Before ascending into heaven, Christ told his disciples to go and baptize all nations (Matthew 28:18–20). The early Church often baptized whole households.[1] Today, we tend to baptize individuals. But in all cases, the ceremony is a symbol of baptism of the Spirit, which brings salvation through God’s Word.
These passages do not say whether the apostles themselves baptized children, but catacomb records show that this was indeed a practice within the first century and afterward of the early Church. Early Church fathers such as Justin Martyr and Irenaeus in particular were proponents of infant baptism.[2] This is controversial in some denominational circles. Why not stick to adult baptism?
The early Church didn’t share the modern concept of the “age of accountability,” the stage at which an individual can make his own decision whether to be baptized and commit to a life of faith.
According to human understanding, we may assume that a baby is born good—made not only in God’s image but with a godly nature—only to learn evil over time. This idea may sound reasonable at first, but it is not biblical.
The Bible states that everyone is enslaved to sin and death. Little Joseph, Big Joey, and Uncle Joe have the same destiny. Age is irrelevant. All are destined to die.[3] Resurrection is the only hope for ultimate salvation. Baptism of the Holy Spirit represents the first step, saving us and sealing us. Resurrection is the final step.
Baptism of the Spirit happens when the Word of the gospel is delivered. No matter the age of the person being baptized, all receive the exact same gift. What happens after baptism is a different matter. Hearing the Word is our starting place, but the baptism act itself does not nurture faith or cause obedience or ensure lifelong belief. This is why there is a second command within the Great Commission. Not only is the Church supposed to baptize people, but we are also called to lead those same people into maturity—to make disciples out of new believers.
In giving the Commission, Christ didn’t include a list of instructions for the baptism ceremony; he didn’t weigh in on whether it’s better to immerse converts in water or sprinkle water on a child’s forehead. The Levitical purity laws and mikveh cleansing offered a rich history of water-based ceremonies; then came John the Baptist, who baptized with water. Each of these practices foreshadowed the baptism of the Holy Spirit.[4] It is clear throughout the New Testament that the baptism of the Holy Spirit leads to salvation, while the ceremony of water baptism is merely a symbol of what God is doing in the spiritual realm.
Instead of fixating on the ceremony of baptism, the Church should focus on the ongoing mission of discipleship. Getting the Holy Spirit into someone’s life is very important, but keeping him there is just as vital. We must lead new believers in discipleship and help to keep them in the faith. Salvation comes later, but sanctification is happening today.
“ But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”
—Romans 6:22
While we await eternal life, we are set apart today. God is preserving us for use in his spiritual kingdom today and the physical kingdom to follow the merger of heaven and earth.
New disciples don’t know a lot; they are spiritual infants. We must nurture them through a continual process that is realized through the delivery of the Word; we preach and teach, and they hear God’s message over time.
Should we withhold baptism until a certain point when a person is “ready”? How might we tell when a person ready? The truth is, it shouldn’t be up to us to judge the hearts of others. Our task is simply to preach, baptize, and teach; only the Holy Spirit can see into the heart.
The belief described in Mark 16:16 is ongoing and constantly engaged. In contrast, water ceremonies represent a one-time event: the baptism of the Spirit and the corresponding receipt of our new, clean heart. But despite the symbolism of drowning our old sinful nature, the flesh doesn’t stay smothered. We need daily drowning thereafter.[5]
A major dividing line about baptism relates to the question of what is baptized: a mortal or immortal soul? If we believe in an immortal soul, we are more liable to have a “once saved, always saved” (or “once baptized, always baptized”) mentality. But if our soul is mortal, it must be continually preserved then finally saved at the resurrection. A one-time event of baptism would not be adequate.
We can experience the power of the Word through the Holy Spirit at any age. We in our flesh do not choose to pursue the Spirit, but God chooses to give himself to us; nothing we do can affect when God approaches us. Baptism is not a choice we make. It is a gift we receive from the Spirit.
