The Christian Life
"Then said Philip, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest."
Acts 8:37
The Lord Jesus Christ left His people remarkably little to do in the way of ceremony. No priesthood, no altar, no incense, no calendar of obligatory rites. He left two simple things: water, and a meal of bread and wine.
Both are astonishingly plain. Both were meant to be understood by anyone. And both have been so overlaid with dispute, mystery and ritual that many sincere people now find them confusing rather than clarifying.
This article sets out what Scripture actually says about them: what each pictures, who they are for, what they cannot do, and why they matter all the same.
Before separating them, notice four things they share.
Both were commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Neither was invented by the church. Sending His disciples out, He told them to make disciples of all nations, baptising them and teaching them to observe all things He had commanded. Instituting the supper, He said this do in remembrance of me.
Both are pictures. They dramatise truth for the eye rather than merely stating it for the ear. God knows we are forgetful creatures who take in through the senses what we let slide through the mind.
Both point to the same event. Baptism pictures a death, burial and resurrection. The supper proclaims a body broken and blood shed. Neither is about us; both are about what happened to Him.
And neither one saves. This must be said at the outset because so much confusion turns on it. A picture of a thing is not the thing. A photograph of bread has never fed anyone.
Scripture is remarkably consistent about the order, and the order settles most of the questions people ask.
"But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women." (Acts 8:12)
Note the sequence: when they believed... they were baptized. That order never varies anywhere in the New Testament. On the day the church began, those who gladly received the word were baptised. A jailer believed, and then he and his household were baptised. In every case, belief comes first and baptism follows.
The clearest instance of all is a man reading Isaiah in a chariot on a desert road. The gospel was explained to him, and he asked a question:
"See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him." (Acts 8:36-38)
Weigh Philip's reply, because it is a plain statement of the one condition. If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. Not if you have completed instruction. Not if the proper official is present. Faith, and nothing else, is what qualifies a person.
Which also explains, without any need for argument, why Scripture contains no instance of an infant being baptised. It is not that children are unloved or excluded; the Lord Jesus Christ took them in His arms and blessed them. It is simply that baptism follows belief, and an infant cannot believe. He may, in time, and then he may be baptised as everyone else in Scripture was — as a believer.
Baptism is not a washing that removes anything, and it is not a christening. It is a burial.
"Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" (Romans 6:3)
The picture is of the believer's identification with what happened to Christ: he goes down into the water as into a grave, and rises out of it as Christ rose. The old life is reckoned finished and buried; a new one has begun. Scripture puts it plainly — we were buried with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised by the glory of the Father, we should walk in newness of life.
This is why the manner matters, and not out of stubbornness. The word itself means to dip or immerse. The picture requires a going down and a coming up — sprinkling cannot depict a burial. And the accounts describe it accordingly: they went down into the water, and came up out of it. John baptised at a certain place because there was much water there, which is a strange detail to record if a handful sufficed.
This has to be stated flatly, because a great many people are resting on the wrong thing.
The thief on the cross was never baptised. He had no opportunity — he was nailed to a cross a few feet from the Lord Jesus Christ, and could do nothing but believe. And he was told, that very day, that he would be in paradise. Whatever baptism is, it cannot be necessary for salvation, or that man is not there.
And the whole doctrine of grace forbids it:
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us." (Titus 3:5)
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
If baptism were required for salvation, then salvation would depend on someone else's availability and on having enough time — and a man converted in a hospital bed an hour before dying would be lost through no fault of his own. Scripture knows nothing of such a scheme.
So if you have been baptised and are resting on it, hear this plainly: you are trusting the picture instead of the Person. The water never saved anyone. Christ saves, and He is received by faith.
The honest question follows immediately. If it does not save, why bother?
Because He commanded it. That alone settles it for anyone who calls Him Lord. Obedience does not require the command to be useful to us before we obey it.
Because it is a public confession. Baptism is where a believer says openly, before witnesses, that he belongs to Christ. It is the New Testament equivalent of nailing your colours to the mast — which is precisely why it has always cost something in hostile places, and why in some parts of the world it is the point at which a family disowns a convert.
Because it marks a beginning. There is value in a definite, datable act. A believer who has been baptised has a moment he can point back to, which is a real help in seasons of doubt.
And because it identifies you with a people. Baptism is the door into the visible fellowship of a local church. A Christian was never meant to be a solitary creature.
One further word for the anxious. If you were baptised as an infant, that was not your act and not your faith, whatever it may have meant to those who arranged it. To be baptised now as a believer is not to insult anyone's sincerity. It is simply to do, as a believer, what Scripture describes believers doing.
On the night He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus Christ took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said that it was His body which was given for them, and that they should do this in remembrance of Him. Likewise He took the cup after supper, saying it was the new testament in His blood, and that as often as they drank it they should do it in remembrance of Him.
