When someone believe and confesses faith that Jesus is Lord and rose from the dead and that person repents from one’s sins, then that believer should know the need for baptism (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 8:12; Rom 10:9–10). The believer must believe who Jesus says that he is. He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, the offering for sin forever, the “I am” who is God having came in the flesh (Isa 9:6–7; John 1:1, 14; 8:24, 58; Col 1:15–18; 2:9; Heb 9:26; 10:10–18). He was tempted and is without sin (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:14–15; 1 Pet 2:22; 1 John 3:5). Jesus declared, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24).
When a believer is convinced that person needs one’s sins washed away, then that repentant believer will be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16). When someone really believes and understands that baptism is for salvation, then that person can seriously consider baptism (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:41, 47; 1 Pet 3:21).
When a believer is baptized, that person is baptized through the resurrection (1 Pet 3:21). This is when that believer is born again through the resurrection (1 Pet 1:3). When a believer is immersed in water in Jesus’s name, that person is born again by the water and the Spirit (John 3:5). When someone has repented and is baptized in Jesus’s name, that person is made holy and right by the Spirit (1 Cor 6:11). This is the one baptism in which Christ washed the church in water (Eph 4:5; 5:26). Baptism in Jesus’s name is in water and the forgiveness of sins is in Jesus’s name (Acts 10:43, 47–48). This baptism is immersion by going down into the water (Acts 8:38–39). This is the baptism that Jesus commanded in his resurrection (Matt 28:19–20).
When a believer trusts in Christ’s sacrifice and in His resurrected life, only then can a believer submit to baptism. When a person realizes that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, that soul is convinced that Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection is essential, necessary, and vital for salvation (Rom 1:16; 1 Cor. 15:1–4). Only when a believer understands that when baptized, a person has died with Christ, is now buried with Christ in baptism and then raised with Him (Rom 6:3–6; Col 2:12–13). This is when the believer accesses God’s saving grace and the forgiveness of sins. God’s grace saves believers when they are raised up with Christ from death to life (Eph 2:4–6). Anyone who knows the urgency of baptism will arise and be baptized immediately (Acts 16:33; 22:16). “Why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, washing away your sins calling on his name” (Acts 22:16; cf. 1 Pet 3:21).
While these things are necessary to understand the meaning and purpose of baptism in Jesus’s name, there are some other things that will enlighten every life in further understanding baptism. When a believer is baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that person is made a disciple of Christ (Matt 28:19). Thereby baptism, God adds repentant believers to the church of Christ, God’s precious people (Acts 2:41, 47; 1 Cor 12:13; 1 Pet 2:5, 9). Jesus built His church and bought her with his blood (Matt 16:18; Acts 20:28). Christ is the head of the church (Eph 1:22; Col 1:18; 2:19). “Seek and you will find” (Matt 7:7).
When a believer rises with Christ from baptism, that person is brought into the newness of life having been transformed by the renewing of the mind (Rom 6:4–6; 8:5–6; 12:2). Thereby walking in the light and confessing one’s sins to God the Father, a baptized believer has the cleansing of all sins by Christ’s blood (1 John 1:7, 9). This is the extent of God’s grace. However, by practicing sin, a person falls from grace and is condemned (Gal 5:4, 19–21; Heb 6:1–6). One must continue in the faith and remaining faithful unto death to be saved (Col 1:21–23; Rev 2:10).
Life in Christ only begins when a believer is raised with Christ from baptism,
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col 3:1–3)
Seeing God's Breath 
There is much disagreement on what is meant by Jesus when he said ““Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
Jesus did not say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is water-baptized and born of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
I don’t think Jesus was referring to water baptism in John 3:5, and most believe that Jesus is referring to physical birth and not water immersion, but I think you have your mind made up on this issue.
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Wow. You stand against the physical and yet you promote that physical birth is necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven. Now you go even further declaring that being physically born is necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven and exclude the 50 million unborn babies. “Yet, those children were dismembered physically, so that must not be a spiritual corruption of the heart to murder the unborn”? I know you don’t believe this, but you are certainly word-wrangling.
John 3:5 is only misinterpreted by the willing ignorant. If they read 1 Corinthians 6:11 and Titus 3:5, they would not question baptism in Jesus’ name being when one is washed, sanctified and justified by the Spirit. This has already been addressed in another article on this site.
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When one finally understands that the new covenant is one of the Spirit then it becomes obvious that the baptism that saves is the baptism of the Spirit and not the water. We are under a Spiritual covenant and not a physical covenant and therefore nothing we do physically can save us. Our minds are not renewed under the water. A renewed mind is one that has new understanding and no one has new understanding ‘only” after they are raised from the water.
I would strongly disagree with your theory that salvation happens only after water baptism.
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Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
Christ’s Spirit says, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22).
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Sometimes people glorify the spiritual to ignore the physical results. While the spiritual heart is filled with the Word, the physical good comes out and one’s light is shown so that God is glorified (Matt. 5:13-16, 25:34-36). Yet, some justify themselves as simply spiritual, and they think that the physical is not a part of their spiritual walk. This is a foolish and hypocritical conclusion that endangers one’s spiritual soul. “What spiritual good comes from giving physical water, food, or clothing to another?” Christ’s Spirit says, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (Jas. 2:15-17). Likewise, some think that the eating of the Lord’s Supper, which is physical, does not also consist of the spiritual. Like with doing good for others, one may say that they wish and pray for good to happen to another, but never do anything because according them, “The Physical is not spiritual”. Why do anything? Why see in spiritual part in doing good. “Just wish it. No need to take the Lord’s Supper when you can just think about Jesus’ death, right?” Foolish person! Did Jesus command what was not spiritual and embedded in the physical when united by His Words (spirit and life – John 6:63) with the righteous hearts of believers? The Lord’s Supper, caring for others, and baptism are all spiritual embedded in the physical. Serving others is not an outward sign of inward salvation, and neither are the Lord’s Supper or baptism. For these all come from the same spiritual source, Jesus Christ.
Phil, you endanger your soul by extracting the spiritual from doing physical good, from charity to the Lord’s Supper and unto baptism as you establish your own righteousness in all your numerous comments. Repent, brother. Repent.
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Are you not yourself the spiritual embedded in a spiritual body?
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Was Jesus’ resurrection only spiritual and not physical? If physical, then was the resurrection a spiritual event? Are not then the physical and the spiritual united in Christ?
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