To Immerse or Not

“Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

~Acts 2:36-41

Tomorrow is a special day for me. It’s my husband, Nathan’s birthday, and I have the privilege of baptizing him. He took a long time to come to the Lord but when he did this past January, he wanted to be baptized in the river. As this day has drawn closer, I’ve been thinking more and more about what to say during the baptism. I know to most, it seems like a pretty simple event but for me, this is special. It’s like a marriage—sacred, and like marriage, a covenant between the person being baptized and the Lord.

I have been baptized three times. The first time, I was 18 and had accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior; the second time was when my late husband, Bear and two of our kids were baptized. I felt as if being baptized as a family was important for all of us. We were baptized by full immersion in water, in the Name of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Some years later, I began attending a church that believes being baptized in any way except the Name of Jesus, is incorrect, and I was baptized for the third time. I have thought about this a lot, probably too much because that’s me, but I am not convinced I would go to hell for failure to be baptized in the Name of Jesus only. On the other hand, I complied because the pastor was so adamant about this belief and what did it hurt for me to get wet again?

“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:30-31).”

There is no doubt salvation comes through repentance. Without repentance, baptism is just a bath and does nothing for the person being dunked. So, baptism is the second step in salvation—first, we accept Christ as our Savior by confessing our sins for forgiveness and second, we are baptized by immersion. This helps us to identify with Christ’s resurrection. We go under the water, burying our old selves, and come up out of the water, resurrected into a brand new life. I find no where in the Bible where anyone was sprinkled with water, and I find no where that infants were baptized. In order to repent, one has to be old enough to understand sin, therefore, baptizing anyone unable to understand what they are doing has no point. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, who had been baptizing people for some time by full immersion in the Jordan River. When Jesus came along, John baptized Him as well. When Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens opened up and God spoke. (Matthew 3:13-17). Now, there is no record of what John said when he baptized people but I imagine it was in the Name of the Father.

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.  And when they saw Him they worshiped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:16-20).”

Clearly, Jesus says to baptize in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so why was I told I had to be baptized again in the Name of Jesus for my baptism to count? The reason is in Acts 2. Jesus had been crucified, buried, and rose again. He had spent forty days on earth with His disciples and they watched Him ascend into Heaven. What we don’t know is everything Jesus taught during those forty days, but Acts 2 was written about what the disciples did immediately following Christ’s ascension. (Acts 1 retells of Christ’s ascension and replacing Judas Iscariot). This is the account of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on everyone present and they spoke in other tongues and were endued with power from God. In verse 38, Peter tells the people to “repent and be baptized in the Name of Jesus.” Things had changed for the disciples. They were now the ones left to teach what Jesus taught, to lay hands on people, to heal the sick, and raise the dead. The disciples had felt the power of God descend on them through the Holy Spirit, the same thing that happened to Jesus immediately following His baptism.

Do I think if someone has been baptized in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and dies, that they will go to hell? No. I do think that if a person was baptized as an infant or did not understand what or why, they do need to be instructed and baptized again, but only after repentance. If someone was baptized by sprinkling or pouring of water, I think they do need to be baptized by full immersion. Our sole reason for baptism is to identify with the burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and full immersion is the way to do that. Baptism also infills us with the Holy Spirit, so when Peter, who spent so much time with Christ says, “Be baptized in the Name of Jesus,” and we have the chance to do so, we should be re-baptized. Or if it’s our first baptism, we should make sure our pastor, or whoever is doing the baptizing, understands we want to be baptized in Jesus’ Name.

“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that, we all are witnesses.  Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing (Acts 2:29-33).”

Read Job 14-16; Weekend reading Job 17-24

©2018 Marie McGaha