“He who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16)

The missionary John MacDonald asked the residents of a remote Scottish island how they thought people were saved. An old man replied, “We shall be saved if we repent, and forsake our sins, and turn to God.” “Yes,” said a middle-aged female, “and with a true heart too.” “Aye,” said a third, “and with prayer”; and, added a fourth, “It must be the prayer of the heart.” “And we must be diligent too,” said a fifth, “in keeping the commandments.” So each of the five contributed to what they thought constituted what was required for someone to be saved, when in fact, they were describing the Biblical fruit of salvation, not how someone obtains salvation.

The five, feeling that they contributed to a good formula for how to get saved, looked expectantly at MacDonald for approval, and saw instead, pity.

Believing and being baptized is so simple, all boasting is excluded, and free grace is glorified. Supernatural regeneration and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a gift of God, as is saving faith. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8–10).

The “beforehand” was “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4), so there’s no reason to boast because you decided to be baptized. To be baptized is to submit to the ordinance which our Lord instituted. The outward sign doesn’t save, but is a figure of the sinner’s death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus, and, like the Lord’s Supper, is not to be neglected (Romans 6:3-14).

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