(Editors’ note: This article is an excerpt from Tony Wolfe’s new book: Baptism: A Solemn and Beautiful Emblem of Our Faith).
God is holy, just, perfect, righteous, and true. Every one of us is broken and scarred by sin. And yet, out of his great love for us, at just the right moment, God took on human flesh and stepped into history through the womb of a human virgin. Jesus Christ lived the perfect, sinless life none of us could live. He died the tragic death on the cross of Calvary that we all deserve, taking upon himself the price for our sin that none of us can pay. His friends pulled his lifeless body from the tree and buried it in a borrowed tomb. Jesus took the eternal consequences of our sin to the depths of the grave. But on the third day, just as the Scriptures had predicted, Jesus rose from the dead to seal victory over sin, death, and hell for all who would turn away from their sin, believe in Jesus Christ, and call on him for salvation.
This is the pure, uncomplicated gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible. It is the pronouncement of “good news” to a world that is broken and scarred under the curse of sin. In Christ, God has acted in time and space to change the course of eternity for humankind. This is the “good news” because there is no other news. It is the most compelling story in human history because it is the story of human history. It must be proclaimed to the ends of the earth, and it must be believed and confessed by all who would be saved. As Paul unambiguously proclaimed, the gospel alone is the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). “I have come into the world for this,” Christ told the despotic prefect, to testify to the truth” (Jn. 18:37). What else is there to say?
How does one receive such undeserved grace which saves from sin, frees from guilt and shame, and secures eternity in heaven? Through faith and repentance. “Anyone who believes in him is not condemned” (Jn. 3:18). “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. … For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:9–13). Repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ is the only salvific formula.
According to the 1689 London Baptist Confession:
“This saving repentance is an evangelical grace, whereby a person, being by the Holy Spirit made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin, doth, by Faith in Christ, humble himself for it, with godly sorrow … praying for pardon, and strength of grace, with a purpose and endeavor by supplies of the Spirit, to walk before God unto all well pleasing in all things.”1
This is the historic, enduring Baptist position on salvation. To be saved from sin is to repent, believe in Jesus Christ, and call on him. Baptists have a long history of being a people of the Book.” We have boldly taken our stand upon the Bible when others have added to, taken from, or confused its clear truth. But we are imperfect people. At times, and in many congregations, we have also added to or complicated the clear teaching of the Bible. Some well-meaning Baptists may argue even today that to walk an aisle or to be baptized is a necessary condition for salvation. Both the former and the latter are unbiblical and un-Baptist.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is sometimes complicated by traditional phrases or practices. But wherever the gospel is complicated, it is also diluted. The pure, simple gospel of Jesus Christ loses its wonder in both theological obscurity and orthopraxical complexity.
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). “But to the one who … believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). Salvation has never been more complicated than repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ, and it never will be.
It must be said at the outset that baptism does not save anyone. In many ways, the Baptist movement began in the early seventeenth century as a bold opposition to the Catholic and Anglican denominations which taught that infant baptism was a necessary sacrament for the cleansing of original sin and a covenantal promise of faith from the parents applied to their children (more on this later). A few generations later, in its disposition onthe Gorham Case of 1849, the Church of England committed itself to an official doctrine of baptismal regeneration unconditionally applied to baptized infants and conditionally (though ambiguously) applied to baptized adults.
In response, Baptist pastor and famed “Prince of Preachers” Charles Spurgeon articulated the clear and unapologetic Baptist position:
“He may have baptism, or he may not have baptism; but if he believeth not, he shall be in any case most surely damned. Let him be baptized by immersion or sprinkling, in his infancy or his adult age: if he be not led to put his trust in Jesus Christ—if he remaineth an unbeliever—then this terrible doom is pronounced upon him, “He that believeth not shall be damned.” … Away from all the tag-rags, wax candles, and millinery of Puseyism! Away from all the gorgeous pomp of Popery! Away from the fonts of Church-of-Englandism! We bid you turn your eyes to that naked cross, where hangs as a bleeding man the Son of God … There is life in a look at the Crucified; there is life in this moment for you. Whoever among you can believe in the great love of God towards man in Christ Jesus, you shall be saved … What connection has this baptism with faith? I think it has just this, baptism is the avowal of faith.”2
Jesus Christ’s commission to the church was that we would, generation by generation, under the all-encompassing authority of our spiritual Head, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19–20). Baptism is commanded in the Great Commission. Both the mode and the verbal formula of baptism are included. The Greek word baptizo literally means to dip, or to submerge in water. The trifold formula, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” carries with it the full weight of Great Commission injunction. As the book progresses, you will see how these two Great Commission elements—the form and formula of baptism—play a significant role in full obedience to the Lord’s command.
1 “Confession of Faith put forth by the Elders and Brethren of many Congregations of Christians (baptized upon Profession of their Faith) in London and the Country,” in William L. Lumpkin and Bill J. Leonard, eds., Baptist Confessions of Faith, 2nd revised ed. (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2011), 261–62.
2 Charles Spurgeon, “Baptismal Regeneration,” in Charles A. Jenkins, ed., Baptist Doctrines (St. Louis: Chancy C. Barnes, 1881), 119, 142, 145.
