This paper on baptism as calling on the name of the Lord to be saved was originally delivered to the Reformation Society of Western New York on March 12, 2026. For readability, it has been converted into a series of articles. A PDF version is available.
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Baptism in the Gospels
Part 3: Baptism in the Book of Acts
Part 4: Baptism in the Epistles
Part 5: Conclusion
As we briefly survey the rest of the New Testament texts on baptism, it is crucial to keep in mind all that we have been observing. For example, while Paul never even mentions John the Baptizer or his ministry in any of his letters, there are remarkable similarities between their ministries.1See Michaels, J. Ramsey, “Paul and John the Baptist: An Odd Couple?” Tyndale Bulletin 42, no. 2 (November 1, 1991), 245–60, https://doi.org/10.53751/001c.30517 (accessed January 22, 2026). He notes the indebtedness of Paul to John evident in Acts 20:21 (“testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ”) and 26:20 (“that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance”). “The picture that emerges from these texts is of a Christian missionary who saw himself doing for Jew and Gentile alike what John the Baptist had done for the Jews: i.e., calling them to repent and believe in Jesus. . . . Faith and repentance are inseparable for Paul in the Book of Acts, and because they are, Paul sees his own ministry as a kind of extension of John’s, beyond the Judean desert to the entire Mediterranean world.” (252-53). This therefore would impact how one interprets references to baptism in Paul. If the ritual washing of baptism was proclaimed by John, endorsed and then transformed by Jesus, practiced by the Apostles, and received by the Jew-Gentile church as the “the God-ordained mode of faith’s appropriation of the gospel and of God’s appropriation of the believer,”2Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 180. then it would be wrong for us to assume that Paul’s appreciation of baptism was any different.3Regarding Paul’s remark in 1 Corinthians 1:17, that Christ did not send him to baptize but to preach the gospel, his point is not the unimportance of baptism. He is emphasizing the priority of gospel proclamation in his ministry and his dismay over the Corinthian church’s partisanship. To paraphrase: “Having heard your report, I thank God I only baptized a handful of those among you, otherwise more might be tempted to say that you had been baptized into my name. God forbid! I was not sent to you to make you my disciples, but to make you disciples of Christ!”
It must also be kept in mind that the New Testament authors do not provide an extended exposition of baptism as they do other gospel doctrines. It is never the focus of their argument for, as Castelein notes, “Scriptures do not argue for the penitent believer’s baptism but from such a baptism since it was taken for granted that all believers started their life in Christ in baptism.”4John D. Castelein, “Christian Churches/Churches of Christ View: Believers’ Baptism as the Biblical Occasion of Salvation,” in Understanding Four Views on Baptism, ed. John H. Armstrong and Paul E. Engle, Zondervan Counterpoints Collection (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 134 (emphasis original). The way the New Testament authors naturally speak of baptism in the context of faith and union with Christ suggests that the readers would have readily understood the saving significance of the ordinance. Again, our aim should be to make as much of baptism as Scripture does.
Finally, there is some dispute as to whether references to baptism in the epistles primarily refer to the visible act of immersion in water or to the invisible reality of baptism of the Spirit.5Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 148: “Although the verb ‘baptize’ can have a metaphorical use, the context usually gives a clear indication of this. Without such an indication, the ordinary use of the word at the time in Jewish and Christian circles for the religious immersion of a person in water should be assumed.” See also Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 359; Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, ed. Robert W. Yarbrough and Joshua W. Jipp, Second Edition, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2018), 309. Although these baptisms may be distinguished, they should not be so easily or readily separated. In fact, as we have seen, the trajectory of the New Testament leads one to expect that the baptism of the Spirit anticipated by John is fulfilled in Christian baptism. Schreiner points out that “both Spirit baptism and water baptism were part and parcel of the complex of saving events that took place at conversion,” and that “those who see a reference only to Spirit baptism and exclude water baptism put asunder what God meant to be joined together.”6Thomas R. Schreiner, “Baptism in the Epistles: An Initiation Rite for Believers,” Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, NAC Studies in Bible & Theology, Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds. (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 75. Cross likewise adds: “While there is undoubtedly a metaphorical use of baptism in the New Testament there nevertheless has to be an underlying reality which makes the metaphor appropriate. That this reality is both real and an experience, and one that is associated with baptism, is made clear by Paul.”7Cross, Recovering the Evangelical Sacrament, 154, Kindle edition.
