If you've witnessed enough baptisms in certain churches, you've probably heard some version of this: “I now baptize you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”

The wording sounds biblical.  And part of it certainly is.  Acts 2:38 says:  “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”  But there's an interesting question we rarely stop to ask:  Why do we say those words during a baptism?  Because Peter never actually gives Christians a baptismal script.

Start With the Tension

Christians routinely say that forgiveness comes through what Jesus accomplished on the cross.  Jesus dies.  Sin is defeated.  Forgiveness becomes available.  Reconciliation occurs through Christ.  But then someone steps into the water and we say: “I baptize you for the forgiveness of your sins.” So it's reasonable to ask: What exactly are we saying happens in that moment?

Are the person's sins unforgiven before entering the water and forgiven afterward?  Does baptism activate what Jesus accomplished?  Is baptism the person's response to what Jesus accomplished?  Is baptism participation in what Jesus accomplished?  Or are we repeating language from Acts 2 without stopping to consider exactly what we're communicating?  Those are different possibilities.  And they're worth separating.

Acts 2:38 Isn't a Baptism Ceremony

This is important.  Peter isn't standing in the water baptizing someone when he says:  “Repent and be baptized…”  He's preaching at Pentecost.  His audience has just heard the announcement that the Jesus they rejected has been made Lord and Messiah.  They're cut to the heart and ask: “What shall we do?”  Peter responds: “Repent and be baptized…”  That's a response within a particular story.  But something interesting can happen when we take Peter's words and place them into the mouth of the person performing a baptism.  Peter says: “Be baptized…for the forgiveness of your sins.”  We begin saying:  “I baptize you…for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Those sentences sound almost identical.  But they aren't doing exactly the same thing.  One is Peter's response to a crowd at Pentecost.  The other has become part of a ceremony.

How Does an Interpretation Become a Script?

This is where things get especially interesting.  Imagine hearing the same phrase at baptism after baptism:  “for the forgiveness of your sins.”  After ten baptisms, it sounds familiar.  After fifty, it sounds normal.  After hundreds, it can begin to sound like: This is what the Bible says must be said when someone is baptized.

But does it?  Acts 2:38 doesn't instruct the baptizer to say those words.  Matthew 28 doesn't give those words.  Romans 6 doesn't give those words.  There isn't a New Testament baptismal ceremony containing that sentence.  So where did the script come from?  That's worth investigating.

Could This Function Like a Creed?

Many churches strongly resist the idea of creeds.  The concern is understandable: We don't want human statements replacing Scripture.  But a creed doesn't necessarily have to be ancient, formal, or begin with: “We believe…”  A repeated statement can function in a creed-like way when it summarizes a community's theological understanding and reinforces it through repetition.  Consider what happens every time we say:  “I baptize you for the forgiveness of your sins.”  We're not merely quoting Acts.  We're making a theological statement about what baptism does.  And because that statement is repeated during one of the most important moments in someone's Christian life, it carries enormous weight.  Eventually the wording can become almost invisible.  We stop asking: Why do we say this?  It simply becomes: what we say.  That's how traditions become powerful.

Repetition Creates Familiarity

This doesn't mean someone intentionally invented a creed.  It doesn't mean the wording is necessarily wrong.  And it certainly doesn't mean baptism has nothing to do with forgiveness.  The question is about formation.  Repeated language teaches us.  Think about the progression:

interpretation

↓

repetition

↓

familiarity

↓

expectation

↓

“This is what the Bible teaches.”

At some point, it can become difficult to distinguish between the biblical text and the theological conclusion we've built from it.  We've seen the same phenomenon with diagrams.  An illustration can become an argument.  A repeated phrase can too.

Try Removing the Phrase

Here's an interesting experiment.  Imagine someone being baptized and the person performing the baptism simply says:  “Because of your faith in Jesus, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”  Nothing is said about: “for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Would that bother you?  Would something seem missing?  Would you wonder whether the baptism was valid?  If so, that's worth exploring.  Ask: Why did its absence make me uncomfortable?  Was it because Scripture requires those exact words?  Or because those are the words I've always heard?  Those are not the same thing.

What Does the New Testament Actually Say Forgives Us?

This is where the question gets bigger.  The New Testament speaks about forgiveness using several overlapping ideas.  Forgiveness is connected with:

  • Jesus' death
  • Jesus' blood
  • grace
  • faith
  • repentance
  • baptism
  • God's mercy

Trying to turn all of those references into a single mechanical timeline can become difficult very quickly.  Perhaps that's because the biblical writers aren't always answering our modern question: “At precisely what second does an individual's status change from unforgiven to forgiven?”  They're telling a much larger story about what God has accomplished through Jesus and how people participate in that reality.  That's why one verse deserves to be read alongside the rest of the story.

Acts 2 Still Matters

None of this requires explaining Acts 2:38 away.  Peter really does say:  “Repent and be baptized…for the forgiveness of your sins.”  That's important.  Baptism mattered enormously in the earliest Jesus movement.  It highlighted:

  • allegiance.
  • Identity.
  • Repentance.
  • Participation.
  • Entrance into a new community.

And it was closely associated with forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit.  The question isn't whether Acts 2:38 matters.  The question is whether we've taken Peter's words and made them do something additional: become the required explanation spoken over every baptism.  That's a different question.

What Happens When the Phrase Becomes the Theology?

This is where the wording can become more than ceremonial.  If we repeatedly say: “I baptize you for the forgiveness of your sins,”  we may gradually create a very specific mental picture:

Before baptism: unforgiven

↓

Baptism

↓

After baptism: forgiven

And now the wording has done the same thing the Romans 6 diagram can do.  It has created a timeline.  Once that timeline becomes deeply familiar, other passages may begin getting interpreted through it.  Acts 2.  Romans 6.  John 3.  Matthew 28.  Instead of allowing each passage to speak within its own context, they can become supporting pieces for a framework we've already constructed.  That's exactly why this is worth wrestling with.

The Question Isn't “Is the Phrase Wrong?”

That's too simple.  A better set of questions would be:

  • Where did this wording come from?
  • Does Scripture require us to say it?
  • What theological claim are we making when we say it?
  • Would we be uncomfortable leaving it out? Why?
  • Does Acts 2:38 establish the exact moment forgiveness occurs, or have we constructed that conclusion from it?
  • How does this fit with everything else the New Testament says about forgiveness?

And perhaps most importantly: Have we repeated an interpretation so often that we no longer recognize it as an interpretation?

That's a question worth asking far beyond baptism.

Maybe That's What a Creed Can Look Like

A creed doesn't have to hang on a wall.  Sometimes it lives in the sentences a community repeats.  Those sentences aren't automatically bad.  In fact, they can be enormously helpful.  But because repeated words shape what communities believe, they deserve examination too.  So perhaps the question isn't simply: “Should we stop saying ‘I baptize you for the forgiveness of your sins’?”  Maybe the better question is: “Do we understand what we're claiming when we say it?”

And if the answer is simply: “That's what we've always said,” then we've discovered something worth wrestling with.