Rummaging through a box of freebies, I found a small book called The Bible Answer Book, authored by Hank Hanegraaff, the proclaimed “Bible answer man.” In it, Hanegraaff provides his answers to eighty-one questions, but sadly, many of his answers are wrong, including the one to the most important question—what must I do to be saved? So the souls of his followers are at risk, headed straight for the ditch (Matt. 15:14). (My first suspicion this would be the case was when I saw he allows himself to be called the “Bible answer man.”)
Hanegraaff’s answer starts off in a decent direction. He begins: “you must realize you’re a sinner, [and] recognize your need for a savior” (p. 12-13). This is true. We all need redemption. The Bible declares that “all have sinned” and “come short” of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23), and, yes, such must be acknowledged; otherwise we wouldn’t seek salvation in the first place.
Next he says, “Repent of your sins…” This too is correct. It is commanded (Matt. 4:17; Mark 6:12; Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 17:30). We cannot willingly continue to practice sin and expect to be accepted by God (John 5:14; Rom. 6:1ff; Gal. 2:17). Of course, nobody will repent unless they first know they should; they must first hear the gospel and believe (Rom. 10:17).
Unfortunately, his answer then becomes clichéd and vague:
“Finally, to demonstrate true belief means to be willing to receive. To truly receive is to trust in and depend on Jesus Christ alone to be the Lord of our lives here and now and our Savior for all eternity…According to Jesus Christ, those who realize they are sinners, repent of their sins, and receive him as Savior and Lord are “born again…” (p. 13)
“Receiving Jesus as savior” is a commonly used cliché that lacks adequate truth to the question at hand. In other words, it doesn’t really tell us anything! Of course a man must accept Jesus as savior, because rejecting Him as savior certainly would not lead to ones salvation. The fact is that “receiving” and “trusting” Jesus is really the same thing as “believing on Jesus.” If we have faith in Christ, we will necessarily accept Him as the one who saves, and we will trust in Him to save us if we comply with His will (Heb. 5:9).
A necessary part of “receiving Jesus as savior” (believing on Him) incorporates the acceptance of what He has taught and acting upon it. This leads us right back to the question: “what must one do to be saved?” What has our savior, Jesus, whom we have received as such, told us to do to be saved?
Hanegraaff says those who repent and receive the Lord are “born again,” “according to Christ,” but the same Christ who said “believe” (John 6:29) and “repent” (Luke 13:3) also said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” (Mark 16:16). So, “according to Christ,” salvation for the believer requires baptism. Jesus’ statement is very simple and direct.
God has only ever accepted and “saved” those who responded to Him in obedience. Just as Abraham, who was counted righteous by believing (Rom. 4:3), obeyed God from the outset (Gen. 12:4). He believed; therefore he acted. Thus his “faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect [Greek – teleioo = complete]” (James 2:22). There are always men in our day in age deceiving others by teaching that man is saved at the moment of belief. Man’s faith must—I say again, must move him into obedience or God will not extend His grace (Heb. 5:9; James 2:24).
Hanegraaff omits what Jesus Christ requires, but it is Jesus who saves, so He gets to decide how He will do it. By grace He provides the means—His atoning blood—and He also gets to decide how we must respond in order to benefit from it. Hanegraaff has salvation before the baptism of the penitent believer while Jesus has it after.
Peter also puts salvation after baptism (for it is in baptism when the Lord, by His grace, removes the sins of the believer). On the Day of Pentecost after Christ’s resurrection, Peter spoke to the mass of Jews about Jesus so they might believe, and his speech was effective. The fact that they were “pricked in their heart” (felt remorse for crucifying the Lord) indicates they believed Peter’s message. Feeling guilty about murdering the man that Peter has convinced them is the Messiah, they ask what they should do (v. 38). How could they remedy what they have done? Peter doesn’t respond by saying, “repent and receive Christ and you will be born again” (as what Hanegraaff’s cliché teaches). No, Peter says, “repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins…”
Hanegraaff admitted that a man must “repent” before being saved, so by his own words confirms that those Jews were not yet saved (even though they heard Peter’s speech, believed it, and asked what they should do), because Peter had not yet told them to repent. It is clear that repentance and baptism precede the forgiveness of sins.
“For the remission of sins” is the same term found in Matthew 26:28 and logically points toward a goal. Man cannot be saved without baptism because baptism is “for the remission of sins”; it is when Jesus forgives the sins of the believer.
That God doesn’t remove the believer’s sins until baptism is further evident in the case of the apostle Paul. Paul received instant faith when Christ spoke to him on the road to Damascus in Acts 9 (note that after Jesus identifies Himself, Paul calls Him “Lord”). In verse eleven, we see that after this vision, Paul waits in the city “praying.” Not only that, but he was fasting—neither eating nor drinking for three days (Acts 9:9), which shows his repentance (cf. Neh. 9:1; Jonah 3:4-5). So, even though Paul believed in Jesus (calling Him “Lord”), prayed, and repented, he was still not yet saved, because Ananias came to him and said, “…why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). Notice Ananias’ use of the words “wash away”; it is in baptism that our sins are “washed away,” i.e., forgiven by Jesus (remember Peter linked baptism to the remission of sins–Acts 2:38).
