Obviously, it is important to get saved, and I want to work this out as quickly as possible, and give myself over to whatever religion I have to if I become convinced of it's truth.
I am grateful for your compulsion to look into spiritual things bro. But in good conscience I cannot go without correcting a seemingly wrong mindset. Becoming a believer (ie, being saved) is not a mere intellectual exercise. It is not mere intellectual assent to some certain facts that causes your salvation. You can even intellectually affirm that God exists and that Jesus is the Savior and even that Jesus died for sins, and rose again, and still remain unsaved.
Why? Because as I said, salvation is a matter of the heart, not just the mind. Even the demons believe in everything I listed above, but as you can guess, they are not saved. They are not redeemed. They are not reconciled to God.
What makes the difference between intellectual assent and actual saving faith is
personal trust in Christ.
A saved person abandons their own self-righteousness, recognizing that he/she is not good enough to stand before God and be reconciled to God on their own terms. Instead, one must humbly accept that there is nothing they, themselves can do or contribute to his/her own salvation. We realize that we are helpless and worthless and must ride on the coattail of someone else, namely Jesus Christ. Jesus is sinless, and he stands ready to stand as a substitute for sinners, in God's presence. Thus it is by trusting in Him and His finished work for us when he died and rose again that we are "connected" to Christ and then reconciled to God again.
By nature we are sinful and guilty of hell for our crimes (sins) against God. God, being just, must punish sin, lest he be unjust (which is evil). If God didn't punish sin, that would be injustice, so God must punish sin. However, out of pure mercy on God's part (he wasn't obligated to do this, and could have let us all go to hell), he provided a way to escape his wrath and be reconciled to Him again, declaring us as "just" before his court. Jesus is that substitute. This is what makes Christianity unique from other religions. All other religions will tell you that to be made right with God, you have to do X, Y, Z. You have to do this, you have to do that. But Christianity declares the opposite: that there is literally nothing you, yourself can do. You must ride the coattail of someone else. And God himself provided that way of escape, out of mercy. No other religion has a god that provides a way of salvation. They leave it all up to you.
So when the Bible tells us to "believe in Jesus", it isn't talking about mere blind faith that he exists, it isn't talking about mere intellectual assent to some facts. It's not the same as saying that you "believe in santa clause". Rather, Biblical "belief" is personal trust in Him and abandoning your own worthiness as grounds to be reconciled to God.
I hope I made that clear. But first, in order to abandon your own righteousness and embrace someone elses', you have to be convinced that you are even a sinner and guilty before God in the first place. If you aren't even convinced that you are a sinner and under God's wrath, you would have no reason to seek a rescue and fly to the savior. A person who isn't in a sinking ship is not scrambling for the lifeboat.
So, do you acknowledge that you are a sinner? Because Christ only saves sinners, not innocent people. Innocent people don't need to be saved or reconciled to God.
I have a major question about reformed baptist churches that I can't seem to find an answer to anywhere on the internet - do they believe that I need to be baptised in order to be saved? Or is faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour enough?
As far as I know, all baptists believe that faith alone is the grounds for our justification (that includes reformed baptists). Justification is the technical term that people usually mean by the term 'saved'. Justification is a legal term which is exactly what it sounds like: by nature we are unjust and justice is not satisfied before God's court, similar to a criminal who has not received justice for his crimes yet. To be justified means to be made right again before the court of God's law, and thus justice is satisfied. The bible argues that faith alone is grounds for our justification over and over in the book of Romans. Faith alone, not anything we do, including baptism.
All baptists believe that baptism is an outward sign of what has happened inwardly. Our old sinful self died when Christ died, and we rose again as a new creature, when Christ rose again.
Anyone who says that faith alone is not good enough for, or that baptism is mandatory, is not a baptist (such as the above poster), therefore they should not be answering on the baptist forums. Also, I question whether they are protestant at all. All protestants believe in justification by faith alone.
