Believer’s Baptism
“And now, what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptised, and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” – Acts 22
Before Jesus came preaching ‘the good news’ and proclaiming that the kingdom was near, the gospels [of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John] record that his coming was announced by a messenger, one John the Baptist. “Prepare the way of the Lord“, he proclaimed, “Clear the road for him.” (Matthew 3:3)
John was a rustic wilderness figure, a wild man clothed in garments made from camel’s hair who ate locusts and wild honey. His message was singular and direct: repent and be baptised; for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.
People flocked from all over to see this enigmatic figure and to hear what he had to say. Those who were stirred in their hearts by his message confessed their sins and were baptised. Their baptism signified the rejection of their former way of living and repentance of their sinfulness.
Many Pharisees and Sadducees* also joined the procession of people coming from Jerusalem, Judea, and all over the Jordan Valley, keen to participate in “the baptism of John the Baptist”. Yet they viewed baptism as merely a hip life experience rather than a complete lifestyle change.
John castigated these leaders of the people for their lack of true repentance. “Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins.“, he proclaimed, without apology.
John the Baptist made it clear when addressing the crowds that a little water meant nothing if they weren’t prepared to change their lives. Baptism needed to ignite the kingdom life within a believer, changing a person from the inside out. If anyone wanted to be part of the Kingdom of God that was soon to arrive—that was indeed at their very doorstep—they would need to be truly born again, dying to their old life and being reborn as a new kind of human.
His words would be echoed years later by James, the brother of Jesus (also called James the Just). He was a leader in the early Christian church in Jerusalem and he would write specifically to Jewish believers on the topic of true, saving faith (of which repentance is a key ingredient). Faith without deeds, James would comment, is dead, and nothing more than a corpse.
Deeds do not save you: the work of salvation was accomplished fully and completely by Jesus on the cross and ratified by his resurrection from the dead. But your trust (faith) in that work is proven by your life of action.
We are made right with God by believing and professing our faith in His promises. Yet, it cannot be real faith, the faith that counts with God, unless it’s demonstrated by an active, loving response to God’s grace (James 2:17-24).
Repentance—true repentance—involves both a state of the heart and the action of the individual: faith, that is, trust in God, worked out in real and tangible ways in every detail of our lives.
Get Up, Be Baptised, And Wash Away Your Sins…
The Book of Acts, which recounts the early days of the first-century church, tells the story of how the great commission of Matthew 28 was outworked, first in Jerusalem, then throughout Judea, in Samaria, and finally to the ends of the earth. Jesus had told his disciples, “Go and make disciples, “baptising them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
The same good news that Jesus preached—that through him, God is saving, rescuing, atoning, justifying, ruling, and reconciling people for the glory of His name and in pursuit of His purpose—was taken and preached by Jesus’ disciples to all who would listen. This message was then followed by the directive: “A ‘baptism’ without the repentance that precedes such an act would be a contradiction—in the words of John the Baptist, a little water means nothing if you aren’t prepared to change your life. But ‘repentance’—turning to God in faith—without the action that demonstrates that faith is, in the word of James, counterfeit faith, in reality dead and completely useless.
The full meaning of ‘believe’ in scripture includes action. The first act of faith by a person believing the good news about Jesus is to be baptised—a public declaration of a personal conviction.
The Bible knows nothing of baptism without repentance and it also knows nothing of repentance without baptism. They go together and are intrinsically linked. To separate them from each other is to destroy the power and significance of either.
Baptism: Faith Expressed in action
Obedience to Jesus’ commands—not just in verbal assent but in practical application—is proof your reorientation is genuine. The first step of obedience, the first action of faith, is the decision to be baptised. While the act of baptism doesn’t contribute to God’s saving work in Jesus, it does prove that your faith in that work is real. The kind of faith that makes us right with God does not remain alone but bears fruit.
Countless references are given throughout Acts and in the pastoral letters and epistles of the New Testament to this life—changing Christian ordinance which became one of the key practices of the early church.
Water baptism, then and now, represents significant truths of the Christian faith, the first of which is the identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus:
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- Paul the Apostle talks about this in his letter to the Romans, where he says that being baptised joins us to Christ and, in doing so, also joins us to his death. We die and are buried, with our old sinful life ‘crucified with Christ’. In doing so, we are no longer ‘slaves to sin’, set free from its power in our lives. And just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too rise from the waters as a ‘new creation’, made alive in Jesus by the glorious power of the Father. Someone who has been baptised, Paul says, should consider themselves dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. This, alone, is one of the most transformative, joyful, and incredible aspects that water baptism symbolises – the reality that sin no longer has power over us and that we have been set free!
- While baptism itself doesn’t contribute to the saving work accomplished by Jesus, it is God’s arrangement for a person to gain a clean conscience based on their faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ—an outward demonstration of an inward conversion. It represents a moment of crossing over, of rescue and redemption from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love (Colossians 1:13). Just as the people of Israel were rescued from the darkness of slavery and bondage in Eqypt, the finality of which was marked by ‘baptism in the Red Sea’ (1 Corinthians 10:2), so too a person’s rescue by Jesus from the power of sin is marked by baptism in water.
- Baptism demonstrates the reality of our great adoption as true sons and daughters of God. And when we are saved by faith, we are also brought into family. Baptism is a sign of joining the family of God, the community of Christ’s body. Other metaphors are given throughout scripture to describe the reality of this belonging, of the new identity which each person bears; we become citizens of heaven (Ephesians 2:19), we are a stone built into the holy temple of God (1 Peter 2:5), we are a branch, grafted into the great vine that is Jesus (John 15:1-7) and, collectively, we are part of what the Bible calls ‘the bride of Christ’, a living, breathing woman of valour.