Baptism and Union with Christ
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4)
Here Paul reminds the church that they should not “continue in sin that grace may abound” because they have “died to sin,” both its penalty and power (Rom. 6:1-2). He follows this statement with the truth that those who have died to sin are those who have died with Christ in baptism. Specifically, we were buried with Christ “by/through [διά] baptism” into his death to sin (6:4, 10). It would appear that for Paul, “baptism serves as the instrument by which we are united with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.”8Stephen J. Wellum, “Baptism and the Relationship Between the Covenants,” Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, NAC Studies in Bible & Theology, Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds. (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 151. So also Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 361-366. It is the means or the occasion of our union with Christ and his redemptive work.9Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 130: “[It] is not that the believer in his baptism is laid in his own grave, but that through that action he is set alongside Christ Jesus in His; in baptism he is reckoned as occupying that grave as he was not before, just as an effective relationship with the Lord on the cross is assumed which did not exist before. Further, the very real connection between baptism and the believer’s relationship to the redemptive acts of Christ is seen in the consistent use of the aorist tenses throughout the passage.” By being baptized into Christ Jesus (6:3), we are to thus consider ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:11).10Calvin also highlights the believer’s participation in Christ’s death in baptism: “Through baptism Christ makes us sharers in his death, that we may be engrafted in it. And, just as the twig draws substance and nourishment from the root to which it is grafted, so those who receive baptism with right faith truly feel the effective working of Christ’s death in the mortification of their flesh, together with the working of his resurrection in the vivification of the Spirit.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1 & 2, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 1307 (emphasis added).
Some see this as directly opposed to the doctrine of justification by faith, which Paul has just advocated in the preceding chapters. But as was noted above, baptism is never presented as a work of the law in contrast to saving faith by which we merit right standing with God. Rather, justification by faith and baptism are the inside and the outside of the same reality.11Green, Baptism, 30. This can be seen in Romans 6 itself, where Paul continues to elaborate upon the fact of the believer’s justification by faith. He declares that “one who has died” with Christ—through union with him in his death by baptism—has been “set free [justified] from sin” (6:6-7). Indeed, even the structure of Romans itself supports this understanding of baptism, as Cross observes:
This baptism is never without faith – faith confessed in baptism and baptism as a confession of faith (cf. Gal. 3.25–26; Col. 2.11–12). That this is so is confirmed by the structure of Romans, where Paul develops his doctrine of justification by faith (Rom. 1–5) before unselfconsciously addressing baptism in chapter 6. This is no change of subject. . . . A single reality is here being looked at from two different angles as is reflected in the combination of faith and confession of Christ in baptism in Romans 10.9–10.10.12Cross, Recovering the Evangelical Sacrament, 41, Kindle edition.
When baptism is understood as the means or occasion of calling on the name of the Lord to be saved (as in Rom. 10:13), such baptismal language poses no contradiction.
Another way to explain references to baptism like this by New Testament authors is that it is an instance of synecdoche, “a figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole or vice versa.”13Jamieson, Going Public, 42. The event of water baptism is often used as a synecdoche for the whole experience of conversion.14See Cross, Recovering the Evangelical Sacrament, 88-99; Jamieson, Going Public, 41-44; Stein, “Baptism in Luke-Acts,” 51-52. While not using this specific term, Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 366, essentially describes synecdoche when he writes: “In vv. 3–4, then, we can assume that baptism stands for the whole conversion-initiation experience, presupposing faith and the gift of the Spirit.” For many evangelicals, conversion usually only refers to a specific moment when a person was born again and “saved.” However, Schreiner is closer to the mark when he writes that “for Paul the events of baptism, faith, reception of the Spirit, repentance, and confession of Christ are one complex, and all occur at conversion.”15Schreiner, Romans, 312. This helps to explain why one more of these components may be missing from a particular biblical text, why they may be described in a different order, or why only one may be mentioned.16Cross, Recovering the Evangelical Sacrament, 96, Kindle edition. Caneday concludes: “The expressions in Rom 6:3–4 invite Christians who view conversion and baptism as separate to acknowledge that Paul regarded them as inseparable though distinguishable as sign and thing signified.”17Caneday, “Baptism in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement,” 322–323.
