--- Are you Baptized? ---
Do you need to be?
What is it?
Written October, 2018
Most churches teach you need to get baptized. Some are so grandiose as to assert the only baptisms valid in God's eyes are those done by their sect. Are you foolish enough to believe them without questioning? (Mat 7:15) A scripture many use to "encourage" your baptism is found in the Book of Mark, and, according to the words of Jesus Christ found there, you should get baptized: Mark 16:15‑16 15 GW Then Jesus said to them, "So wherever you go in the world, tell everyone the Good News (about Christ's Kingdom).
16 ALT "The one having believed and having been baptized will be saved, but the one refusing to believe will be condemned.
So, knowing Jesus said we "should" be baptized, and even that our life depends on it, does it follow you should pick and follow some church who wants to baptize you? Also, Jesus said those baptized individuals should be telling others the Good News of the Kingdom... Are you doing that? Do you even know what that "Good News" is? How can you be sure the water immersion or sprinkling some church wants to do to you is what Jesus was talking about? Before making such a serious decision, you need to understand there are two types or methods of baptism. There is the baptism in water that most churches want to give you, and a very different baptism by holy spirit. That second baptism by God's spirit is what Jesus said you need! John the Baptist explained it this way: Matthew 3:11, 12 NWT I (John), for my part, baptize YOU with water because of (or as a sign of) YOUR repentance; but the one coming after me (Christ) is stronger than I am, whose sandals I am not fit to take off. That one will baptize YOU people with holy spirit and with fire. 12 His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will completely clean up his threshing floor, and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out.”
So... While John the Baptist offered his baptism by water as a sign of a repentant attitude, the same baptism the churches still try to encourage, John also explained his baptism was only for the purpose of directing people to their need for Jesus's baptism by Holy Spirit and/or by fire. Jesus's baptism by Holy Spirit brings life to the righteous who receive it, but everlasting death [as by fire] to the wicked who reject it. Being Baptized by Holy Spirit actually represents the sorting and gathering work Christ is now performing throughout the earth. (Mat 25:31‑34; Mat 25:41) Hearing these words of Christ is helping you judge and sort yourself into one of those two groups. (John 12:48-50; Mat 10:34-36 of 32-39)
Before we go on to consider additional scriptures about baptism, we should take to heart something else Jesus said. Jesus said we "must" be born again by the spirit: John 3:1-7 ESV Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. (2) This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." (3) Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (4) Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" (5) Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (6) That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (7) Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'
What did Jesus mean by saying we need to be born again? It's simple really! Jesus said our first birth is not our receiving John's baptism by water. Our first baptism is that of being born from the water surrounding us in our mother's womb. That first water baptism (our being "born of the flesh") is required to have life. Jesus taught we can then be born a second time, by Holy Spirit; granting us the real life, spiritual life, life eternal. John's water baptism appears to have no saving merit in God's eyes but is a sort of reenactment of our baptism of being born from our mother's womb, given by John so he could draw attention to our need for our second birth by Holy Spirit. John's baptism was also good in the sense it was supposed to represent a repentant attitude. To, it can be a sign to others we are choosing to die to our old way of life and are being reborn as followers of Jesus Christ. (Any person being baptized in that way should be very certain everyone understands you are joining yourself to Jesus Christ; and not to some religious denomination or sect of men.) John's water baptism is thus for those who wish to give witness before others that they recognize our physical birth from water was not enough, that we need to be born again by Holy Spirit; born again by putting faith in the teachings of Christ Jesus. (Acts 19:4; 1 Pet 3:21) Jesus continued on to clarify for Nicodemus what our need to be born again means: John 3:16‑21 ESV For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (18) Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (19) And this is the (basis of) judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light (the light or Spirit living in Jesus's teachings - Heb 4:12; John 6:63) because their works were evil. (20) For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (21) But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in (faith in) God."
