1. “Those then who received his word were baptized” (Acts 2:41).
When a person believes in the Lord, he should be baptized immediately without waiting. On the day of Pentecost three thousand people received Peter’s word, believed in the Lord, and were baptized. It was not like today when people believe in the Lord and wait many days before being baptized. Waiting is not according to the Bible, and it quenches the work of the Holy Spirit. There is no passage in the Bible which says that a person waited a long time between believing in the Lord and being baptized. The Bible indicates that when people believed in the Lord, they were immediately baptized. The acts of believing and being baptized should be close together; they should not be separated by a long period of time. When a person is moved by the Holy Spirit to believe, he should immediately be baptized; this will enable the Holy Spirit to work more strongly and more thoroughly in him. If he is not baptized immediately after believing and continues to wait, his heart will become heavy, and the Holy Spirit will be hindered from doing a strong, thorough work in him. Many believe, but they are not living or strong because they did not take advantage of the time immediately after believing, when their hearts were on fire, to be baptized. When a blacksmith pounds on metal to make scissors, he must heat the metal to the right temperature, beat it just the right way, and immediately plunge it into cold water to make the cutting edge sharp. If the metal cools after it is heated and is not pounded properly when it is hot, the cutting edge will be very dull when it is plunged into cold water. Many brothers and sisters do not have a strong salvation because they were not plunged into the cold water of baptism when their faith was burning hot. When someone believes in the Lord, he will suffer loss if he is not baptized immediately.
We have seen in the preceding sections that baptism is a procedural step for people to receive the Lord’s salvation, through which people are put into the Lord and His death, and through which they are buried and resurrected together with Him. In a normal situation, the beginning step in receiving the Lord’s salvation is to believe, and the completing step is to be baptized. Today, however, things are totally differently. Some wait for people to become completely clear about matters related to salvation before baptizing them. A wedding ceremony is the final step in a marriage procedure, but the experience of some related to baptism can be likened to people living as a married couple and then having a wedding ceremony much later to represent their act of being married. It is no wonder that among us some say that baptism is only a representation of our death, burial, and resurrection together with the Lord. To be baptized is to be put into the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection; it does not represent our death, burial, and resurrection with the Lord. When a person believes and is immediately baptized, his baptism puts him into the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection. If he waits a long time after believing before being baptized, his baptism will become merely a representation of his death, burial, and resurrection together with the Lord.
2. “When they believed...they were baptized” (Acts 8:12).
The Samaritans who heard the gospel from Philip believed and were baptized immediately. This is always the pattern in the Bible.
3. “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he ordered the chariot to stand still, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch” (Acts 8:37-38).
The Ethiopian eunuch believed in the Lord as he was traveling on a road. Even though it was not convenient to be baptized, he was still baptized immediately after believing.
4. “He took them with him in that very hour of the night and washed their wounds. And he was baptized immediately, he and all his household” (Acts 16:33).
The Philippian jailer and his household believed in the Lord in the middle of the night and were immediately baptized in that very hour. If we were responsible for the arrangements, we would have many reasons for waiting to baptize them, including: (1) They were Gentiles who had never known God or heard His word. Since they had heard His word only once, how could they be baptized immediately? They should wait to be baptized until they understood more of the word. (2) When they heard the Lord’s word and believed, it was the middle of the night. To be baptized in the middle of the night is extremely inconvenient, so they should at least wait for daylight. (3) Paul and Silas had been beaten with rods and were covered with wounds. How could it be convenient for them to baptize anyone? They should wait at least for their wounds to heal before baptizing anyone. We would consider any of these reasons to be sufficient to make us wait. However, they did not consider even one of them, and they did not wait. Even though Paul and Silas were covered with wounds from being beaten and it was the middle of the night, they did not hesitate to baptize the jailer and his household once they had heard the gospel and believed. Paul and Silas did not hold back from baptizing the people at that very hour because they were covered with wounds or because it was too late at night, and they did not ask the people to wait for baptism because they did not understand more doctrines. They knew that understanding more of the Lord’s Word comes after baptism, not before. Their practice was according to the Lord’s command to preach the gospel and to baptize the ones who believed, and then to teach them the Lord’s Word (Matt. 28:19-20). The gospel causes people to receive spiritual life, baptism brings people into the reality of their spiritual birth, and Bible teaching enables people who have received a spiritual birth to obtain spiritual nourishment and education. Nourishment and education come after our spiritual birth, so it is something that we receive after baptism. Some, however, require people to understand many doctrines before they can be baptized. This is like trying to educate a person before he is born. It is no wonder that the practice of baptism does not bring people into the reality of their spiritual birth but is only a representation of spiritual birth after it has occurred. Instead of entering into the reality of our spiritual birth through baptism, many are born spiritually and then only later represent this reality through baptism. The way that baptism often is practiced today does not benefit a person’s spiritual life in the way that an immediate baptism would. This causes many to suffer loss; it is improper and unnecessary.
