Acts 22 contains Paul's retelling of his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Near the end of that story, Ananias tells Paul: “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.”
That's strong baptismal language, and we shouldn't weaken it. But a baptism study may go further and explain the passage this way:
Baptism is the point when someone's sins are washed away.
Then several previous passages are brought together:
- Acts 2:38 — baptism is for the forgiveness of sins.
- John 3:5 — baptism is when someone is born again.
- Romans 6:3–5 — baptism is when someone enters Christ and begins new life.
- Acts 22:16 — baptism is when someone's sins are washed away.
The conclusion begins to seem obvious: baptism is the precise point at which sins are forgiven. But notice something important. Each passage is now being used to interpret the next one. Before deciding what Acts 22 says, perhaps we should allow Acts 22 to tell its own story.
Start With Paul on the Road
Paul isn't looking for Jesus. He's traveling to Damascus to persecute people who follow Jesus. Then everything changes. A light flashes around him. He falls to the ground and hears: “Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?” Paul responds: “Who are you, Lord?” The answer changes everything: “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.” Whatever else we eventually conclude about Paul's conversion, this is obviously a major turning point. Paul has encountered the risen Jesus, and his entire understanding of Jesus has just been shattered.
Paul Responds to Jesus
Paul then asks: “What shall I do, Lord?” Jesus tells him to get up and go into Damascus, where he will be told what to do.
Paul obeys.
Acts 9 gives us additional details about this period. For three days Paul doesn't eat or drink, and when Jesus speaks to Ananias about Paul, he says: “He is praying.” So by the time Ananias arrives, quite a bit has already happened.
Paul has:
- encountered Jesus
- recognized him as Lord
- responded to him
- obeyed him
- entered Damascus
- prayed and fasted
Then Ananias enters the story. That context matters.
Ananias Doesn't Introduce Paul to Jesus
Ananias isn't bringing the gospel to someone who has never encountered Jesus. Jesus has already confronted Paul directly. In Acts 22, Ananias tells him: “The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth.” Then: “You will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard.” Paul is being commissioned into something. His entire life is being redirected. The persecutor is becoming a witness. Then comes verse 16: “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” Now we can wrestle with what that means.
Pattern #1: The Conclusion Is Established Before Acts 22 Is Read
Look at how the study builds the argument:
Acts 2:38
Baptism = forgiveness
↓
John 3:5
Water = baptism = born again
↓
Romans 6
Baptism = entering Christ/new life
↓
Acts 22:16
Baptism = sins washed away
↓
Therefore: Baptism is the precise point at which sins are forgiven.
The passages begin reinforcing one another. But there's a potential problem: some of the conclusions being brought into Acts 22 are themselves interpretations we've already identified as worth examining.
John 3 says “born of water and Spirit.” It doesn't explicitly say, “Water baptism is the point of rebirth.” Romans 6 describes baptism as participation in Christ's death and resurrection. It doesn't explicitly say, “This is the precise moment someone enters Christ.” Once those interpretations have already been established, however, Acts 22 appears to confirm them. That's how a theological system can become self-reinforcing.
Pattern #2: Several Passages Become One Passage
There's nothing wrong with comparing Scripture with Scripture. We should, but we also need to allow individual authors and individual passages to speak before combining them. Otherwise Acts 2, John 3, Romans 6 and Acts 22 can effectively become one giant verse. Each passage supplies another piece of a predetermined sequence. But Luke isn't John. John isn't Paul. Romans isn't Acts. And Acts 22 isn't primarily a theological essay explaining the mechanics of forgiveness. It's Paul telling his story. Before harmonizing everything, let each text breathe.
What Does Ananias Actually Say?
Now we get to the difficult part. Ananias really does say: “Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away…” We shouldn't pretend otherwise. Someone who believes baptism is the precise moment of forgiveness has legitimate textual material to work with here. This isn't an interpretation that should simply be dismissed. But there's another part of the sentence: “…calling on his name.”
That's important too. The sentence contains several connected ideas:
- get up
- be baptized
- wash away your sins
- calling on his name
The interpretive question becomes: How are these ideas related? That's more nuanced than simply asking: “What does Ananias tell Paul to do to wash away his sins?” because that question already points us toward one answer: Be baptized. But Ananias' complete statement includes calling on the Lord's name.
