Is baptism required for salvation? Must a person be water baptized to be saved? -Podcast Episode 149

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Welcome to the Got Questions podcast. We're today gonna be discussing an issue that we touched on briefly in a previous episode, but we're gonna be diving into a specific aspect of it.

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So the question is sort of a, what does the Bible teach about baptism, but more specifically today, is baptism necessary for salvation?

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And this is a incredibly common question that we receive at gotquestions .org.

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So joining me today to discuss this is Jeff, the administrator for BibleRef .com

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and Kevin, the managing editor for Got Questions Ministries. And what's interesting about this question is that first there are a few

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Bible verses that at least at first glance seem to teach that baptism is necessary for salvation.

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So we're gonna be discussing those, but there's also, there's something about this issue that makes those who believe in the baptism is necessary for salvation, or you can call it baptismal regeneration, are particularly adamant in their view, even particularly aggressive in that 21 years

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I've been doing Got Questions, people often ask, so Shea, who's your most frequent critic?

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And while I don't know that Got Questions' most frequent critic is people of this persuasion, but some of the most harshest, most aggressive, most,

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I don't know, even demeaning, I would say, conversations I've had have been with people, whether they're of a

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Christian church or Church of Christ persuasion who hold to baptismal regeneration, they hold this position so strongly that it's a hobby horse, kind of a soapbox -top issue, where this is everything for them, and they purposefully seek out people they can argue with about this.

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And it's happened, again, in our 21 years, over and over and over again, that I can almost write the playbook for how the conversation's going to go, which always ends up with me being contemned to hell for eternity for not believing that baptism is necessary for salvation.

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So in discussing this today, we want to express our view very strongly that we do not believe that baptism is necessary for salvation, but also want to tell people to understand what baptism is, and that it is very, very important, and also explain the different passages to you, but also do it in a spirit of love, that no matter how strongly we feel about this, we don't want to sound demeaning or insulting to those who hold a different persuasion.

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With that said, this is a vitally important issue, and if you are trusting in baptism for your salvation, you're trusting in the wrong thing, and that can definitely affect your eternal destiny.

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So Jeff, why don't you start us off? What's going through your head when you receive a question about this, and what are some of the things you've learned over the years from having to have these conversations over and over again?

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I've learned that there's a lot of sincerity behind where people are coming from. I understand why they would be passionate.

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If you really believe that what somebody's teaching about salvation is incomplete, then you would expect the person to be passionate about it, and to be interested in it.

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The concern that I have is that so much of that passion seems to be driven at a conclusion, and it doesn't always follow from a good thought process.

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And for me, there's the idea of the main things and the plain things. In other words, I don't think that God puts things in scripture that are these little, tiny, hidden bits that are super important for us, but we have to dig and uncover until we find them.

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I think he makes the very important things relatively clear, and that comes through things like repetition. And what you see in scripture is that the consistent pattern is that salvation is connected to faith.

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It's connected to belief. The other consistent thing that you see in scripture is that it is disconnected from works.

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And there's some scriptures that I'm sure we'll bring up several times today. One is Titus 3 .5. It's not righteous works that we do, which was important when

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Jesus was baptized because he referred to it that way. Ephesians 2 .8 talks about being saved by faith, not by works.

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Really important one for me is Romans 11 .6. It talks about how you cannot combine grace and works.

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There is no possible combination of the two of those. There is no intermingling. It's matter and antimatter.

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You cannot, in any sense, in any way, in any aspect, combine a gospel that says you are saved by faith with the gospel that says you are saved by works.

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There is just no way to integrate those things. Now, obviously, baptism is a work.

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And I'm aware that people will try to argue perhaps that belief is a work also, but that's really almost impossible to demonstrate when you're talking about baptism as something that's physical, it's external, it's a ritual, it's something that involves other people.

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In fact, baptism is something that you have to have somebody else do for you or to you in order for you to be saved.

