Baptism and Forgiveness
As a Christian scholar and speaker, I find that there are certain questions that come up frequently. One of those relates to the issue of whether or not one needs to be baptized to be saved. Interestingly, this has been a topic of discussion in my family recently (my daughter has a friend who has been taught that baptism is necessary for salvation) and I received an email just today asking precisely the same question. The question I got today was very well phrased and involved a number of specific verses, so I thought it might be helpful to post my answer here for anyone who might be wondering about these same things:
Hi …
First, let me say that I think your view of baptism is exactly right according to the whole counsel of Scripture. I’m familiar with the arguments that you’re confronting, but they typically depend on some interpretive decisions that don’t take into account some pretty important elements. Let me start with some basic exegetical remarks about the verses:
Mark 1:1-4 …the Good News is “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Since baptism is “of” repentance they can’t be separated.
The Greek here is only two words: baptisma metanoias. Both are nouns, but the second is in the genitive case which is usually thought of as the “possessive” case, hence the translation “baptism of repentence”. We would use this case to say the “email of Charlton”. But the genitive is a bit more complicated than this in Greek. It can be used for straight possession, but it can also be used in a number of other ways. We have the Attributive Genitive which specifies an attribute of the head noun (‘righteous judge’), the Partitive Genitive which indicates the whole of which the head noun is a part (‘half of my possessions’), the Genitive of Apposition which clarifies the head noun (‘the body which is the church’) and several others. If the phrase in question in Mk. 1:4 is a Genitive of Apposition, then baptism is the same thing as repentance and your church is right. However, the genitive can and often is used to demonstrate source, as in “X comes from Y” or “the light of the star”). If this phrase is a Genitive of source, then it would be translated as “baptism which flows from repentance” which is pretty close to what you’re arguing.
But which is it? Well, first, the NT consistently places repentance as the prerequisite to salvation, but this is usually done without reference to baptism (Luk 17:3,4, 24:47, Acts 5:31, 8:22). This alone makes it likely that baptism is not the key but rather a result of the key which is, of course, repentance. Second, the Jewish historian Josephus described John the Baptist’s ministry this way:
“for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the remission of some sins, but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.”
(Antiquities, XVIII 5:2)
This seems to make it very clear that John was understood to be preaching a baptism which followed after repentance. In other words, baptism and repentance are pretty clearly not synonymous.
Acts 2:38 “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
OK, this is going to be a bit convoluted I’m afraid, but I’ll shoot for both brevity and clarity. A great deal of biblical literature is organized by means of something called a chiasm (or chiasmus) which has a series of things in the first half that correspond to things in the second half, but in reverse order. Think of Kennedy’s famous speech:
Ask not
What your country
Can do
for you
But what
you
Can do
For your country
See the way the key elements correspond in reverse order? Acts 2:38 is an example of the same structure:
Repent
And be baptized
Each of you
In the name of Jesus
For the forgiveness of sin
Both grammatically and conceptually, repentance attaches to forgiveness and baptism attaches to “in the name”. You can’t repent as a representative of someone (which is what “in the name” means) but you can be baptized into affiliation with someone. So, repentance leads to forgiveness which is a key theme in Luke’s writings especially (see above).
Acts 19:1-3 “ 1 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when[a] you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”
It seems clear in the context that these folks had not yet heard the true Gospel. They had only heard John the Baptist’s preparatory baptism which was not sufficient for salvation. So when they believed the Gospel about Jesus, they were saved. It was the content of their belief that was the key, not the baptism. Of course, the passage doesn’t explicitly state this, but neither does it state that the baptism provided forgiveness. In light of the rest of the NT, the idea that they were baptized because they had already believed and repented is fairly well attested. The belief that they were saved by their baptism in this passage is a much harder case to make.
Galatians 3:26,27 “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
V. 26 is very clear. We are children of God through faith. If we are children of God through baptism, then why not say this? Rather, baptism follows after the faith which saves. This seems pretty straightforward in these verses, especially since there is a Greek dia (which is usually used to denote the instrument by which something is accomplished) right before “faith” but not before “baptism”. The close appearance of baptism with faith in this verse cannot be taken to say that baptism and faith are synonymous.
Colossians 2:11-14 “Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, (12) having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.(13) When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, (14) having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”
I think this is metaphorical. Certainly, the “circumcised by Christ” is not speaking of literal circumcision but rather of a spiritual truth that came about when we were buried and raised with him. True, baptism is mentioned here as the visible sign of this union with Christ, but there is nothing here that could easily be taken to mean that baptism was instrumental. On the contrary, Paul lists the thing which is the instrumental cause: “through your faith”. The Greek here is dia which nearly always indicates the instrument by which the thing in view is accomplished. As in the above verse, no dia accompanies baptism. It is found here only in conjunction with faith…hence, faith is the instrument by which the old self is put off.
1 Peter 3:21,22 “ …baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.[e] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.”
I suppose this one is a little more in favor of the salvation-by-baptism view, but it doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny. It seems to me that Peter identifies baptism as “the pledge of a clear conscience”. But how can one have a clear conscience? Again, in the overwhelming majority of NT instances, the answer is: by repentance. Thus baptism is the visible sign of this inner transformation. The authors point to baptism precisely because it was able to be pointed to. It is difficult to point to the moment of repentance because this is an inner determination. Consequently baptism, which is the public declaration, typically stands in as the observable marker of repentance but is not synonymous with it by any means.
Why don’t you think on these exegetical remarks a bit and then we can follow up on other specific issues that would be helpful.
Here is a copy of the question I was answering:
Hello Craig,
My name is XX and I am a close friend of XX who told me to shoot you an email regarding the current church/doctrine situation my wife and I have stumbled into.
The church my wife and I are going to clearly loves the Lord however they believe baptism is essential for salvation. They believe it is tied to repentance and belief. We have always held to baptism being an outward sign of an inward change. We heard their argument and it has forced us to really search things out concerning this issue. We have been excited to dig deeper into Scripture, but at the same time we are struggling through it. When you have time can you please help us or point us in the right direction?
Their argument for saying that baptism and repentance and faith are tied together is based off of:
Mark 1:1-4 …the Good News is “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Since baptism is “of” repentance they can’t be separated.
Acts 2:38 “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Acts 19:1-3 “ 1 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when[a] you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”
Galatians 3:26,27 “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
Colossians 2:11-14 “Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, (12) having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.(13) When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, (14) having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”
1 Peter 3:21,22 “ …baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.[e] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.”
They also use the verses above to say that you are not “forgiven” or “clothed” with Christ until you have been water baptized while repenting/putting your faith in Christ. They believe baptism is the culmination of the three…faith, repentance and baptism. And therefore everything happens at baptism (forgiveness, baptism of the Holy Spirit, clothed with Christ, freed from sin in Romans 6 etc…) They also don’t believe baptism is a work since nowhere in scripture you can see it as a work…you can only see it as a plea to God.
We have brought up everything that happened in Acts 10 with Cornelius’ house and they say it is an exception to the rule because it happened only to show the Jews that God was granting salvation to the Gentiles. This mainly poses a problem for us because of the countless testimonies of friends and others who have been radically transformed at conversion way before they were water baptized. It also poses a problem in that as a man of God I am called to search all this out and lead my family well by submitting all things to the authority of Scripture.
We have not been able to find any meaty biblical arguments against what they have to teach online and because of this we have been studying scripture a lot which has been great! However I am not well learned in studying the greek within scripture. Can you please help us or point us in a good direction?
Thank you so much for your time J
In Christ,
C.H.