Embassy of the Kingdom
Embassy of the Kingdom
Short answer: baptism does not save you — and yes, Jesus still told you to do it. Here is why both of those are true, and what to do next.
People usually arrive at this question from one of two fears: “Am I still lost if I have not been baptized?” or “Was my baby baptism enough?” Both deserve a straight answer instead of a shrug.
You are not saved by water. You are saved by trusting Jesus. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). The clearest proof is the criminal dying next to Jesus. He had no time, no church, no water — only faith — and Jesus told him, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
And yet Jesus, in His last instructions before leaving, said: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). He did not make it optional. So baptism is not the door into salvation — it is the first step you take once you are already through the door.
In the New Testament nobody was baptized quietly to keep it to themselves. It was how a person said out loud, in front of witnesses, that their old life was over and they now belong to Jesus. That is why it usually costs something socially — and why it settles something inside.
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead… even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Going under the water pictures the burial of the person you used to be. Coming up pictures the life God gave you. The water does not perform it; it announces it.
The order never changes: someone hears, someone believes, then someone is baptized. “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized” (Acts 2:41). That order is the whole answer to the infant-baptism question, and we deal with it honestly below.
An Ethiopian official read one chapter of Isaiah, believed, saw water by the road and said, “See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?” (Acts 8:36). A jailer in Philippi was baptized the same night he believed, hours after an earthquake (Acts 16:33). Nobody was told to wait until they had their life in order.
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”Romans 6:4
This is the question we are asked most, and it is usually asked carefully — because it touches parents, grandparents and a family church. So we will not be careless with it.
Your parents brought you and asked God to keep you. That was love, and it was not nothing. But every single baptism recorded in the New Testament follows a person's own decision to believe — and a baby cannot make that decision. That is not an insult to your family; it is simply a thing only you can do, and only now that you are old enough to do it.
So most believers in your situation choose to be baptized as believers — not to cancel what was done for them, but to answer for themselves. If you have never personally trusted Jesus, start there; the water can wait a week, that decision should not.
No. The Bible says salvation comes by grace through faith in Jesus, not by anything we do: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). The thief on the cross was never baptized, and Jesus told him, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Baptism is the first act of obedience after you are saved, not the price of being saved.
Every baptism in the New Testament follows a personal decision to believe: “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized” (Acts 2:41). An infant cannot make that decision. Most believers who were christened as babies choose to be baptized as believers once they have personally trusted Jesus — not to cancel what their parents did in good faith, but to answer for themselves. It is your decision to make before God, not something anyone should pressure you into.
Baptism is not a promise that you will never fail again. It is a public statement about who you now belong to. Peter was baptized and still failed badly — and was still restored. If you are waiting to be good enough first, you will wait forever; that was never the condition.
No. In the Bible people were baptized in rivers, in a roadside pool of water, and in a house in the middle of the night (Acts 8:36-38, Acts 16:33). What matters is water, a believer, and other believers there to witness it — not a building.
Write to us. If you are near Miami we will arrange it with you; if you are somewhere else we will help you find a healthy church near you that will baptize you. There is no fee, and there never will be.