Questions about BAPTISM...

Why do Christians get baptized?

When should I be baptized?

Does someone have to be baptized to go to heaven?

One element of Christianity in particular that is often misunderstood is baptism. There are several different schools of thought when it comes to the act of and the meaning/significance of baptism. Some churches teach that babies should be baptized soon after they are born, while others teach that it is right to wait until an individual comes of an age to make a commitment to God that comes from their own personal relationship with God before baptism.

Whether one believes it is right to baptize someone at birth or later in life is really neither here nor there theologically, and more of a personal decision. While it is true that there is no evidence of infant baptism in the Bible, there is also nothing that condemns it, and one can't really make an argument of silence.

What is important, however, is that we as Christians understand the significance of baptism. All too often, many Christians believe you aren't really a Christian until you have gone through a baptism ceremony, been either dunked or splashed with water, and have had a prayer of blessing said over you. What isn't often understood is that this is a blasphemous way of thinking; it is saying, essentially, that what saves us is water, or a ceremony rather than the grace of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps one of the most helpful ways I've come to look at baptism is comparing it to a wedding ring. At what point do people give one another wedding rings? It is after they have already made the commitment to spend their lives together, right? Now here's the important question. Is it the wedding rings that makes the people married? No, of course not. What makes them married is the commitment they have made to one another. Such it is with Christianity. What makes us Christians is the commitment that we have made to trust in the Lord, and to accept the grace of Jesus Christ. Like the wedding ring is not what makes people married, the act of baptism is not what makes us Christians. It is merely an outward sign of an inward commitment.

Let us remind ourselves of this analogy daily; whether it be with regard to baptism, or wearing a cross, a bracelet, or a T-Shirt that bears our Christian beliefs. What we wear, what we do on the outside to express our faith, is not what saves us. That is not what God looks at. God looks at the heart; at the commitment. He cares about our willingness to be baptized by the Holy Spirit when we accept Christ. That is what makes us, as believers, the bride of Christ.