Baptism is a command by Jesus, whom we have chosen to follow and obey.
Matt 28:19-20
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
Those who call themselves Christians in truth rather than mere pretense will obey Christʼs commands. The “American Christian” believers who continue to do things their own way, Jesus asks this: “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). Jesus immediately followed that statement with a parable of one how hears the words and obeys them in contradistinction to the one who hears and does not put them into practice. Obedience is very closely tied to love. “If you love me, you will do what I command” John 14:15
Share in Jesusʼ Death
Romans 6:1-7
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.
Those of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death. When you are baptized, you are dying, buried in sin, and raised up as a new person. A new person is a slave to righteousness (Romans 6:13) – choosing to obey. Baptism allows us to participate in the death, burial, and resurrection.
Are we baptized into Christ’s death when we believe, repent, or confess?
Baptism Unites Us with Christ
Galatians 3:26-29
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abrahamʼs descendants, heirs according to promise.
Baptism Into One Spirit
1 Cor 12:12-13
For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Baptism Takes Us from Death to Life
Col 2:11-13
and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
We Have a Desire to Be Forgiven
1 Peter 3:18-22
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.
