Baptism — what it is and why Christians are baptised

In the last words of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus tells his followers what to do next: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising 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" (Matthew 28:19-20).

Making disciples has two named parts: baptising and teaching. Baptism is not decoration on the Christian life. It is how the Christian life was publicly begun, from the first day of the church onwards. This article is about baptism only; the Lord's Supper deserves its own treatment.

Where baptism comes from

Washing with water was familiar in Judaism: ritual immersion baths for purification, and probably — though the dating is debated — the immersion of Gentile converts. Then John the Baptist appeared preaching "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4), calling Jews themselves to start again as though they were outsiders.

Jesus submitted to John's baptism, not because he needed to repent but "to fulfil all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15) — standing with sinners from the very beginning. After the resurrection, he made baptism the mark of his own people, now in the name of the Trinity. The phrase "in the name of" carried the sense of being transferred into someone's ownership. In baptism you are publicly signed over to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

What baptism means

Union with Christ

Paul's fullest explanation is in Romans 6: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3-4).

This is the heart of it. Baptism pictures — and Christians differ on how far it also conveys — your union with Christ. His death becomes your death to the old life. His resurrection becomes the start of your new one. "As many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ" (Galatians 3:27), like a garment.

Cleansing

Water washes. Ananias told the newly converted Saul: "Rise and be baptised and wash away your sins, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16). Notice the order: the washing is tied to calling on his name. The water signifies a cleansing that God gives through Christ.

Entry into the church

"For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free" (1 Corinthians 12:13). Baptism is never private in the New Testament. It joins you to a people. That is why it normally happens in and through a local church, and why "baptism" and "membership" have been linked throughout church history.

The pattern in Acts

Read the book of Acts and a pattern emerges. People hear the gospel, believe, and are baptised — usually at once.

• At Pentecost, about three thousand are baptised the same day (Acts 2:41).
• The Ethiopian official asks, "See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptised?" and is baptised by the roadside (Acts 8:36-38).
• Saul is baptised within days of his conversion (Acts 9:18).
• The Philippian jailer is baptised "at once, he and all his family" in the middle of the night (Acts 16:33).

There is no waiting list, no long probation. Later centuries, facing persecution and false converts, developed long periods of instruction for catechumens — sometimes up to three years. Both have wisdom. But the New Testament default is that baptism follows faith closely, as its public expression.

How: immersion, pouring, sprinkling

The Greek verb baptizō commonly means to dip or immerse. But it is also used more loosely for washing: in Luke 11:38 a Pharisee is surprised that Jesus did not "wash" (literally, was not baptised) before dinner, which hardly meant full immersion.

The Didache, a church manual from around AD 100, prefers baptism in "living" (running) water, allows other water if necessary, and allows pouring water three times on the head in the triune name if neither is available. That tells us the earliest church preferred immersion but did not regard the amount of water as what made a baptism valid.

What every mainstream tradition does insist on is water and the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).

Believers or infants?

This is the most significant disagreement. Here are both positions as their holders would put them.

Believer's baptism (credobaptism)

Baptists, most Pentecostals, many independent and charismatic churches, and Anabaptists argue:

• Every clear baptism in the New Testament follows personal repentance and faith (Acts 2:38, Acts 8:12).
• Baptism is a confession — "an appeal to God for a good conscience" (1 Peter 3:21) — which an infant cannot make.
• The new covenant is made with those who know the Lord personally (Jeremiah 31:34), not with a family line.
• The household baptisms in Acts do not mention infants, and in some the whole household also heard and believed (Acts 16:32-34, Acts 18:8).

Infant baptism (paedobaptism)

Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists and many others argue:

• In the Old Testament, children of believers received the covenant sign, circumcision. Paul links circumcision and baptism directly (Colossians 2:11-12).
• Peter's Pentecost promise is "for you and for your children" (Acts 2:39).
• Whole households were baptised (Acts 16:15, Acts 16:33, 1 Corinthians 1:16), and the covenant has always embraced families.
• There is early evidence for the practice: by the third century Origen describes it as received from the apostles, and Cyprian discusses baptising infants without suggesting it is new.

Fairness requires two admissions. Believer's baptism is the only form explicitly described in the New Testament. And infant baptism was widespread early, and its defenders are not ignoring Scripture but reading it through the lens of covenant. Tertullian, around AD 200, advised delaying the baptism of young children — which shows both that infant baptism was happening and that it was not yet universal.

Does baptism save?

"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" (1 Peter 3:21).

Peter uses strong language and immediately qualifies it. The water itself does nothing; what saves is the risen Christ, received in faith. Traditions explain the connection differently:

• Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran churches teach that God truly regenerates and forgives through baptism, received in faith — while acknowledging God is not bound by the sign where it is impossible.
• Reformed churches speak of baptism as a sign and seal of the covenant, through which God really strengthens faith and assures of grace, but not automatically.
• Baptist and Pentecostal churches treat baptism as an act of obedience and public testimony to a salvation already received by faith.

What all can say together: baptism is not a charm, and faith without any intention to obey Christ in baptism is a strange faith. Saving faith and baptism belong together in the New Testament, even if they are distinguishable.

Rebaptism

Can a person be baptised twice? Christians have always said "one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5). The one clear case of a second baptism in Acts is the disciples at Ephesus who had received only John's baptism and had not heard of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-5) — they had not yet received Christian baptism at all.

In the 250s Cyprian of Carthage insisted that converts from heretical groups be baptised again; later the African church, led by Augustine against the Donatists, concluded that a baptism in the triune name is not made invalid by an unworthy minister.

Practical cases today:

• Baptised as an infant, now a believer: see the objection above. This depends on your church's conviction.
• Baptised but not truly converted at the time: churches that practise believer's baptism will usually baptise you now, because they did not regard the earlier rite as a believer's baptism.
• Baptised by a group that denies the Trinity: most churches will baptise you, because the rite was not Christian baptism. The Catholic Church, for example, does not recognise baptisms performed by Latter-day Saints.
• Wanting to be baptised again "for a fresh start" or for deliverance: this should be resisted. Baptism is a once-for-all beginning. Renewal comes through repentance, the Lord's Supper and the Spirit — not by repeating the sign.

Baptism as a public break

In much of the world baptism is the moment that costs. Many families tolerate a relative "attending church", but treat baptism as the line crossed. For converts from Islam in northern Nigeria and elsewhere, baptism can mean rejection by family, loss of inheritance or worse. Wise churches prepare such converts carefully and sometimes baptise discreetly, without making the rite any less real.

The early church understood baptism as a change of allegiance. In fourth-century Jerusalem, as the lectures attributed to Cyril describe, candidates faced west and renounced Satan and all his works before turning east to confess Christ.

That renunciation speaks directly to African contexts. For someone coming from traditional religion, baptism is a fitting moment to renounce shrine dedications, ancestral oaths, charms and medicines worn for protection, and secret society membership — and to give the objects up. It declares that you now belong to another Lord, who has "disarmed the rulers and authorities" (Colossians 2:15).

Preparing for baptism

Baptism is not the finish line. It is the doorway. Paul's instruction to those already baptised was to live out what it meant: "consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11).