In our dispensation, water baptism doesn’t save you, not even a little bit, but believing the gospel Paul preached for salvation sure does

Last Sunday, Hollywood actor Russell Brand told the world he ‘got baptized and became a Christian’, last year hundreds of people were baptized in the wake of the ‘Jesus Revolution’ movie, Kanye West had his children baptized in Israel, and the list goes on and on. What you rarely, if ever, hear, is a biblical testimony of salvation that should absolutely precede the ‘glorious!, awesome!, I feel so clean!’ moment of water baptism. More importantly, what does your King James Bible have to say about baptism? Let’s find out.

“And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Acts 8:36,37 (KJB)

On this episode of Rightly Dividing, every time a famous person gets baptized, the knee-jerk reaction is always to believe they’ve also gotten saved, and that is a theologically dangerous place to be. John the Baptist baptized people, but it was with the understanding that it was preparing them to meet the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world. Peter preached water baptism that was connected to salvation, true, but he was preaching to Jews awaiting the Kingdom of Heaven at the Second Advent. The apostle Paul does not preach baptism at all, in his gospel salvation is by grace through faith alone. What must I do to be saved? Believe the gospel, full stop. Tonight we show you the dispensational nature of water baptism, and exactly where it belongs in the life of a born again Christian living in the Church Age.