• The Cost For Preaching The Truth About Baptism

  Contributed by Dr. Larry Petton on Feb 22, 2024 (message contributor)

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  Scripture:  Acts 16:25-34

  Tags:  Baptism, Persecution, Immersion, Reformation, Church History, Count The Cost  (view more)  (view less)

  Denomination: Evangelical/Non-Denominational

Baptism is identification with Christ. Baptism allows the believer in Christ to openly identify

with Christ who died, was buried and who rose again on his behalf. It is a public testimony to say I have

identified with Christ. I will live for Christ.

On October 15, 1517, an Augustinian monk nailed his ninety-five theses on the church door in the town

of Wittenberg. When Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door it marked the significant spark of the

protestant reformation.

Eight years after Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door something happened that was considered the

most revolutionary act of the reformation. What happened too place at the home of Felix Manz (the

home of his mother) on January 21, 1525.

A group including Felix Manz held a baptism service as a result of their convictions from their Bible

study. This was baptism was believers’ baptism. This was the beginning of the radical reformation or the

Anabaptist movement in Zurich, Switzerland.

One year later there was a mandate made that performing believer’s baptism was a crime punishable by

death. Felix Manz was delivered to an executioner with his hands tied and beaten. His hands were tied

together below his knees, and he was held down under the water with a stick.

Just before he died becoming the first martyr for believers’ baptism and the first martyr to die at the

hands of protestants. Felix Manz said just before his death, “believers’ baptism is true baptism

according to the Word of God and teaching of Christ.”

These radical reformers insisted that personal commitment to Christ is essential to salvation and a

prerequisite to baptism. They affirmed their conviction of believer’s baptism as the sign of membership

in the true Church.

It might seem hard to imagine that people paid with their life simply because they wanted to form a

church after what they conceived to be the New Testament pattern. They insisted that personal

commitment to Christ is essential to salvation and that faith in Christ is a prerequisite to baptism. This

all came through their study of the New Testament alone.

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