20230304 Baptism
Act 2:38 (ESV)
38 And Peter said to them, “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.
be baptized. This Greek word lit. means "be dipped or immersed" in water.
G907 (Strong)
βαπτίζω
baptizō
bap-tid'-zo
From a derivative of G911; to make whelmed (that is, fully wet); used only (in the New Testament) of ceremonial ablution, especially (technically) of the ordinance of Christian baptism: - baptist, baptize, wash.
Thayer Definition:
1) to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge (of vessels sunk)
2) to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, to wash one’s self, bathe
3) to overwhelm
Part of Speech: verb
Peter was obeying Christ's command from Mat 28:19
Mat 28:19-20 (ESV)
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Peter was urging the people who repented and turned to the Lord Christ for salvation to identify, through the waters of baptism, with His death, burial, and resurrection.
Rom 6:3-4 (ESV)
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4 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.
for the remission of sins. This might better be translated "because of the remission of sins." Baptism does not produce forgiveness and cleansing from sin.
The reality of forgiveness precedes the rite of baptism (Act 2:41). Genuine repentance brings from God the forgiveness (remission) of sins (Eph 1:7) and, because of that, the new believer is to be baptized.
Baptism, however, is to be the ever-present act of obedience, so that it became synonymous with salvation. Thus, to say one was baptized for forgiveness was the same as saying one was saved.
1Pe 3:18-22 (ESV)
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,
20 because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
21 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,
the answer of a good conscience toward God. The word for answer has the idea of a pledge, agreeing to certain conditions of a covenant (the new covenant) with God. What saves a person plagued by sin and a guilty conscience is not some external rite, but the agreement with God to get in the ark of safety, the Lord Jesus, by faith in His death and resurrection (cf. Rom 10:9-10; Heb 9:14; Heb 10:22).
