Question: .

How many times should a person be baptized? In my case I was baptized as an infant in the Catholic Church. But I'm grown up now and I'm not Catholic. I was baptized in the Seventh Day Adventist Church a few years back but now I don't agree with their beliefs so I have left. I'm now attending a Baptist Church. I don't believe I should be baptized again for changing churches. When I got baptized as an adult I did it knowing why and what this means to me as a Christian and I think that's all that matters.

Thanks for your help!

-Marie

Answer:

Dear Marie,

An excellent question, and I would generally agree with the way you seem to be leaning regarding this question.

First, we are commanded to be baptized - but there is no command to be re-baptized. Once is enough. There is no reason why someone should feel a need to be baptized again. On the other hand, if an individual decides to be baptized again, that individual should not be under any misunderstandings about why they are being re-baptized. Generally speaking, "once is enough" is what Christians should live by, because multiple baptisms simply cast doubt on the integrity and ability of God's promise. God's work is not limited by who does the baptism, or by the mode of baptism.

Most re-baptisms are of those who were baptized as infants, and later come to believe in what is called "believer's baptism" - the idea that surely one ought to know what one is doing, and the commitment one is making - at the time of this sacrament.

As you state, there certainly is no need to be re-baptized simply because you changed churches. No church should insist on re-baptism as a condition of membership, for the conversion experience, the new birth, re-birth, being born again, regeneration, etc. is not necessarily one and the same as baptism. And it most certainly is not one and the same as being baptized by a specific church - churches and pastors do not confer/award/give conversion. Churches and pastors can and should help an individual to know what God is doing, and in many cases has already done, in the individuals' life. But to appropriate and define conversion to a set of denominational doctrinal beliefs is over-stepping the responsibility of the ministry of Jesus Christ. No human has the authority to direct you to be re-baptized.

Baptism signifies rebirth and regeneration, but it does not convey or confer rebirth. The power of baptism is not in water, or how much water, or the method of baptism, or the person doing the baptizing, or the church under whose auspices the baptism is done - but in the power that alone belongs to God. The reality of rebirth to which baptism points may be present in the life of the believer before or after the sign and symbol of baptism.

Baptism is an outward sign, a profession of faith, that is made by the believer (or in the case of infant baptism, by the infant's family and church family) that testifies to the commitment that the believer is making. It is, in some ways, like a wedding ceremony - a formal commitment. Baptism may be done by immersion, or by sprinkling - ) although Christians are free to differ about this, but should not declare spiritual superiority because of the mode they favor). Most Protestants point to the baptism of Jesus, and note that he was immersed. Other Protestants and Catholics will note that several entire households were baptized in the New Testament - and presumably this would have included infants who presumably would not have been immersed.

Baptism is the sign of God's promise of salvation, and the fact that we give our lives to him, and that we accept this salvation, and the grace by which and through which he gives us eternal life.

In Christ's service,

Greg Albrecht