Randy Kluth
Well-Known Member
Proposition to an unsaved brother: If you get out of bed this morning, if you drive down to church this Sunday, if you respond to the message by going up to the altar, YOU WILL BE SAVED ! I ask you, brother, which was it that saved the person--getting up in the morning, driving to church, going down to the altar, or receiving Jesus? But I just said that he got saved driving to church! And he went to church to get saved! He did it to have his sins remitted! Did, then, driving to church save him? Indirectly yes, but theologically no.Look....
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,...
....who is right?
Peter or Randy?
Baptism doesn't save anybody. Getting baptized for *an unsaved person* is an expression of wanting to *get saved!* But when somebody has already been saved, has already received Jesus, has already repented, has already accepted the Gospel, the baptism is purely symbolic of what's already happened in the heart, namely the spiritual confession. Accepting Jesus' life in place of our own is what constitutes repentance. And it is this kind of repentance, in Jesus' name, that brings Salvation.
The unsaved person, who is not yet saved, is making application for Salvation by accepting Baptism, a symbol of repentance. But the believer who has already accepted the Lord, may get baptized as part of a symbolic initiation ceremony into Christianity, making a public confession to announce the change to the world.
Peter spoke to Jews who had already been exposed to John the Baptist's baptism, which genuinely expressed repentance, but did not bring eternal life. To get saved and receive eternal life Peter suggested the Jewish People now get baptized in Jesus' name in order to receive eternal life. It was just another application for forgiveness, just as John the Baptist's baptism had been. But more, it was an application of unsaved people for baptism in Jesus' name, which *does* bring eternal life! It wasn't the baptism--it was doing it in Jesus' name that made the repentance able to achieve eternal life.
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