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
Surprisingly, all four Gospel accounts begin with the ministry of John, the son of Zechariah, before the ministry of Jesus. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1) is with Yahweh’s messenger coming to prepare the way for Yahweh’s messiah. Given the words of the prophets, one might have anticipated such a forerunner proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven was at hand.1Peter J. Leithart, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003), 1. But what is unexpected is the nature of his ministry: “John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). Of all the ways God could have chosen for his people to repent and receive his forgiveness, he sent John to baptize with water (John 1:6, 33). The goal, of course, “was not simply to get people baptised, but to call together the repentant and restored people of God for the imminent eschatological crisis.”2R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 65. The God of Israel was calling Israel to return to him, flee from the wrath to come, await his messiah, and do so in baptism. To reject the baptism of John was to reject the very “purpose of God” (Luke 7:30). And while John’s baptism is distinct from Christian baptism in several ways, the two are nevertheless related in that it is essentially an act of obedient faith in the promises of God in order to obtain his salvation.
Baptism and Repentance
“John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:2-3)
Like the prophets before him, who called Israel to return to the Lord, the hallmark of John’s baptism was “repentance.” This is a word that essentially means conversion, the turning away from sin to begin a new relationship with God.3Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 34: “It is now generally agreed that μετάνοια and μετανοεῖν in the New Testament can be rightly represented only by terms that connote turning or conversion. This ‘conversion’ does not primarily refer to a moral change from evil to righteous conduct but to a change in a man’s relationship to God. The baptism to which John called the Jewish people was therefore a ‘baptism of conversion’; it marked the individual’s turning from sin to God that he might henceforth live in obedience to Him” (emphasis original). In his preaching, he gave the command for his hearers to repent (Matt. 3:2), and this response was to be expressed in water baptism that they might receive the forgiveness of their sins (Mark 1:4). Yet we also read that he came baptizing with water “for repentance” (Matt. 3:11) that they might be converted.4In both Mark 1:4 and Matt. 3:11, the preposition εἰς is behind the English word “for.” What is important to notice here is the undeniable relationship between baptism, repentance/conversion, and forgiveness. John did not call for a baptism without repentance, nor a repentance without baptism. Indeed, “the act of immersion is empty and purposeless unless it is received with repentance.”5A. B. Caneday, “Baptism in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement,” 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), 306–307. It was a baptism of repentance for a divine pardon. It was done “as a plea for eschatological salvation,” seeking forgiveness in order to fleeing the coming wrath associated with the coming kingdom of God (Luke 3:7-10).6Fowler, More Than a Symbol, 157 In other words, to come to the Jordan river and receive this baptism was a response of faith to the word of God as delivered by his prophet.
Beasley-Murray observes that John’s command to “repent” in Matthew 3:2 clearly indicates the human aspect of conversion, the need for sinners to return to God and receive his salvation. Yet his mention of baptism “for repentance” in Matthew 3:11 seems to indicate the divine activity of conversion, the work of God in the life of the one who comes to him for conversion in order to be saved. He writes: “In so far as baptism issues in conversion it presumes the activity of God, who therein accepts the baptized man turning to Him and makes of the act the pledge of his forgiveness and seal of the baptized into the Kingdom.”7Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 35 (emphasis original). This will be a recurring theme in our survey of the various New Testament texts on baptism. It is a divine-human encounter where the grace of God meets the faith of the sinner for salvation.
Baptism and Jesus
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11)
Not only do all four Gospels describe John’s God-given baptismal ministry, but they also include his words about the greater one coming after him who would baptize his people with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16; John 1:33).8Matthew and Luke both include “and fire,” most likely a reference to the refining fire of the Lord described in Malachi 3:1-4. There, Yahweh’s way is prepared by his messenger, and “the Lord whom you seek” comes to purify a priestly people that they may offer offerings in righteousness to Yahweh that are pleasing to him. This is then followed by an account of the baptism of Jesus, who came to John in the Jordan as the representative of his people, in order “that he might be revealed to Israel” (John 1:31). Thus, it was at his baptism that Jesus was revealed as Israel’s messiah, God’s anointed king. And as he came up out of the water, the Spirit descended and remained upon him. This is significant, not only because Jesus in that moment was revealed by the Father to be his Son and equipped by the Spirit for his ministry, but because in his baptism he became “the ‘Bearer’ of the Spirit, that He might baptize in Spirit and fire.”9Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 61.
Some have taken John’s words to indicate a contrast between his baptism “with water” and the messiah’s baptism “with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8). The idea is that while John’s baptism in water was physical and outward, Jesus’s baptism of the Spirit would be spiritual and inward. It is true that John contrasts these two baptisms, but the contrast is not between the physical and the spiritual. The difference is that John’s baptism did not come with the promise of the Holy Spirit (John 7:39). Robert Stein notes this is an instance of “step parallelism in which the second baptism is an advancement on and fulfillment of the first”; Christian baptism “is not only a baptism of repentance with water, but a baptism of repentance with water and the Holy Spirit as well.”10Robert H. Stein, “Baptism in Luke-Acts,” 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), 35–36. Similarly, Fowler points out that “although Christ’s baptizing in the Holy Spirit is contrasted to John’s baptism, it is never contrasted to Christian baptism. In fact, both Acts 2:38 and Acts 19:1-6 seem to assume that the norm is that Christ would baptize in the Spirit in connection with baptism in water.”11Fowler, More Than a Symbol, 172. We will return to this connection between the baptism of the Spirit and Christian baptism in later sections. For now, it is sufficient to point out that while the baptism of John did not include the gift of the Spirit, it was this baptism to which Jesus himself submitted and which he would later invest with power for the sake of his kingdom.12Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 44.
