I'm getting dunked...what does that mean?

There are several hours before I go to a lake and am baptized by a Pastor from my church with 14 other friends. Before setting out to do this, I've been looking for two answers: what is baptism? and how important is it?

In short, baptism is a symbol of union with Christ in his death, and resurrection. This video helps to explain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g08kQvQ5-8k)



Christ conquered my sin at the cross, and purchased my very willingness to believe. The cross is where my testimony starts and ends. Jesus Christ is my righteousness!

God revealed that to me in high school.

I was a 3 sport athlete my freshman year, with a lot of potential. Success produced attention, and I love that. Praise was my idol, treasure, identity.
The following year I was injured, unable to play any of "my sports". I was angry at God because I thought he existed to give me anything I wanted.
Pride surfaced.
The following summer at a Campus Crusade conference, I heard the Gospel again and understood it for the first time. I recognized that I am an idolater, loving created things over the creator; therefore this offense is against none other than the God of the universe, deserving infinite punishment in hell.

God replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh, and the cross of Jesus was no longer foolishness to me, but irresistible! Immediately I embraced Romans 3:24-25, "We are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith."

This summer I have come to see the importance of baptism. Baptism symbolizes Christ's death and resurrection that conquered my sin "through faith".
Colossians 2:11-12 says, "In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead."
Here circumcision of the heart is a symbol of the New Birth. This symbol is being paralleled with what happens in baptism: therefore also a symbol of being buried with Christ and then raised with him through faith. (So if this symbol represents the New Covenant, should it be given to babies like the symbol of circumcision was given on the 8th day to members of the Old Covenant? No, because the "Church" by definition is no longer a physical nation, but a spiritual nation. Not by physical birth, but only by Spiritual birth.)

"Paul shows the same way of thinking about baptism and faith in Galatians 3:26-27: “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” We become sons of God through faith and no other way. Then he says, “for”—connecting this way of becoming sons of God with baptism—“for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
That explanation with the word for only makes sense if baptism is understood as an acting out of faith. “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Or to turn it around: Since you were baptized into Christ, therefore we know that in Christ you are all sons of God through faith. Why? Because that is what baptism means: You were baptized into Christ by faith. Baptism without faith was inconceivable to Paul. (http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2008/3037_What_Is_Baptism_and_How_Important_Is_It/)

So why is this important to do?

-Jesus commands it.
-In every instance of Baptism in the Bible it was given to Christians, not non-Christians (it is not a means to make anyone a Christian, as if the Holy Spirit is bound to a sacrament. Jesus says in John 7,8 "You must be BORN AGAIN. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.")
-"It was uniquely connected to conversion as an unrepeatable expression of saving faith." (Someone should only be baptized once because Christ only died and was raised once.)

God willing, my baptism tonight will glorify and make much of Christ, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To proclaim to all at the lake, and all friends and family attending, that indeed Christ has risen!

"We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God" the Bible says. Punishment for sin is death and eternal separation from God in hell, the Bible says. But let it be known that whoever believes in Christ Jesus will be saved by His grace through faith!

May the cross become irresistibly beautiful to you,
Sara