Here at Christians In Honesdale, we teach that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, because every time the New Testament stops to say what baptism does, that's the answer it gives. It never describes baptism as a ceremony acted out after salvation is already finished. We teach it the way the passages read, since we can't find one that reads the other way.
The Words You May Have Heard at the Water
Maybe you were baptized years ago, and someone standing beside you said it was "an outward sign of an inward grace." Or you were told you'd been saved the moment you believed, and now you'd go under the water to show everyone. A lot of sincere people have heard exactly that. Some of them were in tears as they came up, and we'd never make light of that day.
But think about what hangs on the difference. If the water just illustrates a salvation that's already yours, then the timing hardly counts for much, and neither does whether you ever get to it. But if baptism is the moment God washes your sins away, very little matters more.
What Baptism Did for People in the Book of Acts
Start in Acts 2. Jesus had risen, and Peter was preaching the gospel to a crowd for the first time. They were cut to the heart and asked what they should do. Peter didn't tell them they were already forgiven. He said, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins" (Acts 2:38). The command comes first. Forgiveness is what it's for.
A note on the Greek: "For the forgiveness of your sins" is eis aphesin tōn hamartiōn hymōn. It's the same phrase Jesus used over the cup at the Last Supper: His blood was "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28, eis aphesin hamartiōn). It's also the phrase Mark used for John's baptism, "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4). In the last century a Greek scholar, Julius Mantey, argued that eis in Acts 2:38 could mean "because of," as if baptism looked back at a forgiveness already received. Another scholar, Ralph Marcus, answered him in the Journal of Biblical Literature (1951-52), and the standard lexicons still read the verse as purpose: "for," "toward," "in order to obtain." No one reads Matthew 26:28 as "because sins were already forgiven." The same words should mean the same thing in Acts 2:38.
Then there's Saul. He'd met the Lord on the road, and he believed. For three days he was "without sight, and neither ate nor drank" (Acts 9:9), and the Lord said of him, "behold, he is praying" (Acts 9:11). By the usual modern account, he was saved well before anyone got him near water. Yet Ananias walked in and asked him, "And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16). A praying believer still had sins to wash away.
A note on the Greek: Both commands, baptisai ("be baptized") and apolousai ("wash away"), are in the middle voice. That can be rendered "have yourself baptized, and get your sins washed away." Saul doesn't wash himself. He submits to being washed. Even the grammar leaves the cleansing in God's hands.
Peter later put it in about as few words as anyone could: "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21). He heads off the obvious misunderstanding. It isn't a bath. And then he tells you, in two words, what it does.
It saves.
A note on the Greek: The two words are nyn sōzei, "now saves." "Corresponds to this" is antitypon, and "this" points back one verse to Noah's ark, where "eight persons were brought safely through water" (1 Peter 3:20). The flood was the pattern, and baptism is what it pointed to. Noah wasn't saved by his own carpentry. He was saved by trusting God and getting into the ark God had told him to build. Peter also gives the power source: "through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." The water saves because of what Christ did, not because of what the water is.
Where the Phrase About a Sign Came From
You won't find "an outward sign of an inward grace" anywhere in Scripture. It comes from the catechism in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, which calls a sacrament "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." That definition echoes Augustine, more than a thousand years earlier. Here's the part most people don't know: the men who wrote it didn't mean "only a symbol." They believed God really acts in baptism. The idea that baptism is just a picture is newer. It's traced mostly to the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli in the 1520s, and many churches took it up from there.
The earliest Christians after the apostles talked the way Acts does. Around AD 155, Justin Martyr described new believers being brought to the water "that we may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed" (First Apology 61). The Nicene Creed of AD 381 confesses "one baptism for the remission of sins," using the same Greek words as Acts 2:38. Church history doesn't settle anything for us. Only Scripture does that. But it does show that this reading isn't new or strange.
People who teach that baptism is a sign are usually guarding something good. They want everyone to know that salvation comes as a gift from God and can't be earned, and we want that too.
Still, the passages we just read put baptism before forgiveness, not after it. And Paul doesn't describe a picture of an old event. He describes the event: "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). Nobody holds a burial to remind people of a death from last spring. The burial is where the dying and the rising take place.
