Bible Question: My son was told by a Pastor last night that you have to be baptised to go to heaven. I don't believe you have to be baptised to get into heaven. I believe babtism is a outwoard show of the inward work. And yes you would want to be. But, I don't believe you have to be. Is there any scriptures I could give my son. He was given John 3. |
Bible Answer: This subject is a debated issue. We hear in church that baptism is an out ward show of the inward work. My question is why do new believers need to show an out ward sign to believers? It dosn't make sense to me. Now if we were showing to the world or lost that we were changed that would be different. Through baptism we die in a shallow grave of water to the old nature and rise a new creation in Christ. The old is past away and the new has come. We are washed in the blood of Jesus (like a blood transfusion) instead of sinful blood we now have the righteous blood of Jesus running through us. We didn't deserve this righteousness but Jesus is our righteousness. Our bodies become the temple of the Holy Spirit. We make a new covenant with God that we will obey his commandments- to love God and to love each other. Some things to think about! Did Jesus need to be baptized for the remission of Sin? NO of course not. I believe he was our example. Why was Jesus baptized before he began to preach the gospel? What happened when Jesus was baptized? He recieved the gift of the Holy Spirit. What if he wouldn't have been baptized as scriture prophesied? He wouldn't be able to give us the gift of the Spirit for one thing. Read the entire book of acts to your son. There is example after example (and I don't just mean one or two) every believer was immediately baptized. 1 Cor. 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free,and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Realize that as a believer that you want to be apart of the body of Christ (not the physical chruch you attend a few times a week). When you are baptized you become part of the body of Christ. You are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise and you cannot be stolen out of His hands. When you are apart of the body (His body) read all of 1 Cor. 12 you will see that you have apart to do in the body of Christ. This is an interesting scripture to me. In John 3 Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." Jesus answered and said to him Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again , he cannot see the kingdom of God.4 Nicodemus said to Him, How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mothers womb and be born can he? 5 Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh (born in the physical during child birth) and that which is born of Spirit is spirit. 7Do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born again. You cannot be re-born unless you first die. Notice it says unless you are born of the water and the Spirit, it already talks about being born in the flesh (child birth), many refer to the water in the birth bag as the water it's referring to)but this couldn't be it referrs to being born (physically) as born of the flesh. When we are baptized in water we die to our nature we were born with and we are reborn a new creation by the Holy Spirit of God in Christ. So if we are not baptized we are not born again. Most churches preach other wise. They seem make us believe if we are in a crissis and come to church listen to a sermon and raise our hand and sight a few sentences we are born again. Mark 16:16 He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. Many chose to use the example of when Jesus was on the cross there were two theives. One realized Jesus was the Christ (savior of the world) and he repented. Jesus said he would be him (Jesus) in paradise, meaning heaven. He was not baptised how could he go to heaven? We can use this as an excuse not to get baptized or we can let it show us that God is loving and merciful. If we believed in our heart and we were killed on the way home from church we would certainly enter heaven. But this one example should not overshadow the many scripture that teach us about baptism. I think the problem is that we have been taught that we need to be baptized in the Church by a paster. In the bible it gives us the example that the diciples are the ones who baptized when they presented the gospel to unbelievers. This means you can be baptized in your pool, lake or river by the person leading you to Christ. There is proof of this all through the book of Acts. We don't have to wait for the orgainized chruch once a month or quarterly. So this is what I know from my study on the subject. I hope you will sift through it will a fine tooth comb and move in the direction God has for you and you son. Sincerely |