Does Water Baptism Save

Does water baptism save? I once knew a man who said that he would never get baptized to prove that baptism is not essential to salvation. Maybe so, but in nearly every conversion story in the book of Acts we see that the apostles immediately baptized the converts. Every Apostolic & Church Father claimed that baptism confers the new birth. Mind you, the church was gathering, holding services, and teaching doctrine years before even the first book of the bible was penned. These Early Fathers even put a great emphasis in Communion or the Eucharist having a close connection to the presence of Christ.

As a student of epistemology, logic, and theology I have an axiom “the more you know the more you don't know”. I don’t know what baptism does, all I know is that Jesus was baptized as our example, and a great deal of emphasis is put on it in the bible. Without getting into the whys and the cultural issues; if God says do something do it!

Today our churches are full of unbaptized converts, partially because they were never taught the importance of baptism and partly because we make such an issue of it in the church service that nobody wants to get up before a mega church and give their testimony over the PA system before they are baptized.

I think the church has thrown the baby out with the bathwater in the neglect of baptism. When people were baptized in the bible it was NOT for a public testimony; it was for the purpose of fulfilling righteousness. Consider the story of Phillip and the eunuch when he was baptized; where was the crowd then?

There are so many things that we just don’t understand in the bible and I think baptism is one of them. God has always dealt with His people under grace and has often used symbols that were more than mere memorials. How about the serpent on the stick in the wilderness - a symbol and also a means of grace. When the children of Israel were bitten by a snake they were to go (in faith) and look upon this serpent raised high on a stick - and they were healed. This was a prefiguring of Christ. This is also the symbol of the American Medical Association - for those of you who doubt our Christian heritage.

Maybe there is more to baptism and maybe there isn’t; all I can say for sure is the bible commands it and there is no excuse for a Christian to walk in disobedience.