ECT Water Baptism and Romans 9:16

[God's Truth]

Just because a person gets water baptized does not mean they are saved. There are people in the Bible who believed and were water baptized but they did not yet receive the Holy Spirit.

It is of great importance to know what water baptism is, to know what it means.

Water baptism shows that you are PROMISING GOD that you will die to the sins of the world and live to please him.

I see people who live a sinful life as always, but they claim they are saved. I don't think they realize that they were supposed to make the promise to God to die to the sins of the world and raise up to a life of pleasing Jesus.


Read what Paul says in the next two scriptures about water baptism:

Romans 6:3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

Romans 6:4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Paul is describing water baptism. The believer comes to make the pledge to God, to die to the sins of the world; so now standing in the water the believer falls back, as if dead; then, the believer goes under the water, buried; then, the believer rises up out of the water, raises up to live a new life.

Water baptism is a ceremony, symbolic of what usually has already happened in the believer.

No one has to join a church to get baptized. A person can get baptized in their pool or bathtub as they did in the New Testament times.

 

[God's Truth]

People who were water baptized by John still had to receive the Holy Spirit after hearing and believing the gospel.

There were people who were water baptized in the name of Jesus but didn’t receive the Holy Spirit until after prayers.


Acts 8:12 But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Acts 2:18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.


During the New Testament times, the people heard the true gospel and then were water baptized right afterwards. That is because the apostles at that time water baptized right after a person repented and believed.

That is just the way it happened during the laying of the foundation.

We don't have apostles telling us the true gospel and convincing us with miracles and wonders and then water baptizing us.

A person might have to go through many years of their life to find the truth, since there are so many false teachings.

 

[God's Truth]

Water baptism is a symbol...

1 Peter 3:20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.

...and a pledge.


Read how Peter says Noah and his family were saved through water, and that this water (the water of baptism that Christians do) is symbolic of the baptism (of the Spirit) that now saves you.

1 Corinthians 10:1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

Paul spoke about the water in the sea and the cloud concerning the time with Moses, and Peter speaks of the time of water with Noah. The water of the Christians time is water baptism. It is literal water about something SYMBOLIC.