Is water baptism needed today?

Wordkeeper

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ByTheSpirit

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Water Baptism is absolutely necessary. Every single instance of conversion in Acts includes a water baptism instance. Peter wrote about the importance of water baptism and even Jesus said unless youre born of water and spirit. Those who say no, have no true gospel foundation.
 
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112358

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100% absolutely necessary. Even the most elementary study of the New Testament makes it clear that water baptism is directly associated with saving grace. It's where one comes into contact with the atoning blood of the Lamb, where one's sins are "washed away". It is the moment when the Lord adds the penitent confessing believer to His body, His church...the only place where spiritual life exists. Peter described an "antitype" in the flood waters that both wiped sin from the face of the earth and saved Noah and his family. That "antitype", or symbol, is the water of baptism "which now saves us". Not a physical salvation as was Noah's, but a spiritual salvation whereby we rise from that water a "new creation", "dead to sin, alive in Christ".
 
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Swan7

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It has been claimed that water baptism is not needed today?

What do you think?

If yes why?

If no why?

I think if I want to follow Jesus Christ in all He walked, I would follow Him into water baptism too.

Yes. To follow Jesus Christ

No. This is not the baptism that saves, only a symbol to the real thing.
 
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Strong in Him

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Water Baptism is absolutely necessary. Every single instance of conversion in Acts includes a water baptism instance.

So presumably when Jesus told the penitent thief, "today you will be with me in paradise", what he actually meant was "well you would have been, if you'd lived long enough to be baptised"?
And anyone who repents, receives Jesus, is filled with the Spirit but who may die before a water baptism can be arranged, or taught; is not saved?

Jesus ALONE saves - not Jesus + baptism, works, communion or anything else. To say that salvation is Jesus + is to say that Jesus is not enough on his own; he needs something else.

even Jesus said unless youre born of water and spirit. Those who say no, have no true gospel foundation.

Born of water = physical birth.
Born of the Spirit = born again, John 3:3, given a new nature, 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Baptism on its own achieves nothing. There are many families who go to church to have their child baptised - and you never see them again. People can also be baptised as Mormons or JWs; it doesn't mean they know the Lord and are saved. I dare say there are even some who are baptised as adults because they think it is the thing to do, makes them respectable or is needed before they can get married (in some churches.) They may become Christians by going to baptismal classes, but the act of baptism itself does not save them.
 
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112358

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So presumably when Jesus told the penitent thief, "today you will be with me in paradise", what he actually meant was "well you would have been, if you'd lived long enough to be baptised"?
And anyone who repents, receives Jesus, is filled with the Spirit but who may die before a water baptism can be arranged, or taught; is not saved?

Jesus ALONE saves - not Jesus + baptism, works, communion or anything else. To say that salvation is Jesus + is to say that Jesus is not enough on his own; he needs something else.



Born of water = physical birth.
Born of the Spirit = born again, John 3:3, given a new nature, 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Baptism on its own achieves nothing. There are many families who go to church to have their child baptised - and you never see them again. People can also be baptised as Mormons or JWs; it doesn't mean they know the Lord and are saved. I dare say there are even some who are baptised as adults because they think it is the thing to do, makes them respectable or is needed before they can get married (in some churches.) They may become Christians by going to baptismal classes, but the act of baptism itself does not save them.
The thief on the cross lived and died under the Old Covenant. This example does not apply to a discussion about New Covenant baptism.

And, on the contrary, to deny the necessity of baptism in the salvation/conversion of any christian is to deny Christ in His own words and assume authority that He alone possesses. No getting around that, even if you do choose to toss the rest of the NT out.
 
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112358

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Born of water = physical birth.
No. Nicodemus dispensed with this notion when he asked how a man can enter a second time into his mothers womb (impossible!). It has to be something else. There is only one other plausible explanation. It is immersion in water...baptism!

Even if it (born of water) were a reference to physical birth, there is only one place and time when spiritual birth occurs. It is immersion in water...baptism! (see Romans 6).
 
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Strong in Him

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The thief on the cross lived and died under the Old Covenant. This example does not apply to a discussion about New Covenant baptism.

When the thief acknowledged that he was paying the price for what he had done, and confessed that one day Jesus would come as king, Jesus replied "today you will be with me in paradise."
Either he was lying, mistaken or was talking about something else - either way, he did not mention baptism.

And, on the contrary, to deny the necessity of baptism in the salvation/conversion of any christian is to deny Christ in His own words and assume authority that He alone possesses.

Implying that salvation is not complete, or valid, without baptism is to say that Jesus' death was not enough, and he is not enough.
Maybe on the cross, instead of saying "it is finished", he should have said "well I've done my bit; just make sure you are baptised and you'll be ok."
Adult baptism is a picture of what happens when you were saved - go under the water = repenting/dying to sin; coming out of the water = being raised with Christ to new life/being born again, Romans 6. This will have already happened before the person can be baptised. Baptism witnesses to the person concerned, and others, that this has happened - an outward expression of an inward grace.
But if there are circumstances where death occurs before this public profession can be made, it doesn't mean that the person wasn't saved.
 