Most of our debates over ceremony come down to a misunderstanding of free will as it relates to salvation in general. It is not presumptuous to baptize an infant because even adult believers must continually choose to remain in Christ. This ceremony does not ensure that the child will do so. By the same token, there should be no issue for the congregation in waiting for a family or person to be baptized if the congregation is already engaged in relaying God’s Word (and by extension God’s Spirit). Salvation doesn’t hinge on the application of water, but on the outpouring of God’s Spirit. The power of the Word will convict the person or the head of a family.
Salvation: Our Choice or God’s?
Belief is trust in God’s Word alone. Is choice the same concept as belief?
Choice can be considered a work that we must do under the flesh while belief is trust in the work of Christ. This is why the Bible focuses on words like “believe” or “confess,” not words like “choose” or “decide.”
We cannot credit our choice to believe in God for salvation through our old nature, as this would mean that we contributed toward our own salvation. We cannot produce our own righteousness or good works, not in any amount; God alone is righteous, and only God can give us righteousness.
To make a choice, we weigh the options, then select what we think is best. Since we are sinful by human nature, our old heart can only make a selfish decision. Even if we say we are choosing to follow Christ, our motivation is to win something for ourselves: eternity in heaven; happiness; an alliance with a powerful God. Whenever we make a decision or choice, no matter how good we think our intentions are, we are following our own judgment and operating under the law of the flesh.
“ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”
—Galatians 5:18
We are saved by grace through the Spirit, and we must be led by the Spirit, not our human judgment. Our belief flows out of the grace we have received, not an idea we find persuasive.
The idea that we choose to become saved is generally tied to a mythological free will. According to this perspective, we in our human nature invite God to come in and clean our heart of its sin—or at least as much of it as possible. The result is a mixed nature, a merger of God and man. But this idea is not in the Bible. Our sinful nature can only be crucified, drowned, and buried––not cleaned. God does cleanse us but with the gift of a newly created heart.[6]
Remember, we do not have a literal soul; rather, we are a soul, which is the living combination of spirit and “dust.” Our soul is not immortal, and isn’t “ours” at all. We are a soul only when alive. As a mortal soul, we need the Holy Spirit to continually work in us after our baptism to sustain us.
After baptism, discipleship and discipline kick in. We all are spiritual infants when we first receive the Holy Spirit. We need a continual outpouring of the Spirit. Everyone needs this. The very term “born again” implies that a new nature has been given to us; no matter our age or maturity, we all have the starting point.
Baptism in the Holy Spirit marks the initiation of our salvation, and the continual outpouring of the Spirit maintains our salvation. Discipleship keeps us engaged in obedience, and therefore growing in faith. The Spirit is continually engaged, the new believer must be continually engaged, and Christ commands the Church to be likewise committed to the ongoing work of teaching and training new disciples.
The making of a disciple in Matthew 28:19 is a singular, intermittent event, but teaching in Matthew 28:20 is an ongoing activity.
Due to the “now and not yet” nature of salvation, biblical verbs regarding salvation appear in a variety of tenses.
When we look at verb tenses within all salvation passages, we notice that there is a special focus on the future for ultimate salvation. There are also a lot of verses that speak to the present salvific effects of the Holy Spirit that keep us preserved until the resurrection. Of course, many passages speak to the past saving work of Christ. Some passages even depict all three tenses of salvation.
Ephesians 1 shows us a progression from past to present to future. Here the whole salvation process is summarized in just two verses.
“ In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”
—Ephesians 1:13–14
In this passage, Paul arranges many key points in the proper sequence.
Salvation in this passage is in the future. Paul didn’t have it yet. He wasn’t totally saved.
We can’t “hear” this gospel under our old sinful nature. Wanting the matter to be settled, we will grasp for something we can do to ensure our salvation. But what is required of us is contriteness, broken-heartedness, and humility (Isaiah 66:2b); these attributes convey the correct attitude with which to hear the gospel. We need to be like a child who brings nothing to the table before God. We can’t bring our decisions, prayers, petitions, pleas, or sacrifices to God as a first step. God does invite us to call upon his name and continually confess, yet these are not singular events that establish our relationship. We are not asked to respond to “altar calls” or offer up a “sinner’s prayer.”
