by Matthew W. Bassford<\/p>\n
This lesson was prompted by a series of questions passed to me by one of the young people in the congregation.\u00a0 They are all very thoughtful, and they are all on the subject of baptism. I think publicly exploring the topic is important.\u00a0 Others may be grappling with the same questions, and baptism is truly a topic that can make an eternal difference in our lives.\u00a0 Every human being with the necessary mental capacity absolutely must understand Biblical teaching on baptism and what they should do about it.<\/p>\n
The first of the questions I got on the card was “How does Jesus dying on the cross tie into baptism?”\u00a0 If we want to understand this, we have to start with\u00a0THE PURPOSE OF JESUS’ DEATH.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>One of the best explanations of that purpose anywhere in the Bible appears in Isaiah 53:4-12.\u00a0 In addition to being extremely beautiful, this text is very revealing.\u00a0 We already know that Jesus suffered greatly during His arrest, trial, and judicial murder.\u00a0 This tells us why.\u00a0 It wasn’t because of sins that He had done.\u00a0 Quite the contrary!\u00a0 It was because of the sins that we had done.<\/p>\n The wages of sin is death.\u00a0 Because we have sinned, death is what we deserve, not merely the death of our bodies, but the death of our souls.\u00a0 However, Jesus on the cross presented Himself as an offering for the guilt of our sins. \u00a0When God looked on the suffering of His Son, His sense of perfect justice was satisfied.\u00a0 Jesus paid the penalty in our place so that we can live through Him.<\/p>\n However, that answer only raises another question.\u00a0 Who are the “we” and the “us” who are given salvation and life through the death of Jesus?\u00a0 Is that salvation automatically for everybody?\u00a0 Is it only for a limited few who have been selected by God?\u00a0 Or do people themselves choose whether they will be saved?\u00a0 In reality, the answer to those questions is kind of “all of the above”, and we see this in\u00a0JESUS’ APPEAL TO THE WEARY.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Look here at Matthew 11:28-30.\u00a0 Let’s go through these three elements one at a time.\u00a0 Salvation is universal in that it is offered to everybody.\u00a0 God doesn’t look at anybody and say, “You’re not good enough to be saved.”\u00a0 That’s certainly heartening.\u00a0 I’d hate to believe in the God of the Calvinists, who they think decided whether I could be saved or not before the world began!\u00a0\u00a0 We’re more than the puppets of God’s will.<\/p>\n However, God’s will has a role in the process too.\u00a0 As Jesus expands His message, we see that only a subset of the human race is going to find rest for their souls.\u00a0 It consists only of those who take His yoke upon them and learn from Him.\u00a0 In other words, if we want salvation, we have to understand God’s will and obey it.\u00a0 Salvation is on His terms, not ours.<\/p>\n Here too, though, it’s true that our salvation is simultaneously up to God and up to us.\u00a0 He offers us life on His terms, but it’s up to us to accept or decline that offer.\u00a0 God wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, but He knows that most men will refuse.<\/p>\n Putting all that together, then, God makes His salvation available to everyone, but we only claim that salvation when we fulfill His conditions.\u00a0 Whether we do that or not is our decision.<\/p>\n It’s beyond important, then, for us to understand\u00a0GOD’S TERMS.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>What is it that God wants us to do if we want to be saved?\u00a0 For those who aren’t already Christians, the Bible identifies only a few actions that will lead to salvation.\u00a0 They are belief in Jesus, repentance, confession of Jesus as Lord, and baptism.\u00a0 There are passages that we could examine with regard to all of these steps, but I was asked specifically about baptism, so let’s look at baptism!\u00a0 There are many passages that could serve here, but Acts 22:16 is one of the clearest.\u00a0 The point is plainly evident on the face of the text.\u00a0 Baptism washes away sins.\u00a0 Rather than being a bath for the flesh, it’s a bath for the spirit.\u00a0 Baptism is how we call on the name of the Lord.\u00a0 In the words of 1 Peter 3, it is the way we make our appeal for a good conscience.\u00a0 As with any of the preconditions for salvation, unless we are baptized, we cannot be saved from our sins.<\/p>\n In sum, then, the answer to the question is this:\u00a0 Jesus died on the cross so we could be forgiven.\u00a0 However, if we want forgiveness, there are certain conditions that we must fulfill, and baptism is one of those conditions.\u00a0 Until and unless we are baptized, we have no spiritual connection with the cross of Christ.<\/p>\n I want to look at two more questions that concern the relationship between age and baptism.\u00a0 The first of these questions asks,\u00a0“WHY DOES THE BIBLE ONLY GIVE EXAMPLES OF ADULTS BEING BAPTIZED?”\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Before I get to the answer, though, I want to spend some time talking about how much I like the question.