He That Believeth
AND is Baptized
Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
The Lord told these Jewish apostles to go into all the world. The Jews had always believed they had a monopoly on God, and so far as any established religion was concerned, they were right. The Law of Moses was given to Israel; it was not given to the gentiles, and its provisions did not benefit them. The moral principles contained in the Law are binding on all men, both Jew and gentile, but as an established religion, and as a system of government, the Law was given to Israel and the gentiles were left out.
Under that law Israel had benefits the gentiles did not have, and they had access to truth which the gentiles knew nothing about. Paul asked the question:
Rom. 3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
Historians like to talk about what they call the Classical Age. They talk about the Graeco-Roman culture, the philosophers of Greece, the legal system of Rome, the splendor of the Persian Empire, the influence of mighty Babylon. But for all the magnificence of those mighty empires, Israel had what none of them had—they had the oracles of God. They had God’s revealed truth, and the gentiles were left in pagan darkness.
In the beginning of the gospel the Lord had told the apostles to stay away from the gentiles.
Matt. 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
He came to the Jews first, but God had always intended that the Lord would be a light to the gentiles as well as to the Jews. In our text he announces that the time has come for the apostles to carry that light.
Isa. 49:6, I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
There were only twelve apostles, and the Lord did not expect those twelve men to preach in every city and village on the planet. When he tells them to preach to every creature, he simply means that the gospel is not to be limited, the way the Law Service was, to the Jews, and to the land of Israel. The entire world is their appointed territory, and they were to go wherever God by his Spirit impressed them to go.
By every creature he means all classes of people, or every person who would listen to what they preach. In Col.1:23, Paul uses the same expression. He tells us the gospel had been “preached to every creature which is under heaven.”
If any idea does not make good sense, it is probably not right. The gospel is reasonable; it makes sense, and it does not make sense to think the gospel had, at that time, reached every Hindu in India and every Hottentot in Africa. It is not reasonable to think the gospel had been preached to every man, woman, boy and girl on the planet.
But it does make good sense to know the gospel had broken the bands that once restricted revealed truth, and it had gone forth to all classes of people, Jew and gentile, rich and poor, free and bond, men and women. It is in that sense that the gospel had been preached “to every creature which is under heaven.”
Every creature refers to every class, or every kind, of person.
But while this command is to preach the gospel to every creature, there is nothing in this command telling us to force the gospel on those who are not interested in what we have to say.
If somebody will not listen, there is no need to become frustrated. The Lord instructed the apostles to go and to preach, but if those they tried to preach to refused to listen, he did not require them to force the gospel on them—as if that was possible. He instructed them to shake off the dust of their feet, and leave them to their folly.
Matt. 10:14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. 15 Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.
Lest we might get the idea that was a rule that only applied to that day, notice that when Paul and Barnabas were expelled from Antioch in Pisidia, they shook off the dust of their feet against them.
Acts 13:50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts.
51 But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium.
That was after Pentecost; so the same rule applies today. God does not require what we cannot do. If somebody refuses to listen, we cannot make them listen. There comes a time when we have done all that is required, and God requires no more.
The missionary machinery invented over two hundred years ago is not faring so well in today’s world. Islam has largely conquered the territory the missionaries used to work so diligently, and today the surest way to lose your head (literally) is to try to convert Muslims.
But in the early days of the mission movement, missionaries did literally force themselves on their host country. The opposition was often fierce and the missionaries were much of the time in danger for their lives. If the opposition became too hot, they could always call on their countrymen back home to come and protect them. Sometimes their government (usually England or the United States) would send the necessary troops. That is the way the Boxer Rebellion began in China in 1900. That did not end well.
This passage is often used to try to prove that those who fail to be baptized in water will go to hell. But it teaches no such thing; neither does any other text in the Bible.
We said before that the gospel makes sense, and it does not make any kind of sense to think God will send people to hell—because they failed to believe a gospel they knew nothing about.
And it does not make good sense to imagine that some poor soul will burn forever, because nobody brought the gospel to him—while those who could have, but did not, take the gospel to him will bask in the sunlight of heaven above. You talk about getting things upside down. If that is not standing the truth on its head, I cannot imagine how you would go about it.
The Lord gave the apostles signs or evidences by which they
might recognize the difference between the children of God and those who were not his children. We are to preach to anyone interested in listening. It is not our job to make our own distinctions in preaching the gospel.
The gospel will do its own sorting out. It has its own way of distinguishing those who are subjects of gospel address and those who are not. It has a totally different effect on those who are alive in the Spirit from the effect it has on those who are dead in sins.
Those who are alive in the Spirit hear the gospel and rejoice in it; those who are dead in sins hear the gospel and they are infuriated by it. Paul says it is the savor of life unto life and the savor of death unto death (2 Cor. 2:16).
