Do I Need To Be Baptized Again? "Re-Baptism"

One of the more common questions people ask themselves or as a preacher I get asked is “Do i need to be“Re-Baptized?”

My goal:

Help some evaluate and be moved to action

Affirm and give confidence to others

Salvation is a guarantee, there is security in salvation. You can know that you’re saved and be confident in it. And you don’t ever have to worry about becoming unsaved unless you walk away from faith, God, and the Church. But if you keep striving for the rest of your life, there is no guesswork you can know that your saved. And you can know the exact moment in time you began to be a Christian.

One thing I hear a lot is “well I didn’t know ‘this or that’ at the time”; “I don’t know if i knew enough” or “I don’t know if I did it for the right reasons”.

So the purpose of this lesson is to discuss the topic of “Re-Baptism” and make clear who is a candidate for it.

Right out of the gate I want to tell you that in this context “Re-baptism” isn’t even a thing because you can only really be baptized Biblically once. Baptism means to immerse, and we’ve all been immersed in water before swimming or bathing, so you can certainly be immersed again but to be immersed into Jesus only can happen once in your life. I say that to say just know I use the term “re-baptism” with hesitancy because of that, but it’s our vernacular on the subject so it’ll probably slip out during this sermon.

What are the scriptural reasons for someone being baptized again to be baptized into Christ? Look at what happened between Paul in Ephesus with some disciples he found.

Acts 19:1-5

John’s baptism was good and purposeful until Jesus’ resurrection and instruction.

In order for one’s baptism to be into Christ for salvation, you have the accurate teaching preceding it. Otherwise, you just get wet...you can’t learn the wrong things and still be baptized the right way.

They were very sincere in their following of God - but sincerity wasn’t enough.

We’re not bashing others sincerity. What I have found in real world experience is that MOST are not going out of their to be disobedient and do things their way to be lazy or whatever reason you can come up with...HOWEVER, the really sincere can see the truth when it’s presented.

When you’re baptized into Christ (from our previous study):

You become free of sin (Acts 22:16)

You receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who is our seal of eternal inheritance and who helps grow us into Christ image (Acts 2:38, Eph.1:13-14, Gal.5:22-25)

You’re clothed in Christ (Gal.3:26-27)

You become added to the eternal Church, the family of God (Acts 2:47, Gal.4:6-7)

You have access to all spiritual blessings and benefits of Christ (Eph.1:3)

You are a new creation (2 Cor.5:17)

Not a license to sin, but continual repentance is needed - not continual immersion every time you sin. Though you still stumble you are now walking in the light! 1 John 1:7 “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” There’s a difference between a condemned sinner and a cleansed sinner.

There are certain criteria and “pre-requisites”, there are things that needs to be LEARNED in order to be baptized into Christ:

(PPT) REAL Faith/Belief - Heb.11:6-7. Understanding and committed action that comes from it. Faith that comes from knowledge of Jesus, who He is, who he says he is, that He died for us, that He rose and ascended into Heaven, and that He’s coming back one day. So faith and belief isn’t just saying “Yea I accept that.” Real faith does something because of that knowledge. It’s not about being a good person, but it’s about full commitment and loyalty to Jesus conforming our lives to Him.

(PPT) Rom.10:9-10 - confession is needed. If you go to this verse and area asking the question “do I need to be baptized” you’re asking the wrong question and therefore will get the wrong answer. The question being addressed by Paul that the Church in Rome had (who by the way were already baptized) was about Law VS Grace. Paul is saying before and after becoming a Christian continual confession meaning agreement that Christ is Lord must be done in words and actions. “Walk the walk and talk the talk”. We have reduced it wrongfully to right before you go under the water to a one time confession. It includes that but it’s so much more. You’re constantly confessing Jesus, it’s not a one statement, its an ongoing proclamation of ours to others.

(PPT) Repentance - radical and immediate change. Perhaps the hardest part of the process. The drastic change of no longer living for myself but instead living for God. (Acts 17:30–31 ““Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He determined, having furnished proof to all by raising Him from the dead.”)

(PPT) Immersion - it’s the literal word. You can’t twist the Greek in any way to mean anything else. And it’s meaningless without faith in Him to save in that very moment, meaningless without giving full commitment to God in that moment, without real repentance;it must be done with the right motive and purpose, it’s not just a ritual that’s reduced to an outward sign of inward conviction (by the way that’s everything we do by faith everyday, proof of inward conviction, so why is baptism reduced to that?)…it’s the moment we contact the blood of Christ that gives us life.

(PPT) Ephesians 2:8-9. Clearly we are saved by faith - But most have the wrong Biblical definition of the word faith! It’s action! When God says it I do it. God said to be baptized, so when I do that it’s faith. Not a work. Just like everything else God says to do, baptism is a response of faith, not trusting in the water to clean my soul, but trusting in Jesus to do what he said he would do if I do what he told me to. To say “baptism is a work” is to say I earned it. I don’t earn a thing. It’s a free gift, but I must go accept the gift!

One of the beautiful things about God wanting us to be baptized to be saved is I can know the exact moment day and time I was saved with no guesswork.

Why is it so hard for some when presented with the truth? We previously said that repentance is actually the hardest part, it’s radical and immediate change from sin or previous teachings - such was the case with Paul and Peter when they were constantly preaching repentance to the Jews, God seeking individuals but looking in the wrong direction. So for people similarly now it does come with heartache of “well then my parents were wrong, my hero Mr or Ms so and so was wrong”. And that’s hard to deal with... Many of us have dealt with that. And many of us have had to live out what Jesus said in Matt.10:37 about loving Him more and choosing Him over mother brother sister and other family.

