not "earn" our salvation by being
baptized. Salvation is a gift from God. Even though salvation is a free gift
from God, he has laid down certain conditions upon which he will give it. One
condition to receive his gift is faith: Hebrews 11:6,
"But
without faith it is impossible to please Him." Another
condition of his free gift is repentance: Luke 13:3, "Unless
you repent you will all likewise perish." Another
condition is baptism: Mark 16:16, "He
who believes and is baptized will be saved." Still another
condition is living a faithful Christian life: Revelation 2:10,
"Be
faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life."
The conditions include doing all "the will of the
Father,"Matthew 7:21. These are God's
conditions. Believing in God and Christ with all our heart, repenting of all
our sins, confessing Christ and being baptized are all equally important to
our salvation. If any of these are lacking, then we will not be saved. You
can't have one without the others.
There is nothing that we can do to merit salvation. Whether it be believing
in Jesus or being baptized, we can never "earn our salvation". The
only way we can show our faith in Christ is if we are willing to accept and
obey what He says. But it is in baptism that God has chosen to impart
his wonderful grace of salvation to us as a willing believer.
According to the Bible, it is at the point of baptism, that we pass
from an unsaved state into a saved state. In other words, at the time of
baptism, we go from being unsaved to being saved. We read in I
Peter 3:21 (KJV), "The like figure
whereunto even baptism does also now save us." The Bible
says that "baptism does now also save us," but men say
that"baptism does not save us." This is very similar to the
situation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God in Genesis
2:17 told them not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil, "For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely
die." But Satan told Eve in Genesis 3:4,
"Then
the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die."
Satan only added the one word "not" to what God had said and
completely changed the meaning. That is what men are doing to God's commands
today. Who are you going to accept, the word of men or the Word of
God? We are told in Acts 5:29, "We
ought to obey God rather than men." On the Day of
Judgment, the Bible will still say that "baptism does also
now save us." Again the choice is yours, but it is very
serious. We dare not make the wrong choice.
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Questions
Lesson 14 Must We Be Baptized For The Forgiveness Of Our
Sins?
1) (Acts 2:38) What were these people in this verse
told to do for the remission of their sins? Pray
to God. Repent and be baptized. Only
believe.
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2) Our sins are forgiven before we repent and are baptized.
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3) (Acts 22:16) What was Paul told to do to have his sins washed away? Accept
Christ as his personal Saviour Only
believe in Jesus. Arise and be baptized.
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4) Until Paul was baptized he still had all his sins.
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5) Where can we find in the Bible that we are told to pray and ask Jesus to
come into our heart in order to be saved? Jude
2:5. 2
John 1:14. It is not there.
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6) We cannot find in the Bible where anyone was ever told to accept Jesus
into his heart in order to be saved
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7) (1 Peter 3:21) What does the Bible say saves us? Faith
only. Baptism. Our
own goodness.
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8) It is at the point of baptism that God has chosen to impart His wonderful
grace of salvation.