\u00a0 I believe that there is no such thing as a dumb question – after all if you don’t know, how will you learn unless you ask?\u00a0 However, I also believe that there is such a thing as a smart question, and this is one of those.\u00a0 It shows that the question-asker is not only thinking about baptism but also about the authority principles that underlie our teaching on the subject.\u00a0 He is a young person, somebody who by his own self-understanding is not an adult.\u00a0 If we only have examples of adults being baptized in the Bible, is there authority for baptizing somebody who wants to be baptized but isn’t an adult yet?<\/p>\n That’s a great question, but I think there’s an issue with it.\u00a0 Merely asking it skews any possible answer in a way that leads us to overlook one of the most important elements of the first-century pattern of baptism.\u00a0 To illustrate this central element, I want to read several passages back-to-back-to-back.\u00a0 They are Acts 2:41, Acts 8:34-36, Acts 16:33, and Acts 19:4-5.<\/p>\n There are actually many other baptism passages that make exactly the same point, and the point is that in the New Testament, people are baptized into Christ just as soon as they realize they need to be baptized.\u00a0 There were 3000 baptized on the day of Pentecost, and it must have been a job to get all those folks in the water by sundown!\u00a0 The eunuch is baptized in the middle of the very first conversation he ever has about Jesus.\u00a0 The jailer is baptized immediately, that same hour of the night.\u00a0 The Ephesians are baptized as soon as they learn the truth about Jesus.\u00a0 Why weren’t any of these people baptized as teenagers?\u00a0 Because none of them had the opportunity to hear the gospel as teenagers.\u00a0 However, as soon as they heard and understood what they should do, they did it.\u00a0 That understanding is the significant thing about all those people, not their age.\u00a0 As a result, we are much less concerned with age than with understanding.\u00a0 Anybody who understands and wishes to respond to the gospel should be baptized, regardless of age.<\/p>\n Similarly, the questioner wanted to know,\u00a0“DO YOU KNOW THE YOUNGEST PERSON EVER TO BE BAPTIZED?”\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Biblically speaking, the answer is probably Timothy in Acts 16:1-2.\u00a0 We know that even a decade after this event, when Paul writes 1 and 2 Timothy, he still refers to Timothy as a young man, which I read as meaning under the age of 30, so this early in the story, Timothy may well have been in his teens.\u00a0 I don’t think we can establish with any degree of certainty that any other Christian in the New Testament was younger when baptized.<\/p>\n In my own experience, I’ve seen some young people be baptized very young.\u00a0 However, I can’t really hold them up as examples because I don’t know why they did what they did.\u00a0 Maybe they did it for the right reasons; maybe they didn’t, and it’s not really my place to judge anyway.<\/p>\n What I can do, though, is talk about my own obedience to the gospel.\u00a0 I was baptized in the summer of 1990 when I was 11 years old.\u00a0 It was a Sunday evening, and the regular preacher was out of town.\u00a0 One of the men of the congregation was preaching in his absence.\u00a0 He had only become a Christian a year or two before, so this was probably the first sermon that he ever preached.<\/p>\n That evening, he chose Matthew’s account of the crucifixion for his text.\u00a0 I’d been going to church all my life, so this was a very familiar story to me, but that night, it resonated with me in a way that it never had before.\u00a0 For the first time, I felt on a soul-deep level wonder and awe at the sacrifice of Jesus.\u00a0 I was overwhelmed by what He had done for me and for everyone.\u00a0 I had not been thinking about being baptized, but I decided right then and there that I didn’t want to live for myself anymore.\u00a0 Instead, I determined that I wanted to offer that life to Jesus, so when the invitation was extended, much to the astonishment of my parents, I came forward and was baptized.<\/p>\n There is no one-size-fits-all answer here.\u00a0 All of us know that children develop into adults at different rates.\u00a0 I can remember other boys in my class who sprouted muscles, facial hair, and acne when I still basically had the physique of Marky.\u00a0 The same is true of mental and spiritual development.\u00a0 Some kids get there when they’re 11, like I did, or even earlier.\u00a0 Lauren was baptized when she was 10.\u00a0 Sometimes, it doesn’t click for young people until they’re 14, 16, or even later.\u00a0 All of those are fine.\u00a0 What matters is not when we understand and obey the gospel, but that we do.<\/p>\n In light of the previous discussion, it’s entirely appropriate for us to wrap things up with three final questions that concern knowledge and baptism.\u00a0 First, our questioner wants to know,\u00a0“ARE THERE THINGS I SHOULD KNOW BEFORE BEING BAPTIZED?”\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>The short answer here is probably, “Yes, but less than you think.”\u00a0 Look, for example, at Matthew 28:18-20.\u00a0 In addition to being many other things, this text gives us Jesus’ recipe for discipleship.