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Wordkeeper

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For example, because they didn’t want to be separated, tortured and killed.
Luke 14
33“So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

34“Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? 35“It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
 
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Strong in Him

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No. Nicodemus dispensed with this notion when he asked how a man can enter a second time into his mothers womb (impossible!).

Nicodemus had already been born from his mother's womb, he didn't need that to happen again, but he could see no other way in which a person could be born again. He was, what John Stott called, a Biblical literalist; he heard the words "born again", assumed that meant a literal second birth and questioned how it could happen. Jesus could easily have said, "get yourself down to the Jordan and get baptised, which is being born of water, and then you'll be part way there". He didn't. He didn't even mention water baptism.
Jesus said that no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water AND the Spirit; it was Spiritual new birth that he was talking about. He said that Spirit gives birth to Spirit - we cannot be with God, united to him, in his kingdom where he rules as king unless we have new, Spiritual, life.
 
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112358

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When the thief acknowledged that he was paying the price for what he had done, and confessed that one day Jesus would come as king, Jesus replied "today you will be with me in paradise."
Either he was lying, mistaken or was talking about something else - either way, he did not mention baptism.



Implying that salvation is not complete, or valid, without baptism is to say that Jesus' death was not enough, and he is not enough.
Maybe on the cross, instead of saying "it is finished", he should have said "well I've done my bit; just make sure you are baptised and you'll be ok."
Adult baptism is a picture of what happens when you were saved - go under the water = repenting/dying to sin; coming out of the water = being raised with Christ to new life/being born again, Romans 6. This will have already happened before the person can be baptised. Baptism witnesses to the person concerned, and others, that this has happened - an outward expression of an inward grace.
But if there are circumstances where death occurs before this public profession can be made, it doesn't mean that the person wasn't saved.
This all sounds good. Sounds reasonable. Appeals to sensibilities that can not accept a gospel that requires anything of us. The problem is that the gospel does require things of us. Your position is simply opposed to almost everything the inspired scriptures teach us about salvation. Nowhere in Holy Writ is baptism described as a “witness to the person concerned” or as an “outward expression of an inward grace”. It’s just not there.

What is there is Jesus Christ saying that he who believes and is baptized will be saved. There are the inspired apostles Peter and Paul commanding baptism over and over again, always in direct relation to a conversion to Christianity. There are their respective discourses on the meaning and importance of baptism throughout their epistles. There are roughly a dozen examples of people practically running into the waters of baptism by the hundreds and even thousands as soon as they heard the good news of the gospel throughout the book of Acts, some of which had also experienced John’s baptism and were baptized again, this time into Christ.

The scriptural evidence, if weighed in the balance of intellectual honesty, is just overwhelming.
 
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112358

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Implying that salvation is not complete, or valid, without baptism is to say that Jesus' death was not enough, and he is not enough.
I did not imply anything. Jesus Christ said it, not me! That’s the red letters in many bibles. Mark 16:16
 
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I did not imply anything. Jesus Christ said it, not me! That’s the red letters in many bibles. Mark 16:16

Jesus certainly did not say that we can only come to the Father through him AND baptism; that he alone was unable to achieve salvation.
 
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This all sounds good. Sounds reasonable. Appeals to sensibilities that can not accept a gospel that requires anything of us. The problem is that the gospel does require things of us. Your position is simply opposed to almost everything the inspired scriptures teach us about salvation. Nowhere in Holy Writ is baptism described as a “witness to the person concerned” or as an “outward expression of an inward grace”. It’s just not there.

You've just said that the Gospel requires things from us; one of those responses is baptism. By undergoing it, we DO show that we have experienced new life.

I am not for one minute saying that baptism is unimportant, or an optional extra. I was baptised by immersion while at college - to the disgust of my parents and vicar who argued that my infant baptism was enough. It was a great occasion and a witness to many - I'm not sorry that I did it.
What I AM arguing against is the idea that a non Christian could repent, come to Christ, be born again and receive his Holy Spirit, yet, should he die before water baptism can be asked for or arranged, he wouldn't be saved. That when he met God after death, God would still judge and condemn him for not living long enough to be baptised.
The implication is also that babies, or children, who die before they could be baptised, would experience the same fate - condemned to eternal death for not going through the waters of baptism.
I disagree with that sentiment; Jesus said that whoever believed in him had eternal life, John 3:16, John 3:36, John 5:24, John 6:40, John 10:10, 1 John 5:12 - and whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood has eternal life, John 6:51-54. Jesus is enough; Jesus is everything and is always enough for all of us. He does not need anything, or anyone, else to help him save us and reconcile us to God; he, alone, did that on the cross.
 
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