"Have You Heard" Newspaper Articles Posted with the Permission of the Streetsboro Church of Christ.
For the last several weeks we have been seeking an answer to this question. We have pointed out several things that we must do in order to be saved. One must hear the Word of God and believe that Jesus is the Son of God. One must repent (turn from) his life of sin and confess his faith in Christ. It is only after one has done all of these things that he can fulfill the final obligation to become a Christian and have his sins washed away.
Biblical baptism is an immersion in water for the remission of sins. Jesus said
that we must believe and be baptized in order to be saved,
“He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will
be condemned.” (Mark
16:16).
Paul is a wonderful example of this. He was a person who was genuinely sorry for his sins and desired to have forgiveness, but his sins were not washed away until he was baptized, “And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” (Acts 22:16).
If one could simply pray for salvation and receive it without being baptized, Paul would not still have needed to have his sins washed away. It took one final act of obedience on his part to wash those sins away.
One might argue, “Well, what about the thief on the cross?
He was saved and he wasn’t baptized.” The answer to that objection is simple. We live under the Law
of Christ today. The Law of Christ (the New Testament) says that we have to be
baptized to be saved. The thief lived under the Old Testament. The New Testament
did not come into force until Christ died, “For where there is a testament,
there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in
force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator
lives.” (Hebrews 9:16-17). Therefore, the thief did not have to be baptized.
-- Ralph Price --
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