\u00a0 He tells His apostles to go and make disciples, then tells them how to do it.\u00a0 You make a disciple first by baptizing them, then teaching them.<\/p>\n This, of course, is a question of emphasis rather than absolute order.\u00a0 We never see anyone who is completely ignorant being baptized in Scripture.\u00a0 However, we do see people being baptized very, very quickly, often much more quickly than we would be comfortable with.\u00a0 Consider, for instance, the example of the Philippian jailer.\u00a0 This is a man who is almost certainly a Gentile, a native of a city that has a minuscule Jewish population and significant anti-Jewish prejudice.\u00a0 He’s not identified as a God-fearer, much less a proselyte.\u00a0 And yet, after he asks what he must do to be saved, he is baptized into Christ that same hour of the night.\u00a0 His belief is not in question, but he simply hasn’t had the chance to learn very much.\u00a0 However, rather than enrolling him in a 24-week correspondence course, Paul gets the man in the water.\u00a0 Other than the essentials, the Biblical order does seem to be “Baptize first, then teach.”<\/p>\n I’ve thought a great deal about this issue, at least in part because I was baptized so young.\u00a0 Unquestionably, I understand far more about discipleship than I did then, but I’ve concluded that I knew enough.\u00a0 I believed that Jesus was the Son of God.\u00a0 I knew that I wasn’t living for Him then and needed to change.\u00a0 I knew that baptism was for the forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 I didn’t have to be able to write a sermon on those things.\u00a0 I just had to know why I was doing what I was doing.<\/p>\n Similarly, the next question on the card I got was,\u00a0“ARE THERE CONSEQUENCES, AND WHAT ARE THEY, FOR BEING BAPTIZED WITHOUT THE RIGHT REASON?”\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Again, I like this question.\u00a0 It shows that the questioner is taking things as seriously as they should.\u00a0 I believe, though, that the Bible offers us an elegant answer to it in Matthew 6:1-4.\u00a0 Even though baptism isn’t the subject of the text, the principle here clearly applies to baptism.\u00a0 As with obedience to any other command of God, there are two main categories of reasons why we might obey.\u00a0 First, we might obey to please men.\u00a0 I suspect this happens all the time.\u00a0 There are definitely those who ask to be baptized so they get to be the center of attention, to get their parents off their backs, or even to fulfill the requirements of their church.\u00a0 In all of those cases, the goal is to be noticed by men.\u00a0 On the other hand, though, you have those who ask to be baptized because they believe the gospel and want to obey it.\u00a0 Their goal is to find favor with God.<\/p>\n In both of these cases, Jesus wants us to understand, we can only expect to get the reward that we’re seeking.\u00a0 If you want to get baptized to make people happy, you’ll get your reward in full from them, but you certainly won’t get anything from God.\u00a0 On the other hand, if you come forward for the Lord’s sake and not anybody else’s, God will know that about you too, and regardless of how anyone else reacts, He will bless you.\u00a0 It’s true that my parents were overjoyed when I was baptized.\u00a0 We even all went out to Dairy Queen for sundaes after services that night, and when your mother is as nutty about healthy eating as mine was, that is a\u00a0big\u00a0<\/em>deal!\u00a0 We never did that.\u00a0 However, when I got up off that pew, I know for certain that I had not devoted one second’s thought to considering how my parents might react.\u00a0 I did what I did for God, and I believe that I got what I was looking for too.<\/p>\n Our final question for the morning is the ever-popular,\u00a0“HOW DO I KNOW WHEN I’M READY?”\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>I tell you, friends:\u00a0 I sat and stared at my monitor for a\u00a0looong<\/em>\u00a0time before I came up with an answer to this one.\u00a0 My initial reflex was to reply with what I always tell my kids when they ask about baptism, probably the same thing everybody says, which is, “You’ll know when you’re ready.”\u00a0 However, I decided that it was a really lame answer, and anybody with the guts to ask the preacher to preach on baptism deserved better than that!<\/p>\n Ultimately, I settled on 2 Corinthians 5:17 as the cornerstone of my answer.\u00a0 You are ready to be baptized when you can ask yourself, “Do I want to become a new creature?” and from the depths of your heart, you answer “Yes.”\u00a0 I think this is a useful test in two different ways.\u00a0 First, it weeds out those who are too young or otherwise too mentally undeveloped to understand the question.\u00a0 If I were to ask Marky if he wanted to become a new creature, it’s true that he would probably say “Yes!” but that’s only because he would think I was talking about transforming into a tiger.\u00a0 Neither he nor even Zo\u00eb would understand that I meant becoming a new person inside with the same outside, and they’re both a long way away from grasping the necessity and significance for such a change.