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In order to understand why we don't
have to be baptized to be saved, we have
to understand baptism, what it is, and
why it is administered. And we
need to have a good understanding of
what salvation is.
The idea that baptism is
necessary for salvation came from the
teachings of Augustine in the 4th
century AD. Basically, Augustine
taught that before a person could be
saved, that person had to repent of his
or her sins and concede to the authority
of and sovereignty of God. In the
case of the Catholic Institution, they
are God's representative on earth, and
therefore to be saved you must concede
to the authority of the church. Baptism
(in the Catholic Institution) is a means
to "prove" your concession, it
is an "act" of repentance or a
turning away from your previous way of
life, and a profession of your intention
to obey the Catholic Institution.
It becomes evident that
the issue of baptism is not the only
issue that is misaligned as being
synonymous with salvation. Repentance is
also being inappropriately equated with
salvation, and baptism has been
misconstrued to be an act of repentance
before salvation.
To get a good idea of
what salvation is, I think it would a
good idea to consult the teachings of
Jesus on the matter. Matthew 18 we
see Jesus teaching on the Kingdom of
Heaven. He said it was likened unto a
certain king who would take account of
his servants. This is what God
does with our us, He takes account of
us, and what we owe (as far as our sin
debt is concerned).
When confronted with an
outrageous debt (Ten thousand talents),
one of the servants in the parable tried
to repent in verse 26. You'll find
that the servant asked for patience to
pay back the whole debt. Isn't
that what "repentance of sin"
is? Isn't repentance in this
situation a type of work to regain right
standing with the one to whom the
servant was indebted? That is what
we do when we try to "repent"
of our sin debt to God by vowing to do
right and obey His commands. The only
problem is, the debt is too great to pay
back. Matthew 18:27 tells us that
the the lord in that same parable, when
he heard the pleading of the servant to
allow him to pay back the debt, had
compassion on his servant. I would
like to ask you why would he have
compassion on his servant? Was it
because that servant had a good heart
and wanted to pay back the master and
that was good enough? No! the
passage does not say that the lord was
"pleased" with his repentance,
the passage says that his lord had
"compassion" on him.
Let's consider the
situation that this servant was in.
He was a simple servant that owed a huge
amount of money (ten thousand talents is
equivalent to about one million dollars
in our terms). Not only could that
servant have never been able to pay back
that amount of money… in fact, that
simple servant could not have even been
able to comprehend how much money ten
thousand talents were. His lord
had compassion on him because he
understood that this servant, could have
never paid back all that he owed, and he
understood that this servant, by his
intention to pay it back, didn't
understand how much he owed. So the lord
just forgave the debt. The servant
left there not owing anything at all.
The parable we just
looked at was a perfect illustration of
salvation. We owe such a huge sin debt
to God that we could never pay it back.
God knew this, and looking down on man,
seeing man trying to appease God by
works was proof to God by man's actions
that we had no idea how much we owed. So
God sent the payment on our behalf, that
payment was Jesus.
Rom 3:27 Where [is] boasting then?
It is excluded. By what law? of works?
Nay: but by the law of faith.
Of course, so far we
have only discussed one aspect of
repentance. To be biblically correct,
repentance toward salvation can only
mean that one rejects his or her
previous ideas about salvation and trust
God's plan for salvation by grace.
Repentance of sin, which
again is commonly alluded to as
equivalent to salvation is actually only
expected to occur AFTER salvation. True
repentance is granted by God, not
mustered up on our own. True repentance
is the result of the Holy Spirit working
in a person's life and in their
conscience to change that person to
become more Christ like.
For further reading on
the subject of baptism I would like to
compel you to read a couple of articles
I have written on the subject. A
Repudiation of Infant Baptism has a
lot of teaching on baptism, what baptism
is and why it is administered, you can
also read these two Q and A articles on
repentance and forgiveness; repent
or perish, and repent-forgiven.
Also I have written a
book that deals with the issue of
Baptism in much more depth; where the
false teaching of baptismal regeneration
came from, and misinterpretations of
scripture all the way back to Genesis.
You can find the book here - The
Theocracy Conspiracy.
John Hardin
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