By Todd Crosby (Deacon)
What do we believe?
Baptism is immersion into water following a personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ done in response to the grace of God.
Why do we believe this?
Acts 8:35-38 – Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.
Why does it matter?
What should prevent anyone from being baptized or who should be baptized? These were some of the important questions being asked during the Protestant Reformation. At that time, there were three parties involved. There was the Roman Catholic Church, the magisterial reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Ulrich Zwingli, and a third group called the radical (root) reformers. These radical reformers were also known as the Anabaptists (“again baptizers”). From this group came the Mennonites and the Amish. We Baptists are a hybrid of the second and third groups. One thing we have in common with the Anabaptist is their belief in believer’s baptism. They believed that the root of the problem was the union of the church and the state, which led to the law stating that infants were to be baptized. They were breaking that law by re-baptizing people whom had already been baptized. They believed in a church of believers who were only baptized after making a believable profession of faith. Many Anabaptists were martyred for this belief by being drowned, a way of mocking their position.
The question still remains who should be baptized? As always we should look no further than our source of authority, Holy Scripture. In the Bible the only people we see being baptized are people like the Ethiopian eunuch, the people at Pentecost (Acts 2:41), the people Phillip evangelized in Samaria (Acts 8:12), Paul (Acts 9:18), Lydia (Acts 16:15), and etc. To summarize, we see only people who have made a believable profession of faith being baptized. These are the ones to whom the ordinance of baptism should be applied. What is also interesting within the pages of scripture is that of all the people who did make a profession of faith, all followed through with baptism. You will not read of any unbaptized believers.
Two important questions are worth pondering as you consider this doctrine today. What are some dangers in applying baptism to someone who has not made a believable profession of faith? If you have made a profession of faith and are truly saved then what is stopping you from being baptized?