Every Christian needs to know the foundations of their faith just as a young person needs to learn the alphabet at the very beginning of their education. Without the foundation, nothing of permanent worth can be built on top lest the whole structure collapses. We need to find out about the elementary teachings of Christ before we can advance to maturity or perfection. “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, Of the DOCTRINE OF BAPTISMS, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment” (Heb 6:1-2) The basic principles of the doctrine of Christ are clearly stated in this passage and one of them is the “doctrine of baptisms.” You will notice that the word “baptisms” is plural, signifying that there is more than one baptism. There are two specific baptisms that the church continued to administer in the New Testament and these are water and Holy Ghost baptism. Holy Ghost baptism is a topic that I handle separately (refer to “The Baptism of the Holy Spirit” by Arinaitwe Moses and Edward Ssewanyana). In this publication we shall focus on water baptism.
Since our original New Testament was written in Greek it is relevant to find out the original word which we translate baptism. The original word is “baptizo”which comes from the root word “bapto”that means to dip in or immerse or to dip into dye (according to “Thayer’s Greek Definitions”). The analogy here is to a custom of changing the color of white cloth to another like blue by dipping it completely in the blue dye. This is a custom still practiced by the clothing industry today. This readily shows us that baptism implies dipping a person in water. The mode of baptism is made even clearer when we understand what baptism implies.
Why Baptism?
1. To publicly confirm our inward conversion
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were BAPTIZED INTO HIS DEATH? Therefore we are BURIED WITH HIM BY BAPTISM into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk IN NEWNESS OF LIFE. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom 6:1-5). Apostle Paul clearly states that we are baptized into Jesus’ death, implying that when Jesus died our nature of sin died and when He rose from the dead, we rose with Him to a new life of right standing with God. This shows us that baptism is a confirmation of what happened to us in the heart when we chose to receive Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf by receiving Him as Lord of our lives and confessing our sins. The scripture says that we are buried with Him by baptism, meaning that we go under the water to symbolize the way he was buried. Some proponents of the sprinkling theory of baptism should show me a grave where soil has been sprinkled on the dead person. Even with a little reasoning we can see that just as a dead person is put out of sight by being fully immersed into the ground we can infer that when one identifies with Jesus’ burial they are completely immersed in water.
Apostle Peter also points out in his epistle that baptism is not a mere outward show but simply confirms what has occurred in the heart of the believer, “Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of A GOOD CONSCIENCE TOWARD GOD,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1Pe 3:20-21). The good conscience towards God is a heart that has received Jesus as Lord and one can never substitute baptism for genuine repentance and salvation. Noah was saved by the water which destroyed the rest of the world however it was the ark held up by the water that truly kept them alive. Likewise one can never substitute baptism for being born again since Jesus is our ark of salvation. Peter also clarifies that baptism is not merely washing the body since everyone who takes a shower would be baptized every time they do it, so he makes it clear that it is not putting away the filth or dirt of the flesh.
Before Jesus’ ascension he gave one final message to His disciples and in it He spoke about baptism. “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned”(Mar 16:15-16). Jesus makes it clear that two categories of people will exist when the gospel has been preached, those who believe and those who refuse to believe. He states that those who believe will be saved then adds on baptism after believing. The order of the words “believeth” and “baptized” is not by chance. Believeth comes before baptize because one has to believe first before being baptized. All the Christians who were baptized under the New Testament were adults as we shall see in the coming pages. Jesus never says that those who are baptized but do not believe will be saved as some suppose. I have come across many who say that that simply because they were sprinkled with water as infants or when they were older that because of that they are assured of salvation in heaven without needing to be born again and receiving Jesus as their Lord. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whereas one can get to heaven as shown in the diagram below without being baptized like the thief who hung with Jesus on the cross, one can never enter heaven when they do not believe and receive the gospel even though they are baptized. This simply goes to show that baptism is the outward symbol of what one has believed in their heart.
“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, BAPTIZING THEM IN THE NAME of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Mat 28:19). Here Jesus spoke about baptizing believers in or into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and implies that those being baptized are being publicly identified with each of the persons of the trinity. The name of a person symbolizes all that he is and we see an incident in the book of Acts where instead of saying that 120 people were gathered in the upper room, it mentions that 120 names were gathered there, “And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the NUMBER OF NAMES together were about a hundred and twenty)” (Act 1:15). The name and the person are one. So when one is baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit they publicly identify with all that God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit stand for and are. This is similar top the baptism of the Israelites in the Old Testament which is symbolic, “Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all BAPTIZED UNTO MOSES in the cloud and in the sea” (1Co 10:1-2). Here the Israelites who were fleeing from the Egyptians passed through the Red sea dry shod and through this identified with Moses as their deliverer. Some Bible teachers state that the cloud refers to the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the sea refers to water baptism.