Does Water Baptism Save Us?

If the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified Jesus in the public square.

These humanistic principles, it's the same idea. I would say that. I would say, what's the problem with stardust bumping into stardust? In the cosmic picture, no, there's no problem. In the cosmic picture, it won't matter.

No, Mr. President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year. I'm sorry, my friends, but I am tired of seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar.

He is a powerful savior, and the gospel is not a suggestion. It is a command.

Reverend Moller, don't you sympathize with that?

I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living God, but I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ, and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it.

For the spiritual abyss, you have not experienced this before.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Apologia Radio.

Apologia Studios, End Abortion Now, and the Ireland video

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What up?

I'm Jeff the Comb and the Ninja, and we have a very important show today with one of our good friends, Matt Slick from karm .org. If you haven't checked that out yet, you should. It is just a huge treasure trunk full of just amazing, amazing content.

Great answers. I knew about Matt for a very, very long time before we got a chance to meet and do a conference together in Canada.

Canada, eh?

You can tell how long Luke and I have been friends.

Speaking of a stressful, awful experience, not hanging out with Matt in Canada, but getting into Canada.

Yeah, that was horrible. That was the one where we got stuck. We got jammed up. Yeah, I think it was our beards. We went into two separate border checkpoint lines, and we're all just giggling and laughing and sort of just ready to get into Canada.

And next thing you know, we both separately got pulled into a room with oddly only people with beards, which was weird. And we were in there for like, I don't know, three hours or something like that.

And they grabbed Luke's phone, went through his phone. They asked us, well, what exactly are you teaching on? We're like, well, we're pastors. We're Christians. We're teaching. Well, what are you teaching on?

Let me see your schedule.

Well, it's a theological doctrine called nunya.

I wish you would have said that.

No, I was just like, just Jesus and the gospel. I didn't want to mention all the stuff that would have kept us out of Canada for teaching in communa, communisma.

Communado?

So hey, what are we doing here? OK, so anyway, got Matt Slick on. He'll be on in just a moment here. But I wanted to bless everybody with something that I think is just absolutely incredible. I posted about it the other day.

Luke posted it first. I saw his. So I posted it, and I was watching it through tears, truly, just because of knowing what we know about God's providence that brought all this about. It is such a tremendous blessing.

So we're going to jump into the discussion today of, does water baptism save us? Is water baptism necessary for salvation? And before we do that and bring Matt on, I want to bless you all with this amazing video.

It's not very long, but it is so encouraging to me, to us in particular. And I want to say, if you have been praying for or giving financially to the work of End Abortion Now, I want to say a big thank you.

And I hope this blesses you, because you did this. This isn't our thing. This is God's thing. This is the work of the church. And if you gave anything, if you gave $1 ,000, if you gave $25, you did this.

You made it possible. So just to give you a little bit of background, years ago, I was asked to go to Ireland to speak as a Reformed Baptist minister at the True Covenanters, like Orthodox Presbyterians, hardcore Presbyterians, their family conference, which they all gathered from the North and the South to come together to do.

And I was like, I didn't know these people. I was like, you know that I'm a Reformed Baptist, right? Like, this is a Presbyterian family, like, denomination conference. Do you know what you're asking for?

And they're like, of course. I was like, well, this is, yes. OK, that's a huge gift. So yeah, and so I just went out there to speak on the gospel, apologetics. And while I was there, all kinds of stuff started happening.

While I was there, I went to their seminary, I went to other churches. I was speaking and teaching and at the conference. And the issue of abortion kept coming up. But at the time, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland had it criminalized.

And the next thing you know, everything started falling down. And abortion became a reality for the Republic, the South. And now it was forced upon the North. And now they're facing the issue of child sacrifice in the North and the South.

And God has used End Abortion Now and Apology of Church to equip and train and raise up leaders that are the godliest saints, you can imagine. They are the most amazing Christians. And they are the voice for a gospel-centered approach to the issue of ending abortion in Northern Ireland, the Republic, and actually in Scotland.

