Baptism and the Lord's Supper

What Is Baptism?

Baptism · The two ordinances Jesus gave his church

Baptism is the sign Jesus gave his church for the beginning of the Christian life, a washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. It marks a person as belonging to Christ, and it pictures union with him in his death and resurrection: dying to the old life and rising to walk in newness of life. Christians practice baptism in different ways, yet all receive it as obedience to Jesus and as a visible sign of his saving grace.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:Matthew 28:19 (KJV)

The command of Jesus

Baptism is not an idea the church thought up. It is a command the risen Jesus gave to his followers before he ascended, the closing words of Matthew's Gospel, spoken with all authority in heaven and earth.

From that hour the church has baptized. On the day of Pentecost, when the crowd asked what they should do, the answer was to repent and be baptized, and about three thousand were baptized that day. Wherever the gospel went in the book of Acts, baptism followed close behind it, for households in Philippi, for an Ethiopian official on a desert road, for Saul the persecutor once he was found by grace. To be baptized is simply to do what Jesus told his church to do, and to receive what he told it to give.

A washing that means union with Christ

Water washes, and so from the first the church has seen in baptism a cleansing, the washing away of sin and the fresh start of a forgiven life. But Scripture reaches deeper than cleansing. The apostle Paul explains that the water speaks of being joined to Jesus himself, so that what is true of him becomes true of the one baptized into him.

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.Romans 6:3-4 (KJV)

This is the heart of what baptism means. It is a sign of union with Christ. The believer is buried with him, and the old life that belonged to sin is left behind in the water; and the believer is raised with him, brought up to a new life that shares in his resurrection. Baptism preaches the gospel in a single act: Christ died, Christ was buried, Christ rose, and by grace we are joined to all three.

Buried and raised: the shape of the gospel

Paul returns to the same picture in his letter to the Colossians, where baptism is again the burial and rising of the believer with Jesus.

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.Colossians 2:12 (KJV)

Notice that the power is not in the water and not in the person, but in God, who raised Christ from the dead and raises us with him through faith. Baptism does not save by the washing of the body; it points to the God who saves. Peter says this plainly, calling baptism not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The sign and the thing it signifies belong together: the water without faith is only water, and faith gladly receives the sign the Lord commanded.

One baptism into one body

Baptism is deeply personal, but it is never private. It brings a person into a people. Paul writes that the Spirit uses this one act to gather many different people into a single body, the church.

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.1 Corinthians 12:13 (KJV)

In baptism the old divisions that separate people lose their power to define us. Paul says that as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, and that in him there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus. This is why the church can call the whole family of believers, across every nation and century, one body. There is, as Paul says, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. However differently Christians practice it, they confess a single baptism into a single Savior.

Baptism through the story of Scripture

Baptism did not appear from nowhere. The whole Bible had been preparing for it with water. In the beginning the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. In the days of Noah the flood bore up the ark and carried a family through judgment into a new world, and Peter calls that a figure of baptism. At the Red Sea God led Israel through the waters out of slavery and into freedom. The prophets promised a day when God would sprinkle clean water on his people and give them a new heart. Then John came baptizing in the Jordan, calling the nation to repentance, and Jesus himself went down into that river to be baptized, though he had no sin, to stand with sinners and fulfil all righteousness.

When the risen Christ then commanded his church to baptize, he was gathering up all these streams into one sign: water that judges and saves, that frees and cleanses, that marks a people as God's own. To be baptized is to be brought through the water like Noah, like Israel, and above all like Jesus, into a new life on the far shore.

A sign of grace, received by faith

Baptism is a gift before it is a duty. It shows the love of God reaching toward us in Christ, and it asks in return the answer of faith. That is why Peter joined the two together on the day of Pentecost: repent, and be baptized, and receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. Repentance and faith turn to Christ; baptism receives the sign that Christ has claimed us. The order never turns baptism into a work by which we earn God's favor, for the favor is his free gift. It makes baptism the glad response of a heart that has heard the call and come.

For anyone considering baptism, the meaning is steadying. You are not being asked to make yourself worthy first. You are being invited to be marked as one who belongs to Jesus, washed, buried, and raised with him, and set among his people to walk in newness of life.

Where Christians genuinely differ

Christians agree on far more about baptism than they dispute, but two honest differences remain. The first is who should be baptized: some traditions baptize the infant children of believers, trusting the promise of God to the household of faith, while others baptize only those old enough to profess faith for themselves. The second is how baptism is done: some immerse the whole body under the water, some pour water over the head, and some sprinkle. These differences are real, and this platform does not take a side. It names them fairly on a page of their own, because the family of God has room for the conversation, and because what unites us in baptism is greater than what divides us about its manner.

What unites us

Whatever a Christian's tradition, baptism means the same great things. It is obedience to the command of Jesus. It is a sign of his grace, washing, burial, and resurrection made visible in water. It is entrance into the one body of Christ. And it is a picture of union with him, so that the story of his death and rising becomes the story of everyone joined to him. If you have been baptized, you carry that sign on you still. If you have not, the same Lord who commanded it invites you into it.

A note for all traditions: baptism and the Lord's Supper are kept across the whole church, yet Christians practice them in genuinely different ways. Where believers sincerely differ, the main views are named here fairly and without taking a side, because The Living Bread is non-denominational. What unites us is greater than what divides us: obedience to Christ, remembrance of his death, and union with him.

Related: Why be baptized? · How Christians differ on baptism · Who is Jesus? · Baptism and the Lord's Supper