They could see evidence on the part of some of their hearers, in that they believed their preaching and rejoiced in it. The gospel was good news to their hungry souls. They could know by that evidence that these were children of God, and they will live in heaven after awhile.
The evidence they are the children of God is that they believe the gospel, and we have even more evidence when they obey its commands. So when one believes and is baptized, we have evidence he is born of God, and an heir of heaven.
It might help to point out that there are three classes of people with respect to belief and baptism. We might call them the first, second and third class.
The first class is those who believe and are baptized. The second class is those who do not believe, and the third class is those who believe, but die without being baptized.
The third class is simply not mentioned in this text. Those who would have us believe that all those who hear the gospel and believe it—but fail to act on it by being baptized in water—use this text, trying to prove their doctrine, but it will not work.
Read the text as many times as you will, and you will never find the first mention of those who believe the gospel, but fail to act on it. It mentions those who believe and are baptized, and it mentions those who simply do not believe— but it says nary a word about those who believe and fail to be baptized in water.
Our Church of Christ friends (they bristle at being called Campbellites) advocate a theory that is not taught anywhere in the Bible. So they have to manufacture proof. It should not be surprising that they pretend to find proof in passages that say nothing about the subject.
The text says plainly enough, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Believing the gospel and being baptized gives us evidence that he is a child of God. All the first class, then, (those who believe and are baptized) will be saved. The text shows plainly that not one of them will be lost.
Those who stretch this text into a proposition to the dead alien sinner do not themselves believe the text. They think they believe it, but they do not. They believe that those who believe and are baptized may apostatize and go to hell after all—even though the text says plainly that “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” So they do not believe their own proof text.
The second class—those who simply do not believe—will be damned—and their continuing to reject the gospel, and their hatred of the God of the gospel bears evidence they have never been born of God’s Spirit.
Perhaps, this is a good place to point out that the wicked are not the subject of gospel address, and nobody will go to hell for failing to believe the gospel.
The wicked will suffer in hell because they are wicked—not because they failed to believe the gospel. Unbelief is the evidence—not the cause—of their condemnation.
The gospel of grace is intended for the heaven-born soul. It satisfies that appetite for better things that comes from the presence of God’s Spirit living and reigning in his heart. There is no guarantee that he will ever hear the gospel preached in power. Not every heaven-born soul ever hears gospel preaching, but if some poor soul rejoices under the preaching of the gospel, and if his heart is stirred when he hears it preached in power, you have good evidence that heaven will be his home.
The dead alien sinner has no such appetite; he has no interest in those things that are so precious to the child of God. You may describe the horrors of hell in such a terrifying way that you scare him. You may even get him to make a public profession of faith—based on the fact you scared the living daylights out of him.
But you started out with a dead alien sinner. Now you have a dead alien sinner who is afraid of going to hell, but he is still a dead alien sinner. The Bible tells us, “There is no fear of God before his eyes,” (Rom. 3:18), but that does not mean he is not afraid of going to hell. That is why the revival preacher has so much to say about hellfire and damnation. Even he knows the dead alien sinner is not afraid of God, so he scares him by talking about the flames of hell, and he prides himself in the thought that he “can preach hell so hot you can feel the flame.”
You may describe heaven in a way that sounds like a great vacation, and even a wicked man might want to book a trip. But you will never teach him to hate sin; he loves it too much. You will never teach him to love God and want to live with him, and worship him in all eternity. He may want title to some choice real estate in heaven, but he is not interested in the company of God and the children of God.
When the Lord said, “He that believeth not shall be damned.”
He was talking about the wicked—those who do not have the Spirit of God, nor the love of God, in their hearts.
The wicked do not believe the gospel; they do not love the gospel, and they do not want to hear the gospel. There is nothing about the gospel that appeals to them, and if you dress the gospel up so that it appeals to the wicked, you have simply swapped the gospel for a deceptive substitute.
That wicked person, who despises the gospel, and the God of the gospel, is lost and condemned, and he will continue in that state after he leaves this world. The fact that he fails to believe the gospel is not the cause of his condemnation. He is condemned because he is wicked, and his unbelief of the gospel is the evidence of it.
This text says nothing about that third class; that is, the man who believes the gospel, but is never baptized in water. He is just not in this verse. Our friends can look for him all they want to, but they are chasing a ghost—he is not there.
That child of God, who fails to do his duty in being baptized, will miss out on the joy of a life of obedience, but he will not miss heaven. The loss he suffers in failing to follow our Lord in baptism is a great loss, and we make a serious mistake when we minimize that loss, but is a timely loss—it is not eternal.