Now they're moving to Scotland.

They're moving out in Scotland. So I wanted to share with you, this is blessed, Pastor Luke and I, our lives. We've been in this since the beginning of this thing, the formation. We never saw it coming.

It's all organic. It's all God. It's not to our glory. We were part of the means of teaching and equipping and challenging them. But this, what you're about to see, God did this. And if you partnered with us, I want you to see the fruit of your sacrifice, your prayers, your giving.

Look what God is doing right now in Ireland.

I support Let Them Live because I believe that human rights begin at conception.

I support Let Them Live because they proclaim God's word on the matter of abortion and uphold his commands and offer for the forgiveness found in the Lord Jesus Christ. I support Let Them Live because they are not ashamed to call abortion what it is, and that it is murder.

And murder is never the solution. Murder is the intentional taking of a human life, and it causes great pain to both baby and mother. Let Them Live want to show mothers that there is another way. Jesus gave his life so that we can have forgiveness.

There's forgiveness for those who took part in it, for those who actually performed this procedure, for even people who stood back and said nothing. The good news about Jesus says that even those who have murdered babies can be forgiven when they trust in him.

It says in the Bible, rescue those who are being taken away to death. Psalm 139 says, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Location is irrelevant, inside or outside the womb, a life is a life.

I want abortion to end in Northern Ireland because I believe that every human being has equal value in the eyes of God, no matter how big or how small they are.

It is time for the church to rise up and tell the truthful news that abortion is murder, but also to proclaim the beautiful news that there is forgiveness and salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

For those who repent, believe in him, and trust in him.

There's hope for the sinner in Jesus Christ.

Let Them Live is a collection of believers north and south that are dedicated to end abortion in Ireland. They also believe that the gospel has to be the focus of this fight against abortion in Ireland.

In our country today, the women have been given very little help. Where pregnancies that they can't have right now or can't deal with, they've been told that murder is their only option. But we should not be allowing our society and our governments to do that to the women of our society today.

Instead, we should be giving them the support and the help and the hope that they need. Murder is never a solution.

I've spent many years of my life studying embryology, anatomy, human development. I've spent many years of my life working in the NHS, caring for those in need. At all points, trying to help and not to harm.

And I can't just stand by and watch the helpless, the pity for being taken away to torture and to death. This is not medicine, this is not healthcare. Everyone should have the right to live, no matter who you are, no matter what you look like.

Let the babies live. I support Let Them Live because I want all babies to have a chance to live. The gospel of Jesus Christ is one of life instead of death, light instead of darkness. My prayer is that our nation will turn from the wicked murdering of unborn babies and find forgiveness, light, and life in Jesus Christ.

We are Let Them Live.

Woo-hoo, that's awesome, my goodness.

Oh.

Let Them Live is our end abortion now baby.

That's right, end abortion now baby, that's right.

It's funny, because I can hear it but not watch it, but you can hear it. Now that we've been there enough, I can tell if someone's from the north or from the south. Right. You hear like James O 'Brien, north, north and south.

Yeah. And then he's ages and doubles.

And I'll tell you what, Philip. Yeah. His prayers.

Or Paul.

Paul, what am I doing? Yeah, Paul, yeah.

Holy Spirit.

Yeah, Holy Spirit. Yes, man.

All right, love you brother.

I love, love, love, love, love these believers. So hey, guys, do you hear that? It is the church, Christians, engaging this issue with the gospel at the center. It's about Jesus, it's about God's word, and being truthful about what this actually is.

It's not just wrong, there's a biblical category for it. It is the unjustified taking of human life, that's called murder. And that is what the popular industry and lobby won't call it. And this, these are Christians, and they're fighting as Christians with the gospel at the front.

And it is a truly humbling experience to see something like this that God brings to life. And we just wanted you to see it. We wanted you guys to see it. Many of you guys love us. You're a part of this with us.

