Get Baptised 17 Times

It's popular now days, especially in American evangelicalism, to be baptised multiple times. I know a ton of people that have had multiple baptisms. Of course, to be fair, the people that get the multiple baptisms are ignorant of biblical theology or have been brainwashed by typical (Ana)Baptist theology that says that you have to be really saved before you're baptised. Of course, us being the fickle humans that we are, we end up basing everything on emotion experience and feelings, even when it comes to our baptisms. I got baptised. But I wasn't really saved, so I did it again. But I didn't feel saved 5 years later, so I did it again. And on and on it goes.



This one is good. Finally!!!

How often have you heard someone say something like: "I accepted Christ and was baptised when I was 7 years old. I grew up and realized that I was not truly saved, so I then got baptised again when I was 16 at summer camp. After a couple years, my fire for the Lord burned out and I became an atheist. I came back to the Lord when I was 27 and realized that I was never saved. Now that I am really saved, I got baptised again for a third time."

Maybe a lot of you folks who have grown up in Lutheran circles your whole lives have never heard these types of stories. But as someone who did not grow up in Lutheran circles...or Roman Catholic...or Reformed...I have heard tons of these stories.

These stories betray an extremely sloppy and unbiblical theology of baptism. You see, especially in America, we're big on individualism and freedom to make our choices and determine for ourselves everything that we possibly can. We extrapolate this Americanism right into our theology too. It's really hard not to do that, to be fair. And also to be fair, these folks repeat baptism over and over again because of what they think baptism is. It does nothing to them, it's just a means of showing God how serious you are about following Him.

Baptism just happens to be one of those areas that gets roped into our will worshipping religion. We reason that I have to choose to be baptised. It's up to me. It's my work for God after all, isn't it? It's nothing more than an outward sign of an inward reality. How often have you heard that one? And then we end up spitting all over Holy Scripture in the process. That description of baptism is not in the Scriptures anywhere. In fact, the Scriptures don't even hint at that description.



Scripture actually says this.

They actually say pretty much the exact opposite. You know, Scripture says things like "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you." That's in 1 Peter 3:21. And then Scripture says things like "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." That's Colossians 2:12, by the way.

But why are people getting baptised multiple times? Is it because the first one was no good or what? Well, no. God's Word never says that baptism in ineffective. Is it because the Word commands them to get baptised again and again? Well, no again. Nowhere does Scripture so much as give us an example of someone having multiple baptisms.

Ultimately, it's based on bad theology. Holy Scripture tells us baptism is for salvation, not because I made a choice, or said the sinner's prayer, or accepted Christ as my personal Savior, or asked Jesus into my heart, or...well, you get the point. Baptism is not a means of grace in this theology because really, the only means of grace in this poor theology is me and my asking God to do things for me. You know, like come into my heart. (I'm not saying we shouldn't ask God for things) So, baptism is no different to them. It's just another work to be done.

At the end of the day, their quarrel over baptism is a quarrel with the plain meaning of Holy Scripture. It's actually very clear what baptism does in Scripture, and to turn it into a work is to turn yourself into your own Savior, however unintentional that may be.

Ultimately this betrays a theology of works and not of grace. This is not good. It's my choice that saves me. It's my choice that I'm baptised. It's me, me, and more me. God only gives me grace because I, I, I asked for it. It's me that makes it effective. It's a religion of doing, not a religion of done. It's about me and my following, not about Christ and His work given to me as a one-sided divine promise, apart from anything I did.

Can you imagine how insulting and blasphemous it is to God to baptise people multiple times if what Scripture says about baptism is true? You were given Christ and all of His benefits in your baptism, Scripture tells us that. How awful to insult the King of Kings and baptise someone again! That is to say that His Word and promises and His Son given to you the first time around were insufficient.

So instead of getting baptised 17 times, look back to your first baptism, which is the only one that counts, by the way. That is where Christ was given to you. Return to that. Trust in that. For to trust in your baptism is to trust in Christ and His work for you. That's precisely where He was given to you, and your baptism is not void.

Baptists scoff at this idea. You better not tell someone to look to their baptism for assurance of salvation, they say. That's bad, evidently. Why is this so? Because it violates their soteriology, that's why. They say you must look to Christ on the cross. And bravo for them saying that. However, what many of them ultimately are saying is to look to that one moment in time when you made a choice. They will point you to yourself. So instead of looking to something temporally objective given to you by God, they point you to yourself. I'm saved because I chose, not because God saved me via His means of grace.

So is it proper when Lutherans say to look to your baptism? Heck yes it is. To look to your baptism is to look to the place where Christ and all His benefits were given to you. Looking to your baptism is to look to the cross; to the place where that cross was delivered to you. And this baptism is not repeatable.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism. ~Ephesians 4:5