Acts
16:25-34
25 About
midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other
prisoners were listening to them.
26 Suddenly
there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were
shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came
loose.
27 The
jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and
was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.
28 But Paul shouted, "Don't harm
yourself! We are all here!"
29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and
fell trembling before Paul and Silas.
30 He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
31 They
replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus,
and you will be saved--you and your household."
32 Then they spoke
the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.
33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed
their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized.
34 The
jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled
with joy because he had come to believe in God--he and his whole
family.
Again, this passage
reiterates that faith must precede baptism. It also demonstrates
repentance in the jailer’s action of washing their wounds. It is not faith alone that saves us. It is not merely
the act of being immersed alone that saves us. It is when faith, repentance
AND baptism are all combined together that conversion takes
place. “Believing in the Lord Jesus” means being baptized. Belief is
equated with baptism according to Christ’s own words in Mark 16:16. Believing the Gospel gets you into a
position to have your sins forgiven in baptism. One must believe first
before they are baptized (otherwise, how would someone know getting immersed is
when God will forgive their sins?).
Just as Philip “preached
Jesus” to the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8,
and the eunuch responded to this message by wanting to be baptized, so too,
the jailer (and his household) had “the word of the Lord” spoken to them and,
once again, their response was baptism. There can be no doubt
then, that “preaching the Gospel”, “preaching Jesus”, and “speaking the word of
the Lord” includes proper instruction in the purpose of baptism. This
is a prime example of Mark 16:15-16 in action, where Jesus said,
“…
Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, and he that
does not believe shall be condemned.”
The
jailer asked what he must do to be saved. We know from Mark 16:15-16 that he
who believes the gospel and is baptized will be saved. We find in this example
of the jailer that this is exactly what happens! Notice that the
scripture does not directly tell us the jailer believed. The Scripture only
says the jailer was told he must believe. The scripture only tells
us he was taught the message of Jesus and that he was baptized. The fact that
the scripture does say he was baptized implies that he believed
the message. The only way we have to confirm that the jailer believed
was by his baptism. The jailer’s faith is confirmed by his
baptism just as it was confirmed
that Christ belonged to God by His baptism. And so it is with us
today.
It
does no good to tell someone to get baptized unless they are first told the
message of Jesus Christ. The first step is to believe, then baptism will be
effectual. Faith in Christ is what gives baptism its significance.
Obviously, it does no good to tell someone to get baptized unless they have
first heard the message of the cross and the story of Jesus. And this is the
example we see with the jailer.
It was the middle of the
night and the urgency for these people to be baptized after they came to faith
in Jesus was so great that Paul did not wait until the next day to baptize them.
They did not wait until the next church meeting. They did not wait until it was
more convenient. It was done so immediately. Why this urgency? Because baptism in when a person’s sins are
forgiven and they become saved. When someone decides to be baptized to have
their sins forgiven, their eternal destiny takes a 180-degree turn. From an
eternal perspective, this is the most important event in a person’s life!
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A common question about
infant baptism and this passage:
It says his whole
household was baptized. Doesn’t that mean infants would be present?
Actually, no. Just the fact
that a whole household of people were baptized does not mean infants were
automatically present. Millions of people around the world live in households
where there are no infants present. This passage is often used in a vain
attempt to justify the unbiblical practice of infant baptism. But if one actually
reads the passage carefully, one will see that this passage actually tells us no
infants were present! Let’s look at it again a little closer:
Then they spoke
the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At
that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then
immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them
into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he
had come to believe in God--he and his whole family.
What this passage says
regarding infant baptism:
1.)
Paul and Silas spoke
the Word of the Lord to all those in the jailer’s household.
2.)
All members of the jailer’s family were baptized
3.)
The whole family
of the jailer came to BELIEVE in God.
Conclusion: Since every member of the jailer’s family came to BELIEVE
(after having heard the Word preached to them) there could not possibly
have been even a single infant present because infants cannot BELIEVE
in God. Infants are not capable of understanding the “Word of the Lord”, nor
can infants be described as “having come to believe in God.” Therefore,
everyone in the household of the jailer was old enough that they could hear
and understand the gospel being taught to them, and come to a personal faith
in Christ. Only when an individual is old enough to believe the gospel
do they become a valid candidate for baptism.