Your hands are in our hands. And you've given towards this ministry. And Let Them Live is an abortion now's baby in Ireland, and moving into Scotland. So I wanted you to see it, because it blessed my life in a big, big way.

So, anyone else?

I was going to say, someone asked, you mentioned Let Them Live, but the website's letthemlive .ie, so that's the Ireland version.

Okay, right on. All right. And if you guys are in Ireland, and you're believers, and you want to bring justice for the pre-born, you want to uphold justice for them, you want to actually protect the fatherless, and those who are being led away to death, you want to do it as a Christian, consistently, in a meaningful way, get into contact with Let Them Live.

Let Them Live is the group that we would say you need to connect with, and they need you. They need your help in many, many ways. So go get connected to Let Them Live. All right, here we go. Let's get into today.

Thank you guys all for watching now on the live stream. Make sure you guys like, click all those buttons, share everything. If you haven't subscribed yet to Apologia Studios, make sure you guys subscribe.

We have all kinds of really interesting content planned for the next couple of months. I think that'll really, some of that'll be pretty shocking, to be honest with you, some of the stuff that we've uncovered related to End Abortion Now stuff.

Marcus is working right now on a little docuseries that is gonna peel back some layers. We discovered some things. I'll just say the word collusion, and I will leave it at that, and say that it will be shocking and hopefully help with the efforts to actually end abortion in our own state.

Yep.

But that's all coming. Lots more coming from Apologia Studios, and hopefully we get to redo or redo do the debate we had planned. Dr. White and I had a debate planned in Utah with two atheist philosophers, professors.

One calls himself an atheist chaplain. That had to get canceled because of COVID -19. Hopefully that gets hooked up again somewhere near the end of the year. We are going soon on a mission to Salt Lake City to finish some work for our documentary.

We're actually doing some work for End Abortion Now as well. And so lots coming. Lots coming. We have a Mormonism documentary coming out hopefully in the next year. We're building it, and I'm actually gonna try to see if I can get Matt to do some stuff for it as well.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, that'd be really good.

That'd be awesome.

With all that said, let's go ahead and bring this discussion into the show today. I'm going to introduce our friend Matt Slick from CARM .org. Matt, welcome to Apologia Radio.

Hey, thanks for having me on.

Absolutely, brother. Excited to have you on. I'm sure most of our audience probably knows exactly who you are. Could you tell us about who you are, where people can go to get connected to your work?

Well, yeah, my name's Matt Slick, and I started CARM .org 25 years ago. Been working on it a lot, and had over, so far, over 100 million visitors to it. I don't know how many we've had now. That was a few years ago.

And we get a lot of traffic. I got thousands of emails coming in. Written a few books. Do radio, mostly on the East Coast. It's in Salt Lake, also Ohio, and stuff like that. And love to do apologetics, debate, teach, and annoy people.

Okay, so I want you guys to know about Matt. Matt is a huge blessing. He's a gift to the church. CARM is an excellent, excellent resource. It is such a blessing. This man has invested his life so much into some important areas to be a blessing to the church.

And one of the things, if you don't know Matt, which, like I said, most of you probably do, Matt has an encyclopedic, is that the right way to say it?

Mind?

Yeah, we'll go with that.

That's good.

I just made that up, I think. But I think the true gift of Matt is he has all these categories and things, and all these years of labor to bless the church, and help them to equip them to defend the faith.

And so he'll just zip off. He knows right where to go. So he's been gifted with a really powerful mind. A lot better than mine, or I think yours.

It's definitely more than mine.

Really strong.

So all that to say, I'm giving, this isn't flattery. It's a true, it's a true get over to CARM. Make sure you guys support what Matt is doing. It is really, truly a gift to the church. So Matt, we had an opportunity just passed across the feed.

I saw that you had a debate this past week with someone from the Church of Christ on the issue of does baptism save us? Can you tell us a bit about that debate and where people can go to get it so they can see it?