“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27)
If the relationship between baptism and faith was implicit in Romans 6, here it is made explicit. In verse 26, whether one takes the phrase “in Christ Jesus” to refer to the concept of union with Christ (e.g., ESV, NIV) or to the object of faith (e.g., NASB, KJV), the necessity of faith is clearly being stressed. But this truth is then grounded in verse 27, where Paul stresses that it was our baptism into Christ where we came to “put on Christ” and be identified with him.18As in Romans, notice how naturally Paul mentions baptism in 3:27 after his insistence on faith in 2:15-3:26. It is all those baptized into Christ who now belong to Christ, and those who belong to Christ are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise (Gal. 3:28-29), having received “adoption as sons” (4:5) and “the promised Spirit through faith” (3:14; 4:6-7). Instead of separating faith and baptism, associating union with Christ with one aspect of conversion or another, we should keep them together. Ferguson explains: “Paul binds faith and baptism together as two aspects of entering into Christ. One now belongs to Christ on the basis of faith in him by being baptized into him. If a distinction is to be made between the relation of faith and baptism to the blessings described, one might say that baptism is the time at which and faith is the reason why.”19Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 147.
This agrees with what we have observed so far about baptism in the Gospels and in Acts, since here in Galatians the blessings of forgiveness of sins (1:4; 3:13) and the promised Holy Spirit (3:14) are once more associated with faith and baptism. Similarly, Beasley-Murray stresses here that “if faith is to be taken seriously, so is baptism,” which is “the baptism of faith and grace, so that in it faith receives what graces gives. Above all grace gives Christ, for Christ is the fullness of grace; faith therefore receives Christ in baptism.”20Ibid., 151.
“In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:11-12)
As in Romans 6, Paul is once more addressing the believer’s union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Though there are several exegetical challenges in these verses, the emphasis is clearly on Christ’s redemptive acts and our participation in those acts by being “in him” (2:11). We receive the true circumcision, the spiritual circumcision of the heart, when we come to be united with Christ in his death to sin, because it was there on the cross that his body of flesh was cut away (see 1:22).21“Christ’s body was stripped off in his death, He was buried, He was raised; in Him the Colossian Christians stripped off their body of flesh, were buried with Him in baptism and were raised with Him therein.” Ibid., 152-153. See also James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: William B. Eerdmans Publishing; Paternoster Press, 1996), 153–162; David W. Pao, Colossians and Philemon, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 163–168. Yet this union is precisely what Christian baptism is all about. Paul explains in verse 12 that our baptism is “the means by which or at least occasion in which this powerful spiritual conjunction (‘buried with him’) takes place.”22Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 159. Not only were we buried with Christ in baptism, but it is there that we were also raised with Christ through [διά] faith in the God who gives life to the dead. This is because baptism itself “is a confession of faith in the resurrection of Jesus by God. It is done in faith in the activity of God, who raised him from the dead.”23Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 160. Paul then restates the truth of verses 11-12 in the following verses, where he proclaims to the Colossians that they have come to belong to the new covenant people of God in Christ: “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses” (2:13).
Much could be said about the relationship between the initiation rites of old covenant circumcision and new covenant baptism, but the vital relationship between baptism into union with Christ and faith in the God of resurrection must not be ignored.24Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 156, comments: “So important a function is ascribed to faith here, it is difficult to see how the experience described can be held to be present without the exercise of faith on the part of the baptized.” It is remarkable that the divine actions of heart circumcision, resurrection life, and forgiveness are described as occurring in, happening through, or resulting from baptism. Yet this should not be surprising when one remembers that Christian baptism is always faith-baptism. As an act of saving faith, the Christ-ordained means of calling on his name, it is how one comes to receive God’s saving grace.
