Is baptism necessary for salvation?

This week we are looking at a part of the second half of the seventh statement that comprises our doctrinal statement as a church, which focuses on what we believe as a church when it comes to baptism. Yesterday, we looked at Jesus Christ command for His followers to celebrate baptism.

We talked about the reality that when we see baptisms occurring in the Bible, we discover that baptism is an outward act that serves to publicly identify one as being a follower of Jesus.  A person who is being baptized is publicly proclaiming “I am a follower of Jesus who desires to be a part of a community of believers who will encourage me and hold me accountable”.

You see, evangelism is not a separate activity from discipleship. Evangelism is the first step of discipleship, where a person responds to what God has done for them through Jesus life, death, and resurrection by believing, trusting and following Jesus as Lord and Leader. And baptism is a step that occurs after a person becomes a follower of Jesus as a way of identifying with Jesus as His follower and with the kingdom mission that He has given us as His followers.

Today, we are going to address the reality that for many, you may have grown up in, or have experience in a church community that communicated that baptism was necessary for salvation. In other words, to be saved and experience a relationship with Jesus you must be baptized.

So is that the case? Do you have to be baptized to be saved and experience a relationship with Jesus? We discover the answer to that question a few chapters earlier in the gospel of Matthew, beginning in Matthew 3:13-17:

Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him. But John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?" But Jesus answering said to him, "Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he permitted Him. After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."

In these verses, we see Matthew introduce us to a man who was called John the Baptist. Now when Matthew called John the Baptist, it wasn’t because he was a Baptist instead of a Methodist or a Presbyterian; he was called a Baptist because of what he did. John wasn’t a Baptist, he was a baptizer.

And John the baptizer had a message; repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. If John the baptizer was communicating this message to us today in the language that we use in our culture, his message would sound something like this “Repent, recognize and feel remorse for how you are living life. Change your attitude and your mind towards the trajectory of your life, because God is coming soon. The kingdom of God is approaching and will be here soon”. Matthew tells us that one day, as he was proclaiming his message and baptizing people who were identifying with his message, Jesus approached John the Baptizer.

Now I want us to take a minute and imagine ourselves as John the Baptizer. Let’s take a minute and place ourselves in his shoes. You have been proclaiming, “God is coming, the kingdom of Heaven is coming”, and there right before your eyes is the promised one of God, the Messiah Jesus. And then the Messiah, who you have just been saying will provide a greater baptism that people will publicly proclaim and identify with than yours, asks you to baptize Him?

John responds to his situation by stating “I have need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me”? You see, John the Baptizer recognized his need for identification with the message of the kingdom and responded by wanting to have Jesus baptize him.

Yet Jesus replied to John’s request by saying “permit it at this time for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”. But what does that mean? And why would Jesus, God in a bod, who lived a life without any selfishness, sin, or rebellion, without a need to change the trajectory of His life, want or need to be baptized?

 You see, Jesus told John that He wanted to be baptized not because He had ever sinned; Jesus wanted to be baptized because He wanted to identify Himself with selfish, rebellious and sinful people, even though He never sinned. When Jesus stated that He fulfilled all righteousness, what Jesus was saying was that He fulfilled all the requirements necessary to be our rescuer and deliverer from sin.

And one of the ways that He did that was through this act of baptism. This act was Jesus way of identifying Himself with us so that He could allow Himself to be treated as though He lived our selfish and sinful life so that God the Father could treat us as though we lived Jesus perfect life. And we see God the Father’s response to Jesus desire to identify with us in verse 17. We see all three members of the Trinity present as the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus to empower Him to accomplish His mission of revealing the kingdom of Heaven as God the Father stated “this is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”.

You see, baptism is not about salvation; baptism is about identification. That is why we do not baptize infants or young children here at City Bible Church, because we believe that a person needs to be old enough to be able to make the decision to believe, trust, and follow Jesus as Lord and Leader and understand the meaning of baptism before participating in baptism.

And just as we discussed last week with communion, baptism visibly and tangibly expresses the gospel.  Baptism is not something we do to be saved; baptism is something we do because we have been saved in obedience to Jesus command. This is what is meant by the statement in our doctrinal statement “Though they are not the means of salvation, when celebrated by the church in genuine faith, these ordinances confirm and nourish the believer.”

And in a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the Bible called the book of Romans, we see the Apostle Paul unpack how baptism visibly and tangibly expresses the gospel. We will look at that section Friday...