{"id":31442,"date":"2012-01-23T20:45:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T02:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=31442"},"modified":"2021-01-31T20:48:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T02:48:06","slug":"does-a-person-from-a-baptist-background-need-to-be-baptized-again-if-he-believes-he-has-done-everything-god-asks-of-him-correctly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-a-person-from-a-baptist-background-need-to-be-baptized-again-if-he-believes-he-has-done-everything-god-asks-of-him-correctly\/","title":{"rendered":"Does a person from a Baptist background need to be baptized again if he believes he has done everything God asks of him correctly?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>I have a question about baptism. My husband and I are setting up to teach a man who has been visiting the church where we attend for going on two years now. His background is Baptist and when I asked him was he baptized for the remission of sins he replied, yes.\u00a0 He says he loves coming to the Lord&#8217;s church (church of Christ) vs. the Baptist church.\u00a0 So my question is this: since he said that he was baptized for the remission of sins and he believes that he needs Jesus&#8217; blood to be saved would he need to be re-baptized to be acceptable in the Lord&#8217;s church? If so, how would I approach teaching him otherwise since he feels that he is OK spiritually?<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for this wonderful website.<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>The problem is that neither you nor I can read a person&#8217;s heart nor know what actually took place in his past. &#8220;<em>For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?<\/em>&#8221; (I Corinthians 2:11). We can only go by what a person tells us.<\/p>\n<p>Usually, when I first begin teaching someone, I have three lessons that go through the basics of Christianity. Before getting into what is necessary for salvation, I ask several broad, vague questions about what the person had done and invite the person to write down his answers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have you ever made a commitment to Christ? If yes, how old were you?<\/li>\n<li>Did you make a confession at the time of your commitment? If yes, what did you confess?<\/li>\n<li>Have you been baptized? If yes, how were you baptized? Were you baptized before or after your commitment? How long was the time between your commitment and your baptism? For what purpose were you baptized? Were you saved before or after your baptism?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are no right or wrong answers to these questions; I am just asking them for their history. But I have the answers written because I&#8217;ve found people rewriting history in their minds as they learn the Scriptures. We then go over the passages about what a person needs to do to be saved.<\/p>\n<p>What I tell the people I study with is that if you find that what you did does not match with what God wanted, then the best thing to do is correct the problem so you are doing what God wants.<\/p>\n<p>There are a few Baptist groups, especially among the Independent Baptists, who teach and practice baptism correctly. They are rare and far between, but they do exist. For most Baptists, the problem is that they teach that baptism is not necessary for salvation. Many use baptism solely as a way to join the local church. It is hard to be baptized right when you&#8217;ve been taught wrong.<\/p>\n<p>If this man is convinced that baptism is necessary for salvation and that a person is not saved before being obedient to God&#8217;s will, and there are no other problems with the things he did to obey God, then I would recommend accepting him at his word because you have nothing else to depend on. You can ask him if he wants to be baptized again to be sure, but I would leave the choice up to him. He knows his heart and what he did, and now he also knows what God commands of him. If he did obey God, who actually baptized him does not matter.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: I have a question about baptism. My husband and I are setting up to teach a man who has been visiting the church where we attend for going on two years now. His background is Baptist and when I asked him was he baptized for the remission of sins he replied, yes.\u00a0 He says&hellip;<\/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_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[1388,248],"class_list":["post-31442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-baptist-church","tag-baptized-again"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":22932,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-acts-238-heresy\/","url_meta":{"origin":31442,"position":0},"title":"Is Acts 2:38 Heresy?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Tommy Thornhill \"Jesse L. Sewell was born in Overton County, TN in 1818. He grew up in a Baptist community and became a Baptist preacher of some note in his native county. In the course of time, he learned the truth about Acts 2:38 (i.e. that baptism was in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/burntPage.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"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":31442,"position":1},"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. She says that she was baptized for the same\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61077,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-i-left-the-baptist-church-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":31442,"position":2},"title":"Why I Left the Baptist Church (Rouse)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Larry Rouse In the fall of 1973, I had no intention of leaving the church in which I was raised. On the contrary, I had recently publicly professed my faith in Jesus Christ and was baptized on the same day. I could well be described as \"on fire\" for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2447,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-person-be-baptized-correctly-while-being-in-a-denomination-that-doesnt-believe-in-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":31442,"position":3},"title":"Can a person be baptized correctly while being in a denomination that doesn&#8217;t believe in baptism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a question about baptism, I thought that one could not be taught wrong and baptized right. I recently got re-baptized, because I was young (12) years old when I obeyed the gospel. I just could not remember if I understood what the gospel was about at that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90225,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-family-says-i-cant-attend-a-church-of-christ-until-after-i-get-engaged\/","url_meta":{"origin":31442,"position":4},"title":"My family says I can&#8217;t attend a church of Christ until after I get engaged","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 7, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am currently attending a Baptist church with my family, but I am dating someone who attends a church of Christ. We have been dating for some time now, and we have studied together a lot. We agree on several things that we used not to, such as once\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10963,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-baptism-necessary-for-salvation\/","url_meta":{"origin":31442,"position":5},"title":"Is baptism necessary for salvation?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello! I am from Brazil, and I am seeking salvation. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for my sins on the cross and rose on the third day for my justification. I am sorry for all my sins. I would like to ask you:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}