FOR BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED, THROUGH FAITH
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans: “Want uit genade is julle gered, deur die geloof”
Someone wrote to me:
"Can you please send me something about Rebirth so I can explain to my husband that it has nothing to do with Baptism."
Here is how I look at this matter, understand it, believe it, and try to live it out in my own life to the best of my ability:
Firstly, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I can do physically to earn eternal life and that includes getting baptized. The closest I can come to gain eternal life, so to speak, is to open the door of my heart and invite Jesus in when He knocks.
REV 3:20 ‘Behold, I stand at the door [of the church] and continually knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door (of your heart), I will come in and eat with him (restore him), and he with Me.
In other words, I must accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.
JOHN 1:12 But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the right [the authority, the privilege] to become children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name—
JOHN 3:36 “He who believes and trusts in the Son and accepts Him [as Savior] has eternal life [that is, already possesses it]; but he who does not believe the Son and chooses to reject Him, [disobeying Him and denying Him as Savior] will not see [eternal] life, but [instead] the wrath of God hangs over him continually.”
JOHN 5:24 “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, the person who hears My word [the one who heeds My message], and believes and trusts in Him who sent Me, has (possesses now) eternal life [that is, eternal life actually begins—the believer is transformed], and does not come into judgment and condemnation, but has passed [over] from death into life.
Our Lord has already done everything that needed to be done to save us, so that we do not have to be lost.
The bottom line I come to:
No act and again I include baptism, that I can do, can save me from hell.
It's all grace. Mere, Full, Divine, Loving Grace.
EPH 2:4-8 4But God, being [so very] rich in mercy, because of His great and wonderful love with which He loved us, 5even when we were [spiritually] dead and separated from Him because of our sins, He made us [spiritually] alive together with Christ (for by His grace—His undeserved favor and mercy—you have been saved from God’s judgment). 6And He raised us up together with Him [when we believed], and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, [because we are] in Christ Jesus, 7[and He did this] so that in the ages to come He might [clearly] show the immeasurable and unsurpassed riches of His grace in [His] kindness toward us in Christ Jesus [by providing for our redemption]. 8For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favor drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God;
Now what is, to put it this way, the importance or the value of Baptism?
First, we look at what it is definitely not:
It does not mean I can use it to boast that I am now on my way to Heaven.
In my opinion, one of the great tragedies that has come into the church of Christ is the infant sprinkling baptism.
This gave rise to the terribly great tragic perception among many people:
"Because I was baptized, I am saved."
There are people today who have only been in a church once in their life and that was when they were sprinkled in the church as a baby – and based on that they are, according to their testimony, on their way to Heaven.
Do I have to be baptized before I can say that I am saved?
I can be saved without being baptized – but I cannot be saved just because I was baptized.
I share with you two cases from the Word where people were saved, who were not baptized.
One is of the thief next to Jesus on the cross. I'm not going to say anything more about this case, considering the length of this writing. You can read it in Luke 23:39-43.
The one case I want to say something about is the case of Cornelius, the centurion. You can read his story in Acts 10:1 and beyond.
I want to show you something in this next passage:
ACTS 10:44-48 44“All the prophets testify about Him, that through His name everyone who believes in Him [whoever trusts in and relies on Him, accepting Him as Savior and Messiah] receives forgiveness of sins.”
45While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who were listening to the message [confirming God’s acceptance of Gentiles]. 46All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. 47For they heard them talking in [unknown] tongues (languages) and exalting and magnifying and praising God. Then Peter said, 48“Can anyone refuse water for these people to be baptized, since they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?”
Do you see?
They were baptized because they believed.
They were not baptized so that they had to or could come to believe.
The biblical way of baptism as I see it is that I get baptized because I believe in Jesus.
This is a public confession to the whole world, and that includes the spirit world, that I have made a total surrendering to Jesus.
ROM 6:3-4 3Or are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4We have therefore been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory and power of the Father, we too might walk habitually in newness of life [abandoning our old ways].
GAL 3:27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ [into a spiritual union with the Christ, the Anointed] have clothed yourselves with Christ [that is, you have taken on His characteristics and values].
COL 2:12 having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him [to a new life] through [your] faith in the working of God, [as displayed] when He raised Christ from the dead.
For me, my baptism was the first step of obedience and the beginning of living out my testimony for Jesus.
For me, baptism is a communication/declaration/statement in public to all men and spirits and powers:
"In this representation of the burial of my old self and the resurrection of the new self, I testify:
I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins.
I believe that He was buried.
I believe that He rose from the dead.
I accepted this Jesus, God who became man, as my Lord and Saviour.
The old Sakkie is now dead. I am now a new blood-washed child of God, a disciple of Jesus."
To summarize:
Baptism does not save me.
If I testify that I have been baptized, I testify that I have converted to our Lord in accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour –
This is what saves me from hell.
Then – as the Word says – I must bear fruit that matches the conversion.
In other words, as the English saying that I love so much:
" If that is the talk that I talk. It must also be the walk that I walk. "
Greetings,
Sakkie