To answer this question, we need to understand WHY one is baptized. Christian baptism was taught by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20 where Jesus told His disciples, “Go therefore and MAKE DISCIPLES of all the nations, BAPTIZING them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, TEACHING them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (NKJV). We can see from these verses that “BAPTISM is the formal rite that results in one becoming a DISCIPLE of Christ.” In baptism one is acknowledging that God is a Trinity (One God made up of Three Persons) and that they are identifying with Christ as their Lord and desiring to FOLLOW HIM AND HIS TEACHINGS. Baptism only takes a few minutes but then as you learn the teachings of Christ you should “observe (obey) His commandments.”

Does baptism save you from the penalty of your sins? No! Baptism should “follow one’s salvation.” Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:17-18, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” This is not teaching us that Paul never baptized anyone, for in verses 14 and 16 he mentions that he baptized Crispus, Gaius, and the household of Stephanus, but his main mission was to PREACH THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST so sinners could be saved. In 2:2 he declared, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” In writing to the saints at Rome he said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.” These verses are crystal-clear in teaching us that “SALVATION comes first.” After believing on Christ as SAVIOR, you are then eligible to own Him as your LORD, and this is what we are acknowledging in baptism (as we saw above from Matthew 28:19-20).

Another passage that makes this clear is Romans 6:3-6, “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” When we own Jesus as our Lord, we are desiring to “walk in newness of life.” We are turning our back on our former life when we were “slaves to sin.” This wonderful passage gives us the knowledge to empower us to live a victorious life as “disciples of Christ.” We realize, by faith, that when Christ died on the cross, WE DIED! Our “old man” (the person we were before we were saved) was crucified (judged by God) too. Baptism is a PICTURE of this for when we go down into the water, we are confessing that we died with Him. When we come up out of the water, we are confessing that we are alive in Him. We see this in verse 8, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” This means we, by faith, no longer live as slaves to sin. We DIED TO SIN and we LIVE TO RIGHTEOUSNESS! Verse 11 then instructs us to “reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In closing, I hope you will see from what we have learned that baptism is only meant to be done ONCE. Your baptism, if done according to Matthew 28:19-20, made you a disciple of Christ and one does not need to be rebaptized. ONCE a person is saved it is forever (John 3:16; 10:9, 27-30) and ONCE a person is baptized they are Christ’s disciple to the very end of their life. After that we should show everyone that Christ is our SAVIOR and LORD by “walking in newness of life.”  (DO)  (703.3)