\u00a0 \u00a0Similarly, there are plenty who could fathom the question but would answer it “No!”\u00a0 They like being their same old sinful selves!\u00a0 Obviously, they shouldn’t be baptized either.<\/p>\n However, if we hear the question, understand it, and answer “Yes” within ourselves, that, I think, is the point at which we’re ready to be baptized.\u00a0 It shows that we understand what it means to be, in the words of Paul, “in Christ”.\u00a0 In Christ, we can be spiritually reborn.\u00a0 In Christ, we can leave all the sins that were part of the old us behind forever in the waters of baptism.\u00a0 In Christ, we can exchange a life of meaninglessness and futility for a life of meaning and hope and joy.\u00a0 Best of all, in Christ, we can have Christ in a way that those who reject the gospel can never know.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Matthew W. Bassford This lesson was prompted by a series of questions passed to me by one of the young people in the congregation.\u00a0 They are all very thoughtful, and they are all on the subject of baptism. I think publicly exploring the topic is important.\u00a0 Others may be grappling with the same questions,…<\/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,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-49619","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":45792,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/three-questions-about-church-of-christ-teachings-on-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":49619,"position":0},"title":"Three questions about Church of Christ teachings on baptism","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Sir, I have three questions that are about the teachings of the Church of Christ. Why does the COC dismiss the case of the thief on the cross by saying that it happened \"under the Old Testament\" when in fact the thief was saved after the blood of the\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":52771,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-could-jesus-baptism-save-before-his-death\/","url_meta":{"origin":49619,"position":1},"title":"How could Jesus’ baptism save before his death?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 12, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am a member of the Church of Christ. My son-in-law has decided to follow the Baptist teachings. I have done much study on baptism since his decision. I have studied many questions on your site. I am perplexed by your responses on one set of verses: John 4:1-2.\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":8987,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-you-have-to-know-that-baptism-is-for-the-remission-of-sins-in-order-to-be-forgiven\/","url_meta":{"origin":49619,"position":2},"title":"Do you have to know that baptism is for the remission of sins in order to be forgiven?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: The question I pose is, \"Does one have to have the knowledge that baptism is for the remission of sins, for such to occur?\" I understand that if one is taught by one who knows the truth, this would not even be a question. However, I can not logically\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":66718,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/suffering-in-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":49619,"position":3},"title":"Suffering in Baptism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 24, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Perry Hall Amid Peter discussing suffering and judgment, he mentions, \"baptism now saves\" (I Peter 3:21). Contextually, what baptism saves us from is God's judgment on a sinful world. The context from 3:14-4:19 is \"Suffering and Judgment.\" However, there are many ways baptism cannot save us from suffering because\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":24308,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-it-matter-how-you-are-baptized\/","url_meta":{"origin":49619,"position":4},"title":"Does it matter how you are baptized?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I get confused about baptism.\u00a0 I believe a person should be baptized by immersion.\u00a0 Some feel the mode does not matter - just as long as you get baptized.\u00a0 I have attended a Baptist church that says baptism does not save you - that the thief on the cross\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":91987,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-jesus-baptized-to-usher-in-his-priestly-ministry\/","url_meta":{"origin":49619,"position":5},"title":"Was Jesus baptized to usher in his priestly ministry?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 8, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good morning, Jeffrey, I pray you are well! I have a couple of questions that I've been pondering, and I would love your help in finding answers in the scriptures. Thank you in advance! What does I John 5:6-8 mean? Especially the part that says that Jesus \"came by\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49619","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=49619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Questions About Age<\/h2>\n
Knowledge and Baptism<\/h2>\n