And the apostle Paul adds the explanation: as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we show the Lord's death till He come.
Three things are contained in that, and they are worth taking one at a time.
The dominant note is memory. This do in remembrance of me.
Notice the humility of that request. Of all the things He might have asked to be remembered by — His teaching, His miracles, His resurrection — He chose His death, and He chose the plainest possible emblems for it. Bread, which is broken. Wine, which is poured out.
And notice the need it assumes. He knew we would forget. Not deny — forget. The most extraordinary event in history can become background noise in a believing man's mind within a few years, and He appointed a regular, physical, tangible act to prevent it.
This is why the supper is not meant to be gloomy, and not meant to be casual either. It is a memorial of the costliest thing ever done, made by the One who did it, for people He knew would need reminding.
The second note is easily missed. The supper has an expiry date: till he come.
Every observance is therefore a statement that He is coming back. The table is temporary, and it says so. We are not remembering a dead teacher indefinitely; we are marking an interval between two appearances.
That gives the supper a forward tilt that most people never notice. It is not only a funeral remembrance but an announcement — a proclamation, repeated as often as the church gathers, that the One whose death we remember will return.
Several things must be said plainly, because centuries of tradition have added what Scripture does not contain.
It is not a sacrifice. Christ was offered once. Scripture is emphatic and repeats it: one sacrifice for sins for ever, after which He sat down. A finished work is not re-presented, because there is nothing left to present. The bread and the cup proclaim a sacrifice already made; they do not make one.
The elements do not change. He was sitting bodily at the table when He said this is my body, holding bread in His hands, in a room where the disciples could see Him. Nobody present imagined He meant the bread had become His flesh. He used the same manner of speech when He said I am the door and I am the vine.
It does not convey grace by itself. Eating and drinking do not add anything to a believer's standing, and they do nothing whatever for an unbeliever except to increase his responsibility.
It is not a private devotion. The supper belongs to the gathered church. It is something believers do together, and its very shape — one loaf, one cup — says something about their being one body.
One instruction is attached to the supper, and it is widely misunderstood, sometimes to people's real distress.
"But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." (1 Corinthians 11:28-29)
Read carefully what is said and what is not.
The word unworthily is an adverb: it describes the manner of eating, not the worth of the eater. If it meant that only worthy people might come, the table would be empty for ever, since not one of us is worthy. Nobody has ever qualified.
And the fault being corrected in that passage was a specific one. The believers there had turned the supper into a disorderly meal in which the rich ate first and the poor were left with nothing, so that the very emblem of a united body was being used to display division.
So examine yourself does not mean scour your conscience until you feel too unfit to come. It means: come thoughtfully rather than carelessly. Deal with what you know to be wrong. Be reconciled where you can. Understand what the emblems mean, and do not treat them as an ordinary snack.
The remedy for a troubled conscience at the table is never to stay away. It is to confess, and then to come.
Set them side by side and the design becomes clear.
Baptism is once; the supper is often. One marks a beginning that happens a single time; the other sustains a memory that needs constant refreshing.
Baptism is chiefly about identification — this is whose I am. The supper is chiefly about remembrance — this is what He did.
And both are utterly plain. There is no mystery to be administered by an expert, nothing hidden from ordinary people, no secret conferred on initiates. A convert can understand both in five minutes.
That plainness is deliberate. God did not give His people an elaborate ritual system, because an elaborate system inevitably becomes a substitute for the thing it depicts. He gave water and a meal, and told us what they mean, so that we would look through them rather than at them.
Everything above assumes something has happened first. Baptism pictures a death and resurrection that must actually have occurred in a person's life; the supper remembers a death that must actually have been trusted in.
Without that, the water is only water and the bread is only bread. So the first matter is not the ordinances but the Person they both point to.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31)
The eunuch's question is still a good one. He had heard the gospel, he had believed it, and he saw water by the roadside. What doth hinder me to be baptized?
If you have trusted Christ and have never been baptised as a believer, the honest answer is usually nothing at all — only delay, or the awkwardness of explaining it to somebody. Neither is a reason.
And if you are a believer who has drifted from the Lord's table, come back to it. It was given to people who forget, by a Saviour who knew they would, and its whole purpose is to put the cross in front of your eyes again.
"See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?"Acts 8:36
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Thy throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Thy presence.
We thank Thee for Thy beloved Son, and for **Him** who was baptized in Jordan and who brake bread the night **He** was betrayed. We praise Thee for Thy preserved Word, which declareth **"This do in remembrance of me"** (1 Corinthians 11:24), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before Thee that we have made much of forms and little of the **Saviour** they picture. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for Thou art faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech Thee for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Thy Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Thy Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Thy people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to let every reader obey in these things gladly and for the right reason, for Thy glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to Thee, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to Thee just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Thy law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring Thee nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Thy Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).