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.
Questions Lesson
14 Must We Be Baptized
For The Forgiveness Of Our Sins? (click on the button
of the answer of your choice)
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.
2)
Our sins are forgiven before we repent and are baptized. 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.
4)
Until Paul was baptized he still had all his sins. 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.
6)
We cannot find in the Bible where anyone was ever told to accept
Jesus
into his heart in order to be saved 7)
(1 Peter 3:21) What does the Bible say saves us? Faith only. Baptism. Our own
goodness.
8)
It is at the point of baptism that God has chosen to impart His
wonderful
grace of salvation.