Bible Study › Lesson 9 of 10
Common Objections... What Does the Bible Say?
By now you have read what the Scriptures say about hearing, believing, repenting, confessing, and being baptized. You have probably also heard reasons why baptism is not really necessary. This lesson takes the most common ones, one at a time, and answers each from a passage.
8For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.
Objection: "Baptism is a work, and we are not saved by works." Paul says salvation is not of works. What does he say we were created in Christ Jesus for, and who prepared those works?
Show the answer from the text
For good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Paul rules out works a person could boast about... works of our own making. He does not rule out works God prepared and commanded. Nobody boasts about obeying a command. The works that lead to salvation (believing, repenting, confessing, being baptized) are all God's, and the previous lesson showed Jesus calling faith itself a work of God.
12And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Objection: "Baptism is only a symbol, an outward sign of an inward change that already happened." According to Paul, what happens in baptism, and through what?
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We are buried with Him and raised with Him, through faith in the working of God. Paul does not describe a picture of something that already took place. He describes something God does in baptism. The phrase "outward sign of an inward change" is not in the Bible anywhere. Burial and resurrection with Christ in baptism is.
16In the case of a will, it is necessary to establish the death of the one who made it, 17because a will does not take effect until the one who made it has died; it cannot be executed while he is still alive.
Objection: "The thief on the cross was saved without being baptized." When does a testament, or will, take effect?
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After the one who made it has died. It has no power at all while he lives. The thief died before Jesus did, under the old covenant, while Jesus still walked the earth with power to forgive sins directly. The command to be baptized was given after the resurrection. The thief could no more obey it than a man could pay a tax that had not been passed yet. We live under the New Testament. He did not.
31We know that God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to the one who worships Him and does His will.
Objection: "I just need to pray and ask Jesus into my heart." Whom does God not hear, and whom does He hear?
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God does not hear sinners, but He hears the one who worships Him and does His will. There is no example in the Bible of anyone praying to be saved, and no instruction to do it. Saul prayed for three days and was still told to be baptized and wash away his sins. Cornelius prayed always, and God sent Peter to tell him what he must do. Prayer did not save either one. Doing God's will did.
5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.
Objection: "I have been born again by faith, so I do not need the water." What does Jesus say a person must be born of to enter the kingdom of God?
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Water and the Spirit. Jesus says "unless," which leaves no exceptions. The water is baptism... in the very next verses Jesus and His disciples go out baptizing in water. The Spirit works through the word of God that teaches a person what to do. Being born again is not something that happens apart from the water. Jesus put the water in the sentence Himself.
21Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Objection: "I have accepted Jesus as my Lord." Does everyone who calls Jesus Lord enter the kingdom? Who does?
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No. The one who does the will of the Father in heaven. Jesus says plainly that calling Him Lord, even sincerely, is not what gets a person in. Doing the Father's will is. That is the same thing He asked in Luke 6:46... why call Me Lord and not do what I say?
3“Into what, then, were you baptized?” Paul asked. “The baptism of John,” they replied. 4Paul explained: “John’s baptism was indeed a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the One coming after him, that is, in Christ Jesus.” 5On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.
Objection: "I was already baptized in my old church." These men had been baptized. When Paul explained what they had missed, what happened?
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They were baptized again, this time in the name of the Lord Jesus. Their first baptism was sincere, but it was not the baptism Christ commanded, so Paul did not accept it as a substitute. A baptism done for the wrong reason, by the wrong method, or on the authority of a denomination is not the one the Bible describes. When a person learns the truth, the honest response is the one these men gave.
In short
Every one of these objections comes from somewhere other than the Bible. The Scriptures never call baptism a work of man, never call it a symbol, never offer prayer as the way to be saved, and never say that calling Jesus Lord is enough. The thief on the cross died under a covenant we do not live under. And when men who had been baptized learned they had been taught wrong, they were baptized again.
If one of these objections has been your reason for waiting, the passages above are the answer, and they are not hard to read. The question Jesus asked is still the one that matters... why call Him Lord and not do what He says? The Scriptures have told you what to do. Nobody in the Bible was told to wait.
Go deeper: Unless You Are Born Again | Is Baptism a Work of Man (ChatGPT A.I.) | The Thief On The Cross | Sinner's Prayer | Why I Got Baptized Again