One of the most exciting things to do in life as a Christian is tell someone about Christ. Here’s a serious question: If you were to tell someone how to be saved, what would you tell him?
What Peter did
Peter was preaching about the resurrected Christ on the Day of Pentecost and his hearers came under conviction. They asked what they should do. Peter told them to repent of their sins and be baptized in the name of Jesus and that they would be filled with the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:37-39). If you were in Peter’s place that day, what would you have said? What do you say today when you tell someone how to be saved? Is it the same as what Peter said? If it isn’t, does it make you wonder at all why you would be presenting salvation differently from Peter?
Peter puts ministers and Christian witnesses in a precarious position by his answer if they were to answer the question differently. After all, he was invested with authority regarding salvation. He had received from Jesus the keys to the Kingdom of heaven, which meant that he would reveal the plan of salvation to the world (Matthew 16:19). Peter was no small Apostle. In Acts 10, Cornelius was visited by an angel to send for Peter in order to hear words of him whereby he and all his family could be saved (See also Acts 11:13-14). We see from this that heaven was still backing Peter about ten years after the Day of Pentecost. His message must have been sound and enduring.
What Paul did
In Acts 19, Paul encountered believers in Jesus on one of his missionary journeys. It occurred in Ephesus. If you had met disciples along the way, what would you have said to them? Would you have considered inquiring into their conversion experience? Paul did. Upon meeting them, he asked if they had received the Holy Ghost. Learning that they had not, he further inquired about their baptismal experience, which he found to be lacking (Acts 19:1-6). John the Baptist’s baptism was valid before the Day of Pentecost. Jesus defended it forcefully (Luke 7:28-30; 20:1-8). But, in the Christian era, it was superseded by baptism in Jesus’ name, which Christ had prescribed to the Apostles in the Great Commission (Luke 24:47).
Baptism in Jesus’ name is necessary for salvation because it involves the efficacy of the saving name of Jesus, fulfilling Joel’s prophecy regarding the New Covenant of calling on the name of the Lord (Joel 2:32; Acts 22:16). That New Covenant, of course, was inaugurated on the Day of Pentecost and Joel’s prophecy was cited by Peter in order to authenticate the use of the name of Jesus in baptism for the remission of sins (Acts 2:21, 38). And, of course, without remission of sins, there is no salvation.
Nothing has changed as fas as salvation doctrine is concerned since the Day of Pentecost. What Peter had enjoined on that eventful day is in force until Jesus comes for His Church at the Rapture (Acts 2:39). If someone asked the same question today as was asked on the Day of Pentecost, “What shall we do?”, why wouldn’t the answer be the same? And, if someone who believes in Christ today is not baptized in Jesus’ name, why would he not need to be? Jesus is still the only saving name under heaven by which we must be saved (John 4:12).
What would you have done?
What a person is told about salvation doctrine is immensely important. The Christian witness must be correct because the hearer is usually at the mercy of the one telling him due to his own limitation of biblical knowledge. Thankfully, in Acts 19, those who needed to be baptized in Jesus’ name heard Paul and he re-baptized them. And they subsequently received the Holy Ghost.
If you were Paul, would you have insisted on someone, who already believed in Jesus and was formerly baptized, being re-baptized in Jesus’ name? If you were in the shoes of those believers, would you have submitted to being re-baptized? If you answered in the negative to either of these questions, does it concern you that you may differ with Apostolic authority and precedent?
God has entrusted us with the Gospel, the only means of salvation for a lost world (1Thessalonians 2:4; 1Timothy 1:11; 4:16). We are His agents to whom He has committed the word and ministry of reconciliation (2Corinthians 5:18-20). We speak as His ambassadors in His place. Those words by which man can be reconciled to God are specific, as we have seen in the examples of Peter and Paul, both of whom preached the same message.