Conditioned on Repentance

“In those days came John the Baptist, preaching… And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand…. Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.”* (Matthew 3:1-6)

Not only did John teach that the people should repent and then be baptized, but be actually required repentance of them, refusing to baptize them if they did not repent. “And when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.”* (verses 7-8) We read in another place that “the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.”* (Luke 7:30) Because of their unwillingness to meet the required conditions for baptism, it is said that they “rejected the counsel of God.” And so it is with all anti-ordinance people; by rejecting Bible baptism they are rejecting God’s Word.

In his Pentecostal sermon Peter taught the same truth concerning the necessity of repentance first and baptism afterwards: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you.”* (Acts 2:38) Unless the heart is brought into the right attitude through repentance, the simple act of baptism amounts to nothing, even though performed in the Bible manner and by a true minister of God. Simon, the sorcerer at Samaria, was baptized with the other believers; yet when Peter and John came down the unregenerate condition of the man’s heart was revealed. His baptism in water, even though performed by Philip, a man “full of the Holy Ghost,”* (Acts 6:3) did not take away from his heart the love of preeminence, which had possessed him in the past. Peter said to him plainly, “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.”* (Acts 8:21)