Baptism is one of the biggest hot button topics in Christianity. There are churches who consider it a sacrament and others that consider it an ordinance; churches that believe that it does something and God works through it and churches that believe it does nothing and is a bare sign of obedience; churches that believe baptism belongs to the Gospel and churches that believe it belongs to the law.
To determine what baptism is and what baptism does (or doesn't do) the place we have to go is Holy Scripture. To do so, we go mainly to the didactic epistles of Sts. Paul and Peter as well as the book of Acts, penned by St. Luke.
The baptism debate gets off on the wrong foot far too often by people wrangling about the meaning of the Greek words. The fact of the matter is, the Greek word(s) used for baptism have a wider range of meaning than some people would like to admit. One camp, namely baptists, sometimes claim that the word only means to immerse. Others (rightly, imo) say that the emphasis in the word baptism is on the washing with water, which certainly can be done by immersion. The symbolic stance doesn't even have a washing involved. A washing is something done to you that actually accomplishes something. There is nothing in baptist theology other than 'I went and got myself dunked but nothing actually happened other than I professed my personal relationship with Jesus.' Oh that they would see the gracious gift that baptism is and what it accomplishes!
Here are some of the didactic texts that deal with baptism and use the word baptism:
Romans 6:3-4: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Galatians 3:27: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Ephesians 4:4-7: There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
Colossians 2:11-12: In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
1 Peter 3:21: Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
Here are a couple of the passages from Acts that speak about baptism:
Acts 2:38-39: And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
Acts 22:16: And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’
And here are some passages from the didactics that talk about washings:
Ephesians 5:26: that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word
Titus 3:5: he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
1 Corinthians 6:11: And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
This is not an exhaustive list of course. The reason I chose these passages is because they either directly say or hint at what baptism does and what baptism is. There are many other examples of people being baptised in Scripture with no description or hint of what baptism does or does not do.
To make a long story short, how can baptism possibly be only an outward sign for professing believers alone done out of obedience if baptism does all the things that Scripture says it does? Romans 6 and Galatians 3 say that it unites us to Christ. If baptism is a work of obedience, then St. Paul here is pretty clearly teaching works righteousness. Colossians 2 says that it not only buries us with Christ, but also raises us in faith. There is only one thing that works faith in persons, and that is the grace of God (Eph 2:8-9). We are saved by grace through faith, and faith itself is even a gift of God. St. Peter is so blunt as to say that baptism now saves you. St. Peter again, in Acts 2:38-39, says that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins and in it we receive the Holy Spirit. St. Paul puts the efficacy of baptism on God's Word in Ephesians 5, just one chapter after he gets done saying that there is one baptism. (See also the Nicene Creed on this) He also refers to baptism as the washing of regeneration in Titus 3 which closely parallels Jesus' statement in John 3:5.
None of these passages make much sense at all if baptism is noting more than an outward sign of an inward reality, as our baptist brothers like to say. If the things Holy Scripture says about baptism are true, and baptism actually means baptism, then baptism cannot be a work of obedience, unless one is willing to claim that we are saved by works, regenerated by works, united to Christ by works, and so on.
If we are to be biblical and cling to the words of Scripture, we have a much different picture than gets painted by all stripes of evangelical decision theology. Baptism is a means of grace God gave to us. In it we are united with Christ (Rom 6), regenerated (Tit 3), saved (1Pet 3), born again (John 3), raised in faith (Col 2), and forgiven of our sins (Acts 2).
Baptism can do these things precisely because the efficacy is in the Word of God. It is a work of God done to us, not a work of us done for God. We are passive receivers of a divine promise in baptism, not workers showing God how serious we are. Evangelical decision theology, to put it bluntly, has no sacramental theology, and what they call the ordinances are nothing but works, plain and simple.
So instead of trying to explain away all the baptism passages based on presuppotions of what baptism is because that's what you've always been taught - a better idea would be to allow Scripture to dictate to us what baptism is. And Scripture is clear, it's something that does a whole lot for us in s salvific sense. If it raises us in faith as Colossians 2 says, it is a means of grace. Only the grace of God can work faith in us; not our works or obedience. We do not create our own faith. God gives us faith, sustains our faith, and strengthens our faith. But He does this through specific means. Namely, Word and Sacrament, of which baptism is one of these means.
At the end of the day, we as Christians must allow Scripture to dictate to us what is true. Baptism saves us. That is true.
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