We’ve had a lot of baptisms lately and we’re so thankful for it. It’s not unusual, after several have responded, for others to ask questions. It’s common for one of those questions to be “what about me?” or “am I ready?” or “maybe I need to be baptized too…”

In light of that, I think it’s important to reiterate something:

  • baptism doesn’t change the way you act
  • baptism doesn’t change the way you think
  • baptism doesn’t change the way you feel

What baptism does do for you is put your sins to death and give you a second chance to live for God (Romans 6). Salvation is something you can’t do for yourself, but you can choose to change the way you act, think, and feel, and you must do those things BEFORE you are baptized. You do those things when you repent. If baptism is the process of burying your sins in a watery grave, then repentance is the decision you make to put those sins to death in the first place. It’s the mental decision to change that kind of person you are, how you act, think, and feel. Then, after that decision is made, you follow through with it by washing away all the bad actions, thoughts, and feelings you had in the past.

Don’t make the mistake some people do—especially some evangelists—and think that baptism is magic, or that the water is magic, and that if you just pressure and nudge and force people into the water then they’ll be okay. It doesn’t work like that. Baptism is, from a physical standpoint, just a person being dipped in water. Parents sometimes pressure children to get in the water, because they’ve heard from preachers for so long that “when you’re baptized you’re added to the church.” It’s true, the saved are added to the church by Christ (Acts 2:47), and baptism is the point at which you are saved from your sins (Acts 2:38b), but that salvation only comes after repentance of sins occurs (Acts 2:38a). If you pressure someone to be baptized who hasn’t repented, don’t expect anything to happen other than their getting wet.

Baptism doesn’t change the way a person behaves. Repentance does. Baptism changes the eternal consequences of the way a person used to behave. We need to do a better job conveying that distinction. If we do, we’ll have fewer young adults coming forward to be re-baptized, because they realize they didn’t do it for the right reasons the first time. Having talked with preachers from all around, I think we need to do a better job expressing the notion of the “church” as the Bible describes it. Too many are taught (maybe not explicitly but implicitly) that being baptized is how you join the church of Christ, as if it’s a club to belong to.

The church of Christ is the home of the saved. The Lord’s church is His set-apart people. The Kingdom of Jesus is the gathering of those whose sins have been washed away. It is not an institution you seek to join because “it’s the right time” or “you’re old enough now” or “everyone else is and you don’t want to be left out.”

Being added to the church of Christ is just the thing that happens when a person is saved. The goal of a sinner should not be to join a church (even THE church), but to have his sins removed. When we emphasize the “be added to the church” part over the “remit your sins” part, we teach it backwards and open the door to all manner of confusion and misconceptions. Becoming a Christian ought to be viewed as an act of desperation. I’ll say that again:

Becoming a Christian is an act of desperation!

A lost person must come to terms with the fact that he has sinned against God, deserves to burn in hell for those sins, and will in fact burn if something is not done immediately. If there is no sense of urgency then the one seeking to be baptized either is too young to need it or is too unrepentant for it to matter.

Don’t misunderstand: I’m not trying to cast doubt on anyone’s baptism. I’m not thinking of any particular person or persons as I write this. I’m thinking about how we, as teachers and preachers, can, going forward, better convey the importance of baptism as the FINAL step on the road to sin-remittance. I’m not here to judge anyone in particular. If someone comes to me expressing a penitent heart and a need to be saved, it isn’t my place to ask them how desperate they are, etc. It isn’t my job to determine the readiness of a soul. My job is to preach the Gospel. My job is to convict a heart that needs to repent and be baptized. After that, a person must work out his own salvation (Philippians 2:12), because—at the end of the day—both your potential condemnation and your potential salvation are between you and Christ alone.

~ Matthew