Lesson
14 - Must We Be Baptized For The Forgiveness of Our Sins?
"Men and brethren
what shall we do?" In verse 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.