Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | Acts 2:38 Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Acts 2:38 And Peter said to them, "Repent [change your old way of thinking, turn from your sinful ways, accept and follow Jesus as the Messiah] and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ because of the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. |
Subject: WHY? |
Bible Note: Our attention will be confined to his discussion of Acts 2:38. He begins by quoting the passage: Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Our friend then muses: “This verse is a tough one.” It’s not so “tough” — unless one already has his mind abused with the notion that baptism cannot be a condition in the plan of redemption. The gentleman continues: “It seems to say that baptism is a part of salvation.” It doesn’t “seem” to say it; it actually says it. He opines that this cannot be the case, though, for such a conclusion would contradict other scriptures. Our friend then seeks to employ a rather time-worn evasion in defense of his position — although his version of it may suggest that he really does not understand the nature of the original argument. Mr. Slick attempts to sever the connection between the verbs “repent” and “be baptized” (even though they are connected by the coordinate “and”) on the ground that the former term is plural in number, while the latter is singular.According to him the sense would seem to be: “Repent [plural] for the forgiveness of your [plural] sins, and [separate from the foregoing] each of you [singular] get baptized [as a now-saved person].” The gentleman appears to think that simply because there is a change in grammatical number, this somehow has disassociated baptism from repentance, and therefore distanced it from the phrase, “for the forgiveness of sins.” This is a debate quibble hoary with age. It was ineffectively employed by Ben N. Bogard in his discussion with N.B. Hardeman more than sixty years ago. The eloquent Hardeman demolished the argument! First of all, let us focus again on the motive behind this argument. Here is the difficulty for Mr. Slick and others of his theological persuasion. The two commands, “repent” and “be baptized,” are joined by the conjunction “and.” It follows that if repentance is essential to salvation, so also is baptism. On the other hand, if baptism may be dismissed, repentance may be as well. |