Now that you have given your heart to God by receiving the Good News, what’s next?
On the day of Pentecost, the exact day God’s church begins, the scripture in Acts 2:37, states, “Now when they heard this, (what Peter had preached) they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” and Peter’s response was this, verse 28, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. …” WEB
We can see that after we repent for our sins and ask God into our heart, we are to be baptized. So in the next few paragraphs we will look at God’s word to see what Peter was commanding the people to do when he said, “…be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins,…”. WEB
Both the words “repent” and “baptized” are in the imperative in Greek. Imperative here shows it is a requirement. Acts 10:47-48 shows the people receive Holy Spirit and then being commanded to be water baptized. The question to Peter was, “what must we do to be saved”. His response was repent and be baptized. We can see salvation is sealed through the act of repentance and water baptism.
1Peter 3:21 “This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you—not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”. WEB
Next we will look at the word baptism. The term “baptism” is a transliteration from the Greek words referring to the action of washing with, or plunging into (literally, “surrounding with”) water. An example of this is found in Acts 8:34 through Acts 8:40. A summary is as follows.
Philip was in a chariot with a person called a eunuch. As Philip preached Jesus to him, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Behold, here is water. What is keeping me from being baptized?” “they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, and the eunuch didn’t see him any more, for he went on his way rejoicing.” WEB
This shows that when baptized one is to be completely immersed in water.
Next, why in the name of Jesus? In a nutshell, as a new convert to Christianity, we are identifying with his death. So, another question arises, why? It all goes back to what Christ did when he died on the cross. Jesus took on our sins and paid the penalty of death for our sins. He substituted his life for ours!
In Romans chapter six, verses 3-7 we read this as follows: “…Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.”