Baptize

The Great Commission does not say, "Go and get decisions." It does not say, "Go and fill auditoriums." It says, "Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Baptism is woven into the command. It is not an afterthought. It is not optional. It is the visible, public act by which a new disciple is identified with Christ, with the Triune God, and with the body of believers.

On the day of Pentecost, when three thousand souls were cut to the heart by Peter's sermon and cried out, "What shall we do?", Peter answered: "Repent and be baptized." The first act of obedience for the new believer. It still is.

Baptism is a sign and a picture. Romans 6 tells us what it pictures.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:3-4)

Going under the water pictures dying with Christ. The death of the old self. The burial of the old life of sin. Coming up out of the water pictures rising with Christ. New life. New identity. New creation.

Baptism does not save. But it powerfully proclaims the salvation God has accomplished in the believer through faith in Christ.

Notice the Trinitarian formula. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Baptism is not merely a personal testimony. It is an act performed in the name of the Triune God. The believer is being publicly claimed by the God who planned salvation (the Father), accomplished salvation (the Son), and applied salvation (the Spirit).

Baptism also gathers the new disciple into the visible church. In the New Testament, there is no such thing as an unbaptized, unchurched Christian. Baptism is the doorway into the fellowship of believers. On the day of Pentecost, those who were baptized "were added" to the church (Acts 2:41). They did not have a private spiritual experience and walk away. They were joined to a body.

This has enormous implications for missions. The goal of missions is not merely to win individual converts. It is to gather those converts into churches. Baptism is the hinge between evangelism and church formation. The mission is not complete when someone prays a prayer. It is advancing when new believers are baptized, gathered into local congregations, and taught to obey everything Christ has commanded.

At Mayflower, baptism follows a credible profession of faith. It is by immersion, because that is what the word means and what the New Testament pictures. If you have not been baptized as a believer, the Great Commission has a step in it for you.