{"id":55800,"date":"2022-11-14T17:15:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T23:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=55800"},"modified":"2022-11-15T10:57:51","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T16:57:51","slug":"is-a-baptism-valid-if-the-church-believes-only-jesus-is-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-a-baptism-valid-if-the-church-believes-only-jesus-is-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Is a baptism valid if the church believes only Jesus is God?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>Hello,<\/p>\n<p>I am a member of the church of Christ and have a question for you. My mother-in-law recently started attending the church, and I am concerned about her baptism being scriptural. She was baptized in a non-denominational &#8220;Jesus Only&#8221; church for the forgiveness of sins. What I mean by &#8220;Jesus Only&#8221; is this church believes that Jesus is the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. This concerns me as I am not sure if her faulty beliefs about the Godhead at the time of her baptism would interfere with her baptism being scriptural. My concern stems from these two verses:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;<em>Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ<\/em>&#8221; (I Peter 3:21).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>and<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;<em>Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age<\/em>&#8221; (Matthew 28:19-20).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In both of these verses, it says <b>God <\/b>is involved. If you are in the Jesus-Only church, you would think that <b>God <\/b>is actually Jesus in I Peter 3:21, and in Matthew 28, it would be saying &#8220;baptizing them in the name of Jesus, Jesus, and Jesus&#8221; in my opinion.<\/p>\n<p>I have one minister telling me <strong>yes<\/strong> her baptism would be scriptural, and another minister telling me <strong>no<\/strong>, it would not be scriptural, so I would really like your opinion on this.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you very much for your time!<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>We need to make sure some terms are understood. &#8220;In the name of&#8221; means &#8220;by the authority of.&#8221; See\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/all-in-a-name-2\/\">All in a Name<\/a>. Thus, when Matthew 28:19-20 says to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this is exactly the same as being baptized in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5). The Godhead is completely unified, so the authority of one is the same as the authority of all. Thus, I agree that &#8220;Jesus Only&#8221; fails because it makes Mathew 28:19-20 redundant.<\/p>\n<p>The second point to be clear is that Jesus is God, just as the Father is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.<\/p>\n<p>You haven&#8217;t mentioned anything that was done wrong other than that those involved in the baptism did not have a good understanding of who God is. Yet, perfect understanding is not required to be baptized or required of the person doing the baptism.<\/p>\n<p>As your mother learns more about the Bible, she will realize that the group she was with is far off from the truth, and she may decide that she doesn&#8217;t want her baptism connected with that group. Or she may decide that she did what was right even though the group was wrong in its beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\t<h2>Response:<\/h2>\n<p>Thank you, Jeffrey. I really appreciate your timely response.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: Hello, I am a member of the church of Christ and have a question for you. My mother-in-law recently started attending the church, and I am concerned about her baptism being scriptural. She was baptized in a non-denominational &#8220;Jesus Only&#8221; church for the forgiveness of sins. What I mean by &#8220;Jesus Only&#8221; is this&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_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[52,1578],"class_list":["post-55800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-baptism","tag-jesus-only"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":52771,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-could-jesus-baptism-save-before-his-death\/","url_meta":{"origin":55800,"position":0},"title":"How could Jesus&#8217; 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 &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":745,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-baptism-be-done-only-in-jesus-name\/","url_meta":{"origin":55800,"position":1},"title":"Should baptism be done only in Jesus&#8217; name?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 24, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: For many years the churches of Christ have used Matthew 28:19 as a baptism that adds to the church that was built by the word of the Lord that went forth from Jerusalem, a baptism that was not present when Israel was told to repent and be baptized in\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":23787,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-you-believe-you-can-only-be-saved-by-immersion-in-water-what-about-someone-who-cant-be-immersed\/","url_meta":{"origin":55800,"position":2},"title":"Do you believe you can only be saved by immersion in water? What about someone who can&#8217;t be immersed?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How does one get saved who cannot physically be submerged?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t look up your references, but is seems to me (by skimming through your article of why you left the Church of the Nazarene) that the main reason you left is you believe you are saved by baptism\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":12164,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-jesus-the-father-and-the-spirit-three-manifestations-of-the-same-one-spirit\/","url_meta":{"origin":55800,"position":3},"title":"Are Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit three manifestations of the same one Spirit?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I see that you believe in the water baptism and the necessity of that being the remission of the sins that are forgiven. I note that in the Book of Acts, and God showed me this at 16 years old, that the apostles always baptized in the name of\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":50382,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-you-all-believe-the-only-way-to-be-saved-is-through-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":55800,"position":4},"title":"Do you all believe the only way to be saved is through baptism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was reading more on the La Vista Church of Christ website, and I was a little confused about something. Do you all believe the only way to be saved is through baptism? Answer: I have a question for you: Can a person be saved by ignoring what God\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":43323,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-belief-and-confession-mean-that-baptism-is-unnecessary\/","url_meta":{"origin":55800,"position":5},"title":"Do belief and confession mean that baptism is unnecessary?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, Thanks for your web site. It has been a God-send to folks like me who are relatively new in our walk with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. I have been trying to find a Bible-believing church to attend, but there are so many\u00a0false teachings and\u00a0divisions in the\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\/55800","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=55800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}