Baptism and the Spirit
“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13)
This passage has drawn considerable debate as to whether Paul’s primary reference is to the event of water or Spirit baptism. However, as we have observed, such a strict dichotomy is unhelpful and quite unnecessary, especially considering the fact that there is only “one baptism” (Eph. 4:5). Anthony Cross has demonstrated that a rather convincing case can be made for taking Paul’s mention of baptism in this text as referring both to water and Spirit baptism, for they are two sides of the same coin, emphasizing both the human and divine aspects of conversion.25See Cross, Recovering the Evangelical Sacrament, 146-170, Kindle edition. Remember, the expectation was that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit, and Peter declared that all who repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus would receive the gift of his Spirit. Schreiner seems to agree when he writes: “Baptism in water and the Spirit is the signature event for Christians, marking them out as members of the people of God.”26Schreiner, “Baptism in the Epistles,” 72. These two events can be held together if it is kept in mind that baptism is how the believer comes to Jesus to receive him (John 1:12), how the thirsty receive the water of life that he freely offers (Rev. 22:17), and how we all are “made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). Baptism is “a place where God’s promise of the Spirit is fulfilled in the believer because baptism is an expression of their faith in Christ.”27Cross, Recovering the Evangelical Sacrament, 159, Kindle edition.
A comparison of this text with Galatians 3 is instructive. There, Paul speaks of our baptism “into Christ” as the occasion where we “put on Christ” and came to be “in Christ.” Here, Paul speaks of our baptism “in/by one Spirit” into the “one body” of Christ. Yet it is important to notice that both passages are immediately followed by a similar description of the unity of the church—as the body of Christ and the fellowship of the Spirit—where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. Thus, it is likely that both passages are referring to the same reality, even though 1 Corinthians 12 emphasizes the baptism of Spirit. Christian baptism is the immersion in water of a penitent sinner into union with Christ, yet such a union is not possible apart from the Holy Spirit, for “anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom. 8:9). It is only by the Spirit that one comes to have fellowship with the Father and the Son, and so baptism into Christ is also properly described as a baptism in/by the Spirit.28Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 169–170.
Baptism and Salvation
“Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21)
This is a premier example of a verse that has been used either to make too much of baptism or too little. Some Christians insist on the saving power of baptism here to the point that they seem to disregard the way Peter immediately qualifies his words. Others are embarrassed by his claim, going to great lengths to over-qualify and essentially explain away what Peter is plainly saying. In view of our study, it should be abundantly clear how the Apostle who preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins on Pentecost (Acts 2:38) is able to make such a profound statement. Having just described the deliverance of Noah’s family through the waters of the flood, Peter explains that this event prefigured Christian baptism. Just as Noah was saved through the judgment of the flood, those baptized into union with Christ are saved through the flood of God’s wrath that fell on him.29In Mark 10:38 and Luke 12:50, Jesus speaks about his death on the cross as a baptism, because suffering and judgment are often described in Scripture as an overwhelming flood (e.g., Pss. 18:16; 42:7; 69:1–2; Isa 43:2). But it is neither the ritual in and of itself that saves, nor the water used in baptism that saves; “it is baptism in the sense to be defined in the next clause that saves and that answers to the salvation of Noah.”30Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 260 (emphasis original). Specifically, “baptism is only saving if there is an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”31Schreiner, “Baptism in the Epistles,” 70
There is ambiguity in the way some of these terms are translated and interpreted. The word “appeal” can also be taken to mean “pledge,” and this appeal/pledge can either be from a good conscience or for a good conscience. Whatever one decides on these issues, it still does not change the fact that the basis of this appeal/pledge is the resurrection of Jesus Christ,32Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 193, notes: “The phrase ‘through the resurrection of Jesus Christ’ connects the passage on baptism with a word that became important in later baptismal theology, ‘to be begotten again’ (ἀναγεννάω—appearing in the New Testament only in 1 Pet. 1:3 and 23). ‘God … begat us again [gave us a new birth] to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ’ (1:3). Both the new begetting or new birth and the salvation in baptism are effected, according to Peter, by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.” and that “the subjective appropriation of God’s grace is in view.”33Schreiner, “Baptism in the Epistles,” 70. Fowler likewise observes:
In any case, the attitude toward God which comes to expression in baptism is the fundamental concern and the basic instrumental cause of salvation from the human side. Nevertheless, it is assumed that this attitude comes to expression in baptism, and thus baptism is instrumental in the application of salvation to the individual.34Fowler, More Than a Symbol, 164 (emphasis original).
