What Is Baptism?(1)

When someone decides to get right with God, part of the outward sign of accepting Jesus as their savior is being baptized. It is an exciting time, but there are many questions regarding baptism that should be clarified, since so many conflicting ideas regarding this topic developed over the centuries. The questions often come from four basic areas:
Can you go to heaven by being baptized?
What is baptism?
When should someone be baptized?
Why should someone be baptized?

Let's take a look at each of these questions.
Can you go to heaven by being baptized?
People are saved (and get to go to heaven) by believing that Jesus is the Christ and putting their faith in Him. Baptism alone does not save. However, salvation (being saved) and baptism are always tied together.

What is baptism?
The process of baptism is very simple. You begin by standing, sitting, or kneeling in some water. Another Christian then lowers you under the water and then brings you back up out of the water. You could also literally call this "immersion."

Because some faiths sprinkle water on people instead of immersing them, the obvious question is whether this is OK. Since the only consistent answer around the world comes from the Bible, we recommend using it to find your answers. It is interesting that nowhere in the Bible does anything but "immersion" take place. That is, baptism is always by immersion

This makes sense if you realize that "baptize" is a transliteration of the original Greek word baptizw (baptizo). In turn, baptizo comes from the root word baptw (bapto), a term used in the first century for immersing a garment first into bleach and then into dye, both cleansing and changing the color of the cloth.[1] (Note its similarity to baptism's cleansing of sin and becoming a new person through Christ.) Stated another way, when you process cloth to change its color, you are said to "baptize" it. If sprinkling of any kind was to be practiced, a different Greek word would have been used, but it was not.

When should someone be baptized?

Let's look at this question from two directions.

#1 - Does a person's age make a difference?
A natural question would be, "does your age make a difference?" More specifically, you may ask whether infants or young children should be baptized. It may help if you understand where the idea and practice of baptizing infants came from. Around 400 AD, a man named Augustine came up with the idea of "original sin." This basically said that everyone inherits the sin of Adam at birth and is therefore separated from God from the beginning of their life. Of course, this caused parents to become concerned over the fate of their children, should they die before "getting right with God."

could be done by (or to) an infant, they decided to baptize them to "take care of the original sin." Since it is risky to immerse an infant, these people decided to sprinkle them with water instead. Thus, both baptizing infants and baptizing by sprinkling came from human ideas. They did not come from the Bible.


If we look in the Bible we see that children are never seen to "accept Christ" (and therefore get right with God). It is also interesting that God never tells us what to do to keep a child safe. Did He just forget this important point, letting many children go to Hell and suffer eternally? No. A child is safe in the arms of God until they can understand how to be saved by accepting Jesus as their savior. (See 2 Samuel chapter 12, verses 22 and 23 along with Matthew chapter 18, verse 10.) Thus, only adults and older children (who can understand separation from God because of sin and so forth) are at the age when acceptance of Christ is possible.
[1] Swindoll, Charles R., Signposts Along Life's Journey (1997), Insight for Living, CA, p. 10.
to be continue....