Observe that though Paul had already prayed to Jesus and had already called Him “Lord,” he had not yet been “calling upon the name of the Lord” until baptism. Though “calling upon the Lord” has itself become a cliché in our modern religious world, the phrase Biblically embraces a deeper concept than just prayer (though not excluding prayer). It is an appeal to Jesus for His good graces by submitting to His will, just as Zephaniah 3:9 connects “calling on the name of the Lord” with “service.” Peter also spoke of “calling on the name of the Lord” in Acts 2:21 and went on to tell the Jews to “repent and be baptized.” (Note: the same Greek word translated “call on” in Acts 2:21 is translated “appeal” in Acts 25:11. By “appealing to Caesar,” Paul had to submit himself to the system’s required process to be heard by Caesar. Likewise, a sinner’s call upon God consists of his submission to God’s requirements for salvation.)
We can see the necessity of baptism in the example of the Philippian jailer. The Jews on Pentecost believed the gospel preached by Peter and as a result asked what they must do, but when the jailer asked what he must do to be saved (Acts 16:30), he did not know the gospel or know Jesus, since Paul didn’t preach “the word of the Lord” until afterwards (v. 32). So, unlike the Jews, the jailer did not have faith at the time he asked. (Though he must have heard enough from Paul and Silas to conclude they had information on the subject.) Paul answers: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (v. 31). Paul knew that true faith would cause the jailer to submit to the will of God which would result in his salvation. (In Mark 5:25-29, the faith of the woman with the blood issue led her to touch Jesus’ garment, which in turn healed her. Jesus declared that her “faith made her whole” (v. 34), but it was after it led her to act.) Paul then preached “the word of the Lord” to the jailer (so he could believe), and next we read: “And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway” (v. 33). The jailer was baptized in an act of faith (cf. Gal. 3:26-27; his faith led him to submit to the Lord’s will) and so by faith he was saved just as Paul had said.
We see the attitude of the jailer’s heart in tending to their wounds. His new faith produced in him a penitent heart (which Hanegraaff says is necessary for salvation). It also led him to be baptized. It stands to reason that baptism was necessarily a part of “the word of the Lord (v. 32), because this was the jailer’s response to hearing it.
BAPTIZED “INTO HIS DEATH”
To further grasp the incredible fallacy of barring baptism as a prerequisite of salvation, which most do, we need to look at its purpose. Paul said:
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 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. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection…” (Rom. 6:3-5)
It is the blood of Christ that removes the sin from the believer. Jesus shed that blood in death, and it is “by baptism” that buries us “into His death.” He said that His blood was shed “for the remission of sins,” and Peter said “repent and be baptized…for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). The connection between the blood of Jesus and baptism is apparent. The blood of our Lord is the source of our forgiveness, but water immersion in the name of Jesus is when this occurs.
Paul also said:
“Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12).
The absolving of the believer’s sins in baptism is the “operation of God”—God is working in it, forgiving our transgressions, and thus baptism is an act of faith. Just as the marching around the city of Jericho was an act of faith (cf. Joshua 6:3ff; Heb. 11:30); God promised to bring the walls of the city down if they followed His instructions. They did, and “by faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days” (Heb. 11:30). Likewise, we believe in the “operation of God”—the removing of our sins—if we are baptized. We can then stand with a “good conscience toward God”:
“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…” (1 Pet. 3:21)
BAPTIZED “INTO CHRIST”
Many people speak of baptism as nothing more than an “outward sign of an inward change,” but the inspired Paul speaks more on its purpose:
“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:6-27).
Can somebody tell me how the language here is only symbolic? It is explicit that baptism is the mode by which a believer gets “into” Jesus. Not because there is any magic in the water, but because God has decided it to be so. Redemption is “in Christ” (Rom. 3:24); “In Christ” is where there is “no condemnation” (Rom. 8:1); we are “one body in Christ” (Rom. 12:5); and “salvation” is “in Christ” (2 Tim. 2:10), and it is by baptism that the believer moves “into Christ.” And let me ask this: if “as many” of us “as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ,” then how many of us as have not been baptized into Christ put on Christ?
The “Bible answer man” has the wrong answer! It’s a terrible shame and an utter iniquity to leave out of salvation what Christ includes. Let us avoid the teaching of men like Hank Hanegraaff, lest we be deceived into believing there is nothing we must do in righteousness and in obedience to possess eternal life. Jesus has provided the means, so let us all obey the gospel today:
- Have Faith (John 1:12; 3:16, 36; 6:40; 1 Tim. 1:16)
- Love (Faith must “work through love”; Gal. 5:6; 1 Cor. 13:2; 1 John 4:7)
- Repent (Matt. 4:17; 9:13; Luke 13:3; Acts 17:30)
- Confess Jesus as Christ and Son of God (Matt: 16:15-17; Rom. 10:9-10; Acts 8:36-37; 1 John 4:15)
- Be baptized for the remission of sins (Matt. 28:19-20; Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Gal. 3:26-27; Col. 2:12)
After this, the believer is “in Christ” (where he has salvation—2 Tim. 2:10), and as a Christian he must continually strive to please the Lord (Col. 1:23) and walk worthy of the calling (Eph. 4:1), growing in knowledge and love (Eph. 4:15; 1 Pet. 2:2; 2 Pet. 3:18).
—Andrew Richardson