We are commanded to be baptized.
In Matthew 28:19-20, we find what is commonly called The Great Commission, Jesus’ directive to the church to take the good news into the whole world. He tells them (and us) to make disciples by...
Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Teaching them to observe all that He commanded.
When a crowd of people, under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, ask Peter what they should do he tells them (Acts 2:38) they should repent and be baptized.
The Greek word rendered baptize, in our English Bibles, literally means to immerse or submerge.
Why is baptism so important?
Every one of us has a “sinful nature” that has been conditioned by years of slavery to the world. Before accepting Christ most us of did whatever we felt like doing whenever we felt like doing it, or as Ephesians 2:3 (NIV) says,
we gratified “the cravings of our sinful nature... following its desires and thoughts.”
(see Ephesians 2:1-3)
Unfortunately, even after we accept Christ as our Savior and Lord our sinful nature is still alive and active, and it must be dealt with. Fortunately, we are not left on our own. According to Colossians 2:11-12 (NIV) the power of our sinful nature is broken through Christ in baptism.
In [Jesus] you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hand of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
Read Romans 6:1-6. IF we are baptized into Jesus, we are baptized into his death.... We are supposed to be as if we are dead to sin’s attraction.
Appropriating the promise of baptism
Read Romans 6:11-14.
This passage tells us how to appropriate, or live in the reality of, the promise of baptism. We must reckon ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ; refuse to let sin reign by obeying its lusts; don’t offer our bodies as instruments of unrighteousness, but rather as instruments of righteousness to God. (see James 4:7)
Verse 14 makes a powerful promise: “sin shall not have dominion over you because we are under grace.” (see 2 Corinthians 12:9)
Grace is God’s ability to do what we cannot do on our own.
A public confession of our sinfulness and that we want to change
Historically, baptism has always been done publicly as a personal proclamation that I agree that I have sinned against God and that I am committing my life to God from now on.
Matthew 3:6 says, “Confessing their sins, they were baptized.”
Salvation and our relationship with God is not to be a secret affair.
Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the Glory of the Father and of the holy angels”. Luke 9:26
