Expert: Mr. McClellan - 1/11/2005

Question
HI,
I am a life long Christian who was Baptized as an infant in the Lutheran Church, then confirmed at 13 after two years of intense study of the Bible.  I now go to Calvary Chapel Huntington Beach, the believe in adult Baptism only.  A couple of years ago they were pushing me to get Basptized as an adult.  I said no, as a result of their request I delved into a study of Baptism for several months.  I determined and my pastors agreede that the Bible does not say one way or the other that infant Baptism is wrong.  I also remember reading somewhere that the Bible said you are to only be Baptized once.  If you fall from grace you pull yourself up with your bootstrings.  I was wondering if you could help me in this area buy giving me Biblical scriptures that clarify this topic more.  For example scriptures that show how often you shoud be Baptized would be greatly appreciated.
God Bless,
Don Crosby Jr.


Answer
Hello Don, I'll be glad to help you with this question.
There are a number of things that contribute to the reason that this is a topic of some contraversy for many people and why most people, including most scholars, are totally in error about it. However, I will not try to explain all those reasons in depth at this point. Let it sufice to say that a great deal of prejudice, poor scholarship, pride, ignorance, and outright idolatry by religious leaders and authority figures are major factors in why there is any question at all concerning baptism.
Let me start out by being saying that the term "faith" and the way it is misused by virtually everyone these days is one of the primary problems. If you consult the English dictionary, which defines words as they are popularly used, you will discover that its definition is essentially the same as that of the words "prejudice," and "credulity." All of these terms are said to be beliefs that are not based on evidence to show that they are true or factual. This, however, is not the way the writers of the Bible used it when indicating "faith that saves," or that is acceptable to God. Faith, according to the Bible, has to be based on solid proof of the reality or authority of what is believed. That was the primary purpose of the miracles described throughout the Bible. It, for example, was the reason that God had Moses perform miracles in the presence of Pharoah and the Isralite people. In the case of Pharoah, Pharoah's rejection of them made it possible for God to justly condemn him for his unbelief. Jesus said, concerning the Jews, that if he had not done the miracles among them that he did that they would not have been considered sinners. You see, in order for God to justly charge a person with sin, he has to provide a way for people to know, with absolute certainty, that he exists and that those who claim to be presenting God's will actually are. When asked by the Isralites how they could recognize a true representative of God and a false teacher, or prophet, Moses said that anyone that claimed to have a message from God concerning events that were supposed to take place in the future could never be mistaken. See Deut 18:21-22 for example. In other words, a true prophet, or teacher of God cannot be mistaken about future events because God does not make mistakes and God is the only one that can accurately and consistently tell what the future will be.
Second, faith that pleases God has to be accompanied by actions that keep the belief from being simple hypocrisy. In other words, contrary to the popular concept of faith, you cannot legitimately claim to have faith in God if your faith consists of nothing more than mentally accepting Jesus as Lord. Jesus made it quite clear that calling him Lord without doing what he said was hypocrisy and God hates hypocrisy. This is why the "salvation by faith alone" doctrine is a lie. Do not lose me here. This involves a major misunderstanding of what Jesus and the apostle Paul said about faith and works that is being promoted by most religious groups claiming to be Christian. For example, when Paul spoke of works in the early chapters of Romans, he was speaking of things you might to in order to earn forgiveness. However, in the case of the apostle James, he was speaking about things you do because you appreciate God's offer of forgiveness. See James 2:14-26, where he is talking about how your actions are connected with what you believe, for clear statements on this concept.
Third, in order for Jesus to truly be your chosen Lord, the only one that can save you, you have to be willing to do whatever he says to do even if you don't always understand why he wants you to do it or how it is gong to get the promised results. Lets look at an Old Testament example of how this works. For the sake of convenience, I am going to copy a section of scripture for you to read here.

2Ki 5:1  Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the LORD had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. 2  Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. 3  She said to her mistress, "Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." 4  So Naaman went in and told his lord, "Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel." 5  And the king of Syria said, "Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel." So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothes. 6  And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, "When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy." 7  And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me." 8  But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, "Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel." 9  So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. 10  And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean." 11  But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, "Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. 12  Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage. 13  But his servants came near and said to him, "My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, 'Wash, and be clean'?" 14  So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. 15  Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, "Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant."