Don't Leave “Calling on His Name” Behind
This phrase deserves more attention than it sometimes receives. Calling on the Lord isn't merely pronouncing a phrase. Within the biblical story, calling on God's name carries ideas of appeal, trust, allegiance and dependence. Interestingly, Paul himself later writes in Romans 10: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” That doesn't automatically settle Acts 22:16 either. But it should make us hesitant to reduce Ananias' sentence to: water removes sins. Something richer is happening. Paul is identifying himself with the very Jesus whose followers he came to arrest.
What Does “Wash Away Your Sins” Mean?
The imagery is powerful. Water and cleansing naturally belong together, and the Bible repeatedly uses washing as imagery for cleansing, purification and renewal. Baptism makes that invisible reality visible. Paul's old identity is being left behind. The persecutor is becoming a follower. The enemy of the Jesus movement is joining it. Baptism fits this moment beautifully. The question is whether Luke wants us to turn that imagery into a precise mechanism:
Immediately before immersion = unforgiven
↓
Baptism
↓
Immediately after immersion = forgiven
That's the claim that requires examination.
Pattern #3: Narrative Becomes a Stopwatch
This pattern has appeared repeatedly in the baptism study. The biblical writers give us a story involving faith, repentance, Jesus, baptism, forgiveness, the Spirit, new life, allegiance and community. Then we ask: Exactly which second did salvation occur?
That's a different kind of question. It doesn't necessarily mean the question is illegitimate. But we should recognize that we are asking it. Luke may be more interested in telling us what happened to Paul than giving us a stopwatch for determining the precise second his spiritual status changed.
“Yet Paul Did Not Have His Sins Washed Away”
This statement from the study deserves special attention. The study notes that Paul had already encountered Jesus, repented, prayed, fasted, obeyed and been healed, but then concludes: “Yet Paul did not yet have his sins washed away at that time.” How do we know? That's the wrestling question. Acts 22:16 certainly provides the reason someone might reach that conclusion. But Luke doesn't stop the narrative and say: “Despite everything that had happened, Paul's sins remained unforgiven until the moment he entered the water.” That's an interpretation of Ananias' words. It may be someone's theological conclusion. But it should be presented as a conclusion being drawn from the text—not as another fact Luke explicitly gives us. That distinction matters.
Watch What the Question Is Doing
The study eventually asks: “What does Ananias tell Paul to do to wash away his sins?” The expected answer: “Arise and be baptized.” But compare that with the complete sentence: “Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” The question has shortened the passage. The supplied answer shortens it again. What's missing? “Calling on his name.” That doesn't prove baptism isn't connected with forgiveness. It does tell us that the sentence contains more theological content than the expected answer allows. And that's exactly the kind of thing we want to learn to notice.
What If We Read Paul's Story Instead of Building a Formula?
Paul's story is extraordinary. He begins as:
a persecutor He encounters the risen Jesus, He responds: “What shall I do, Lord?” He obeys. He prays. Ananias arrives. Paul's sight is restored. He's told that God has chosen him. He's commissioned as a witness. He's baptized. He calls upon Jesus. And the man who came to Damascus to destroy the Jesus movement eventually spends his life announcing Jesus. That's transformation. Baptism belongs right in the middle of that story. It visibly marks Paul's dramatic change of allegiance. We don't have to make baptism less important to question whether Luke intends us to extract from Paul's story the exact chronological mechanism by which every person's sins are forgiven.
A Better Question
Instead of asking only:
“What does Paul have to do to get his sins washed away?” perhaps we should first ask: What is happening to Paul throughout this entire story?
Then we can wrestle with:
- Why is baptism an appropriate response to his encounter with Jesus?
- What does “wash away your sins” communicate?
- Why does Ananias connect baptism with “calling on his name”?
- Is Luke describing Paul's transformation—or prescribing an exact universal sequence?
- Are those necessarily the same thing?
Those questions don't diminish baptism. They make us examine it more carefully. And perhaps that's the larger pattern emerging from all of these passages.
- Acts 2 matters.
- John 3 matters.
- Romans 6 matters.
- Acts 22 matters.
But before assembling them into a system, we should allow each one to tell its own story. Because sometimes four passages examined carefully tell us considerably more than four passages made to say the same thing.
If you really want to make this question or study easy you can sum it up this way. This is Paul's story not ours.