Why Baptism?

What actually makes someone a Christian?

That might seem like an easy question. A Christian is someone who believes in Jesus, right? Someone who follows Christ? Someone who belongs to Him?

But once you start looking around at Christianity today, the question gets a little more complicated. People can all call themselves Christians while having very different ideas about how someone actually becomes one.

So instead of starting with what different churches teach, let's go back to the beginning.

In Acts 11:26, we're told that “the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” The verses leading up to that statement are interesting. These people heard Jesus preached, believed, turned to the Lord, remained faithful to the Lord, and were “added to the Lord.”

That last phrase is worth thinking about. If being a Christian means belonging to Christ, how do we become His?

Let's Go Back to Pentecost

Acts 2 gives us one of the clearest examples.

Peter stands before a crowd in Jerusalem and tells them about Jesus. He explains that the One they crucified was the Christ, that God raised Him from the dead, and that He now reigns as Lord.

The people believe him. In fact, they're so convicted by what they've heard that they interrupt with a question: “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter answers:

“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins…” — Acts 2:38

About 3,000 people respond and are baptized. They are added to the disciples, and later we're told that the Lord continued adding those who were being saved.

So baptism is clearly part of what happened. But I think we sometimes move too quickly at this point. We tell people they need to be baptized, show them a few verses about baptism, and move on.

Maybe there's another question we should answer first: Why baptism?

Why did God choose this particular act? Why immersion? Why does it happen at the beginning of the Christian life?

Romans 6 helps everything start to click.

Start With the Problem, Not Baptism

Before we even talk about baptism, think about the problem Jesus came to solve.

Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned,” and Romans 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” That's the problem at the center of the Gospel. We are the sinners, which means we are the ones who deserve the consequence.

But then Jesus enters the story.

Jesus didn't have sin of His own. He didn't deserve death. Yet Romans 5:8 says that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He dies the death we deserved.

It's tempting to stop there and think, Jesus died for me, so He died and I don't have to. But Romans 6 shows us that something deeper is happening.

Paul talks about Christians as people who have “died to sin.” He says our old self was “crucified with Him,” and that we have been “united with Him” in His death.

Then he says:

“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” — Romans 6:8

That's worth slowing down for.

We all want to live with Christ. We want forgiveness, resurrection, eternal life, and heaven. But Paul connects that life with something that comes first: we have to die with Him.

Jesus died so that we could live, but Romans 6 describes salvation as more than simply watching what Jesus did from a distance. We are united with Him in His death.

That leads naturally to the next question: How do I die with Christ?

Now Baptism Makes Sense

Romans 6:3 gives Paul's answer:

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

This is where baptism begins to make much more sense.

We didn't start with baptism and try to find a way to make it important. We started with Jesus. His death is essential because our sin produced death. Paul says that those who die with Christ will live with Christ. Then, when we ask how we are united with that death, he points us to baptism.

That means baptism isn't some random requirement God attached to salvation. It is tied directly to what Jesus did on the cross.

The picture becomes even clearer in the next verse when Paul says, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death.”

Why describe baptism as a burial? Because something has died. The old person—the person enslaved to sin—is being put to death with Christ.

Thankfully, burial isn't where the Gospel ends. Paul continues by saying that just as Christ was raised from the dead, “we too might walk in newness of life.”

The connection is beautiful. Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. In baptism, we die to sin, are buried with Him, and rise to walk in a new life. Paul describes the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 around the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and Romans 6 shows how we participate in that Gospel.

That's why baptism matters. It is connected directly to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

This Isn't Just Romans 6

Once that connection becomes clear, several other New Testament passages begin fitting together.

Galatians 3:27 says that those who have been “baptized into Christ” have “put on Christ.” Peter writes that “baptism… now saves you,” while immediately clarifying that he isn't talking about physically washing dirt from the body, but an appeal to God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21). Ananias tells Saul, “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16).

Then look at the examples throughout Acts. The 3,000 at Pentecost are baptized. The Ethiopian eunuch is baptized. Saul is baptized. Cornelius and his household are baptized. Lydia is baptized. The Philippian jailer is baptized.

And something interesting keeps happening: when people understand and accept the Gospel, baptism follows immediately.

Why the urgency?

Romans 6 helps explain it. Baptism wasn't treated as an optional ceremony to schedule sometime later. It was part of their response to the Gospel because it was connected with entering Christ and sharing in His death.

More Than Getting Wet

Sometimes baptism is described by some as “an outward sign of an inward faith.” Certainly, baptism without faith accomplishes nothing. If someone doesn't believe in Jesus and is simply lowered into water, they just got wet.

But the language of the New Testament goes further than describing baptism as an outward symbol of something that already happened.

Romans 6 says we are baptized into Christ and into His death. It says we are buried with Him through baptism and raised to walk in newness of life. Galatians says we are baptized into Christ and put on Christ. Acts 22 connects baptism with washing away sins while calling on the Lord.

And once you see baptism in that light, the question of why it matters becomes much easier to understand. Without baptism, we are not truly added to Christ. Our faith is meaningless without baptism.