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So just from the broad theological perspective, you see this overall sense of the

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Bible that just does not support this. And then you've got specific examples. Jesus, when he was baptized, obviously he wasn't being baptized in order to be saved or to actually wash away sins.

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And he referred to his being baptized as fulfilling righteousness. He said it was a work.

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He said it was an act. Jesus said in John that he was not going out and baptizing. Paul said that he was not sent to baptize.

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He was sent to preach the gospel, but he wasn't sent to baptize. So we see this overall consistent theme in scripture that tells us that it is not the case.

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The problem is when people want to take specific verses and they'll read a verse and they'll pull it out of the context that I just talked about and read by itself like that, it's easier to read the wrong conclusion in and then they go from there.

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And that's where a lot of the confusion and a lot of the arguments that we have with people come from are in those categories.

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I think that's really important. One of the things you mentioned there, Jeff, was that somebody else has to baptize you.

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And so if we have to be baptized to be saved, does that mean that in order for a person to be saved, another person has to be present because you can't really baptize yourself?

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I mean, you know, and how do we square that with scripture? You know, I just want to magnify the grace of God.

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And I am so thankful that we are saved by grace, God's undeserved favor in our lives and that Jesus paid the price for our sins totally.

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And that as we have faith in him by God's grace, he saves us without ritual, without having to have another person present, without going through these other things or adding anything to it, it's just receiving the free gift.

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And I think that's, I think we just need to magnify the grace of God and all of this.

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And then also, I think when, anytime we discuss the idea of baptismal regeneration, and a lot of times we start focusing on what the

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Bible says about baptism. But I think what we really need to do is focus on what God says about salvation first, because God says so much about our salvation in Christ.

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And it's very clear, once we have a good understanding of what the

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Bible says about salvation by grace through faith, and that's a theme repeated over and over, then when we run across a passage that mentions baptism in relation to salvation, we've got a framework from which to approach that passage.

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You know, we know how to deal with it better because we understand God's salvation first by grace through faith.

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One of the go -to passages that's often brought up in these types of discussions is

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Acts 2, verse 38. So on the day of Pentecost, Peter is preaching to the crowds and they ask him, because they're convicted by the

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Holy Spirit, they ask, what shall we do? And then Peter says in verse 38, repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.

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And I guess, and so a lot of people latch onto that and say, well, there it is. You know, Peter says you gotta be baptized in order to have your sins forgiven, have your sins taken away.

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Well, several ways that we can, several things we can say about this, and we need to make some points here.

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One is that Peter was really simply fulfilling what just a few days earlier that Jesus had said to him and to the other disciples that they were supposed to go into all the world and make disciples baptizing them.

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And so here's Peter preaching on this very first day of the church and saying, okay, you need to repent, need to be baptized because this is what

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Jesus, this was the great commission. Also, there's a good question about the word for, translated for in our

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English Bibles. If we are, he says, repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.

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Well, the word for can mean because of. In fact, we see it used exactly that way in Matthew 3 and verse 11.

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And so if we take that preposition, with that meaning, then

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Peter's saying, repent because of and be baptized because of the remission of sins.

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And that would clear things up right there. There are also some other grammatical reasons that we go through in our website.

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Our article online deals with some other grammatical issues that connect the forgiveness of sins more to the repent part of Peter's statement than to the baptism part.

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So I refer you to our online article for that. But also just because Peter mentions baptism at the same time as mentioning the forgiveness of sins, it doesn't follow that baptism is a condition for salvation.

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So we have Peter's command to repent and be baptized. That's very clear. But then the logical connection between the forgiveness of sins is not so clear if we try to connect that to baptism.

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What we have to do is take a look at the rest of what Peter preaches. Jeff, you were mentioning about the difficulty of trying to pull a verse out of context and taking one verse out of scripture and then running with it.

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What else did Peter preach? Well, in the very next chapter, his second sermon in chapter three and verse 19, he says, repent and return that your sins will be washed away.