In this way, baptism is again being presented as a dramatic expression of our faith in the risen Lord Jesus. From the human perspective, it is the means by which one responds to and receives God’s gracious offer of salvation. Yet from the divine perspective, it is “the supreme occasion when God, through the Mediator Christ, deals with a man who comes to Him through Christ on the basis of his redemptive acts. It is a meeting of God and man in the Christ of the cross and resurrection.”35Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 262. God brought salvation through judgment by raising Jesus from the dead, and those who pass through the waters in faith are raised with him to stand on new creation ground.
Baptism and Washing
“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11)
In this final group of passages, the act of baptism is not explicitly mentioned but is likely implied by a reference to “washing.” Attempts are often made to take such language as simply metaphorical, symbolic of the spiritual cleansing effected by the blood of Christ. This is usually an overreaction to “sacramental” interpretations that emphasize the cleansing power of the baptismal waters themselves (baptism as a mechanical process or magical ritual), or an unwillingness to associate the physical act of immersion with the spiritual reality of conversion (baptism as a mere symbol). However, as we have seen, when baptism is understood as a better sinner’s prayer, these texts provide further evidence that those who are “washed” are those who are baptized in faith in order to receive the benefits of God’s grace in Christ.
Just as Ananias told Paul to “be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16), so here in 1 Corinthians 6:11 Paul reminds the church they had been washed. This fact alone suggests that baptismal cleansing is in view.36Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 163, gives four further lines of evidence in addition to this coincidence of language: (1) the aorist tense of all three verbs “points to an occasion when the washing, sanctification and justification took place”; (2) “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” reflects the baptismal formula; (3) the connection of washing with “the Spirit of our God” recalls the link between baptism and the Spirit observed in Acts; (4) other baptismal sayings in Paul “testify to the same momentous transition to the new existence that is expressed in different language in 1 Cor. 6:11.” Their washing is then connected with sanctification and justification, and therefore entrance into the kingdom of God (6:9-10). In baptism by faith, we are calling on the Lord to be cleansed from sin, consecrated to God, and justified in Christ. In baptism, the once unrighteous are welcomed by the church into the covenant community as fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Eph. 3:6). This is what our God promises to do by his Spirit for all who come to him through faith in his Son. Leithart suggests that here “it seems best to understand the three verbs not as different moments in the process of salvation but as dimensions of a single event of washing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”37Leithart, The Priesthood of the Plebs, 109. Ferguson reaches a similar conclusion: “Unlike the later theological distinction between sanctification and justification, here being made holy and being declared just are united with the purifying water. The three verbs belong together and are not to be separated from baptism.”38Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 150. This relationship between the baptismal washing (as a response to the gospel) and the consecration of the believer is also probably in view in Ephesians 5:26, where Christ gives himself up for his bride “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.”39“The baptism that sanctifies and cleanses is that in which the Word is heard, confessed and submitted to by the baptized.” Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 204.
