When you ask someone if he/she is saved, what is the response? Sometimes a person responds, “Yes, I was baptized.”
If getting baptized could save you, then why would God have allowed His Son to be mercilessly mocked, tortured, and crucified?
Isaiah 53:3-7 says, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”
God would have never allowed all that to happen to Jesus, if just dipping you in water could save your soul.
We are not permitted to get baptized until after we get saved. Acts 8:35-39 says, “Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. 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. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.”
What is the purpose of baptism, if it does not save a person? Baptism gives the new Christian an opportunity to show that he/she is not ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that he/she has repented of sin, and received the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, and wants to now live a new life for Jesus Christ. Romans 6:3-6 says, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”
Are you saved? Have you been baptized to show that you are unashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that you have repented of your sins, and now desire to live a new life for the Lord Jesus Christ?