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So no mention whatsoever of baptism in sermon number two. And then

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I think really key is Acts chapter 10 as Peter, again, still same Peter, talking to Cornelius and his household.

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And in Acts chapter 10, verse 43, Peter says, of Christ, all the prophets bear witness that through his name, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins.

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So again, no mention of baptism whatsoever, simply believe in the name of Christ.

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And also here in Acts 10, Cornelius is clearly an example of a Christian who was not yet baptized.

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He and his household had believed they had already received the

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Holy Spirit. And so when Peter sees that they've received the Holy Spirit in verse 47, he says, surely no one can refuse water for these to be baptized who have received the

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Holy Spirit, just as we did. So clear evidence that we have genuine believers who have not yet been baptized.

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And so we have to look at everything that Peter taught. And when you see that in several places,

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Peter is preaching salvation by faith, by grace through faith, then we have to go back to Acts 2 in verse 38 and say, well, he was not, we can't make the case that he was teaching that you have to be baptized in order to be saved, or else he would have taught that consistently everywhere he went.

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Yeah. Excellent point, Kevin. If baptism was necessary for salvation, there's no way that any gospel presentation in the

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Bible could lack a mention of baptism. There's no way. They would not leave it out if it was something that was absolutely required.

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It's not by Peter, but it's by Paul. Acts 16, 31 is another one where the

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Philippian jailer specifically asked Paul, sir, what must I do to be saved? If there's ever an opportunity to say, believe and be baptized, here it is.

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Well, Paul responds, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. It's only faith is mentioned.

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And a few verses later, the Philippian jailer and his family, they all believe and are baptized. So we're not denying that baptism is important or that baptism is something you do in response to being saved.

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But Acts 16, 31 is false in and of itself. Paul was actually teaching false doctrine if baptism is necessary for salvation.

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Like I said, if baptism was necessary for salvation, every single gospel presentation, every single invitation to receive

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Christ in the Bible would have to include a mention of baptism. And that passage in Acts 16,

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Shea, reminds me of the theme that we see all the way through the

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New Testament. The order of events is that unbelievers hear the gospel, they respond to the gospel, they believe, and then they are baptized immediately.

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And I think that's an important point to make, that in the first century, in the early church, they didn't wait around to be baptized, they got baptized immediately.

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They found a body of water and they got immersed and they were baptized. And that's why often in the

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New Testament, we do see a close connection between water baptism and salvation, because it was at that baptism that people were making their statement of faith.

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They decided to follow Jesus and they go to the water of baptism saying, I believe.

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And so the moment of their salvation may have corresponded with the fact that they were being baptized.

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And so there was a close correlation because they didn't wait around to be baptized like we a lot of times do today.

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So if I were to think of another very common verse that we're asked about, it'd be

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Mark 16, verse 16. Mark 16, 16 reads, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

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Whoever does not believe will be condemned. Now, first, you can't deal with this passage, anything in Mark 16, verses 8 to 21,

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I believe, without at least mentioning that there are some serious doubts whether this passage actually belongs in the

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Bible. In some of the oldest and most reliable manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, this whole ending after verse 8,

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I believe, of the Gospel of Mark is not there. So Mark 16, 16, there are some serious doubts whether it actually belongs in the

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Bible to begin with. Secondly, so putting that aside, which I don't think you should put aside,

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I am of the conviction that Mark 16, 16 was not originally in the Gospel of Mark. It was added later.

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But even if we assume that Mark 16, 16 belongs in the Bible, there's something very interesting about it.

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And it's very similar to, Kevin, what you're talking about in Acts where each of these presentations, they don't all mention baptism.

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Even in the second half of the verse, or first half says, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

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Whoever does not believe will be condemned. The second half of the verse does not say whoever does not believe or is not baptized will be condemned.

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I think if this verse is genuinely part of scripture, then what it's saying here is going back to this connection that in the first century, especially in the very early days of the church, baptism was done immediately after salvation.

