“I have to get rebaptized? But I was already baptized.”
“But that was a water baptism. It didn’t do anything. It’s only a symbol. So, you need to be baptized to join our church.”
Lutherans who leave Lutheranism are not aware of this conversation or teaching.
When joining a non-denominational church, they must get re-baptized.
Why? Because the contemporary Evangelical church in America wrongly teaches the bible on Baptism.
It teaches that Baptism is something we do, a work that I do, a believer’s baptism. I show Jesus I love Him.
Lutherans would agree, if Baptism were our work. Any work that we/I do does not forgive sin!
But the biblical text teaches that Baptism is not my work, but God’s! He does it.
“Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience,” (1 Peter 3:21).
Baptism corresponds to what? Peter says Noah’s Flood. As God used water to save Noah and his family, so now a greater flood happens in the New Testament. The baptismal flood—God’s Word/Action in and through water—now actually saves you. From what, God’s wrath over sin. It doesn’t wash your skin but your soul!
How can that be? I don’t know. God says it.
Noah’s Flood really and truly saved; it was not symbolic. Ask Noah when you get to heaven. He didn’t do a thing! God saved him.
Christian baptism is God’s work.
Just go to Jesus’ words of how to “create” or “make” disciples. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matt. 28:19). Baptism “makes” a person a follower of Jesus.
Baptism is God’s work, not yours.
Neither was the Cross; it was all Jesus, His work.
Baptism is a spiritual irrigation of water delivering Christ’s forgiveness to the sinner.
So says Paul, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefor with Him by baptism into death…” (Romans 6:3-4a).
Baptism does something here; it does what the Bible says clearly and simply. It connects the one who is baptized into Christ’s death; it buries the sin of the sinner, a soul/body cleansing. This is real. This is the true action of God.
He is God, isn’t He? He can do whatever He decides. With Noah’s Flood. It was not symbolic.
And neither is the New Testament baptism.
“I’m sorry…I don’t need to be rebaptized. The first time took; it was God’s work on me.”