I’m a Southern Baptist evangelical who accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior at age twelve. I was baptized before the members of the First Baptist church in my hometown. I was saved unto eternal life the moment I believed, by faith, in the gospel of Christ. Baptism was the way our church publicly identified ourselves as disciples of Christ and became a part of the local church. Baptism was an outward show to everyone of our inner faith in Jesus Christ.
John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 5:24 – Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death into life.
Romans 3:28 – Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
For the believer, baptism is symbolic of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. For the believer, being immersed under water symbolizes being buried with Christ and the death of our old sinful nature. Being raised up out of the water is symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus was raised from the dead and we, as His disciples, have been born again with our new nature and have inherited eternal life. We baptize because Jesus was baptized and because in the Bible Jesus commanded it be done.
Romans 6:4 – Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life.