A visitor to our website writes:

I was reading your sermon entitled “The First Resurrection Sermon,” delivered on March 27, 2005.  In it, you quoted Acts 2:38 and then said, “Peter isn’t saying that, when you are baptized, your sins are forgiven by that baptism.”  But isn’t that exactly what he said?  “Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”?

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Dear friend, I commend you in being a good ‘Berean’—searching the Scriptures “to find out whether these things are so” (Acts 17:11). In answering your question, let me first affirm what I believe the Scriptures clearly teach—that baptism is an ordinance that is commanded by the Lord and that is to be obeyed by every genuine believer.  Jesus not only made this clear in His ‘great commission’—in which He commanded that we are to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I command you . . .” (Matthew 28:19-20); but He also made it clear by His own example—which He said “is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). What I said in the sermon you referenced is this: “Peter isn’t saying that, when you are baptized, your sins are forgiven by that baptism.  You are only forgiven by means of your faith in the blood of Jesus.  Rather, Peter is saying that you are to be baptized as a public testimony of your faith that your sins ARE forgiven in Christ. If you have believed, then your sins are forgiven; and you are to now confess that belief publicly by being baptized.”  Let me defend why I say that. First, what Peter says in this passage must be taken in such a way as to conform with what Scripture says elsewhere about the nature of saving faith.  In the next chapter, Peter preaches the same sort of message again.  He pointed to the resurrected Christ, and told those who heard him, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out . . .” (Acts 3:19).  The cleansing from sin is clearly mentioned as a result of a change of mind and heart toward the message of the gospel (clearly requiring faith in the blood of Jesus); but baptism is not said to be the cause of that cleansing.  In Acts 16:31 after the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”, they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”  Later on, the jailer and his family were baptized; but being baptized was not set before them as the thing they needed to do in order to have their sins forgiven.  Perhaps the greatest example is the story of the thief on the cross next to our Lord.  He could do nothing to save himself.  He certainly couldn’t be baptized.  All he could do was turn to Jesus and say, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”  And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). Take Ephesians 2:8-9.  Paul said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”  There is no outward work of ours that could, in any way, save us.  We are saved only by the grace of God giving us the power to have faith in Jesus.  And what’s more, take the whole book of Galatians.  The Galatian believers were falling victim to false teachers who were telling them that, in order to truly be saved, they needed to be circumcised.  Paul called this “a different gospel, which is not another” (Gal. 1:6-7).  He said plainly “. . . knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified” (Gal. 2:16).  It is never by any outward ceremonial work that we could ever be forgiven.  Rather, “In Him [that is, in Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7).  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleans us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). And second; what about what Peter said?  His words, according to the New King James version, were, “. . . and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins”.  Does all of this actually contradict Peter’s words?  I think it helps to consider what he actually said in the original language.  (We find some good help here from Dr. A.T. Robertson’s Word Pictures in The New Testament with respect to Acts 2:38).  The Greek preposition used (translated “for”) is eis; and that word can refer to the aim and purpose of a thing (see 1 Corinthians 2:7 as an example; where it says that the hidden wisdom of God is “ordained before the ages for [eis] our glory”).  But it can also just as legitimately (and just as frequently) refer to the ground and basis of a thing (see Matthew 10:41; where “in [eis] the name of a prophet” means “on the basis of him being a prophet”, and “”in [eis] the name of a righteous man” means “on the basis of him being a righteous man”; or Matthew 12:41; where we’re told that the men of Nineveh repented “at [eis; that is, on the basis of) the preaching of Jonah”).  Because of this, the decision of how eis will be translated in what Peter said in Acts 2:38 will—to some degree—be influenced by one’s broader theology on the nature of saving faith and on baptism.  And I cannot see that Peter would be saying that people should be baptized “for the aim or purpose” of having their sins remitted without—at the same time—contradicting what Scripture clearly says elsewhere.  Rather, I see him saying “. . . and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ eis [that is, on the ground and basis of] the remission of sins”; and this, as I see it, is more consistent with other clear statements of Scripture.  So, I maintain that what I originally said is sound: “Peter isn’t saying that, when you are baptized, your sins are forgiven by that baptism.  You are only forgiven by means of your faith in the blood of Jesus.  Rather, Peter is saying that you are to be baptized as a public testimony of your faith that your sins ARE forgiven in Christ. If you have believed, then your sins are forgiven; and you are to now confess that belief publicly by being baptized.”  Blessings, Pastor Greg Bethany Bible Church (All Scripture quotes are taken from the New King James Version.)