If the waters of baptism do not save a person, why should every believer be baptized? To answer this we must look at Jesus’ baptism. After all, Jesus was sinless and perfect and yet he was still baptized. In fact, in every gospel account the baptism of Jesus is recorded; which makes this extremely significant ( Matthew 3:1-17, Mark 1: 1-13, Luke 3:1-23, John 1: 19-28 ).

Look at Matthew’s account: “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”

A lot of the confusion surrounding baptism probably exists because there was no time frame between salvation and the act of baptism. The New Testament church, believed and was baptized, period, unlike today.

Instead, we draw it out. When a person puts saving faith in Jesus we do not readily give them a platform to publicly demonstrate it until the next baptism service rolls around. This is often why the question of whether or not baptism is a requirement for salvation comes up, because it does not align with examples from Scripture. In order to know the truth we must look at Scripture and the examples throughout the New Testament to formulate a Biblical viewpoint of water baptism.

However, we must first look at salvation. The Bible clearly teaches that salvation is a gift of grace."For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" ( Romans 3:23-24 ).