“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22)
Because of the self-offering of Jesus, our great high priest, who made the way for us into the presence of God by his blood and through his flesh (Heb. 10:19-21), the author of Hebrews exhorts his brothers to draw near with confidence. He employs language from Ezekiel 36 to describe the benefits of the new covenant enjoyed by those who draw near to God through Jesus: their hearts have been “sprinkled clean.” He also alludes to the priestly ordination rites and cleanliness laws of the Old Testament by adding how their bodies have been “washed with pure water.” This description of true and total cleansing, made possible by Christ, is why they are fit to enter the holy places in full assurance of faith. But the additional reference here to an outward washing seems to suggest that their baptism in water is in view. More than just a figurative washing, David Peterson argues that “the heart-body parallelism in this verse . . . represents Christian conversion/initiation in terms of its inward and outward aspects: inner spiritual renewal and outward washing with water (cf. Acts 2:38–39; 22:16).”40David G. Peterson, Hebrews: An Introduction and Commentary, ed. Eckhard J. Schnabel, vol. 15, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London; Downers Grove, IL: IVP; IVP Academic, 2020), 242. The idea, once more, is not that mere water effects the cleansing needed to draw near to God; rather, “the meeting place of the sanctifying power of Christ’s death and the individual is the baptism wherein the believer turns to God in faith for cleansing through Christ.”41Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 250.
This passage brings another aspect of baptism into focus: it fulfills the priestly ordination rite of the old covenant.42See Peter J. Leithart, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003). Aaron and his sons were to be washed with water (Ex. 29:4; Lev. 8:6) and sprinkled with blood (Ex. 29:20-21; Lev. 8:30), as well as dressed for service and anointed with oil (Ex. 29:5-9; Lev. 8:7-13). The result of this ritual was ordination to the priesthood. Likewise, in baptism believers are washed with water, sprinkled with blood (Heb. 12:24), dressed for service (Gal. 3:27), and anointed by the Spirit (2 Cor. 1:21-22) so that we may now draw near to God as priests. Baptism does not merely picture this ordination; it is the believer’s ordination service. “Since the church is the royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9–10; Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6) and since through baptism the Spirit incorporates members into that community (1 Cor. 12:12–13), it follows that baptism inducts into Christian priesthood.”43Ibid., 93. This washing, as an act of faith in the promises of God, is fitting for conveying the salvific and priestly realities of the gospel.
“He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:5-6)
As with the other “washing” texts, not all are persuaded that Paul’s reference here is to baptism, but “again it seems most natural that believers would associate washing with their baptismal experience.”44Schreiner, “Baptism in the Epistles,” 85. That this is the washing of baptism is reinforced by the association with God’s saving action, his merciful forgiveness of sins (see Titus 3:3), the gift of the Spirit “poured out” on his church through Christ (3:6), and even justification by grace (3:7). It should also be observed that the emphasis is clearly on the work of the triune God: He saves us, he justifies us, he makes us “heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (3:7). God is always the principal actor! The washing itself is to be understood as being received for “the regeneration and renewal that the Spirit effects” (similar to the emphasis on the Spirit found in John 3:3-8).45Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 278–279. This is not a work done by us in righteousness; this is how “those who have believed in God” (Titus 3:8) call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Once again, Beasley-Murray’s comments are insightful: “The total effect of vv. 5–6 is to represent baptism as the counterpart in the individual’s experience of the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost. Baptism is the occasion when the Spirit works creatively in the believer, as He made out of the community of the disciples the Body of Christ and will produce at the end a new creation for the everlasting Kingdom.”46Ibid., 211.
Many hesitate to associate regeneration or the new birth with baptism, insisting that regeneration must precede faith. In one sense, this is certainly correct. As was previously pointed out, when one zooms in on the complex of conversion, “it is appropriate to identify regeneration as a discrete moment which should precede baptism.”47Jamieson, Going Public, 40–41. But there is another sense in which we should not be afraid to speak as Scripture speaks. The various texts we have surveyed on baptism indicate that the New Testament authors prefer to keep the lens pulled back and thus view conversion as a unified whole, regeneration included.48Ibid. In this way, all the blessings of salvation are associated with baptism by faith. We can recognize that the Spirit is at work before, in, and after conversion, while also maintaining that baptism is a dimension of the divine-human encounter of conversion that gathers up the other elements in a profound and demonstrative way.