We think that people must hear and understand much of God’s Word in order to be saved; actually, people are saved when they have spiritual contact with the Lord in their spirit. The gospel that we preach should open the way for people to have a living touch with the Lord. As long as a person has a living contact with the Lord through our gospel preaching, he can be baptized immediately without the need to understand many doctrines.
5. “Why do you delay? Rise up and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on His name” (Acts 22:16).
Ananias spoke these words to Saul, who had been enlightened by the Lord and had believed in Him on the road to Damascus. Saul had only believed in the Lord for three days without being baptized (9:9), but the Holy Spirit rebuked him for delaying. Today, if a person is baptized only three days after believing, we might rebuke him for being too quick. But should we follow the will of the Holy Spirit or follow our own opinion? The Holy Spirit considers it a delay for someone to wait for three days in order to be baptized. Since the Lord wants people to be baptized immediately after believing, there should not be even one moment’s delay. Thus, we should recover the matter of baptism so that the water of baptism always comes after the gospel message. As soon as people receive the gospel, they should immediately go into the water to be baptized. This is according to the Lord’s will and the pattern of the Bible, and it results in great spiritual benefit. However, it requires faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. It requires us to preach the gospel in power, and it requires us to baptize people in faith. If we lack these two things, we are only imitating the black and white letters of the Bible and do not have the spiritual reality.
1. “As they were going along the road, they came upon some water, and the eunuch said, Look, water. What prevents me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36).
The Ethiopian eunuch was baptized as soon as he and Philip came upon some water beside the road. This shows that baptism is not tied to any place; the only thing necessary is water. When I first believed in the Lord, a pastor told me that if we had to imitate the Lord Jesus by going down into the water to be baptized, then we should imitate Him by being baptized in the Jordan River. But this is not the only pattern in the Bible; any place with water is good for baptism.
2. “John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people came and were baptized” (John 3:23).
John was baptizing in Aenon near Salim because there was much water there. This indicates several things, including: (1) There should be much water in a place for baptism. Any place that has enough water to submerge people is good for baptism. (2) When John baptized people, he must have put them into the water, so there was a need for a place with much water. If baptism is only a ritual sprinkling or a ritual dripping, he would have needed only a little water. It would not have mattered how much water was in a particular place. Any place would have been fine. In order to submerge people in water, however, he needed a place with much water.
1. “He said, Into what then were you baptized? And they said, Into John’s baptism. And Paul said, John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people that they should believe into the One coming after him, that is, into Jesus. And when they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 19:3-5).
This passage speaks of the disciples in Ephesus, who were baptized with John’s baptism of repentance and did not know that John led people to believe in the Lord Jesus. They also did not know that once the Lord Jesus came to minister, John’s baptism of repentance had ceased and that people should be baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When they learned this, they immediately corrected the problem and were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Thus, according to the pattern recorded in the Bible, if a person is not baptized properly, his baptism can be corrected. In those days the baptism of repentance had ceased and was inadequate, so anyone baptized in that way needed a correction. Today there are rituals of sprinkling, dripping, infant baptism, baptism before one properly believes, and baptism before one has contacted the Lord in spirit. All of these are improper, and anyone baptized in such a way should correct it. When it is corrected, it should be carried out by faith in order to receive all the spiritual realities of baptism.