“For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;
You are not pleased with burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart , O God, You will not despise .”
—Psalm 51:16–17, NASB
Let’s again look at infant baptism as a way to examine our attitudes regarding salvation and free will. In every case, no matter the age of the person involved, the following aspects of baptism are true:
Depending on the age of the person being baptized, she may or may not comprehend what baptism means. Obviously an infant would be oblivious, while confusion in an adolescent would be perfectly understandable—but even an adult might have some misconceptions about what is happening in the spiritual realm.
The reason some people get bent out of shape over infant baptism is reason itself. Can a person be baptized without understanding baptism? Put another way, is it acceptable to baptize now and then train and disciple the child until he is ready to confess his faith later on?
Can confession and baptism occur separately?
The Bible, the early Church Fathers, and the catacombs reveal that early Christians practiced both infant and believer’s baptism. Why should we pick one or the other? Our clear mission is to build the corporate Body of Christ by following the means he instituted. Our primary concern should not be how people in our community receive the Spirit’s baptism, but how we nurture each other in the Spirit and are united together in Christ.
Common Misconceptions
As we’ve seen, many of our widely held beliefs about God and his creation do not align with Scripture. Let’s take a closer look at a few common ideas regarding our human nature that ought to be reconsidered.
Eternal Security
When an adult is baptized, is he eternally secure? When an infant is baptized, is she eternally secure? If she becomes confirmed in the faith as an adolescent, should we consider her salvation secure at that point?
Salvation is not completed at baptism, nor at confirmation, nor at any other rite or ceremony available to the Church. Salvation is only made complete at the second advent. No graduation ceremony, no event, no single act of any person or group of people can make an individual’s salvation permanent. We can turn away and reject the gift of the Holy Spirit at any time. Free will is always present within our old nature, fully capable of rejecting God.
Free Will to Accept God
While we can use our free will to reject God, we cannot use that same will to accept Christ as savior. Under the law of flesh, we cannot choose to accept God into our heart, or else we would be able to secure our own salvation through our good actions.
Salvation requires our continual belief. We are kept secure as long as we don’t reject God or interrupt the work he is doing in us through his Spirit. Obeying his commands demonstrates that we haven’t rejected his Word or his will. God’s grace is unconditional in the sense that the whole world is offered forgiveness and salvation, but conditional in the sense that we need to believe and trust in him. Accepting his will means that we do not change, add to or take away from his plans. We leave them “as is”.
Where is the Bible passage that says we must choose God to be saved? As soon as we make salvation hinge on our own actions, we end up in the parable of the Rich Young Man (Matthew 19:16–24). We can’t say that we like some of what the Bible has to say, then only follow the teachings we like. It is all or nothing with God. We either live by every word that comes out of his mouth, or we end up adding to his Word or taking away from it. After the ending of the parable, Christ tells us that mankind does not possess the will to do what is necessary to be saved.
“ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, ‘Who then can be saved?’ But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’”
—Matthew 19:25–26
We do see one passage in the Bible that describes making a choice for salvation. In Deuteronomy 30:11–20, Moses relays God’s message to his people as they prepare to enter the Promised Land. Verse 19 states that Israel should choose life over death. But this passage rests within the context of the Mosaic covenant. Israel needed to agree to God’s conditional terms; by stating that they would keep his laws, they would be blessed to enter the land. This teaching is not repeated in the New Testament but is for our instruction that we cannot choose life or earn eternal life. It is a gift that we can only accept by faith.
We often talk about making a choice or decision to follow Christ. But the key element of salvation is Christ choosing us, calling us. Let’s look at the apostles’ election as an example. In John 15:16–17, Christ reminds his disciples that he chose them, not the other way around.[7] People are “elected” for salvation. (After we study free will further, we’ll come back to the concept of election.)