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The idea of an unbaptized believer was completely foreign to the early believers.

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But the second half of the verse does not link whether or not you're baptized to whether or not you are condemned.

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So it's saying whoever believes and demonstrates or shows or makes confession to their belief by being baptized is saved.

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Whoever does not believe is condemned. So even in this one verse, there's a distinction. Baptism would need to be in both places if we're going to make a strong argument that baptism is necessary for salvation.

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So Mark 16, 16 in brief, one, it's unlikely that it belongs in the gospel of Mark.

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Seems that it was added later to give Mark a less strange ending where it ends just at verse eight, where it says, and the women were confused and said nothing to no one.

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But two, even in just interpreting the verse, there's a distinction even in the verse between believing and being baptized.

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I think that's very important for us to point out when we look at Mark 16, 16. It's not the only time that people will sometimes pull words and turn them a little bit sideways just to look for something.

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Another example of that is in John chapter three, where he makes a reference to being born of water and the spirit in order to see the kingdom of God.

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And here's another example where context is very important. So for me, starting from the broad context,

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John as a writer is very passionate. We talked about people being passionate about what they're doing.

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John's very passionate about explaining salvation. He's very clear in his book about Jesus's divinity, things like that.

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We also have to remember that John was following John the Baptist before he was following Jesus.

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And he refers to John the Baptist. So John the evangelist certainly understands baptism.

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He clearly grasps what that means and what it doesn't mean, and yet given opportunity over and over and over again,

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John does not explicitly connect baptism to salvation. So in this, you have this phrase where he says you have to be born of water and the spirit.

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If John's gonna have an opportunity, just like we said before, if there's going to be a moment to explicitly say,

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Nicodemus is saying, what am I supposed to do? Jesus doesn't say you need to believe and you need to be baptized.

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Born of water, born of the spirit, a little on the vague side, partly because baptism at that point hadn't been instituted yet.

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Christian baptism was not yet a thing. The baptism of John was, but Christian baptism wasn't yet.

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So there's some level of symbolism, either it's cleansing or physical birth. And there's like several different interpretations that people have come up with that.

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But the simplest, easiest way to look at that is to say that John the evangelist certainly understood baptism.

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He clearly knew that it existed. He certainly understood what

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Jesus said. And John is writing his gospel quite a while after the other gospels are written.

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So there again, he has an understanding of what people are thinking and what they're perceiving. And there's just nothing in there where he makes any references to that.

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So some of these involve understanding analogy. Some of them understand metaphor.

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Some of them are just a question of not pulling things out of context. Each of them has their own unique spin, but that one for me is a little bit easier just from knowing where John is coming from when you look at it with the whole context of scripture.

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I think another passage that we probably have to hit is 1 Peter 3 and verse 21.

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I'll read verses 20 through 22 here so we can get the context. But Peter says, in the ark, speaking of the ark of Noah's day, in the ark, only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water.

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And this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also, not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.

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It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand with angels' authorities and powers and submission to him.

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And so one of the things we have to do is keep it in context. Peter is writing his epistle here to the persecuted church.

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And he's trying to encourage them in their sufferings. And so he mentions Christ's suffering in verse 18 right before this.

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And then he mentions Christ's glorification. Christ was raised from the dead in verse 21.

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He is ascended into heaven in verse 22. And so this, then he brings in this matter of baptism and he compares it to Noah's ark.

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And so we have to ask ourselves what correlation is there between Noah's ark and the believer going through the waters of baptism?

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Well, in Noah's day, the floodwaters were a sign of God's judgment.

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God was judging the world and God preserved Noah through that judgment, kept him safe through that judgment in the ark.

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And so we know that from Romans chapter six, that the

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Christian is identified with Christ's sufferings and with his resurrection.

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And baptism is a way to show that, Peter says. As we are baptized and we go into the water, we are passing through God's judgment as it were, like Noah did, and coming through safely.