Yeah, it's on Facebook, and I have to download it. We did it onto YouTube, and it didn't show up. I don't know why I got to research that. But it's on Facebook. I'll download it, upload it to the CARM .org YouTube account.

We've got a lot of videos up there. But this guy challenged me. He kept saying, I want to debate you, I want to debate you. And I said, okay, finally. And I don't think he did very well. I mean, when you support and defend heresy, you're not going to do very well.

So there were several occurrences during the debate where he didn't know what to do, didn't know how to answer things. And he had the nerve to inject Calvinism into it and attack Calvinism, which I politely warned him is not a good idea.

And he persisted, and he doesn't know what he's doing. But nevertheless, you've got all the information on baptism, on CARM as well, if you want to look it up. I analyze various verses and stuff like that.

I like to debate the issue a lot. And water baptism by immersion is not necessary for salvation. You should get baptized, but you do not have to be baptized in order to go to heaven.

Justification by Faith Alone and the Timeline of Abraham

Yeah, and what we're talking about fundamentally here are issues related to, of course, regeneration. And I would say at a primary point, justification. That there's an actual point in our life where God opens our eyes, we repent, we trust in Jesus, and we are declared righteous.

That's how Paul lays it out in terms of Abraham and a timeline for him. And you have all the statements from the Lord Jesus, and all the things we have in the book of Acts. In terms of people believing, and even in Acts 10, they hear the gospel.

They are filled with the Holy Spirit of God. They start exercising gifts of the Spirit. These are clearly people who trusted in Jesus. And the word from the apostle was, can anyone forbid water so that these who receive the Holy Spirit, just as we have, can be baptized?

That's in Acts chapter 10. So the issue here is in terms of, I think, am I right, Joe? Matt, is that where you would go and really focus on the issue of justification first? How do you get at this?

Well, I have different ways of debating. A lot of people are not ready for some of the approaches that I use on the issue of justification. Now, this guy was discussing the issue of baptismal regeneration and the necessity of it, of water baptism.

And, of course, you mentioned Acts 10, 1044 -48. People, they've already received the Holy Spirit, just as Peter had, speaking in tongues, glorifying God. And so, you know, you get to... I asked them, are the people who are glorifying God, exalting God, speaking in tongues, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit to the church, 1 Corinthians 14.

And they hadn't even yet been baptized yet. Are they still in a state of damnation? And I like to ask questions that are rather pointed because you lay the case out and then ask a question related to the case.

And, for example, what are the things I'll do? I like to use logic a lot, particularly when I'm debating atheists. But I'll bring up certain issues. And with this guy, I said, is it the case that we're justified by faith when we have faith?

Or is it not the case that we're justified by faith when we have faith? And there's no third option here. It's either the case that we're justified by faith when we have faith, or it's not. He could not answer the question.

And the issue of justification is something that's really important. We could talk about this a little bit more on how far you want me to get into it. But they will say that justification occurs at baptism.

And what they're doing is they're adding a human ceremony to the finished work of Christ on the cross, and they're denying justification by faith when we have faith. Therefore, they're denying justification by faith.

And so, they preach a false gospel. And as I said on the debate, I said I called him a false convert, which is true. He's a false convert preaching a false gospel.

So, I think, and we can go to the specific passages, because I know people are thinking of 1 Peter chapter 3, they're thinking of Titus 3. Yeah, they're thinking of all these things. We're going to go through those for everyone's benefit.

But I think what Matt is saying is actually very, very important. I like how Matt puts that in terms of justification when you believe or not. Are you justified when you trust in Jesus Christ, or are you not justified?

Does it have to take, you know, is it six days later when you get into that water, when the baptism is scheduled? Or are you justified before God when you turn to Christ and believe, or when God opens your eyes and allows you to actually believe in Jesus?

I think the place to land here, maybe you can expatiate on this, Matt, is Romans chapter 4. Paul's entire argument is this point. If you are a child of Abraham, you need to have the faith of Abraham. And here's what he says, Romans chapter 4, verse 1.

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say?

Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, credited to him as righteousness. Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Now, is this the key moment here in the text? Because this is the apostle, the inspired apostle's whole argument is hinging on this.

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Here's the timeline of his life.

Please hear it. He quoted Genesis 15 6. He says this, was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised so that the righteousness would be counted to them as well. And also, the key thing here is in terms of the timeline of his life that Paul is pointing to, Abraham believes God has credited him as righteousness.

When?

Well, that was before circumcision. So before this ceremony over into the old covenant, of course, of circumcision was taking place, Abraham believed God. Well, what did he do? Well, empty hands. Well, what did he accomplish?

Nothing. He trusted in God. What ceremony did he perform, right? He trusted in God. It was faith and faith alone. And Paul's argument is it was about 400 years before the law was given by Moses. So you've got Abraham declared righteous before God through faith and through faith alone before circumcision, so before any ceremony, and before the law was given, hundreds of years before the law was given.

Paul's whole argument there is this. Are you a child of Abraham? Are you an heir according to the promise? Then you need to have a similar faith and justification experience as Abraham. Do you have it?

Now, I think that does play into the issue with the new covenant sign of baptism. We can go into a number of verses from the Lord Jesus promising eternal life when you trust in Him. We can, of course, talk about things even like the thief on the cross and how many different ways of salvation are there.

He wasn't baptized. He trusted in Jesus. All that stuff. We can talk through Acts. But I think the key thing here, Matt, and I'd like you to talk about this, is that timeline issue and what Paul is describing in Romans 4.

Can you talk to us about that?

Matthew 14.

You mean out of Romans 4? I think you covered it pretty well.

Yeah, anything you want to add to that in terms of the importance of Paul's gospel apart from works, God justifying the ungodly?

The reason this is the case, a lot of people don't know, the reason that our works can have no part of our salvation is because our works are touched by sin. This is a doctrine of total depravity. Nothing we ever do is pure.

And God is, he says in 1 Peter 1 .16, Be holy for I am holy. The standard of righteousness is God and his character. We can never match up to that. Deuteronomy 27 .26 talks about keeping the entirety of the law, which includes loving God and loving your neighbor.

And the way to do that is on a level of God's perfection. So our works are always touched by sin. Isaiah 64 .6 says our righteous deeds are filthy rags before God. So for us to approach the bloodied cross with our sin-stained efforts and offer them somehow in some way as anything meriting any position with God or forgiveness of God is simply a false teaching.

And those who would adhere to that false teaching are not saved. The Roman Catholic Church teaches this. The Church of Christ teaches this. The Mormons teach this. So what Paul's doing is he is teaching faith alone.

Now, I know that people will go to James 2 .24, I believe it is. They'll say, you know, faith alone, justified not by faith alone. The context of James 2 .14 -26, the context is on the horizontal. It's not vertical between God and man.

It's on the horizontal between people. And you know that from verse 18. You show me your faith, I'll show you mine by my works. So the justification before people is by our works, but justification before God is not by our works.

This is why Paul says in verse 3 of Romans 4, Abraham believed God who was credited to him as righteous. So this is what's critical. The word credited here is a legal term. It's a legal issue. And the reason this is so important is because of the legality of what sin is, which we can get into.

It's really an interesting concept. And then Paul goes on and he says, but to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. So I say that, like I said in the debate, and I say to people, I say, if you have an apple and an orange and you take away the orange, the apple is alone.

If you have a battery and a sandwich, you take away the sandwich, the battery is alone. If you have faith and you have works, you take away works, faith is alone. And this is what Paul's doing here. He's saying to the one who does not work but believes.

So there's no works. It's belief. Belief is alone. Justification is by faith alone, in Christ alone, by the grace of God given to us, because he grants that we believe, Philippians 1 .29, grants us repentance, 2 Timothy 2 .25.

So he does this. And because he's the one who gives us the faith, he's the one who grants that we come to Christ, John 6 .65, then the effort that we have in the freedom of our will to believe, and we do, we can talk about free will, so a great topic as well, we're then justified.

