Does Acts 22:16 teach that baptism is necessary for salvation?

Ananias further instructed him to be baptized to wash away his sins. This has nothing to do with God's cleansing of sins by the blood of Christ, which is a vital, eternal matter for all who receive Christ as Savior. But it is rather a public washing away of those sins of which Saul had been guilty in publicly opposing the blessed name of the Lord Jesus. That is, in the eyes of men he would wash away his sins by baptism, not in the eyes of God, for this is only by the blood of Christ. In baptism he was taking a public stand contrary to his former course.

What a meeting that was! Saul, who but lately would have arrested Ananias and have carried him bound to Jerusalem, was visited by this disciple of Christ, that through him he might receive the restoration of his eyesight. Scales, as it were, fell from his eyes. The power of vision was restored. And now he willingly hearkened like a docile child to Ananias, when told to arise, and be baptised, and wash away his sins, calling on the name of the Lord (Acts 22:16). Without delay, he was baptised, and called upon the name of the Lord, and so washed away his sins. We need here scarcely remind the reader that the rite of baptism does not procure forgiveness of our sins before God. Nothing but the blood of Christ can do that (Eph.1:7; Col.1:14; Heb.9:22). Saul, however, by what he did, taking his place outwardly as a disciple by baptism, and calling on the name of the Lord, thus openly confessing Him, thoroughly broke with the past and condemned his whole course. Had he not called on the name of the Lord, would his sins have been washed away? That result was closely connected with his open acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ in that double way.

Saul was the first of those numbered among the Apostles of whose baptism we read. Already a quickened soul before Ananias visited him, he was to be enrolled amongst the disciples of Christ in the appointed way for all who should believe on Him subsequent to His death. As baptised, Saul was now buried with Christ (Rom.6:4), and thus was professedly in His company who had really died. Further, as Ananias told him, he was to be filled with the Holy Ghost, and so be fitted for the special service to which he was called. What passed between the two, beyond the few words recorded in Acts 9:17, supplemented as they are by the Apostle's account of the interview in 22:13-16, we shall never know on earth. Yet that interview, we may be sure, must have been one of intense interest to both. Ananias for the first time saw and conversed in peace with the formerly notorious persecutor of the Church of God. Saul, when his sight returned, saw before him one of that hitherto hated sect on the extermination of which he had been bent. And with the facts and the experience of the past few days fresh in his recollection, we may well suppose that he spoke of his remarkable conversion, and of the grace of which he was so striking an example, opening up his mind to Ananias, with whom, as a disciple of their now common Master, he was henceforth to be openly associated. A change indeed had passed over him. What he had seen and heard had wrought a mighty revolution within. He was converted.

Baptism never supposes life in the one baptized though it may be there, but it always supposes death. Thus Saul was in the condition that attached to him as a sinner with sins on him, though himself safe, when he was bidden to "arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins" (Acts 22:16). His sins were not washed away, that is to say, he was outwardly connected with the first man, until baptism to Christ, and as to himself as a man on the earth was not in a Christian state till after baptism. If life were implied in baptism, would it not have been written, "Arise, and be baptized, because your sins are washed away"? Again it is said, "Repent, and be baptized, for the remissions of sins," not "because your sins are remitted," which is the ground taken by those who refuse baptism for any but believers. "They that gladly received the word were baptized," and it was "for the remission of sins"; that is to say, they could not be acknowledged as outwardly free from sin until they had in type died in the waters of death, and waters of baptism (1 Peter 3:20, 22), "wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by waters!" etc.

Notice too how baptism and the washing away of sins are connected here, just as they are in Acts 2:38, and as they were in John's baptism. Ananias added, "calling on the name of the Lord," which shows that he pointed to Christian baptism and not John's. Baptism is specially significant in the case of the Jew, which accounts for the prominent place it had on the day of Pentecost and in the case of Paul. These rejectors of Christ must bow their proud heads, and go down symbolically into death as acknowledging His Name. It was the token of their submission to the One whom they had refused, and only thus could their sins be washed away.

Let us pass to Acts 22:16, leaving any intervening passages to be considered when we come to the question of the application of the rite. We have already seen, by an allusion to this very Scripture, that Baptism is a washing. Now why do we wash? Because we are clean, or to be made clean? Surely we do not wash as a kind of public demonstration that we were clean before? Baptists have great difficulty with this verse. Some get rid of it by saying, it applied only to Saul of Tarsus because he was such an exceptional sinner. And I asked one respected and intelligent brother to explain "wash away thy sins," and his solution of the problem was, that it was by "calling on the Name of the Lord." But what correspondence is there between "washing" and "calling?" whereas there is a perfect correspondence between washing and water. The calling on the Name of the Lord was evidently an adjunct to the washing. And as to this statement having become obsolete because it applied to one particular case, and one only, I have yet to learn that Scripture anywhere teaches that Divine institutions have a special meaning to particular individuals, or that it anywhere says that Saul needed a special baptism. Is there a word to this effect in the Lord's instruction to Ananias? No. It was evidently ordinary water baptism, and it was a washing away of sins.

