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Is baptism necessary for salvation?

There are some religious groups today that claim that baptism is necessary for salvation - not sufficient, it’s not the only thing required - but it is a requirement, a necessary requirement. A couple of these groups are be the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Christ.

Now, these two groups are not the same by any means and how they view baptism is not the same but they have a central problem. A summary of the Roman Catholic Church’s view would say that baptism is required. If you’re able to do it. It is the means by which grace is applied to you. You do have to do it, if you can, which is an interesting situation.

The Church of Christ would say that baptism is required for salvation also, not totally in the same way though. 

Let’s talk about this. We’re not going to talk about the mode of baptism. Is it a sprinkling? Is it immersion? We’re not going to talk about the age of baptism today. Is it for any age? Is it for infants? Is it for adults? We’re simply going to address a more simplified version of the baptism debate, namely, is baptism itself, regardless of form, necessary for salvation?

Well, here are some of the verses people would use to say that it is necessary. For instance, Mark 16:15-16 where Jesus says, “Go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. He who does not believe, will be condemned”. You’ll note that part, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved”. Well that seems pretty clear. You have to believe and be baptized, but there are a couple things to point out.

One, this passage in Mark at the end of Chapter 16 is in what is called the long ending of Mark. As in, it was not in the original and/or best manuscripts, at the least.  We should not consider this to be Holy Spirit inspired scripture. There are other things in this passage which we also should not hold on to for the same reasons. 

We shouldn’t base doctrine on parts of the Bible that are in what are called textual variants - Things that were not in the original or that have alternate or disputed readings. We’ve some about these before. The woman caught in adultery passage is another example of a passage that is not in the oldest and best manuscripts for John. This would be John 8, starting at the end of Chapter 7 and doing through part of eight.

This verse, “Believe and be baptized and you’ll be saved”, that's not something we should consider to be scripture so we shouldn’t base our doctrine on it. A close parallel to this, which is actually in scripture would be Matthew 28, the great commission. “All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey everything I’ve commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, even til the end of the age”.

Baptism and believing or disciple making, they are both things that are taught to be done, told to us to go do but they are not tied to salvation here. Let’s also consider another verse in Acts, this would be Acts 2:38. “Peter said to them, Repent and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. This is a verse that at first blush seems to give the impression that believing and being baptized is necessary to receive the Holy Spirit. The problem with this is that many times in Acts, we see where repentance and belief preceded baptism but yet, they were still considered to be Christians or followers of Christ.

More so than that, this goes against the general tone and trend in Acts to present salvation as something that comes by faith. For instance, one of many ve…