Baptism

It is common knowledge that Christians must be baptized, but why? What is the purpose of baptism, what is the proper method, and what must one do in order to be worthy of baptism?

In order to be baptized one must rid themselves of sin. In Romans 6, 1 the scriptures ask, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? and in verse 2 it says, "God forbid." It seems to be pretty clear then, we must repent and we must strive to live a righteous life, we are not saved by grace alone but by works also.


Once one has repented, done their best to lead a righteous life, and has accepted the Gospel it is time to enter into the waters of baptism. There are some churches who have their members enter baptism by sprinkling or by merely encountering water but in Romans it is clear that baptism is only achieved through full immersion of the body.  Romans 6, 4 "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." Christ was buried in death just as we are buried in death when we are baptized we are symbolically plunged into death in the fullest extent and then raised from the dead or resurrected cleaned of all that we have done.


Baptism is very symbolic of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. At the end of Christ's life he took on all of the world's sins, all of our burdens. He then died, was buried in death and then resurrected clean and pure, exalted. He conquered death and sin, providing a way for all of us to do the same. Prior to baptism we are burdened by sins just as Christ was, then we are submerged or buried in death. When we leave the waters we are clean and pure, free from sin. Free to live righteously for all our days.


After baptism it can be easy to fall back into our old habits, regrettably we all will but somethings can help us to avoid it as much as possible. We must not yield to sin. Since we died unto Christ we shall live unto him also and Christ lives in righteousness. Keeping this symbolism in mind can help us when we face life's temptations.  According to Mosiah 3:19 we should put off the natural man. We should put him off at baptism and we should strive to put him off everyday of our lives.


Who's servant are you? Baptism allows us to break free from the servitude of sin. When ever we give into temptation we are serving sin, whenever we follow God's commandments we are serving him. You can tell in any given situation who you are serving by asking your self whether or not this is something God would have you do, in most cases you will know the answer right away. Some may say, "well if I have to serve something, why not just serve temptation? It's more fun anyway." Don't fall into this line of thinking. Freedom comes not from doing the things that seem to matter now but in doing the things that matter most, the wages of sin is death, the wages of righteousness are eternal life
 New Testament-Romans
Book of Mormon-Mosiah