During the holidays, we were all sitting around the dining table after lunch. My husband was in awe that he was still alive and will soon mark another year.  He said that he never though he would see the year 2012.  I agreed.  And I mentioned Orson Welles’ book 1984 and the movie Space Odyssey 2001. Even those authors never thought that we would reach the year 2012.

One thing we all agreed on around the table was that with each passing day, the day of the coming of the Lord was getting nearer and nearer.  And then I made a comment about the Bride of Christ and how there would be a Marriage Supper of the Lamb in heaven where all those who were saved and had been added to the church would be united with Christ forevermore.

Are we part of the body of Christ?  my kids wanted to know. So I read to them 1 Corinthians 12: 13: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body…” it means that as soon as we are saved, the Holy Spirit’s ministry is to add us to the body of Christ.

My children then asked next: So if we are already part of the body of Christ, and it is the Holy Spirit who added us to the body of Christ, why do we still need to be baptized? Oh wait, one said, I get it: it’s been done already but I need to make it public to show that I believe that it’s been done.  It’s like a testimony.

I thought it was a good and logical question.  The answer they themselves came up with was also right. What need is there for baptism if it is a fact already?  So we studied the baptism of Jesus Christ:

1. John the Baptizer’s call for Israel was to repent and then be baptized. The people who repented came to be baptized.  The baptism was not a part of their repentance but it was a symbol and a public declaration that they had already repented and were waiting for the Messiah.
2. Jesus Christ came to be baptized and John the Baptist was reluctant to baptize him.  John the Baptist knew that Jesus Christ had no sin to confess and so he did not need to be baptized.
3. Jesus Christ came to be baptized not because he had repented of his sin: he had no sin to repent of.  But his baptism was necessary to “fulfill all righteousness.”
4. In baptism, Jesus Christ was numbering himself with the sinners he had come to save.  In being baptized, he was identifying himself with them.  This is the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 53:12: the Messiah was to be “numbered with the transgressors” in order for him to bear “our griefs” and carry “our sorrows.”  Such that, even if Jesus Christ had “done no violence, neither was deceit found in his mouth” Jesus Christ still needed to be baptized so that he can be “wounded for our transgressions” and “be bruised for our iniquities.”
5. The Greek word “baptizo” is a term used by fullers or commercial launderers in Greece.  After cloth has been woven, it is to be totally immersed in big vats of boiling water for two purposes: to be bleached, or to be dyed.  When the cloth was dipped in the water, after it came out of the water, the cloth was already identified with the color in the vat.
6. When we are baptized, we declare ourselves to have already repented and believed in Jesus Christ.  We make a declaration that we have died with Christ on Calvary, we were buried with him and when He was raised from the dead, we were raised with him.
7. Being baptized is an acknowledgment and declaration that our lives are not our own anymore because this life is not the life we had been born with: that life has died with Christ because it was a life of sin.  When we were raised with Jesus Christ, it is his life that was given to us.
8. This is consistent with Apostle Paul’s declaration: I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
9. It is a public declaration with an intellectual, spiritual and moral choice we have already made to be identified with Christ and no longer to be identified with the world.
10. As Christ obeyed God the Father’s plan ( the prophecy in Isaiah 53), so we too who had been saved must take the first step of obedience in following Christ’s example to be baptized.

Naturally, my next question for my children was: have you made the decision to follow Christ?  Are you willing to make that decision public?

I am a Baptist, a Bible Baptist.  I was raised in a Baptist home.  My father never taught me baptism.  My mother never taught me that I needed to be baptized.  I remember asking my mother why people took a dip in the baptistry  every Sunday.  I remember taking a dip in the Baptistry in Mandaluyong because I felt hot and wanted to take a swim.

I was roundly scolded and told that the baptistry is not for leisure, it is for those who have decided to make public declarations of their faith and loyalty to Christ. It was not for fun.

My father was surprised when I came forward to be baptized on November 11, 1976.  I was only 9 years old.  My Dad was shocked and he asked me more questions that all the other candidates.  It was embarrassing! I was the only child to be baptized that day, all the other candidates for baptism were adults. But then I thought, this is what it meant to be identified with Christ: people will always question your motive, the soundness of your decision, even your sanity! So I just rolled my eyeballs at my Dad.  And he baptized me.

I suppose he just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just doing this out curiosity or out of wanting to belong, or out of peer pressure. I remember getting angry with him and telling him how embarrassed I was (when we got home later after the baptism service, and we were eating).  I asked him if he didn’t believe that I was capable of making a decision.

I must have been very adamant, and I saw my father looking at me as though he was seeing me as a person for the very first time. And then I knew he was weighing whether to spank me for my insolence or else to cry because of my convictions.

I had decided all by myself.  It was something I had to do.  And I didn’t care if anybody thought I was too young.  I understood perfectly what was needed to be done: being baptized means I am not ashamed of Christ.  I would forever count myself to be a Christian, there was no turning back.

No one has ever taught my children to be baptized.  People presume that they have been taught.  People presume that it is expected of pastors’ children and grandchildren to be baptized, as though baptism is like a family rite of passage. It may be for some.  But not for me, and certainly not for my children.

We let the matter rest.  And then weeks after that discussion, I asked them privately what they thought.  One said, yes, the other said no.  I will leave it at that. If they want to be baptized, they will come and be baptized.  I will not do it for them.  I had done my part in teaching them the doctrine.  I had shown them by my example. It is up to them to follow Christ.

Just like Apostle Paul, it is my earnest hope for them to “follow me as I follow Christ.”  But I also realize that following Christ is a personal decision.  Christ’s invitation was conditional:  “IF any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.” No mother can make her children follow the Savior.  No mother should force her children to be baptized.