When you see someone lowered into the water and brought back up—when you witness a baptism—what is actually happening in that moment? This question sits at the very heart of the Christian walk, yet it is often one of the most misunderstood topics in the religious world. Some people say that baptism is just a symbol and public sign of an inward grace. Others worry that if you say baptism is necessary, you are somehow trying to earn your salvation through works. But if we open up the Scriptures, we see a much more beautiful and powerful picture. It is not about what you are doing for God; it is about what He is doing for you. And if you actually understand what God does for a sinner at the moment of biblical baptism, you’ll never be tempted to discount it again, and you’ll finally shut out the voices in your life that claim that baptism is optional.
In this study, we are going to look at the two sides of this divine appointment called baptism: Your role and God’s role.
Your Role in Baptism
When we talk about our role in baptism, we have to start with the posture of the heart. The Scriptures describe this beautifully in 1 Peter 3:21:
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.1
Peter compares the waters of the flood in Noah’s day to the waters of baptism today. He is very clear that this is not about taking a bath or scrubbing filth from your body. Instead, he calls it “an appeal to God for a good conscience” through Jesus’ resurrection. Think about that word: Appeal. When you come to the waters of baptism, you are coming with nothing in your hands. You are not bringing a list of your good deeds or your spiritual résumé. You are coming as a sinner who recognizes your need, and you are submitting yourself to God—the God who has the power to raise Jesus from the dead. You are saying, “Lord, I have a stained conscience, and I am appealing to You to make it clean through the work of Jesus.”
Baptism is a passive commandment. In both the English and the Greek texts, the command “be baptized” is in the passive voice. You do not baptize yourself. You submit to being baptized. Scripture uses this same passive language when it describes what happens at baptism. In Colossians 2, Paul says the believers “were also circumcised” with a circumcision made without hands. In Romans 6, he says we “have been buried with Him” through baptism. The emphasis is the same: These are not works a sinner does to himself. They are done when the sinner submits in faith. Baptism, then, is the ultimate act of surrender. That is why baptism is never portrayed in the New Testament as a casual add on or an optional afterthought. It is the moment of surrender and submission, the moment where the sinner says, “I trust You to do what only You can do.”
This connects directly to Romans 6:3–7, where Paul explains:
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.
Your role in baptism not good works. Like Paul tells Titus:
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.
Titus 3:5
Your job is not to perfect yourself. It is to die. You are dying to your old self, repenting of your sins, and humbly allowing yourself to be buried with Jesus. You are committing to when you go under that water, the old version of you stays there. These passages promise you that, if you make that commitment to crucify the old life, then God provides you with a new life, just like He did for Jesus. He frees you from sin. This brings us to:
God’s Role in Baptism
If your role is to submit and appeal, what is God’s role? This is where the real power lies. We find the mechanics of what God is doing in Colossians 2. In this passage, Paul uses the phrase, “in Him,” a couple of times. Remember that Romans 6 and Galatians 3 explain that we are placed into Him (into Christ) at the point of baptism.
In Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 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, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Colossians 2:10–14
Did you catch that phrase: “through faith in the working of God”? When you are in the water, you are not trusting in the person baptizing you. You are not trusting in the water itself. You are not trusting in your ability to obey. You are putting your faith in the working of God. You’ve seen the things God can do, and you want that for your life. While you are being passive, He is being incredibly active. Paul calls it a circumcision made without hands. In the Old Covenant, circumcision was a physical sign, but here, God is performing a spiritual surgery. He is cutting away the sin from your heart. He is removing the body of the flesh that died in your repentance.
You go into the water dead in your transgressions, and He is the one who makes you alive together with Him. He cancels the debt. He wipes the slate clean. He gives you that good conscience that you’re requesting. This is why we can say with total confidence that baptism is not a meritorious work of man. It is a saving work of God. It is His operation, and we are just the ones on the operating table.
Sin is a heavy burden none of us can bear. When you understand that God is the one doing the heavy lifting, it changes everything. It is why we see so much joy in the New Testament surrounding this act. Remember the Ethiopian in Acts 8? After he was baptized, the Scripture says he went on his way rejoicing. Or the Philippian jailer in Acts 16, who rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household. Why were they rejoicing? Because they knew their old person was dead and left behind. They knew that God had responded to their appeal and granted them a good conscience. They were not wondering if they had done enough because they knew it was the Lord who did the work.
In addition to all of this, God also adds you to the body of Christ, His church, in the moment of baptism. In Acts 2, after Peter famously commands the heart-pricked audience, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins,” and “Be saved from this perverse generation,” the Bible says this:
So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…. praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Acts 2:41–42, 47
Notice what’s completely absent from this passage: any manmade churches or denominations. The Bible says that Christians—real disciples of Jesus—are members of the body of Christ. You’re not saved from your sins and then placed back in the world all by yourself. No, when you submit to God through baptism, He cuts away your sins and then adds you into the fellowship of Jesus and His church. You no longer walk alone. You have a family who walks with you.
Baptism is the beautiful intersection of human faith and divine power. It is where we come to the end of ourselves and find the beginning of the new life He provides in Christ and in His church. If you have been holding back because you thought you had to get right first, or you believed a religious leader who claimed baptism isn’t necessary for salvation, remember that you do not get clean to take a bath; you take a bath to get clean. In baptism, you bring the appeal; He brings the cleansing.
If you have questions about your role in submitting to the working of God or about His church, please let us know. There is nothing more important than knowing the Savior and knowing that He is the one who has cut away your sins.
- Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ↩︎