Does Your Baptism Matter? Challenge Your Faith and Reflect on Its Continued Significance
When were you baptized? Do you remember it? Are there pictures or a recording of it? When is the last time you thought about your baptism? Have your parents ever told you of your baptism? How meaningful is your baptism to you?
Clarifying the Focus
Let's be clear here. This article is about Christian living and not a debate between credobaptist (baptism upon confession) or paedobaptist (covenant infant baptism). You can find good debate on that topic elsewhere. But this article is a challenge to you, the reader. So please keep reading.
A Personal Anecdote
To be honest, when I was growing up in a Baptist church, I wanted to play in the pool. Only baptized kids were allowed to play in the pool. So, seven-year-old Bryan took the plunge. But my baptism wasn't meaningful to me at the time.
Years later, when the Lord regenerated my heart, I looked back with shame over those squandered years. See, baptism, whether you are credobaptist or paedobaptist, is at least an initiation. Both sides of the paedo/credo baptist argument recognize that baptism is: a sign of our being engrafted into Christ, or being born again, of the remission of sins, and of giving up unto God through Jesus Christ to walk in newness of life. (Refer to the 1689 London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession of Faith and see the similarities.)
Baptism: The Beginning, Not the End
Here's the rub. Baptism isn't the end of the story, though. Our baptism is a sign and a seal, but it is not the end goal. Our baptism signifies the beginning of the work of the Holy Spirit, not the end of it.
You might say, "Of course Bryan, everyone knows that." And you would be right to call be captain obvious. But what may be theologically true does not always seem to make an impact on the soul and thus life.
Forgotten Baptisms and Their Significance
The world is full of adults who professed faith, underwent the waters of baptism upon that profession, only to have the memory of their baptism fade into the recesses of their minds.
The world is also full of adults who were raised by Christian parents, were presented for baptism, were washed in the water, and yet their baptism isn't even a memory. They have forgotten the sign and the seal of who they were to be.
So, is baptism of any use?
Yes!
There are two uses of baptism. Just as God's word does not return void, neither do His sacraments. Every time we partake of the Lord's supper, there is a potential danger, even of death! So too with baptism.
Baptism is a mark. Both the adult who was baptized upon profession of faith and the child who was baptized will be held to account for their faith or lack thereof. It will either be a sign of the inward seal of the Holy Spirit's work in their heart or a mark of the hardness of one's heart.
Self-Examination Questions
Does your baptism mean anything to you?
Do you treat your confession of faith or baptism as a get-out-of-hell-free card? Is your baptism just fire insurance?
Or, in light of your baptism:
- Are you improving in your walk with Christ?
- Are you walking in the light?
- Are you dying more and more to sin?
- Are you thankful for the privilege of being called a child of God?
- Are you soaking in the benefits of having the Spirit of adoption in your heart?
- Are you humbled by how sin has and continues to defile you?
- Are you confessing your sins and being washed in the blood of Jesus?
- Are you growing your assurance of God's pardoning of your sins?
- Are you drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ?
- Are you seasoning your conversations with holiness and grace?
- Are you walking in brotherly love?