But it may be asked, "Were not the Apostle's sins already gone?" Yes, they were gone from before God. This was a washing away from before men and as a demonstration that he renounced his former ways and was entering upon an entirely new life. And notice particularly, it does not say, "Arise and be baptized because your sins are forgiven." This is indeed the Baptist formula, but it is not the one here.

That baptism has a spiritual significance I have said before, but there is something that baptism does for the baptised, quite apart from its spiritual significance. Baptism did something for the apostle Paul before he learned its spiritual significance. His sins were all forgiven before God, eternally, never to be remembered any more when the Lord Jesus met him on the Damascus road, three days before his baptism. But it was in the act of his baptism that they were washed away from before men on the earth. Otherwise he would never have been recognised by those on earth as a christian - as distinct from Jew or Gentile. What baptism does for the baptised was clearly demonstrated in the case of Paul for, beyond all controversy, he, was there and then - for the first time - brought into a place in which he never was before. Let it be emphasised that this new place on earth was distinct from that of his eternal acceptance through the grace of God. That was secured for him on the principle of faith when he owned Jesus as Lord on the Damascus road. Faith brought him into eternal, spiritual, and heavenly blessing. Baptism gave him entrance into that new thing set up of God on earth - the sphere of the rule on earth, of the earth rejected, heaven accepted Jesus - the kingdom of heaven.

As in Paul's case, so in ours. As to the soul's standing before God our sins are forgiven on the principle of faith, through the blood of Jesus. All that has attached to our place on earth, whether in Judaism or Heathenism has been taken into account and professedly we are dissociated from it by baptism and just as positively associated, by that same act, with Christianity - the kingdom of heaven and the house of God.

Hence, when Paul was converted, Ananias said to him, "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." He entered then into an actually administered forgiveness. "Wash away thy sins" is of course a figure. It is not putting away the filth of the flesh that does it. But I come thereby into that which is proclaimed as the first blessing of the Christianity into which I enter becoming a professed Christian. If faith is there, my conscience is perfect according to the christian system, and the other blessings follow; if there is profession without real faith, I am in the case of Simon Magus or of 1 Corinthians 10; but I have been baptized to that. In Acts 2 and Acts 22 the call is addressed to persons publicly under the power of the revelation and word of Christ; and they are then told what to do in order to obtain the blessings of Christianity actually here on earth, the path to perfect ones above. This must not be forgotten, for then they did enter, and for the first time, into the blessings attached to Christianity on earth.

Paul narrates more fully than the previous history has done, the visit of Ananias, — "a pious man," as he remarks, according to the law," — through whom at once his sight is restored to him, and he is declared to be one chosen by the God of their fathers to know His will and see the *Righteous One, and hear, as a special witness for Him, a voice out of His mouth. Then he is bidden to be baptized, and have his sins washed away, as he thus owns the authority of Jesus. It is a clear example of baptismal remission of sins on entering the kingdom: on God's part he who truly bows to Christ is absolutely forgiven; but on man's part, as openly admitted by baptism, this can be but a conditional announcement, available, not for introduction into heaven, but into the company of disciples upon earth. As a kingdom of truth (John 18:37) the kingdom means discipleship.

That it was regarded as a privilege to be conferred we may see from the Ethiopian official in Acts 8, who, having heard from Philip the glad tidings of Jesus, sought at once to be identified with His name, "What doth hinder me to be baptised?" Thus also in the case of Cornelius and his company. Who could refuse to receive them amongst professing Christians whom God had already marked as His by the gift of the Holy Ghost? It is the same great truth that leads Ananias in Acts 22:16 to call upon Paul to arise and be baptised, and so enter where administratively his sins might be washed away; baptism being the symbol of that to which the death and resurrection of Christ was available.

It was a real work of God in the conscience. They were not persuaded only, but pricked in heart. There was submission to His person Whom they had just crucified, and this through faith in God's word. It was not mere remorse, still less a change of mind only, but real judgment of self before God (Whose part they now took against themselves and their unbelieving evil in the past), and a distinct casting themselves on Him Whom they had so bitterly despised to their own ruin. Now they repented, and were baptized each of them in the name of Jesus for remission of sins. Through His name the believer receives remission of sins; in none other is there salvation. He is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins. As they repented, so also were they baptized in His name, according to the charge laid on His servants. They took the place of death with Him: I say not that they then understood its meaning, as they doubtless entered into it more or less afterwards. The Lord directed His servants to baptize; and the new converts simply and without question submitted. It was His way, nor is any other so good, though many a servant of His diverged from His orders, and many a convert seems in effect to think himself, in this as in other things, wiser than his Master. It was a clean final break with sins and sin, with man and religious man, with Judaism. Little or nothing could any one of these confessors be supposed at this solemn epoch of new birth to apprehend with intelligence; but they did feel before God their own nothingness, and the all-sufficiency of His name Who had died on the cross. And they were welcome to the precious privilege conferred on them, as they could in no way have been recognized as disciples of His had they refused baptism in His name. It was the mark of His confession, the sign of salvation; and woe to him that spurns the authority and grace of Him Who instituted it!