Believer’s Baptism
If repentance forms part of the equation [of baptism] and if belief must be personally affirmed (Romans 10:9), then it would seem that the practice of infant ‘baptism’ finds no place in the biblical narrative. While I don’t personally believe it’s ‘wrong’ or ‘unbiblical’ to dedicate a child, as part of a family’s committment to Jesus in some kind of ceremonial way, this is not the baptism described by the Bible and we therefore ought not to confuse the two.
Baptism also requires full immersion in water, not merely a sprinkling. The symbolism commented on in Scripture in relation to water baptism, some of which I’ve touched on above, is compelling. Infant sprinkling is simply not ‘baptism’, in biblical terms.
The argument is sometimes made that baptism replaces the ancient Jewish custom of circumcision and therefore, just as infants were circumcised, so, too, Christian families can ‘baptise’ their children as a sign of their covenant with God.
While there are some similarities between circumcision and the ordinance of baptism—and baptism can be seen as ‘the new circumcision’ (as referenced in Colossians 2)—there are also key differences:
Firstly, circumcision required no faith, personal conviction, or agreement by the child. Circumcision was a rite undertaken without a child’s knowledge and without their understanding. Their belonging to God’s covenant people was therefore understood within a completely different framework. And while only males were circumcised, both male and female Israelites (and even Gentiles who had undertaken the rite) were taken to be fully included as God’s covenant people (Exodus 12:48-49).
Secondly, baptism forms part of the new covenant, sealed in Jesus’ blood. This new covenant, unlike circumcision, is not exclusive to Jews but, as Peter the Apostle came to learn, is offered to all people. “In every nation, God accepts those who fear him and do what is right.” (Acts 10:41). The great commission, which included the directive to baptise those who believed, was intended to encompass “all the nations“. Belonging, as one of God’s people, would no longer be defined by the rite of circumcision but rather by faith in the saving work of Jesus, demonstrated to be genuine through baptism.
This particular issue caused some angst in the early church, with Jewish believers finding it difficult to accept circumcision was no longer required. This belief—that circumcision was still necessary—formed part of the ‘false gospel’ that Paul the Apostle tackles in Galatians 3 .
Thirdly, baptism is always linked with personal faith. The Book of Acts bears record to the necessary requirement for personal repentance, belief, and confession. There is no single occasion of someone ever undertaking baptism ‘on behalf of someone else’. When we read of ‘whole households and families’ being baptised (Acts 16:15, Acts 16:33), we should therefore infer, from what scripture teaches about baptism, that this generalisation necessarily excludes infants or very young children. They are not able to repent or believe, a key ingredient in the ordinance of baptism.
A word of caution, though—the gospel is profound and weighty, with far-reaching and transformative implications. As we journey through the Christian life, we uncover deep theological truths worth exploring.
Yet at its heart, the good news is simple—clear enough for a child to grasp. We shouldn’t assume that biblical baptism is ‘only for adults’. It is for believers, and often, children with their simple, trusting faith are the clearest examples of what a genuine relationship with God looks like.
Salvation is about faith, not intellectual ability. The ‘whole households’ could certainly have included children, whose faith, repentance, and baptism were equally as valid as their adult counterparts.
Inward Conviction = Outward Change
The baptism that the Bible speaks about involves personal faith and conviction, a reorientation of one’s life (repentance), and full immersion in water.
The word baptism comes from the original Greek word “baptizō” (βαπτίζω), which means “to dip, immerse, or wash.” It was used in ancient times to describe submerging something in water, often a cloth being dipped in dye or ceremonial, full body washing.
As with dying cloth or washing the body, some change is to be expected by the act of Christian baptism. While it is deeply symbolic, it is also physically and spiritually real. The person who rises from the water isn’t just metaphorically made new, but is actually changed. They are a new person in Christ, joined to God’s family, a precious stone added to the house that God is building.
Faith that convicts and faith that commits is like the meeting of two atoms. It is the spark that ignites the kingdom fire inside a person, but not to be merely contained within but radiating outwards, shining like the brightness of heaven, leading many to righteousness (Daniel 12:3).
“And now, What Are You Waiting For?”
Are you someone who is convicted in your heart about the message of Jesus Christ? Have you decided to follow him, put your trust in God’s saving work, and reorient your life in his direction? If the answer is yes, you should be baptised (Acts 22:16).
Are you someone who was ‘baptised’ as an infant but now understands that faith must be personal, convicting, and demonstrated in action? If the answer is yes, you should be baptised (Mark 16:16, Hebrews 11:6).
Are you someone who would define yourself as ‘a Jesus follower’, whether for a little time or a long time, and yet have never been baptised? If the answer if yes, you should be baptised (Matthew 28:18-20).
The Call To Obedience: A Faith That Acts
Baptism is not just a symbolic ritual—it is a declaration of faith, a step of obedience, and a testimony to the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Throughout Scripture, we see that true faith is not merely intellectual agreement but a conviction that moves a person to action. Repentance and baptism are inseparable in the biblical narrative, each reinforcing the reality of the other.
The act of baptism does not save, but it reflects the faith that does—a faith that turns from sin, trusts in Christ, and commits to walking in His ways. Just as John the Baptist warned against empty religious acts, so too must we ensure that baptism is not simply a tradition, but an outward expression of an inward reality: a life truly surrendered to Jesus.
So, what are you waiting for? If you have placed your trust in Christ, baptism is the next step—a public witness of your decision to follow Him. Whether you have recently come to faith, were baptised as an infant without personal belief, or have been following Jesus for years but never taken this step, the command remains the same: “Get up, be baptised, and wash your sins away, calling on His name.” (Acts 22:16)