Baptism

Mode, Cleansing and Sealing

(MODES) Romans 6:3-4; Col 2:11-12; 1 Cor 1:13–17; 10:2; Mark 10:38–39;

(CLEANSING) 1 Cor 6:11; Eph 5:26; Tit 3:5; 1 Cor 6:11; Eph 5:22–33; Rom 10:8, 17; Tit 3:3–7; Rom 3:22; 5:1; Gal 2:16

(SEALING and BAPTISM) 2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:13; Rom 4:11; Rom 4:9–12; 1 Cor 15:20–28; 2 Cor 3:7–11; Joel 2:28–29; Isa 44:3; Ezek 36:26–27; Gal 5:6; 6:15; Gal 1:4; 2:21; 3:1, 13; 4:4–5; 5:12; 6:12, 14, 15;

Believer’s Baptism is not essential for being an evangelical. We do not consider those who proclaim the gospel of justification by faith yet practice infant baptism to be heretics; we consider them brothers and sisters in the Lord. Still, it does not follow that the matter is unimportant. Those who allow infant baptism are allowing the unregenerate to be members of the church. But the church is the community of the Spirit, not the flesh. The church is properly composed of those who are members of the new covenant (Heb 8:8–13), not those who belong to the old age under Moses. The people of God are not a nationalistic or political entity as Israel was but rather the people of the Spirit. Baptism should not be given to those who have not received the Spirit, to those who have not died and risen with Christ, to those who have not trusted in Jesus for their salvation, and to those who have not been justified by faith so that they do not walk in newness of life. All of these realities are predicated of the baptized in the NT, for baptism does not belong to the old covenant but to the new. It is not applied with the hope that people will believe and receive the Spirit. It is applied because people have received the Spirit and believed.