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We are raised with Christ at the end and eventually glorified with Christ. So water baptism pictures are joining with Christ in passing through God's judgment to a new life.

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We identify with Christ's death and we safely pass through God's judgment.

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And we've got to take a look at the contrast then as well. Peter very specifically points out that we're not saved by ceremony.

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He very carefully says, this is verse 21, that he's not talking about the removal of dirt from the body.

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He's not talking about a physical ritual ceremony that is saving us.

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In fact, he says in the same verse then, that we are saved by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who's gone into heaven and is exalted there at the right hand of God.

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And we are exalted by a pledge of a clear conscience toward God. This pledge to God, this calling out to God from the heart is what baptism represents.

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And that's what saves us. An appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so Peter here is simply connecting baptism with belief.

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And so again, we have to remember that baptism occurred as soon as people were saved.

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And so when somebody is coming to the waters of baptism, they're saying, I am calling out to God from the heart.

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I am appealing to him for a good conscience based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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And I am identifying with him. I'm identifying with Christ's suffering and resurrection. And I'm gonna show that publicly through this water baptism.

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And it's a beautiful picture that Peter puts here, but it has nothing to do with being saved simply because you got wet.

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There's a long extended context behind those things. So we can see several instances where Peter has opportunity to talk about what the gospel is or isn't.

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And be consistent theme is belief. When he has opportunity to specifically include baptism, he doesn't.

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We saw the same thing with John, where John has opportunities to make something very explicit about baptism.

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Paul does this exactly same thing. It's not that they're... You wanna ask sometimes, are they hiding this?

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Are they trying to be coy about it? Why would it not be brought up? Shay, like you were saying, if it's necessary, absolutely for salvation, then every single reference to salvation should have some kind of a remark about baptism.

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So for me, another one that's at least worth bringing up, Galatians 3 .27. It talks about as many as were baptized, put on Christ.

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Here again, you're talking about Paul. The entire book of Galatians is Paul telling a group of people how they're trying to add something to salvation.

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They're trying to take the grace gospel that actually is the real gospel, and they're trying to add something onto it.

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It's inconceivable to me that if Paul was trying to say, you can't add anything to faith, there is no other gospel.

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Anyone who says there's a different gospel, let them be accursed. And what he really meant was, you can't add anything to grace except baptism, which

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I'm not gonna mention in this context. We're just gonna talk about this other issue. So I know it's sort of a meta kind of a thing.

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We use that term to refer to something that's kind of looking at everything from a 30 ,000 foot view, but it's just very difficult to actually read the

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New Testament and come away with the impression that the writers intended you to understand that baptism was a requirement.

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And there's plenty of things that can be true that the writers of scripture may not have intended for us to fully understand, because a lot of things are not that super important.

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There's a lot of things that maybe they understood and God knows, but he didn't make super clear.

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This, this just cannot fit into that category. If it's going to be that important, it has to be something clear.

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And instead you see the opposite. You see faith and faith alone, grace, grace alone, never a reference to rituals or works.

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I wanna bring it back to the point that each of us has mentioned that there's so many scriptures that attribute salvation to faith.

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Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son that whosoever believes.

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To those who received him, to those who believed his name, he gave the right to begin. Go on and on and on. If these other verses that we mentioned, and there are a few more, and we'd invite you to read the other articles on GotQuestions that talks about different verses that some people will use to teach baptismal regeneration.

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But if any of these actually meant that baptism is necessary, that would introduce, the scripture would contradict itself.

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There's no way that John 3, 16 can be true and Acts 2, 38 could teach that baptism is necessary for salvation.

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There would be a contradiction there. And this is what, when we talk about studying scripture in context, one, you study in the context of that actual passage, but you also study in the context of the entire message of the

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New Testament. And if the New Testament repeatedly says that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, well, these verses that seem, if you take them out of context, to teach that baptism is necessary, it can't possibly mean that.