Individualism
Although individualism is a strong cultural value in our society, this is not a biblical value. God intends for us to live in Christian community, and this begins with baptism. We cannot baptize ourselves; only the Church can deliver this gift through the Word by the Holy Spirit. God’s goal is to form a larger Church body. The Church is not effective in its work for Christ when we isolate ourselves and try to operate alone.
Baptism of the Spirit is a corporate gift that an individual can reject at any time after receiving it. We can “lose” salvation by rejecting God’s methods. Comprehension of the gift may come later through discipleship, or we may grasp God’s plan of salvation on the day of our baptism. But there is no need for us to fully comprehend baptism before receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.
As Christians, we must continually believe in God’s grace as it is poured out over time. The initial event of baptism is very important, but the Bible puts much greater focus on the ongoing process of sanctification through which the Spirit keeps us in the faith. Like baptism, the process of sanctification is carried out within Christian community, not on our own.
New Life in the Spirit
Here Paul offers us some insight into the salvation process:
“But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
—Romans 10:8–13
So the Word comes first to enter the heart. This is a new heart in us, not a merger of the Word into our old heart.
This passage can be taken out of context, so let’s look closely. We need to understand what “believes” means, so let’s examine other appearances of this word in Romans.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”
—Romans 1:16a
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
—Romans 15:13
Belief itself doesn’t contain anything of intrinsic value without the power of God. We do need to believe in God and not reject him, but our belief is nothing compared to his power, which is contained in his Word.
Salvation begins when God puts a new heart within us and imbues it with the power of the Word of the Spirit (see Romans 10:8 above). The gospel is planted (or embedded) inside of us. Only then can true belief occur. It does us no good to try to believe God with our old nature. The original heart of our sinful nature either rejects God’s Word outright, or tries to change it or modify it to fit our preconceived beliefs.
When we believe in God’s gifts with our new heart, we receive the seeds of faith. This gift of faith is the beginning of justification. As Paul puts it, we are saved “through faith” in Christ.
“Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
—Galatians 2:16
A common view is that justification begins when we in our human nature become persuaded to believe in the gospel. Were this true, many Scriptures would no longer make sense. True belief is the result of God coming into our heart, not a mechanism that prompts his arrival. As we will see in Acts 15:11, Peter states that he and a new Gentile believer have each received the same grace. What matters is God’s generosity, not the relative intensity of our belief or convictions.
Is our faith in itself a gift from God? Or is our belief contributing to the primary gift, with faith sprouting from that belief? Each interpretation seems to have its own supporting passages.
Some passages describe belief as coming from our old heart. But even evil demons believe in God.[8] Belief itself is not the whole message, as we can see. True belief must flow out of a contrite heart after the gift of the gospel is delivered.
We need to pay close attention to verb tenses as we seek to understand salvation in general and the faith-by-grace concept in particular. In Romans 10:8–13 (quoted above), Paul twice uses the future tense “will be saved.” This is to be expected; salvation will be made complete at the second advent when we are resurrected and welcomed into the Promised Land.
But in Romans 10:10, Paul switches to the present tense: “With the mouth one confesses and is saved.” According to this English translation, full salvation occurs in the present, which contradicts several other passages we’ve already studied. It is possible that Paul is referring to spiritual salvation, not bodily resurrection. On the other hand, a more literal rendering of this sentence would read, “With the mouth one confesses “unto salvation.” This phrase (used in such translations as the New King James Version) depicts an ongoing salvation in terms of a preservation effect. With this more literal translation, the textual conflict is resolved.
Salvation is presented in different verb-tenses in Scripture as we have seen. But we also see some movement in the understanding of salvation—not in terms of when, but for whom.
“ But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’”
—Acts 15:1
According to traditional understanding of the Mosaic covenant, salvation was for the people of Israel and converts to this originally Hebrew nation. Only such people could hope to receive resurrection and enter into the Promised Land.
“ But we believe that we [Jews] will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they [Gentiles] will.”
—Acts 15:11
Peter’s simple response in this second passage covers two extremely important topics.