What is baptism?

The Church & Christian LifeIn theological review

The short answer

Baptism is the sign Christ gave his church of washing, burial, and resurrection. In it a believer is plunged under water and raised again, picturing what Paul describes: buried with Christ through baptism into death, raised to walk in newness of life. It is done in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and it marks a person as Christ's before the watching world.

The fuller answer

Paul gives the meaning in one picture. We were buried with him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life. Baptism dramatises the gospel: down into the water as into a grave, up out of it as into resurrection. It is a sermon preached with the whole body.

We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:4 (BSB)

It is also obedience to a direct command. The risen Jesus sends his followers to make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Baptism belongs to the Trinitarian confession at the church's root, which is why the Nicene Creed acknowledges one baptism for the remission of sins.

Therefore go 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 (BSB)

Churches differ honestly over who should receive it, infants of believers or professing believers only, and over how much water the picture requires, and those arguments deserve to be had from Scripture rather than from habit. What the whole church has always confessed is what baptism is: the sign of union with Christ in his death and resurrection, washing, and entry into his people, given by Christ himself and not to be treated as an optional extra.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
The Nicene Creed (AD 325, enlarged 381)

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