“…the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples)” (John 4:1-2).
In John 3:22-23, we learn that Jesus, who also preached repentance just like John (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:14), had taken up his baptismal ministry as well. Not only did Jesus receive John’s baptism alongside the people whom he had come to save, he further endorsed it by authorizing his own disciples to do the same. Thus Jesus accorded great significance to the baptism of John, affirming himself that it was only by this baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins “that one could be truly counted among the people of God.”13France, The Gospel of Mark, 66. It should be no surprise, then, that the risen Lord Jesus will later commission his disciples to baptize disciples into his kingdom—not only as a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, but as a baptism into his own name.
It is this context, and the clear endorsement of John’s baptism by Jesus at this point in redemptive history, that perhaps provides a better way of understanding his words to Nicodemus in John 3:5 about the new birth: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Most commentators rightly recognize the Old Testament background behind this mention of water and spirit, drawn from passages such as Isaiah 44:2-3 and Ezekiel 36:24-28.14For example, see D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 194–195; Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 4, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 108–109. These authors take the phrase as a conceptual unity, an example of hendiadys. It is also clear that Jesus is not directly referring to the ordinance of Christian baptism here, though it would have been quite natural for the early church to hear these words and make the connection (as they would the Lord’s Supper from texts such as John 6:53-56). Ferguson observes that “John 3:5 became the most cited baptismal text in the second century and continued to be important afterward.”15Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 143. However, when one considers the repeated mentions of water baptism in the surrounding context (John 1:24-34, 3:22-23, 4:1-2); that Pharisees like Nicodemus certainly knew of the baptismal ministry of John, yet “rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him” (Luke 7:30); and the way in which Jesus himself endorsed John’s baptism at that time (see also Matt. 21:23-27; Mark 11:27–33; Luke 20:1–8); a reference to baptismal water here is very likely.16“The need for cleansing and expectation of the renewal of the Spirit, accordingly, was in the air in the period of Jesus and the early Church. The Evangelist’s setting of the dialogue with Nicodemus alongside a second section concerned with the relation of John’s baptism to that promoted by Jesus (vv 25–30) indicates how he wished the first to be understood: Pharisees like Nicodemus should not stand aloof from the call to repentance for the kingdom of God issued by John the Baptist and by Jesus, for all stand in need of God’s forgiveness and the recreating work of the Holy Spirit, which is as imminent as the kingdom itself. In Nicodemus’s situation these gifts are separated, but it is a division determined by the tension within the ministry of Jesus of the ‘now and not yet,’ . . . and by the fact that the sending of the Spirit awaits the ‘lifting up’ of the Son of Man (7:39). In the time of the Church the gifts are conjoined, since the Lord by his death and resurrection has achieved a once-for-all cleansing and sent the Spirit of the kingdom: he who is baptized in faith in the Son of Man, exalted by his cross to heaven, becomes a new creation by the Spirit, ‘sees’ the kingdom, and in Christ has life eternal (vv 14–15).” George R. Beasley-Murray, John, vol. 36, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1999), 49. It should not be hard to imagine that Jesus would have “laid on a Pharisee the necessity of submitting to baptism in the light of the imminence of redemption and sending of the Spirit. . . . If Nicodemus would be born anew, he must be baptized on repentance and faith in the word of the Kingdom preached by its herald, John the Baptist, and its representative, the Son of Man.”17Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 229–230. This is not to say that water and the Spirit have the same function, since the emphasis in John 3:3-8 is on that which is born of the Spirit.18Fowler, More Than a Symbol, 163. But it does suggest a connection between baptism and receiving Jesus (John 1:12).
It bears repeating that at this point in the story of Israel, Yahweh was calling his people to return to him, to flee from the wrath to come, to anticipate the arrival of his messiah, and to do so in baptism. Jesus himself picked up John’s baptism of repentance as he announced the nearness of the kingdom. This was how God had chosen to “give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1:77). This was how the true Israel of God was to be made ready for the Day of the Lord. And it was John’s baptism, with its expectation of the one to come who would baptize with the Holy Spirit, that served as the antecedent to Christian baptism.
Baptism and the Kingdom
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19)
After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus commissioned his church to make disciples of all nations. This was authorization to welcome all who responded in faith to his gospel into the church, for he had given the keys of the kingdom of heaven to his disciples for this purpose (see Matt. 16:13-19; 18:15-20). The way they were to carry this out, in part, was through baptism.19In Luke, Jesus tells the eleven that “repentance for [εἰς] the forgiveness of sins” must now “be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47). In Matthew, the task is to baptize repentant sinners in/into “the name.” In Acts, Peter proclaims the gospel of Jesus and the proper response: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for [εἰς] the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). As Nolland comments, “No doubt we are to understand that the confession of sins . . . and the ritual washing, marking in a concrete manner God’s reception of the act of repentance made by the penitent,which had characterised John’s baptism are also to be marks of this new Christian baptism. But Christian baptism involves more.”20John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005), 1267–1268 (emphasis added). From now on, baptism would be in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, bringing the repentant sinner into a relationship of belonging to the triune God.21Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 91.
By his authority, Jesus had taken John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and filled it with new and eschatological significance. Baptism would now be a participation in his death and resurrection, an entrance into his blood-bought and Spirit-filled church, and an immersion into the name of the triune God. It would serve as the effective sign of their initiation into the new covenant community, the renewed Israel reconstituted in Christ, as well as their “pledged submission to his lordship.”22D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 597. As we will see below, the ordinance of baptism would become the occasion for calling upon the name of the risen Lord Jesus to be saved, to receive the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the promised Holy Spirit.
