And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. Acts 22:16
God’s plan always included sinner’s baptism so that they might be added to the church (Acts 2:47). This may sound like a bold statement but God has always placed a significance on water as it pertained to salvation. In the Old Testament, water was often the key element of some type of physical deliverance. In 1 Peter 3:20b, we read about the flood and how it was water that saved the faithful, “while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water”. This is only one example. It was water that separated the children of Israel from the pursuing Egyptians in Exodus. Gideon chose his army of 300 in the water drinking test. These as well as many other examples in the Old Testament show us that water is significant.
It was also the water that washed away (Acts 22:16) the sin or, as is the case of Exodus, the bondage of slavery to sin that the Egytians represented. For the folks of the Old Testament, these things were merely physical but again, one is reminded in scripture, this is a spiritual practice for us. 1 Peter 3:21 states, “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.” It is through baptism into Christ that one is liberated from the bondage of sin and becomes a servant of righteousness (Rom 6:18).
Another thing I always like to mention about baptism is, even though we don’t read of baptism until the time of Christ, the act of baptism didn’t need explaining to the folks who initially heard it. Several years ago I did a word study on baptism in the language used to write the New Testament. In short, it would have meant in their mind the raising of a sunken ship. Also, this would make it clear that complete immersion has to take place seeing as you can’t raise a vessel unless it is sunk under water.
Lastly, a simple evaluation of Romans 6:1-4 shows that in the sinner’s baptism that one obeys the gospel in reenacting what Christ did for us. He died, was buried, and arose. So do we in baptism: we die to sin, we’re buried in the watery grave, and are raised as a new creature, no longer a servant of sin but living in the newness of life, pleasing to God.
By Jason Barger