{"id":25431,"date":"2018-08-28T10:02:22","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T15:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=25431"},"modified":"2020-08-28T10:06:50","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T15:06:50","slug":"when-is-a-baptism-valid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-is-a-baptism-valid\/","title":{"rendered":"When Is a Baptism Valid?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t

by Matthew Bassford<\/a><\/p>\n

Seven or eight years ago, I got a call from a brother in St. Louis who asked me to study with his mother.\u00a0 I set up the study and began, as I usually do, by asking her questions about her religious background.\u00a0 She explained that she had been brought up in a denominational church but hadn’t been religiously active during her adult life.<\/p>\n

I then asked her if she considered herself a Christian.\u00a0 “Yes,” she replied.<\/p>\n

“Why?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“Back when I was 13 years old,” she explained, “I kept getting in a lot of fights.\u00a0 I knew fighting was wrong, so I asked the pastor at church to baptize me so that God would forgive me for my fighting.”<\/p>\n

“Well, OK,” I answered.<\/p>\n

That was my first encounter as a preacher with a question that comes up with some regularity.\u00a0 I believe, as do most\/all who are associated with the churches of Christ, that the immersion of a believer in water is necessary for forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 Through the years, I’ve learned that most people in the religious world don’t agree with me on this point.\u00a0 Maybe they don’t think baptism has to be immersion.\u00a0 Maybe they think that salvation occurs before baptism, so that baptism is more a pledge of church membership.\u00a0 I’ve studied with people with all of these beliefs, and I have some idea of how to proceed in each case.<\/p>\n

\"\"However, this doesn’t give us any insight into how to handle people who have had nothing to do with any churches of Christ, yet assert that they’ve already been baptized for the forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 Strange though it may seem to many Christians (particularly those who haven’t done many studies with outsiders), these people certainly exist.\u00a0 There are other churches out there that immerse believers so that their sins will be washed away.\u00a0 Many such churches are part of the complex and confusing world of the Pentecostal\/charismatic movement, but there are others that aren’t.<\/p>\n

It’s also true that the conviction that baptism is necessary for forgiveness of sins can come from an individual’s own consideration of the Bible rather than the teachings of any particular church.\u00a0 In the book Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up<\/em>, David Bercot describes a Bible class in his youth when he argued that John 3 showed the necessity of water baptism for salvation, only to be shut down by his teacher.\u00a0 Though I’ve never encountered it myself, I have no trouble imagining a scenario where the baptizer thinks he’s baptizing the baptizee into the Baptist church, but the baptizee thinks he’s being baptized for the forgiveness of his sins.<\/p>\n

How do we handle this?\u00a0 What’s the correct response to somebody who says, “I’m a Christian because I’ve been baptized for the forgiveness of sins,” though they were not baptized under the auspices of a church of Christ?\u00a0 Do we accept them as a brother or a sister (contingent, of course, on their commitment to following the truth), or do we demand that they be immersed again?<\/p>\n

As always, this is an investigation that has to start with the Scripture.\u00a0 The Bible has quite a bit to say about baptism.\u00a0 Acts 2:38 reveals that it is for the forgiveness of sins and must be preceded by repentance.\u00a0 Acts 8:13 links belief and baptism.\u00a0 A little later down, Acts 8:38 demonstrates that baptism requires immersion.<\/p>\n

However, the Bible doesn’t say anything about who has to be doing the baptizing.\u00a0 In the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus commands His disciples to go and baptize.\u00a0 However, nowhere do we find instruction for those who wish to be baptized to make sure that the one baptizing them is a faithful disciple or even a disciple at all.<\/p>\n

Baptism is effective because of the power of Christ and the faith of the baptizee, not because of the baptizer.\u00a0 Otherwise, if I were to find out that the man who baptized me was some kind of monstrous hypocrite, I would have to get re-immersed by someone with better spiritual standing.\u00a0 Thankfully, what matters is my conscience, not his.<\/p>\n

If the intent and the conscience of the one being baptized are what matters within the context of the churches of Christ, they are what matter outside of that context too.\u00a0 When someone comes to me and says, “I was baptized in a denominational church for the forgiveness of my sins,” their understanding of their salvation is no different than mine, and to argue otherwise is subtly and poisonously denominational.<\/p>\n

I believe that I belong to a congregation that is right with God.\u00a0 However, what makes us right with God is not the fact that the sign on the front of the building says “church of Christ”.\u00a0 It is that we teach and practice the truth.\u00a0 If we kept the sign and abandoned the truth, the sign would not save us.\u00a0 Nor would it be wrong for us to put some other Scriptural designation on the sign so long as we kept the truth.<\/p>\n

Similarly, though I believe that the water in our baptistery is effective for salvation, I also believe that there’s nothing magical about that particular container of water.\u00a0 The water in a swimming pool, a lake, or a bathtub would be equally effective.\u00a0 In all cases, baptism derives its power from the blood of Christ, and the power of that blood is the same everywhere.\u00a0 It does not become powerless to save within the precincts of a denominational church building, so long as the heart of the believer is right.<\/p>\n

Unless I have a very good reason (“I only got baptized to make my mom happy.”), I cannot question the salvation of anyone who claims to have been baptized for the forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 That’s true whether they were baptized by me, a close friend of mine, a complete stranger, or someone whom I think is not a Christian at all.\u00a0 Provided that they are committed to walking in the light, I must accept that baptized believer into fellowship.\u00a0 If I do anything else, I set aside the word of God for the sake of the traditions of men.\u00a0 I prove that I have fallen victim to precisely the denominational outlook that I claim to reject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Matthew Bassford Seven or eight years ago, I got a call from a brother in St. Louis who asked me to study with his mother.\u00a0 I set up the study and began, as I usually do, by asking her questions about her religious background.\u00a0 She explained that she had been brought up in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-25431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-baptism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2444,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/baptized-but-not-converted\/","url_meta":{"origin":25431,"position":0},"title":"Baptized but Not Converted","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 3, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"by Fred Shewmaker Years ago in a home Bible study, the couple with whom we were studying complained that the words I was using were too big. Being somewhat inexperienced in home Bible studies, I was surprised by their complaint. The words about which they were complaining were all words\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49112,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/your-article-contained-the-answers-i-was-looking-for\/","url_meta":{"origin":25431,"position":1},"title":"Your article contained the answers I was looking for","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I am going through some trouble right now. I have been dating my girlfriend for a year now and have been trying to ease her into the church. She has not been grounded in any denominational doctrine, but she still has some trouble accepting the truth. 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To make a super long story a lot\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2450,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/must-a-baptist-be-rebaptized-even-though-he-says-he-was-baptized-for-the-right-reason\/","url_meta":{"origin":25431,"position":5},"title":"Must a Baptist be rebaptized even though he says he was baptized for the right reason?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was raised in the church of Christ. I am married to someone who was raised in the Baptist church. She has no problem with going to church with me. But she doesn't think that she should be baptized again. 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