The mouth of two or three witnesses

Acts 8:36-38 “Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, "See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?" (37) Then Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." And he answered and said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." (38) So, he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.”

The bible teaches us that out of the mouth of two or three witnesses we are to let every word be established (Matthew 18:16). And so in this section we will look at three different accounts of water baptism that took place in the early church, in order that we may clearly establish the truth that water baptism is a doctrine of the church. In the first account quoted above, we see that Philip the evangelist had, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, preached Christ to the eunuch from Ethiopia. In response to what Philip had preached that man wanted to be baptized in water. Obviously Philip, in sharing the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, had also taught him that those who believe in Christ and are saved must also then be baptised in water. But I want you to notice that Philip was adamant that before this man could be baptized in water, that he must first be born-again. The man then confessed Jesus as his Lord and was thus born-again. Only once he did that did Philip then take him down into the water and baptized him. And so we see several truths from this account. Firstly, we see that one can only be baptised in water after one is born-again. This is another reason why it is unscriptural to “baptize” babies, for they cannot meet the conditions of believing in Christ’s resurrection and confessing Jesus as Lord and thus be born-again. We also see in this account that it was very important to the early church that one be baptised in water directly after being saved, for clearly Philip had taught that principle to the eunuch, otherwise he would never have insisted on being baptized. We will see later in this series the reason why the church baptized believers in water as soon as they were saved. And then finally we see in this account that water baptism involves full immersion into water, for both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water so that the eunuch could be baptized.

Michael E.B. Maher