Baptism is from baptizo, to dip, plunge, or immerse. You can’t actually pour somebody; and you can’t actually sprinkle somebody. But you can dip them, you can plunge or immerse them.

Baptism might well be called “the disregarded command.” Most religious groups deny that baptism is essential to salvation. They will describe it as “the outward sign of an inward faith,” but one not necessary to forgiveness. In fact, Max Lucado, a popular writer among the Evangelicals, and a purported preacher for the Lord’s church in San Antonio, Texas, says, “Baptism is a response to God’s gift, not a way to earn God’s gift.” (Dallas Morning News, November 21, 1998).

Let’s take a few minutes and look at what the Bible says about this mostly ignored command. Just what does the Bible say about it?

First, read these passages and look at them in their settings:

——Baptism is by the authority of Jesus Christ.

——Those who believe and are baptized “shall be saved.”

——Baptism is commanded “for the remission of sins.”

——Saul of Tarsus is told to be baptized “and wash away thy sins.”

——Baptism is administered “that the body of sin might be destroyed.”

——Those who are baptized into Christ “have put on Christ,” are His children.

——Those baptized into Christ have been “quickened together with Him.”

——Baptism “doth also now save us.”

Now consider carefully what you have read in these passages and look at these questions:

——Can one be saved without obeying the authority of Jesus Christ?

——Does baptism have anything at all to do with being saved?

——Can one be saved without “the remission of sins”?

——What does “wash away thy sins” mean? How is it to be done?

——Can one go to heaven and still be “in the body of sin”?

——How is it that baptism is not essential and faith is?

——How is sin “cut off” and man “quickened together with Christ”?

——If you were going to receive $5,000 for a proper interpretation of this passage, would you dare deny that baptism that saves a person?

The question about the essentiality of baptism boils down to a matter of whether one is to accept the Bible for what it says or if he is going to make it say what he wants. You can’t have it both ways. Baptism either is essential to salvation or it’s not. Read the passages—each of them. Carefully. What do they say? That should settle the matter.

Nobody that I know of denies that we are saved by faith. “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (). But look closely at that passage. Does it teach that faith alone saves? Look again. It says that one must “believe that he is,” but it also says he must “diligently seek him,” doesn’t it? That means there’s more to salvation than just faith, does it not? Faith is the predicate on which repentance, confession and baptism rest and is essential to salvation, but faith alone does not save.

Nobody that I know of denies that we are saved by the grace of God. In fact, John says, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” ( when he says, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world…” Notice that grace bring salvation. How? It teaches us. That connects it to truth and truth is the gospel. Whatever the gospel says is the grace of God at work. And that gospel says, “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” That’s not “church of Christ doctrine,” it’s just what the Bible says.

It’s actually a simple matter of arithmetic. Either faith plus baptism equals salvation (F + B = S) or faith minus baptism equals salvation (F - B = S). Read the passages again.

Which is it?