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Or else we're introducing, God is contradicting himself. And to give you an example, when

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Jesus was talking to the rich young ruler, rich young ruler comes up to him and says, what good thing must

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I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus responds, keep the commandments. Well, why did

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Jesus say that? Isn't that teaching salvation by works? And yes, if you left it alone, that right there is a verse saying, wow,

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I guess we have to keep the commandments in order to be saved. Well, you study it in context, you realize why

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Jesus said that to this particular person at that particular time was to help him to realize it. No, he had not kept the commandments, therefore he needed to trust in Christ by faith.

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He needed to believe that God to save him, that his own good works weren't going to save him. But if you take just that one verse, it's teaching salvation by keeping the commandments.

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But you take it in the entirety of the picture of the New Testament, you can see clearly that's, it can't possibly mean that because of the explicitly clear message throughout the rest of the

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New Testament. And that's what we wanna point to. And all these different verses that people like to point to, say that baptism is necessary, it can't mean that because of the so explicitly clear passages elsewhere in scripture that teach the exact opposite of that.

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And for me, if I were to point to one more that I don't think that we can neglect in here is in 1

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Corinthians chapter 16, where Paul says, here is the gospel

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I preach to you. And he mentions the death, the burial, the resurrection of Christ.

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He says, if you hold firmly, if you believe in these truths, trust in them, that is your salvation.

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That is the message of the gospel. Baptism is nowhere mentioned in the passage, not even a clue.

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There's not even a vague reference to water anywhere in the passage. So again, if baptism was necessary for salvation, no presentation of the gospel could possibly lack a mention of baptism.

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If baptism is necessary for salvation, when Paul says earlier in Corinthians, he talks about how he very rarely baptize people.

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And he was actually grateful for that. How could you possibly say that if baptism is necessary for salvation?

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It does not compute, it does not work. So the message of the New Testament is clear that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

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That baptism is a very important step of obedience that a person believes and is baptized to show their identification to Christ, to make a public confession of faith in Christ.

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It's crucially important, it's very important, but it's not required for salvation.

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Therefore, these verses that seem to out of context teach that, they can't possibly mean that because that would be introducing contradiction to scripture.

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And then we know God does not lie. God does not contradict himself. God is not a God of disorder and confusion.

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I think that's where there's a little bit of telling per se in the way that we've handled this.

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We made a brief reference early. It's worth making a brief reference at the end to the idea of how some people will try to redefine works, baptism, faith in a way that takes away that contradiction.

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So it's telling that even those verses themselves, they don't present a good case that baptism is a requirement for salvation because many of the people who look at those, they're confronted with these other verses and these other ideas in this broader context.

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Then it becomes saying, how can you say baptism is a requirement for salvation if the Bible specifically says we are not saved by works?

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And the logic is a little bit tortured, but it's worth remembering that baptism is something that's external.

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It's done to you by somebody else and it requires physical behavior. If that's not a work, then the term work doesn't mean anything.

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It has no meaning whatsoever. Similarly, I've seen people who would try to turn around and say, well, belief is a work.

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So it's all about which works are and which works are not. Sometimes they'll point to John chapter six, again, taking things out of context and misinterpreting.

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People ask Jesus in the middle of a controversial sermon, they say, so what works are we supposed to do in order to be saved?

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And Jesus says, this is the work, is to believe on the one that was sent. And that's not Jesus calling belief a work.

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That's like when I invite somebody to my house and they say, what am I supposed to bring? And I say, just bring you.

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Well, I literally, I don't mean to pick yourself up and bring you in. The point that I'm making is there isn't anything

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I want you to bring. When Jesus said, no, this is the work, is believe. He's saying there are no works.

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There is nothing that you can do to believe this. So it's at least worth noting that when we have these conversations and Shay, you referred to a playbook is you can see some of these steps happen.

