By Scott Guffin
Associate Professor and Executive Director of Christian Ministry, Samford University
THE DECLARATION OF FORGIVENESS
Acts 10:44–48, 16:30–34, 19:1–5
In many places and among many peoples in the world today, the act of baptism carries with it a significance that we often do not comprehend in a North American context. For many Muslims, for example, baptism into the Christian faith opens the door for intense persecution.
There are many reasons baptism is so significant, including the fact that it is a powerful external display of the miraculous internal transformation that God has accomplished in us.
Baptism is an outward demonstration of God’s forgiveness. (10:44–48)
Acts 10 tells the story of God’s mandate for Peter to carry the gospel to the Gentiles. Following God’s leadership, Peter makes his way to the home of a centurion in Caesarea named Cornelius, where he shares the message of Christ with a group of Cornelius’ relatives and close friends. Peter concludes by proclaiming that “everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins”
(v. 43).
Baptism serves as a beautiful enactment of God’s provision for us in Jesus. As a symbolic display of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, baptism reminds us that “you were buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses … He made you alive with Him and forgave us all our trespasses” (Col. 2:12–13).
Baptism has an impact on others around us. (16:30–34)
Another powerful story of the baptism of new believers is found in Acts 16, where Paul and Silas have had their prison doors miraculously shaken open and their chains loosed. They reassure their jailer and prevent him from harming himself before he asks, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Paul’s answer is brief and to the point: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved — you and your household.” Shortly afterward, the jailer and the members of his household are all baptized after placing their faith in Christ. The jailer rejoices.
While there is no biblical requirement for baptism to be done in the context of community — see the Ethiopian eunuch’s roadside baptism in Acts 8 — there is an encouraging and testimonial aspect to communal baptism.
Imagine the overwhelming joy in the jailer’s home as the household collectively expressed their newfound faith through the act of baptism!
When shared with others — particularly within the context of the local church — baptism is both a testimony of the gospel to those who do not know Christ and an encouraging reminder of God’s work to those who do.
Baptism must be centered in Christ. (19:1–5)
The opening verses of Acts 19 tell the story of Paul’s encounter with some believers in Ephesus who had only been baptized “into John’s baptism,” which Paul characterizes as one of repentance but not of Jesus.
These disciples are informed about all believers receiving the Holy Spirit and are baptized “into the name of the Lord Jesus.” (See Rom. 8:9–11.)
Because this group is characterized as “disciples” who already “believed,” we are reminded that our baptism does not precede our faith but rather is an announcement of our faith to the rest of the world.
As we declare through baptism God’s forgiveness through the atoning death of Jesus on our behalf, let us also proclaim God’s truth through our words and our walk. (See Rom. 6:4.)
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