Is Baptism Necessary for Salvation?

Is baptism necessary for salvation?

Paul tells us that we are saved by believing the Gospel (1 Cor. 15:1–4), but previously told his hearers, “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 1:17). Indeed, just before that, Paul said he couldn’t even remember baptizing anyone else but Stephanas and his household; surely a dereliction if baptism were essential for salvation. Ergo, baptism can’t be part of the Gospel by which we are saved. Furthermore, Peter didn’t mention baptism in his great sermon from Solomon’s portico (Acts 3:12–26), and neither did Paul in his speech on the Arepagus (Acts 17:18 ff.)

Also, there is no biblical record of the apostles’ being baptized, yet Jesus pronounced them clean of their sins (John 15:3—note that they were explicitly cleansed by the Word of God, not baptism). Other examples in the gospels of forgiveness of sin are the penitent woman (Luke 7:37–50), the paralytic man (Matthew 9:2), the publican (Luke 18:13–14), and the repentant malefactor on the cross (Luke 23:40–43) also experienced forgiveness of sins apart from baptism. Note also John 3:16 and John 5:24 where Jesus states that people have already crossed the boundary from death into life upon belief, not upon baptism.

The book of Acts also provides an example of people who were saved before being baptized, the first Gentile family who became Christians. In Acts 10:44-48, Cornelius and those with him were converted through Peter’s message. That they were saved before being baptized is evident from their reception of the Holy Spirit (v. 44) and the gifts of the Spirit (v. 46) before their baptism. And once again, it was this evidence that they were already saved that led Peter to baptize them (cf. v. 47).

That baptism is the act of a saved person is shown even in the Acts 2:38 passage. Peter appears to link forgiveness of sins to baptism. But there are at least two plausible interpretations of this verse that do not connect forgiveness of sin with baptism. “For” is the Greek word εἰς (eis), and both the English and Greek have several meanings, depending on the context. Certainly it sometimes means “in order to” or “to achieve”, “to obtain” etc., which is the meaning you ascribe to the “for” in this passage, e.g. a diver came up for air, meaning to obtain air. But this is not the only meaning. E.g. if I take an aspirin “for” my headache, it certainly doesn’t mean that I’m taking it to “obtain” a headache. Rather, the “for” here means “because of”.