Too many of us act as if we’re debaters, and I’ll admit we’re real good at winning the argument, but it seems to a vast number of people out there that we care more about that than the soul. Jesus didn’t say go win arguments, He said go win souls. Jude 1:3 says for us to “contend for the Faith”, not be contentious for it. (OH ME...) To teach truth requires patience and gentleness without sacrificing firmness on the truth.

How We Should Teach Baptism

Church, I think we can do better about teaching and reaching the lost. I don’t mean in effort, I mean in approach.

We like to “quantify” and “calculate” things. We like to make things more simplistic in order to make it easy to teach and spread. However, in our act of doing that we have long term done ourselves a disservice. Walter Scott, during the restoration movement, is credited with the 5 Steps to salvation we can count on our fingers. It contains info that’s 100% biblical, no doubt about it. You’ve heard it and probably have said it as the “Steps to Salvation” and maybe you’ve seen the diagram with the steps. But I’m going to critique it a little bit because the method of teaching it was developed by a man and not inspired by the spirit. It contains solid Biblical info and I personally have used it and will use it again at times.

But here is what has now become a problem with it: when we say “steps” we’re presenting the salvation process as only a checklist, and the verses that accompany it we present as if they’re the only important ones so they’re the only ones we ever learn for some reason, and to say they’re steps is actually misleading because we’re saying “do this only one time then move on to the next” as if it’s a checklist.

The truth is, Baptism is the only one that’s actually only done once with the box checked! Faith, Hearing, Confession, Repentance...all of it is continual and ongoing! But if we teach it as only a checklist, maybe that’s one reason why many people over the years have left because the checklist was completed. .

So what am I saying here to us Christians? REPENT! Study the Bible more than mans teachings. Develop your own way to present the Gospel that’s 100% biblical. Use the others as resources yes, but genuineness will win souls better than formulas.

When Someone Should Be “Re-Baptized”.

So…What are cases when being baptized again is necessary?

(PPT) You’re a candidate if you were “baptized” as an infant.

Born in sin? Sin is not inherited, you can’t commit sin in the womb. Ezekiel 18:20 “The soul who sins will die. The son will not bear the iniquity of the father, nor will the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.”

From 1 day old through childhood there isn’t a way for them to understand faith and disobedience in order for it to have an affect on their soul.

Babies and Toddles especially have no ability to process faith, they can’t learn. Jeremiah 31:33-34

Romans 6:3-6, nothing about watching a sprinkling or pouring makes us think we’ve witnessed a death, burial, and resurrection. Baptism is an awesome symbol of the Gospel and joining with Jesus. We see from here it’s the moment we’re placed into Christ.

Candidate because: sprinkling and couldn’t have the necessary faith.

(PPT) You’re a candidate if you were “baptized” by sprinkling/pouring.

The word - correctly translated every Bible would read immersion.

The examples - every time, they went down into the water

No doubt to the physical “how”. And the spiritual implications are a burial and a resurrection. Nothing about sprinkling represents being buried and rising up.

(PPT) You’re a candidate if you were immersed but you didn’t have any real repentance or faith when you did it.

It’s meaningless if I do it just because my parents or a teacher pushed me so so hard and I wanted them off my back and didn’t have to deal with their annoyance on the subject again.

It’s meaningless if I’m doing it because everyone else is. BUT you can do that and still do it with real repentance and real faith, because the faith of others does inspire us to be faithful too. But if it’s done ONLY because my friends are doing it and there’s no real decision to be fully committed to God for the rest of my life, then it was meaningless. You just got wet. There is a huge difference in joining the crowd versus joining in Jesus.

(PPT) If you were baptized based on the teaching that Baptism is an “Outward sign of inward grace”.

That means baptism is an after thought of ours and God’s…

Nowhere in the Bible do you find that teaching of “Be Baptized to show the world that you are already saved”. The Bible does teach to have action or works that naturally come out of faith and that prove we’re walking in the light and show other’s we’re saved and they can be too. Instead, Baptism is “do this to appeal to Jesus, enter into covenant and be saved”, and the rest of us can see the very moment that you are saved.

Remember scripture says that it’s the moment we get remission of sins and become in Christ and added to the Church. So you can’t be immersed for remission of sins of your sins have already been forgiven - that means scripture contradicts itself. And if I ever think that I need reevaluate my understanding because it can only mean I don’t understand not scripture being wrong.

Baptism without the right purpose is just getting wet with no spiritual benefit.

And the truth of the matter is if someone were in an environment with wrong teachings like these, then it’s logically and scripturally impossible to be baptized within that context for the right reasons and have the saving result.

Don’t make baptism a standalone, it’s part of the entirety of the New Covenant, it’s part of the entire response of faith in God. In fact Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:17 “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the gospel, not in wisdom of word, so that the cross of Christ will not be made empty.” Paul said he didn’t come only proclaiming baptism but the Gospel, saying it is part of the whole system by which God saves and not one part is of lesser or more importance. So we preach repentance just like we do baptism, we preach hearing the word truly and confessing properly just like we do baptism.

But satan pulled a fast one when he realized he didn’t have to do away with it in your mind, you just needed to think differently or less about it than what God established it for. So we must contend for it.

But baptism isn’t the goal, it’s not the end result. We said earlier Baptism is the only thing we can actually consider a “step” and checked off as done, because it’s where we begin, it’s us stepping up to and across the starting line of faith. It’s the starting line, not the finish line. It’s the beginning of a daily walk with God.

The better question than only “do I need to be baptized” is what is the purpose or what is it pushing me into? It’s pushing us to a daily walk with God without which I cannot have. It launches us into discipleship. It’s not a get out of jail free card, it’s not just fire insurance. It’s the beginning of a faithful race that ends with being with God forever. It’s the first step of obedience in a lifetime of obedience.