That person who believes the gospel, who loves the gospel and rejoices in it, will live in heaven some day—whether he ever makes it to the water or not. And it would be hard to find any fact the Bible makes any clearer than it does that every believer will be saved in heaven—water baptism or no. Listen to just a few texts that deal with the question.
John 5:1, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.”
The text is clear enough. “Whosoever believeth….is born of God.” There is nary a word about water baptism.
John 5:24: Verily, verily, I say unto you, 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.
Again, it is he that heareth and believeth. There is still not a word about water baptism. If our friends have a complaint, they will have to take it up with the Lord. He said it.
In that beautiful old text our friends love so much, the Lord said:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
It is still whosoever believeth—not a word about water baptism.
By the way, notice that we do not believe that we might have life. That is, we do not receive life as a reward for believing. God gave his Son that we might have life, and our believing is the evidence of that life. Both the source and the cause of life are entirely in God. We are saved because of what he did.
If we had been left to ourselves, we would never have believed, and we would never have been saved. God gave his Son to redeem us; he sent his Spirit into our hearts to quicken us from our dead state, and we will one day live in heaven— because of what he has done for us.
Those who believe in Christ are said to be born of God, to have passed from death unto life, never to be condemned, and to be in possession of everlasting life. That sounds to me like somebody who will be in heaven some day.
If there is anybody who believes a poor sinner may believe in God, and love God, and want to live with him in all eternity—but he is going to burn, because he did not allow a preacher to immerse them in water—let him produce the verse that says so. After almost two hundred years they are still looking.
The Bible makes it plain enough as to what water baptism is all about. It is a figure of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord, and it is a figure of that washing that comes in regeneration. Paul shows plainly that there is a washing that comes in regeneration.
Tit. 35 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
The washing that comes in regeneration is a literal and real washing from our sins, and there is also a figurative washing away of sins that comes in water baptism. Ananias told Saul,
Acts 22:16, Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord.
Our friends look at verses like that, and they say, “Aha, I told you; baptism does wash away sins; the text says so.” But Ananias was talking about the figurative washing that comes in water baptism; he was not talking about that literal washing, or purging that comes only by the blood of Christ, that is applied in regeneration.
The record is clear enough; there is a literal and there is a ceremonial washing away of sins. The one is real, the other is figurative. The literal or real washing away of sins is by the blood of Christ.
Heb. 9:13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
The purging or cleansing mentioned here is literal; it is real, and the text makes it plain enough; that work is done by the blood of Christ. Our sins are purged and removed by the blood of Christ, and that washing is applied to our hearts by the Spirit in regeneration. It is not done by the preacher when he immerses us in water.
Notice that he says God purges our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. There is a world of difference between being purged that we might serve and serving that we might be purged.
With all the courtesy I can muster, allow me to say, they stand the doctrine on its head. Being purged in order to serve God, is different from serving in order to be purged. The purging comes first— the service comes after. The purging is prior to the service. You cannot deny it without denying the plain language of the text.
Peter makes it abundantly clear that baptism in water is a figure of the washing that comes in regeneration.
1 Pet. 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. 21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
Here baptism is called a figure in the same way the ark was a figure. In water baptism the subject is completely immersed in water. The water is under him, over him, and all around him. In the same way, the ark was in the water, and for forty days and nights, the water poured down on the ark. To all intents and purposes, those in the ark were totally immersed in water. That is, they were sufficiently immersed to satisfy the figure, and for the ark to serve as a like figure along with water baptism.
The ark and baptism are said to be like figures. They are alike, in that, they are figures of the same thing, and that is salvation by Christ.
More than that, Peter denies that baptism is the putting away of the filth of the flesh. Somebody says Peter was showing that baptism does not wash away the dirt and grime of everyday living, but that is a silly dodge that does not deserve a response. Who ever imagined that it was?
In the Greek language of the text the word translated filth is rhupos; it means moral filthiness, or sinfulness. The Bible defines its own terms better than you and I can. The best way to establish the meaning of a word is to notice how it is used in other places in the Bible. John uses the same word in Rev. 22:11.
Rev. 22:11, He which is filthy [rhupos], let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.
John uses the word as the opposite of righteous. That ought to be proof enough that rhupos has to do with moral filthiness, and Peter says that baptism does not wash it away. Baptism in water is a figurative—not a literal—washing away of sins, and that is what Ananias was telling Paul in Acts, chapter twenty-two.
Acts 22:16, Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord.
We are baptized by God’s Spirit into Christ; we are buried by water baptism with Christ. By using the word therefore, Paul shows that baptism by the Spirit into Christ is the reason we are baptized with Christ in water.
Rom. 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
The first baptism mentioned in this passage is a baptism into Christ, and the second is a burial with Christ, there are clearly two distinct baptisms mentioned. There could not be a baptism into Christ and a burial with Christ in the same act. With and into do not mean the same thing.
