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The New Testament teaches very plainly that we are saved by faith.
Acts 16:31 says “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved”
(Eph. 2:8 says “By grace you were saved through faith and that not of yourselves” . (Gal. 3:26)“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith” .The New Testament also teaches that faith is an act of the heart; it comes from the spring of our emotions and will.
Romans 10:10 reads, “With the heart man believes unto justification.” We must decide to take Christ as our Lord and our Savior and we must love him for the beauty of his holiness.
Baptism is not merely a matter of ideas or emotions - it includes the whole person. The NT calls not only for faith in the heart but also confession on the lips. “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved” (Romans 10:9)
The last act of passing from death to life is baptism. The Great Commission from the end of Matthew says “Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” So Peter concludes his first sermon after Jesus is gone with the words: “Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.”
Sometimes we refer to baptism as a symbol. There are two ways to symbolize something. You could write the word LOVE on a blackboard for a group of 2nd graders and say that is the English language symbol for a commitment of the heart to someone’s welfare, that’s one kind of symbolism. But if you take your girlfriend out and pull a diamond ring out of your pocket and ask her to marry you and offer the ring as a symbol of your love, then you are doing something very different—you are expressing love through a symbolic action. The teacher who writes LOVE on the board need not have any love. But the giving of a diamond ring is love in action. All those things including baptism is a way of expresses love in action.