We're then declared legally righteous with a righteousness that's not our own, Philippians 3 .9. And that's what the Bible says clearly. So, justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, because if we had our hands in it, we'd mess it up, and we'd dirty the waters, and no, no, we need the pure, the pureness of Christ's blood to cleanse us, and that's why it's by faith alone, in Christ alone,.

Not by works.

Yes, that's right. So, and it's interesting that people will hear this discussion and they'll go, yeah, but James too. And what I always like to challenge people on is this, I'll say, like Matt is talking about, I challenge people to say, well, what's the context of James chapter 2?

And I've found that many times people don't know what the context is. But if you read James 2, he's not in the same discussion as Paul, and there's proof on two points. One, first and foremost, James couldn't possibly be saying that you have to work your way to heaven to any degree, faith and works, because he says in James 2 .10, whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble on one point, he's guilty of all of it.

So, you can't say that James is teaching it to any degree that those works play into it, because he says, if you fail in one part, you're guilty of the entire thing. So, how are you doing? The next thing is to demonstrate that James is in a different discussion, is he's actually talking about somebody who has a said faith.

He asked the question about dead faith or living faith, which one saves? And the answer, of course, from scripture is only living faith saves, real faith, not a said faith, not a mere profession, but real faith in Jesus.

And James' whole argument is, how do you know someone's faith is living or dead? See, this isn't a conversation that Paul had. Paul's discussion is between us and God. James' discussion is about people, like Matt said, horizontally, how do you know somebody's faith is alive or dead?

And he says, by what they do. And then the proof that James and Paul are not even in the same discussion, and here's the proof that cannot be refuted, is that James' point of contact in Abraham's life is when he offered his son Isaac on the altar.

That's about 20 years or so after Paul's context. And so, he's saying, how do you know Abraham had faith? Because he offered his son Isaac on the altar. It's a question of living faith or dead faith. And James is pointing out, in wisdom literature, how to live and how to show that you have living faith.

It's not the same discussion that Paul's having, which is forensic and judicial. But all that to say, Matt, I think it would be helpful to people because they're so—and you know this, Matt—there are so many proof texts that people will try to draw from that are not in context, do not teach either baptismal regeneration or that baptism justifies or saves us, but they'll say, hey, look, the word water is here, and I see the word save here, and so that must mean water baptism.

Let's just go through some of those verses just quickly and help us, Matt, to respond to those. A first one that people will bring up, and this is a very popular one, and let's start in John. John chapter 3, and this is, of course, Jesus' discussion with Nicodemus, and he tells Nicodemus he must be born again.

And then he says he has to be born of the water and the spirit. And this, of course, causes confusion for Nicodemus, and then Jesus—this is an important element of context and understanding how to read the Bible properly—Jesus says, are you not the teacher of Israel?

How are you the teacher of Israel when you don't know these things? So he, in other words, is pointing to the fact you're supposed to know what I'm talking about. You're the teacher of Israel? You don't know what I'm talking about?

New birth, spirit, and water? You must be born again? Matt, is that passage teaching us that water baptism is what saves us?

Matt. No. For one thing, the context is the baptism of John, which is a baptism of repentance. And we could take a tangent into what repentance is from the Greek metanoeo, a change of mind, and repentance is a compliance with the law.

So we've got to be careful if we say we're saved by our repentance, because we don't want to be saying we're saved by our compliance with the law. And that's a tricky topic to get into and to work out a few particulars, but it's something worth discussing in this if we want to go deeper into it.

But the issue here is that he's speaking of the baptism that's only one known at this point, really talked about, is of John the Baptist's baptism of repentance. Now, there's two other views that are really important.

One group of people will say that the water there is a reference to the Word, the washing in the water of the Word, and it comes forth as alluded to in Acts 22, 16, I think Titus 3, 5. But I hold a view that is a little unpopular, and I'll tell you right away, it's not the majority position.