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And when the contradiction becomes clear, typically people will start to resort to trying to redefine terms, just to hang on to this idea.

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And it doesn't work. There just is no way that you can rationally, reasonably cram a requirement for baptism into all the things that the

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Bible says about faith and grace when it comes to salvation. So I wish

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I could say that some of my conversations with baptismal regeneration advocates have ended with them changing their minds.

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And I hope and I pray for the people after we have the discussions, for God to, our prayer is usually,

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Lord, open both of our eyes to the truth. Whichever one of us is wrong on this, please convict us.

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I've never had anyone come back and say, look, thank you for explaining scripture in this way.

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I've changed my mind on this. But one point that I think is important for us to remember, so people who teach that baptism is necessary for salvation,

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I will often ask them, okay, do you have to believe that baptism is necessary for salvation to be saved?

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Like, can I, okay, I've trusted in Jesus Christ by grace through faith. I have been baptized, but I do not believe that baptism is necessary for salvation.

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Am I saved? And every single time, the answer has been no, that you have to believe that baptism is necessary for salvation to be saved.

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Like, okay, well, where's that in scripture? Where is both, okay, you can point me to verses that as we've talked about, out of context, can seem like they're teaching that baptism is necessary for salvation, but nowhere in scripture is it even a hint that you have to believe a certain thing about baptism in order to be saved.

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So it comes full circle back to, they don't understand salvation, and as much as they will claim,

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I'm just studying scripture and submitting to what scripture says, and yet they're adding to salvation, but something is clearly non -biblical by requiring a certain belief about baptism, and some will even go further and require a certain view of repentance and a certain view of confession, is you have to not only do all these things, but you have to believe all these things about these things in order to be saved.

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So it becomes very, very clear that they're adding works to salvation, no matter how they define what a work is or what obedience is, but having certain beliefs about baptism is nowhere even hinted at anywhere in scripture as being a requirement of salvation.

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So that's very important for us to know, and when you have these conversations, that's a helpful question to ask. It's like, okay, you believe that baptism is necessary, but do you also believe that a certain belief about baptism is necessary, and every single time they've answered that yes, so then challenge them.

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Okay, where is that in scripture? And they won't be able to come up with anything because there's absolutely nothing, but it comes back to the mindset of what are you trusting for your salvation?

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Are you trusting in the gospel, which is Jesus' death and resurrection, pay the penalty for our sins?

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Are you trusting in Christ and Christ alone for salvation, or are you trusting in your obedience? Are you trusting in performing certain acts?

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Even if you believe that act is not a work that earns you righteousness, but a work that God requires, it's still a work, and therefore it still is a contradiction of Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and many other verses.

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So as you can see, hopefully, this is a passion issue for the three of us because it goes to the heart of the gospel.

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We truly believe that people's eternal destinies are at stake when they start adding works of righteousness to requirements of salvation.

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And so here in a passion for people, we don't love arguing.

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We don't wanna sound condescending, but this issue, whether baptism is necessary or self -salvation, goes back to the heart of the gospel.

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It goes to the elementary truth that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, and therefore works, including the work of baptism, cannot be a part of that equation.

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So this has been the Got Questions podcast on is baptism necessary for salvation?

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So short answer, no. For the longer answer, please tune into the previous 30 -whatever minutes of this conversation.

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So thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Kevin, for joining me and for I know the study you did in preparation for this. Hope this conversation has been encouraging to you, and we invite you to study the scriptures, read the verses that we mentioned in their context, and read also the passages about what salvation is, and think to yourself that if baptism is necessary for salvation, could there be any mention of the gospel in scripture without baptism being mentioned?

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Again, we invite you to keep studying God's word, and in addition to the articles that we mentioned, numerous other articles on baptism.

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There may be more articles about baptism on Got Questions than almost any other issue, so please study the scriptures, read the articles we have, and ask us any questions we have.

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We are more than happy to dialogue with you on this issue. So Got Questions, the