In Acts 22:16, Ananias tells Paul, “And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). This statement allegedly proves that one must be baptized to receive forgiveness. However, both careful consideration of the assertion of the verse itself and study of its context demonstrate the falsity of this claim.
Since the verse associates baptism and the washing away of sins (although the verb “wash away” is actually connected to “calling on the name of the Lord,” not to “be baptized”), one must ask if baptism literally or figuratively washes sin away. If baptism literally washes sins away, then this verse would advance the cause of baptismal regeneration. However, the Bible indicates that the blood of Jesus Christ really takes sin away: “Jesus Christ . . . loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Revelation 1:5). Surely one cannot assert that the blood figuratively takes away sin, while baptism literally takes it away! But if baptism does not literally take away sin, it must take it away representatively or figuratively (cf. Matthew 26:26). To teach that baptism figuratively takes away sin by representing what really does remove it is consistent with justification by faith alone. Baptism is a figure of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:3-5) and a public testimony of the believer’s faith in that death and resurrection. One who at the moment of faith has had his sins literally removed by the blood of the Christ who died and rose again later represents, testifies, and symbolizes his salvation by baptism.[ii] Indeed, the tense of the verb “wash” in Acts 22:16 supports a figurative washing. In the Greek middle voice, it points to the idea that Paul washed his sins away himself in baptism.[iii] In contrast, Revelation 1:5, which states that “Jesus Christ . . . loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,” contains the word “washed” in the active voice.[iv] Christ really washes us from our sins in His own blood, and we consequently and representatively wash ourselves from sin in baptism. The Christian-killer Saul’s sins (cf. Acts 22:4) were literally washed away when he believed in the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus—those same sins were figuratively washed away, so that believers would no longer need to fear him (Acts 9:26), in baptism. Acts 22:16 teaches that baptism washes away sin figuratively; Christ’s blood really washes it away.
The book of Acts definitively indicates that Paul’s sins were forgiven before he was baptized as mentioned in Acts 22:16. His testimony of salvation appears three times in Acts (chapters 9, 22, 26). A comparison of these three narratives indicates that Paul was born again and justified as he traveled on the road to Damascus several days prior to his baptism. In Acts 9, the Savior told Ananias that Paul “is a chosen vessel unto me” (v. 15), although the apostle had not yet been baptized. The Lord never reveals that any unjustified or unregenerate person is “chosen” or “elect,”[v] one of the “vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory” (Romans 9:23). Before Paul was baptized, Christ had already commissioned him to “bear [His] name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15); such a commission is not God’s portion for one still lost and under Divine wrath.[vi] Before Paul’s baptism, Christ had set him aside as one who would “suffer for [His] name’s sake” (9:16). Can one who is a child of the devil, as all the lost are (Ephesians 2:1-3, John 8:44), really suffer for Christ’s sake? God accepted Paul’s prayers before his baptism (Acts 9:11).[vii] Since the prayers of the unsaved are an abomination to Him (Proverbs 15:29, 21:27, 28:9), and Paul already had access to God through the Lord Jesus, he was already justified (1 Timothy 2:5, Romans 10:12-14).[viii] Paul also received a prophetic vision before his baptism (Acts 9:12). After the Lord originally appeared to Ananias, He sent him to Paul, who had been blinded since he saw the Son of God’s glory on the Damascus road, to lay his hands on him, “that he might receive his sight” (v. 12). Christ did not tell Ananias to visit Paul in order that the apostle might have his sins forgiven—the Lord knew he was saved already—but that he might regain his vision. Ananias feared to go, for he did not know Paul was already converted; he called him “this man,” a contrast with Christ’s “saints” (v. 13). However, the Lord Jesus’ testimony about Paul’s participation in election and his commission to preach (v. 15-16) manifested to Ananias that Paul was no longer an enemy of the gospel but had been born again, so that when they met, Ananias’ address was not along the lines of “this man,” (v. 13), as before, but “Brother Saul”[ix] (v. 17). Ananias called Paul a brother in Christ[x] and in so doing indicated that the former persecutor was born again before his baptism. Paul was also filled with the Holy Ghost while with Ananias before his baptism (v. 17)—indeed, since “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 12:3), his Damascus road declaration, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”[xi] (Acts 9:6, cf. 22:10) is indicative of one already “born of the Spirit” (John 3:5, 6, 8), not an unsaved man. He also received his sight (v. 18) before his baptism. Furthermore, just as Christ did not state that Ananias was sent to baptize Paul (v. 12), Ananias did not state that his purpose of coming was baptism (v. 17), a circumstance inconsistent with baptismal regeneration. Paul’s salvation testimony in Acts 9 proves that he was already one of God’s people before his baptism.
The records of Paul’s conversion in Acts 22 and 26, along with his preaching elsewhere in Acts, evidence that he was justified before his baptism. It is mentioned, as in Acts 9, that Paul is already a Christian brother before his baptism (22:13). He is already “chosen” (v. 14), and already ordained as a witness (v. 15). The apostle calls Christians “them that believed on [Christ]” (v. 19),[xii] not “them that were baptized.” Moreover, as discussed earlier,[xiii] Paul was saved (Galatians 1:15-16) and received the gospel directly from Christ apart from the interposition of any man (Galatians 1: 11-12, 15-16) on the road to Damascus, but the Lord never said a word to Paul about baptism—He said salvation was “by faith that is in me” (Acts 26:18). Paul almost persuaded Agrippa to become a Christian (26:28), although he said not a syllable about baptism in his salvation testimony (26:1-23), so one can become one without receiving the ordinance. Furthermore, while Christ sent the apostle to “open [men’s] eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in [Jesus]” (26:18), Paul tells us that “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Corinthians 1:17), so men can be turned from darkness and Satan to light and God, and have their sins forgiven, by faith in Christ, without being baptized. The gospel Paul preached in Acts was “by [Christ] all that believe are justified from all things . . . believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 13:39, 16:31). The accounts of Paul’s testimony in Acts 22 and 26, along with his preaching as recorded elsewhere in Acts, show he was forgiven before his baptism.
Acts 22:16 does not establish baptismal regeneration. The verse itself demonstrates that the “washing away” of sins in baptism mentioned is representative and figurative, not literal. The record of Paul’s salvation in Acts 9, 22, and 26, his preaching elsewhere in Acts, and supplementary information supplied in 1 Corinthians and Galatians, clearly demonstrate that Paul’s sins were forgiven on the road to Damascus before his baptism, when he placed his faith in the risen Lord, Jesus Christ.