You're Right! You Don't Have To Get Baptized! Series

I have had many discussions about the subject of baptism with people, and it never fails that sometime during the discussion, they just deny what the scriptures say about the topic. They at times just say, “I deny what you are saying about about baptism,” ignoring the fact that all I am doing is quoting verses about baptism. Another response I have gotten is, “You don’t have to be baptized!” Well, to this response I say, you are absolutely right! You do not HAVE to get baptized. This is a true statement. You only HAVE to get baptized if:

-you want to follow in the steps of Christ, who was baptized (Matthew 3:16);

-you want to become a disciple (Matthew 28:19);

-you want to be saved (Mark 16:16);

-you want to enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5);

-you want your sins remitted (Acts 2:38);

-you want the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38, 5:32);

-you have gladly received the word of God (Acts 2:41);

-you have believed the preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom (Acts 8:12)

-you want to obey the commandment of God (Acts 10:47-48)

-you want your sins washed away (Acts 22:16)

-you want to call upon the Lord (Acts 22:16)

-you want to be IN Christ Jesus (Romans 6:3)

-you want to be IN the death of Christ (Romans 6:3)

-you want to be buried WITH Jesus and raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4)

-you want to be united with Jesus in His death and resurrection (Romans 6:5)

-you want to be crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6)

-you want your body of sin to be done away with (Romans 6:6)

-you want to no longer be a slave to sin (Romans 6:6)

-you want freed from sin (Romans 6:7)

-you want to be washed and sanctified in the name of Jesus by the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 6:11)

-you want to be in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13)

-you no longer want to be under the tutor of the law (Galatians 3:25-27)

-you want to become a son of God by faith (Galatians 3:26-27)

-you want to be in Christ and clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27)

-you want to be sanctified and cleansed (Ephesians 5:26)

-you want a spiritual circumcision of Christ, in which your body of flesh (sin) is cut away (Colossians 2:11)

-you want to be buried with Jesus and raised up with Him (Colossians 2:12)

-you want to be made alive together with Christ (Colossians 2:13)

-you want forgiven of all your transgressions (Colossians 2:13)

-you want to be saved by the mercy of God, regenerated, and renewed by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:4-7)

-you want your heart and your evil conscience cleansed (Hebrews 10:22)

-you want to make an appeal to God for a clean conscience (1 Peter 3:21)

-you want saved through the resurrection of Christ (1 Peter 3:21)

So as the verses above show, you really don’t HAVE to be baptized, but I pray you will be so you can partake of the above blessings that are given to those who are. I encourage you to read and reread all of these passages within their context. If we want to know what the Bible says on any given subject, this is what we must do. We must examine the scriptures, and do so as though we are doing it for the first time so we do not allow what we have always been taught (which may be wrong) get in the way. I pray you will see what the scriptures really teach about baptism.