Baptism is an outward symbol of a Christian’s lifelong devotion to God and following His word. With the help of someone else, a person is first safely lowered backward underwater, symbolizing giving up their own ways, or will, to follow God’s ways, or His will. The person is then immediately lifted back up out of the water, symbolizing their new life of serving God from that point on.

When Christians study God’s word, they may feel like God is calling or inviting them to take a serious step – to give up sin, follow His word the best they can, copy the life of His son Jesus, and live a righteous life devoted to serving God.

When Christians decide to answer God’s invitation to serve Him, they are baptized to outwardly show that they have made this serious and important decision in their heart. It should not be done just because others expect them to do it or tell them to do it. It’s a personal decision that should be made after a lot of thought and prayer.

When he was 30 years old, Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan by his cousin, John the Baptist. Jesus’ baptism symbolized that he was ready and willing to follow His father’s will forever.

So, what is baptism? It’s an outward symbol showing a life-changing decision to no longer follow our own wills, but to try to follow God’s will for the rest of our lives.

If Jesus didn’t need to be baptized for repentance or remission of sins and was already begotten of the holy spirit, why was he baptized?

It is true that Jesus was a perfect sinless man who was not in need of John’s baptism, which was for repentance of sins. John’s baptism was done in order to bring Jews who recognized their own sinfulness into a proper heart attitude to receive their Messiah.

Why, then, was Jesus baptized? Jesus was baptized for a completely different reason. His baptism was a baptism into death in the sense that he gave up his own will in order to do his father’s will in every aspect of his life, even unto actual death.

Jesus gave up his opportunity to live forever as a perfect man and chose to sacrifice his will and be wrongfully put to death in order to pay the ransom price that would redeem Adam and the entire human race from sin and death. His reward for this sacrifice was immortality in heaven.

Although Jesus was God’s first and only direct creation (Colossians 1:15) and was a co-creator with his Father in heaven prior to his walk on earth (Colossians 1:16-17), he was not immortal. He needed to be mortal in order to actually die on the cross.

“For just as through the disobedience of the one man (Adam) the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man (Jesus) the many will be made righteous.” Romans 5:19

Jesus made the decision to sacrifice his will as well as his perfect human life prior to his immersion by John. The immersion was a symbol of that decision. God’s manifestation of his acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice waited until after Jesus had performed the symbol. It was after Jesus came up out of the water (representing death of his human life and begettal of a new spiritual life) that God gave Jesus an outward sign of his holy spirit descending upon him in the form of a dove. “And a voice from heaven said,

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’” Matthew 3:17

We believe that when Christians decide to give their hearts to the Lord they make a covenant of sacrifice of self-will just as Jesus did at Jordan. Their total immersion (baptism) is an outward manifestation of a life decision already made to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and crucify self-will.

“I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” Psalm 40:8

There is only one baptism for a disciple of Christ. That baptism is to be “baptized in Christ,” into his death.

How does this work? By what authority do we do this? It is done by the authority that Jesus gave when he ascended up to heaven: Matthew 28:18-20: “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the son and the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Jesus’ instruction was to baptize in the name of the Father, son and the holy spirit. This instruction is the “how” of the matter. We are told elsewhere that we are baptized into Christ, and this comes by the authority of Jesus’ instructions.

The conclusion here is that the authority of the Father, the son and the holy spirit give us the unique opportunity to be baptized into Christ, into being a part of his body. The “what” of the matter is explained in Romans 6: Romans 6:1-11 (NASB) “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?“

We are baptized to be a part of Jesus, a member of his (figurative) body and part of his self-sacrifice.

“Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.“

How do we walk in newness of life? It is only by the power of the holy spirit, which God chooses to give to those whom He has called to follow Jesus.

“For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life that he lives, He lives to God.”

The “name” of Jesus is here further shown to us. It is he who died to cancel the power of death.

“Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Alive – by the holy spirit, and alive to God the Father and to Jesus His son.

Is Acts 2:38 a contraction? “Peter said to them, Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy spirit.” No, it is not a contradiction because it was an instruction by the Apostle Peter at Pentecost. He is simply telling those who were compelled to follow Jesus to be baptized in Jesus’ name in contrast to the baptism of John the Baptist, which would have been the only baptism they knew about.