Does water baptism amount to salvation
What is to be saved?: Answer
Salvation is God getting His son back. It’s the restoration of glory and honor, and it happens exactly the way He set it up from the beginning. When God restores what we lost in the garden, that is to be saved. In the garden, God said “don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for the day you shall it of it, you shall surely die.” Man disbelieved and died. Now Jesus now says John 10:28 “and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” John 8:24 “for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”
What man lost
In the beginning, glory and honor were man’s inheritance. Glory was being created in the “image and likeness of God.” Honor was the dominion God gave man over “all the works of his hands” Gen 1:26-27, Heb 2:7-8 KJV.
Above that, man was earmarked to eat of the tree of Life and live forever. But life and existence aren’t the same thing. Trees exist. Planets exist. People exist. But not all people that exist are living.
When Adam and Eve disbelieved God, they lost the life of God. The breath of God that He breathed into them in Gen 2:7 KJV left them. After they lost the Spirit, God chased them from the garden and barred the way to the tree of life Gen 3:22-24 KJV. They still existed, but they were dead in trespasses and sins Eph 2:1 KJV.
Only those who are “born of water and of the Spirit” have life in them John 3:5 KJV. That’s why Jesus said “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” John 3:16 KJV.
Why salvation was necessary
Salvation is God demonstrating His love for mankind against the original insinuation of the devil. The devil lied and said God was withholding good from man Gen 3:4-5 KJV. Man believed it, disbelieved God, and lost sonship.
Man became wrong in the eyes of God and in his own eyes. So salvation had to be about both the glory of God and the honor of man. God’s name had to be cleared, and man had to be restored.
Only God could do it. So God came to earth as a man. He put on man, lived on earth as a man, was tempted in all points like we are, and died as a man without committing a single sin Heb 4:15 KJV.
Jesus did that, and that’s how He defeated the devil and destroyed death. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” Heb 2:14-15 KJV.
How salvation is received
After He defeated death, God had to do what He did at formation in Gen 2:7 KJV. He had to breathe on man again.
After His resurrection, Jesus came to His disciples and did exactly that. “He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost” John 20:22 KJV. They received it by faith, and ten days later on the day of Pentecost the promise was fulfilled. “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” Acts 2:4 KJV.
That’s the pattern for every believer after.
In Samaria, they received the Spirit when Peter and John laid hands on them Acts 8:14-19 KJV.
At Cornelius’ house, “the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word” Acts 10:44 KJV.
In Ephesus, Paul laid hands on them and “the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied” Acts 19:1-7 KJV.
Jesus told us this is how to be saved: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” Mark 16:16 KJV. The apostles confirmed it. Peter said, “And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him” Acts 5:32 KJV. When Peter rehearsed what happened with Cornelius, they said, “Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life” Acts 11:18 KJV.
Salvation is entering through the door Jesus opened. Repentance, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost Acts 2:38 KJV. That’s being born of water and the Spirit.
What salvation restores
Salvation is God breathing on you again. The same God who formed man from the dust and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life Gen 2:7 KJV now breathes His Spirit into dead, existent men and makes them living souls.
You get the life of God back. You get the Spirit of adoption, so you can cry “Abba, Father” Rom 8:15 KJV. The glory and honor that were lost are restored. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” Col 1:27 KJV.
The enemy isn’t God. The enemy is the devil who lied about God. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world” Eph 6:12 KJV.
Salvation is being delivered from him and brought back to the Father who never stopped looking for you. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” 2 Cor 5:19 KJV.
That’s salvation. Not just existing, but living. Not just forgiven, but born again. Not just spared, but restored as a son.
And here’s why it had to happen this way: Had Adam eaten of the tree of life in his fallen state, even God could not stop his everlasting existence in that wicked state. Salvation began when God prevented Adam from eating from the tree of life, because that would have eternalized whatever kind of life Adam had. The Holy Spirit, the eternal Spirit, is what God breathes upon those that believe in Him. He is the tree of eternity. “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” Heb 5:9 KJV. “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” Heb 9:12 KJV. “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Heb 9:14 KJV.
The narrow way
Acts 2:38 is how to be saved, and it justifies God who commanded us to be born of water and the Spirit to enter His kingdom. Jesus who He was, God, and His commandment are the door to life everlasting.
The Holy Spirit is the strait and narrow gate, the oil of the wise virgins, the pearl of great price worth selling everything for. He is the wedding garment in the story of the king’s wedding which man decided to do away with.
The following is not salvation:
- Being called by Jesus and named as apostles alone is not salvation. He rebuked them of unbelief Mark 16:14 KJV.
- Confession of sins alone without the baptism of the Holy Ghost is not salvation. Judas confessed his sin, and went and hanged himself Matt 27:3-5 KJV.
- Reciting the “Sinner’s prayer” is not salvation. It’s found in the wide gate and wide road Matt 7:21 KJV.
- Keeping the law is not salvation. Paul, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, was according to the law blameless, yet counted it loss to win Christ Phil 3:5-7 KJV. Church attendance and good standing in your church won’t do it.
- Changing to become a good man with good works is not salvation. You can’t beat Cornelius’s good works: Acts 10:1-10, 22 KJV: devout, fearing God, alms giving, praying always Fasting, seeing an angel, and commendation from God of his well doing, could not save him, but the truth of John 3:5, Acts 2:38 KJV, did. “The Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word” Acts 10:44-48 KJV.
- Being confronted by Jesus with a great light and hearing Jesus’s voice like Paul was not salvation. Ananias had to baptize him and pray for him to receive the Holy Spirit Acts 9:17 KJV.
- Being a disciple and baptized alone, is not salvation. The Samaritans experienced miracles, believed and were baptized in Jesus Name Acts 8:5-12 KJV, but they were not saved. They needed Peter and John to open the door of the kingdom of heaven for them to enter: “they received the Holy Ghost” Acts 8:14-19 KJV. The Ephesian disciples were also baptized but had not received the Holy Ghost until Paul laid hands on them Acts 19:1-7 KJV.
There is only one narrow gate and narrow way – John 3:5, Acts 2:38 KJV.