A note on the Greek: "We were buried with him" is one word, synetaphēmen, "co-buried." It's in the aorist tense, which points to a definite moment, and the passive voice, so it was done to us. The verse before says the same thing: "all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death" (Romans 6:3). Paul puts the believer's union with Christ's death in the water.
So Am I Trying to Earn Something?
That's the fear sitting under this whole question, and we'd rather answer it straight. No. Being baptized isn't a payment, and you can't brag about it, because you aren't the one doing the work. You're the one being buried and raised. Paul says it's God's power at work in that moment: "having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead" (Colossians 2:12). God does the working. We bring the faith.
A note on the Greek: "The powerful working" is energeia, the root of our word "energy." In this verse the energy belongs to God, and faith is what trusts it. Baptism isn't something a person does to impress God. It's a place where a person puts his trust in what God does.
Paul brings the same two ideas together in another letter: "he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5). In one sentence he rules out works and mentions the washing. He saw no contradiction there, and we don't need to either. (The word for "washing" is loutron, from the same root as Ananias's "wash away" in Acts 22:16.)
The Old Testament gives us a picture of this. Naaman, a Syrian general with leprosy, was told by the prophet Elisha to wash in the Jordan seven times. He was insulted. He thought the rivers back home were better. But in the end, "he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean" (2 Kings 5:14). The Jordan had no power to heal leprosy, and Naaman didn't earn anything by getting wet. God healed him. But God healed him in the water He had named, and not before.
A note on the Hebrew: "Dipped himself" is wayyiṭbōl, from ṭāḇal, "to dip" or "to plunge." When Jewish scholars translated the Old Testament into Greek two centuries before Christ, they rendered it ebaptisato: Naaman "baptized himself" in the Jordan.
And the gift stays a gift: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). Holding out your hands doesn't earn a present somebody gives you. God decided where He'd put this gift, and we've got no right to move it.
What About the Thief on the Cross, and Cornelius?
These are the two questions people raise most, and they deserve a straight answer.
The thief heard Jesus say, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). Jesus had the authority to forgive anyone while He lived, and He did it more than once (Mark 2:5-10). But the thief died before Jesus did, before the resurrection, and before the Great Commission was given. Hebrews explains that "a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive" (Hebrews 9:16-17). Baptism "into his death" (Romans 6:3) couldn't happen yet, because His death hadn't happened yet.
Cornelius and his household received the Holy Spirit while Peter was still speaking, before anyone was baptized (Acts 10:44). Peter later explained what that was for: it proved to the Jewish believers that God accepted Gentiles too (Acts 11:15-18; 15:8-9). And Peter's response is the important part. He didn't say, "Then they don't need it." He asked, "Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" And "he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ" (Acts 10:47-48).
Why We Won't Leave It Vague
Suppose baptism really were only a symbol. Then someone could be forgiven and simply never get around to it. But Paul says it's in baptism that a person is clothed with Christ: "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Galatians 3:27). If the New Testament's words mean what they plainly say, anyone who keeps putting baptism off is still standing outside of Christ. We love people too much to stay quiet about that.
You should also know how small our voice is. We're one independent congregation with no denomination or headquarters behind us, so we can't speak for anybody else who reads these verses the way we do. What we can tell you is what's taught and practiced by the Christians who meet in Suite D on Main Street, and this is it.
Four Chapters Worth Reading Tonight
Pick up Acts 2 and Acts 22 first, then Romans 6, then 1 Peter 3. Ask each one a single question: when does forgiveness arrive in this account? Take notes if that helps. If what you find doesn't line up with what you were taught, that's not a crisis. It's a question worth asking out loud, with the text open in front of you.
Bring Your Baptism Questions to Us
Whether you were baptized long ago or never have been, we'd be glad to sit down and read these passages with you. If you were baptized believing it was only a sign and you're now wondering what that means for you, that's a good question to bring, and we'd rather talk it through with you in person than answer it in a paragraph. Drew De Grado serves here as our evangelist, and he'd much rather answer your questions than hurry you toward any decision. Schedule a free Bible study, find out who we are, or get in touch before you come.
When we're together:
Our address is 416 Main Street, Suite D, Honesdale, PA 18431, and the parking and the door you'll want are both behind the building.