What is Baptism?
Baptism is an outward act of obedience and a symbol that signifies that a person has, in fact, received Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. We believe that baptism is a church’s act of affirming and portraying a believer’s union with Christ by immersing him or her in water, and a believer’s act of publicly committing him or herself to Christ and his people, thereby uniting a believer to the church and marking off him or her from the world. Acts 2:37-40 provides an example: When the people heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, they were impacted at a heart level. As a result, they were instructed to repent of their sins and then be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Jesus himself modeled submission to water baptism at the hands of John at the beginning of his public ministry (Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:19-34). In the Scriptures, baptism always follows a person’s conversion experience. Though baptism does not “save” a person, it signifies that they have been “saved” and shows their desire to be identified with Christ and affiliated with a local expression of his church.