Dear bro.
Thanks for your magazine, Meditate On These Things. I always enjoy reading it, though I disagree with on some of your view points such as Women speaking when the whole church meet together in one place and women covering. However, it has really helped me in many subjects. I am forwarding this letter to you written by a denominational preacher on my challenge to him. I want you to show him why baptism is necessary for salvation.
thanks
Greet your wife for me
God bless
Your brother
Nathaniel U Abire

From: Allen Bean
Subject: Water Baptism

Dear Nathaniel:

Thank you for contacting us at Back to the Bible. You are correct in that the words of the prayer are not found in the Bible, but the heart attitude is. It reflects a humble recognition of our need and God’s ability to grant forgiveness for sin and eternal life.

Where we would disagree is on the need for water baptism done by human hands to be necessary for salvation. While the Bible clearly teaches that baptism in water is necessary for obedience, it is not a requirement for salvation. True, the apostle Peter did say, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). But notice it says the baptism is to be “in (into) the name of Jesus Christ.” It says nothing about water. This baptism takes place when a person believes and receives Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). We are placed (baptized) by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ. When that happens, our sins are forgiven. This spiritual baptism is the “one baptism” of Eph. 4:5 and the “baptism that saves” of 1 Pet. 3:21. On the other hand, again and again faith is stated as the basic requirement for salvation, with no mention of baptism. (See John 3:16-18, 5:24; Acts 16:31; Rom. 10:9-14.)
If water baptism doesn’t wash away sins, what good is it? Why is it one of the steps you should take as a new Christian? Here are three reasons:
1. Water baptism identifies your desire to obey Christ (Matt. 28:19-20). If you know that He wants you to be baptized and you refuse, you are being disobedient to your Savior, the One who died for you.
2. Water baptism identifies your desire to be joined to Christ (Rom. 6:1-4). Through the symbolism of water baptism, you can show others a good visual picture of what it means to become a Christian.
Being baptized shows that when Christ died, we died. When He was buried, we were buried. And when He rose from the dead, we rose from the dead - to a new life and a new purpose.
3. Water baptism indicates your desire to follow Christ (Rom. 6:4). It symbolizes your final break with your old life, with the past and its sin. And although you will continue to sin, being baptized tells the world you are headed in a new direction, you are taking your first steps on a new road.
Getting baptized means following Jesus’ example (Matt. 3:16-17). It means telling the world you’re under new management (1 Cor. 6:19-20). It means following Jesus and giving up the way you used to live (2 Cor. 5:17). Baptism is a way of telling everyone, “I'm a new person, a new creation in Christ. My old life is gone; all things in my life have become new. I’m off to a brandnew start.”
In Him
Allen Bean
Biblical Correspondent

Reply
Keith Sharp

Dear Nathaniel,

Thanks for writing and sending me your correspondence with Mr. Bean..

I think your question to him dealt with the so-called “Sinner’s Prayer” that Protestants teach people to pray for salvation. It’s not just that the prayer itself is not found in the Bible, and it is not, but that there is no New Testament command, statement, example, or necessary implication authorizing prayer as the means of salvation for those outside Christ. In fact, the Lord stated emphatically, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Cornelius was a moral, religious, God fearing man who was praying to God always (Acts 10:1-2,22). But the Lord sent the apostle Peter to him to tell him how to be saved (Acts 11:13-14). The only thing Peter commanded him to do was “to be baptized in the name of the Lord” (Acts 10:48). Prayer didn’t save Cornelius, but baptism did.

It should not surprise us that “baptism done by human hands” is necessary to salvation. After all, the gospel preached by the human mouth is certainly necessary to salvation (Mark 16:15; Romans 1:16; 10:8-17).

Mr. Bean acknowledges that water baptism is essential to obedience but denies it is necessary to salvation. Of course, that implies you can be disobedient to “the One who died for you” and still be saved. That’s certainly not what the Master taught in Matthew 7:21, nor is it what the inspired writer stated in Hebrews 5:8-9.

Mr. Bean denies that baptism in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38) is water baptism. Why, then, does he baptize people in water? We must do everything “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). If water baptism is not in His name, we should not practice it. But the apostle Peter inquired concerning Cornelius and his household, relatives, and friends, “Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47) Then, “he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord” (verse 48). Baptism “in the name of the Lord” is “water baptism.”

Mr. Bean just asserted without proof that baptism by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13) is not water baptism. Note, the passage doesn’t say baptized with or in one Spirit, but “baptized by one Spirit.” We are also baptized (washed in water) “by the word,” by which we are sanctified and cleansed (Ephesians 5:26). The Holy Spirit revealed the word that teaches us to be baptized in water for the remission of our sins (1 Corinthians 2:12-13; Acts 2:38). Yes, this baptism, water baptism, does indeed put us into the one body, apart from which there is no salvation (Ephesians 1:3,22-23; 2 Timothy 2:10).

If “spiritual baptism” is the “one baptism” of Ephesians 4:5, pray tell why does Mr. Bean baptize folks in water? If water baptism is another baptism in addition to the one baptism authorized by the Lord, it is without divine authority, and we shouldn’t baptize anyone in water (2 John 9).

How in the world does Mr. Bean remove the water from baptism in 1 Peter 3:21?!

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him (1 Peter 3:18-22).

None of those passages which teach faith is necessary to salvation (John 3:16-18, 5:24; Acts 16:31; Rom. 10:9-14) mention repentance. So, is repentance unnecessary? (cf. Acts 3:19) I believe every passage that teaches the necessity of faith, but I also believe the passages that teach water baptism is essential to salvation (John 3:5; Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Romans 6:3-4; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:26-27; Ephesians 5:26; Colossians 2:11-12; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 10:22; 1 Peter 3:21).

No, baptism doesn’t “wash away sins.” The blood of Christ does so when we are baptized (Romans 6:3-4; cf. 5:9-10; Acts 22:16; Hebrews 10:22).

Water baptism is not a step for a new Christian to take. It’s how one becomes a Christian, because it’s how one gets into Christ (Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:26-27). Can one be a Christian outside Christ?

The apostle Paul did not say that water baptism identifies your desire to be one with Christ or that it pictures your desire to follow him. He plainly taught it puts you into Christ.

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4).

Yes, we follow Jesus’ example of obedience (Matthew 3:13-15) when we are baptized. But the sinless Son of God was baptized “to fulfill all righteousness” (verse 15), whereas we are baptized “for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38).

Neither 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 nor 2 Corinthians 5:17 even mention baptism, thus, they teach nothing about it purpose.

Mr. Bean is tragically mistaken concerning the requirements for salvation. No alien sinner was ever required to pray for salvation in the gospel age. All must be baptized in water for the remission of sins.