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We have forty questions in the inbox about Acts 2:38. There in the text, a
bunch of seekers have gathered. And Peter says to them, “Repent and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
Indeed, three thousand people repent and are baptized. It’s an amazing
sight! The text also appears to put water baptism prior to conversion or in
the moment of conversion. Likewise, Paul was told to “rise and be baptized
and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). Dozens of
listeners have written in to basically ask, “Are we saved after water baptism,
before water baptism, or in water baptism?”
Romans 3:28: “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”
Romans 5:1: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with
God.”
Romans 4:5: “To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the
ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”
John 3:16: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Acts 13:38–39: “Through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by
him everyone who believes is freed [justified] from everything from which you
could not be freed [justified] by the law of Moses.”
On and on and on I could go. I had a bunch of others, but I thought for
time’s sake I’ll just leave them out. Here’s my inference from those texts
and many others like them: justification — being put right with God by
union with Christ in the divine miracle of conversion and new birth — is by
faith and faith alone on our part.
God uses faith as the sole instrument of union with Christ, and thus counts
us righteous and becomes one hundred percent for us in the instant that we
have faith in Jesus. That’s my answer.
The first thing I would say is that the thief on the cross was told by Jesus
that that very day he would be with him in paradise. He was not baptized. I
know he’s a special case. I don’t think you build a theology of baptism on
the thief on the cross. But one thing it says is baptism is not an absolute
necessity, because it wasn’t in his case.
I remember taking a retreat with twelve little cubs and one big doktorvater,
Leonhard Goppelt. We were talking about baptism the whole weekend, and
this was my text that I put up. This is Colossians 2:11–12:
In him [in Christ] also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without
hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having
been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through
faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
You were buried with him and raised with him in baptism through faith.
The burial with Christ in the water and the rising with Christ out of the
water, it seems to me from that text, are not what unites you to Christ —
that is, the going under the water, the coming up out of the water. That’s
not what unites you to Christ. It is through faith that you are decisively
united to Christ.
Now we’re back to this call issue: “wash away your sins [by] calling on his
name” (Acts 22:16). So 1 Peter 3:21 says, “Baptism, which corresponds to
this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as
an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ.” In other words, it’s the call of faith from the heart, not the water.
Peter explicitly says, “not as a removal of dirt from the body.” In other
words, it’s not the actual functioning of the water that does the saving. Even
though he just said baptism saves you, what he means is that this outward
act signifies an appeal to God that’s coming from the heart. It’s that faith
that saves.
When John the Baptist or Mark calls his baptism “a baptism of repentance
for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4), it probably means a
baptism signifying repentance, which brings forgiveness. Repentance is
simply the way of describing the change of mind that gives rise to faith.
Now, that’s the way I think we should hear Peter when he says, “Repent and
be baptized every one of you, and make the train of forgiveness.” You get on
the train of forgiveness if you repent and are baptized. The repentance, the
change of mind that includes faith, gets you to the train. And baptism is
important for all kinds of reasons, but it’s not causative in the same way
that repentance is.