What Is Baptism?
The word baptize comes from the Greek baptizō, meaning to dip, plunge, or immerse, and by extension, to identify with.
Baptism “is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus”
— Baptist Faith and Message 2000
Baptism is an outward display of an inward change—a public declaration of the new life we have received through faith in Jesus Christ.
Acts 2:41 (NKJV)
Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.
Baptism also depicts the cleansing and new life we have received through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Romans 6:3–4 (NKJV)
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Colossians 2:11–12 (NKJV)
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Who Should Be Baptized?
Baptism is for believers.
As seen in Acts 2:41, those who believed the good news of Jesus Christ were baptized as a declaration of their new life in Him. Throughout the New Testament, baptism consistently follows personal faith in Christ.
Why Should I Be Baptized?
Jesus Himself commanded it.
Matthew 28:19–20 (NKJV)
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.
If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, baptism is expected as an act of obedience. According to Matthew 28, baptism appears to be the first act of obedience for a disciple of Jesus.
Throughout the New Testament, we repeatedly see the same pattern: belief followed by immediate baptism
(Acts 2:41; 8:12; 8:36–38; 16:31–33).