Those who insist the two baptisms are the same like to boast of their scholarship—but they turn a blind eye to these two little prepositions. Into and with do not express the same relation. It is truly amazing how dull scholarship can become when it is faced with the simple truth.
In verse three Paul talks about being baptized into Jesus Christ. That work is done by the Spirit of God. The preacher has nothing to do with it. Paul explains baptism into Christ is in 1 Cor. 12:13.
1 Cor. 12:13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
Notice that it is by one Spirit—God’s Spirit—that we are baptized into one body. The saints are first baptized, by the Spirit, into Christ, and into his death; therefore (because we have first been baptized into Christ), we are buried with him, by water baptism, into death.
Rom. 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
The Spirit first baptizes us actually and literally into Christ; therefore (because of that baptism by the Spirit) the preacher is now able to baptize us figuratively with Christ.
God’s Spirit is God as surely as the Father is God. Our friends make the mistake of putting the preacher in the place of God’s Spirit—literally in the place of God.
Notice verse four one more time:
Verse 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Therefore (because we have been literally and actually baptized into Christ by the Spirit), We are figuratively buried with him by (water) baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
It is not enough to clear the ground; having cleared the ground, we need to build on it. We have spent time talking about what water baptism does not do; we need to also spend time in talking about what it does do.
This death mentioned in verse four has to do with death to the world, death to our old ways and our old walk. It has to do with separation from the world, and rising to walk in newness of life. Water baptism is more than a dead ritual. It does not bring spiritual life—but it should bring a new way of life, a new way of living.
Rom. 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
It is important that we understand what is the proper purpose of water baptism; it is also important that we give water baptism its proper regard in that place where God put it. The fact that water baptism does not gain us a home in heaven should never prompt us to minimize the importance of obeying the Lord by being baptized.
The Bible makes it abundantly clear that water baptism does not make anybody a child of God, and it does not gain anybody a home in eternal heaven. It makes it just as clear that baptism in water is the first step—the very first step—in gospel obedience.
You cannot walk in obedience to the gospel without following the Lord in baptism. You can obey the moral law without being baptized. You can be a law-abiding citizen. You can refrain from lying, and stealing, and committing sins that dishonor your name and the name of Christ without being baptized.
But serving God, and walking in obedience to his commands is not a cafeteria-style arrangement. God does not give us the right to pick and choose which commandments we want to obey. Not even the law of the land gives that right. If we decide to pick and choose which laws we want to obey, the officer is apt to come knocking on our door.
God has so ordained that baptism is the first step in gospel obedience, and we have no right to put anything else in its place.
Luke 7:29 And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. 30 But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.
To justify in the sense of this text means to declare to be just. “All the people that heard him, and the publicans justified God [they declared him to be just] being baptized with the baptism of John.” They declared that God is just in all he says and does. He is just in commanding those who believe in him to be baptized in water. He has the right to require that from us.
On the other hand, the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him. They rejected God’s counsel. By their failing to be baptized they rejected God’s counsel—they rejected his command to be baptized. They declared by their action that he is unjust; he had no right to require it.
Notice that the clear boundary line between those who justify God and those who reject his counsel is water baptism. God drew the line. You cannot cross that boundary line between rejecting God’s counsel and justifying him (declaring him to be just) without being baptized.
You may live a moral line without being baptized. You may keep the laws of the land without being baptized. But you cannot live a life of obedience to your Savior without keeping his command to repent and be baptized.
Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
“Repent and be baptized” is not an invitation, and it is not a suggestion—it is a commandment. God commands every heaven-born soul to repent and be baptized. We preachers do our hearers a disservice when we fail to point out the importance of obeying God in this matter. We need to point out that, while failing to be baptized will not cost us our home in heaven—it will cost us ever so much in this life.
We should never leave our hearers with the impression that failing to follow the Lord in baptism is a small thing. We need to point out that to willfully reject God’s commandment, and to go on year after year refusing to do what he has commanded, leaves us in rebellion against him.
We need to point out that water baptism is the way God has appointed for us to publicly declare our faith in him, and our allegiance to him—and he does not allow us to pick and choose some other way.
Matt. 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
Mark 8:38 Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
How very grateful we should be for all the Lord has done for us, and we should be eager to publicly declare our love for him and our gratitude to him. He has told us if we are ashamed to confess him before men, he will be ashamed of us.
How serious it is to be ashamed to confess our Lord, and to let our friends know our faith in him. But you say, “I do confess him in other ways.” That is not the way it works. This is not a Chinese restaurant, where you choose from column A or column B. If we truly love him, and want to please him, you would think we could not wait to get in the water.
THE END