Notice that at first, Naaman was very skeptical and could not understand how dipping, or bathing, in the muddy Jordan River could cure his leprosy. Was God not able to simple command his leprosy to be gone? Of course God could have done that just as Jesus did various simple things in curing people with diseases and other afflictions. However, Naaman was missing the point just as most people today do. It wasn't the water in the muddy Jordan that was going to cure his leprosy, it was his willing obedience to God's will that was going to bring about his cure. Baptism works just like this. It isn't the water, it's the actions of a sinner that has repented of his sins and wants nothing more than to obey the will of God out of gratitude for the opportunity to have his sins forgiven. See Acts 2, all of it.
Forth, if you carefully read the New Testament, especially the book of Acts, you will see that salvation, forgiveness of sins, is never offered to little children or infants, it is always presented to and offerd to adults because only those that are able to know and understand the will of God can be justly held accountable by God for obeying or disobeying it. Remember that Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven would be populated only by those that became like little children, innocent and sincere. James plainly said that sinners were those that knew what to do to please God but would not do it. See Romans 1:18-20 where Paul plainly says that sinners are without any legitimate excuse because God has made his will known and they are perfectly capable of doing what God has said to do. If this were not the case, God would be a cruel tyrant to punish people that cannot know, with certainty, if he exists and what his will is, and that they are perfectly capable of obeying it.
Fifth, Jesus did not command anyone to baptized before he died. That is why the thief on the cross that was crucified along with Jesus did not need to be baptized for Jesus to indicate that he was forgiven. The thief indicated his faith by his actions (or works) in admitting that Jesus was the Messiah and by asking for forgiveness. After Jesus was resurrected is when he commanded repentant sinners to be baptized, immersed in water, at which time their sins would be forgiven the same way Naaman's leprosy was cured. The salvation, or forgiveness, is not in the water, it is in one's willing obedience to God's command, doing what God says to do for the reason that God says to do it. This is how God pleasing faith behaves. Until that takes place, a sinner cannot legitimately claim Jesus as Lord no matter how sincerely they may believe otherwise. To claim Jesus as Lord and not do what he says is simple and outright hypocrisy with no saving value at all. This is exactly why Peter said that "baptism now saves us." See 1Pet 3. In fact, read all of 1st and 2nd Peter. It works the same way that Noah was saved by the waters of the flood. Noah had to show that he believed God by building tha ark and gathering the animals and then by getting on the ark himself. If he had only mentally accepted the fact that a flood was coming and had not done what God told him to do, he would have been lost along with all those people that had refused to beleive him about the judgment God was bringing on the earth. So, the same water that killed the other inhabitants of earth because of their unbelief was also the water that saved Noah and his family. Noah's faith was demonstrated by his works and it was that trust in action that saved him. That is exactly the case with baptism today and since Jesus commanded it. Those sinners that knowingly and willingly obey Jesus' command to be baptized in order to receive the forgiveness of their sins will be forgiven as promised, God is faithful to his word. But, those that refuse to be baptized, thinking that God only requires them to sincerely accept Jesus in their hearts before doing what he has commanded regarding baptism, are going to have to answer to a just God for their disobedience.
Now, there are a few other things that I could say that have a direct bearing on this topic, things about various false teachings that keep people from correctly understanding the Bible on this and other topics but I will let this be enough for now except for two more things One, the word "baptism" in the New Testament only has one meaning. It means to completely immerse, dip completely under, or completely overwhelm so that nothing is left exposed. It never means to pour water on someone or to sprinkle a few drops on them. Sprinkling or pouring water on someone and calling it baptism is an indication of pure ignorance of the language in which the New Testament was written and a clear violation of the command of Jesus and his Holy Spirit guided apostles who said that everything they said came straight from God and was confirmed true and authoritative by the miracles that they performed. Now, this is either true or they lied and you cannot trust anything that they said. Only if they lied would you be free to believe as you choose. Only if God had said nothing would you be free to do as you please. Two, notice that Peter makes it very clear that Christians, sinners that have been saved, can become lost again and be worse off than if they had never been forgiven. This is the whole reason that virtually all of the New Testament is filled with warnings about staying faithful, doing what God says for the reasons that he says to do it as revealed by Jesus and his apostles in their New Testament writings which, they say, contain all of the truth that you will ever need to know. If once you are saved you cannot be lost again, why would Jesus and his apostles issue so many warnings to those saved about falling prey to false teachers and their lies? The first three chapters of Revelation are dedicated to warning certain congregations of the church, the body of saved people, about being faithful, about repenting of their unfaithfulness in order to avoid being condemned along with the rest of the unbelieving world when Jesus returns. Such warnings as these to Christians, and found all over the New Testament, would make no sense if the saved could not become lost again. Clearly, the "once saved, always saved" doctrine is one of the many false teachings being promoted by people that ought to know better.
I hope that I have been able to help you with your questions. I know that what you have been taught in the past stands in clear contradiction of what I have presented but the reason that they do is because, unfortunately, the majority of scholars and other supposed experts are based on personal bias and simple ignorance of the scriptures.
If you have any questions at all about what I have presented here, please ask them. I am here to help and I will not mislead you. Rather, I will trust that you are a sincere seeker of the truth, the real truth, and are willing to carefully consider and study in order to discover it.

Sincerely,
Mr McClellan.