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“And now, why tarriest thou? [We would say, “What are you waiting for?”] Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16).
When we first read this verse, we might be a little confused, as it sounds as if our sins can be washed away simply by being baptized. Yet we read in 1 John 1:7 that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” What then does our verse for today mean?
Baptism means the taking of a new position before God, and also before men. This is true whether it was the Israelites going through the Red Sea (read 1 Corinthians 10:1-2), the baptism of John the Baptist, or Christian baptism. Baptism never washes away our sins in the sight of God; that can be done only by the blood of Christ. However, when men like Saul of Tarsus persecuted Christians, they were connected with the Jewish nation that had rejected and crucified the Lord Jesus. When a Jew was baptized, it meant that he had separated himself from that guilty nation, and now wanted to be associated with those who recognized the Lord Jesus as the Son of God, and had accepted Him as their Savior. Saul of Tarsus did this, and everyone recognized that he no longer was connected with the Jewish nation that had rejected the Lord Jesus. In this way he was no longer connected with the sin of crucifying the Lord Jesus; that sin had been washed away, in that sense, by baptism.
Today, when we are baptized as Christians, we separate ourselves from the world that continues to reject the Lord Jesus, and take our place among those who love Him, and know Him as Savior.
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