Basic beliefs that First Christian Church of Roswell has in common with other conservative evangelical churches:

• The Bible is God’s Word.
• The God of the Bible is the one, true, living God.
• Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
• Every person is a sinner in need of a Savior.
• We are saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ.
• Jesus established the church so that his followers might worship, witness, and walk with him together as a community of faith.
• Every Christian is obligated to observe the first day of the week as the Lord’s Day.
• Jesus commanded his followers to observe the Christian ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
• Heaven and Hell are real places of eternal existence.

Distinguishing beliefs followed by the body of believers at First Christian Church of Roswell: 

• We aim to be Christians only.

• We believe that Christian baptism is part of receiving Christ as Lord and Savior.

• We practice the original, biblical form of baptism which is immersion in water.

• We observe the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s Day.

• We follow the New Testament plan for church government and leadership.

Basic beliefs that First Christian Church of Roswell has in common with other conservative evangelical churches:

The Bible is God’s Word.

We believe that the Bible—the 66 books comprising the Old and New Testaments—is God’s Word in written form.  It’s human authors were supernaturally guided by the Holy Spirit so that their words would be nothing less than the Word of God.  Because the Bible is inspired by God, it is infallible (incapable of error) and inerrant (without error) in its entirety when taken in the original meaning of its authors.  The Bible is not only the supreme source of truth for Christian beliefs and living, it is the only book that presents a completely accurate, objective view of the world.

2 Timothy 3:16-17
¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

2 Peter 1:20-21
²⁰Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. ²¹ For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 

Psalm 19:7-8
⁷ The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul.  The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.  ⁸ The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart.  The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. 

The God of the Bible is the one, true, living God.

The God of the Bible is the Creator and Ruler of the universe.  God is both infinite and personal.  He has eternally existed as three persons who are one God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, each possessing all the attributes of deity.

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Exodus 20:1-3
¹ And God spoke all these words:  ² “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  You shall have no other gods before me.”

Isaiah 46:9-10
⁹ Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. ¹⁰ I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.   I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5
⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Genesis 1:26-27
²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Matthew 28:19
¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God.  In the fullness of time, God the Father sent his Son into the world.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, Jesus was both fully God and fully man.  He lived a sinless life and offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all men by dying on the cross. He arose from the dead after three days to demonstrate his power over sin and death. He ascended to Heaven’s glory and will return again to earth at the end of time to judge the world and take his church to live and reign with him forever.

Philippians 2:5-11
⁵ Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷ but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! ⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Colossians 2:9
⁹ For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.

4.    The Holy Spirit lives in and empowers every Christian for holy living and Christian service.

The Holy Spirit is equal with the Father and the Son as God. He is present in the world to make men aware of their need for Jesus Christ.  He inspired the writers of scripture to accurately record God’s word.  He also lives in every Christian to provide us with power for living, serving God, and doing what is right.

John 14:16-17
¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Acts 2:38-39
³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Galatians 5:22-23
²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Every person is a sinner in need of a Savior.

God made man in his own spiritual image, to be like God in character.  We did not accidentally evolve from lower forms of life, but are the supreme object of God’s creation. Although man has tremendous potential for good, we are marred by an attitude of rebellion and disobedience toward God that the Bible calls sin.  Though every person is born into the world in innocence, when each of us is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong we all choose to sin and disobey God.  This attitude of sin separates us from God and creates our need for a savior to forgive and save us from sin.

Isaiah 53:6
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 59:1-2
¹ Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.  ² But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.

Romans 3:23
²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 5:8
⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We are saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ.

Salvation is a gift from God to man.   We can never make up for our sin by self-improvement or good works.  Only by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior can anyone be saved from sin’s penalty and restored to fellowship with God.  Salvation is not based on what we do, but by putting our faith in what Christ has already done.  Accepting Christ is a personal decision that each person must make for himself.  No one else can do it for you.

Ephesians 2:8-9
⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.

John 1:12 12
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Galatians 3:26-27
²⁶ You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Faith must always precede baptism, so only those old enough to understand and believe the gospel are considered proper candidates for baptism.  This is one reason we do not practice or recognize infant baptism. Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16).  Every conversion story in the New Testament includes the baptism of a penitent believer.

Jesus established the church so that his followers might worship, witness, and walk with him together as a community of faith.

The church is a divine institution consisting of all who, by faith and baptism, have openly confessed the name of Christ.  The New Testament directs all believers to associate with and become active in a local church.  The purpose of the church is to magnify Jesus through worship and the Word, move disciples of Jesus toward maturity and ministry, and make Jesus known to our neighbors and to the nations.

The term church is applied in a universal sense to all born-again believers in this present age.  Its formation began on the day of Pentecost and will be completed at the Second Coming of Christ.  The term church is also used to describe local communities of believers who meet together each week to worship, witness, and walk with him together as a community of faith.

Matthew 16:16-18
¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Acts 20:28
²⁸ Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

Ephesians 1:22-23
²² And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Ephesians 2:19-22
¹⁹ Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Every Christian is obligated to observe the first day of the week as the Lord’s Day.

The Sunday worship service is generally recognized as the church’s chief expression of itself to the community.  It is the one day out of the week that the whole church assembles for worship, fellowship, and instruction in the faith.  Unless hindered by illness or necessity, every Christian ought to be in the Lord’s House, with the Lord’s people, around the Lord’s Table, on the Lord’s Day.

Acts 2:42
⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Acts 20:7
⁷ On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.

Hebrews 10:25
²⁵ Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Jesus commanded his followers to observe the Christian ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

In the Old Testament there were two identifying marks of a Jew: circumcision and observing the Passover.  In the New Testament Jesus gave two identifying marks to his followers: baptism and observing the Lord’s Supper.  We call these ordinances rather than sacraments because it is a biblical term and sacraments is not.  An ordinance is something done by an authoritative order or command. We practice baptism and the Lord’s Supper because Jesus ordained or commanded them.

Matthew 28:18-19
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 2:38-41
³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

⁴⁰ With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” ⁴¹ Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26
²³ For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Heaven and Hell are real places of eternal existence.

Man was created to exist forever.  Every person who has ever lived will exist eternally either separated from God by sin, or in union with God through forgiveness and salvation. To be eternally separated from God is Hell. To be eternally in union with him is eternal life in Heaven.

Romans 6:23
²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2 Thessalonians 1:8-10
⁸ He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power ¹⁰ on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

Philippians 3:20-21
²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body

Distinguishing beliefs followed by the body of believers at First Christian Church of Roswell: 

We aim to be Christians only.

First Christian Church is a “non-denominational” or “free” church.  We have chosen not to affiliate with any denomination or wear any denominational names that might divide us from other followers of Christ.  We make no claim to be the only Christians, but we do want to be Christians only.   We wear the name Christian because it is a name that honors Christ, it says we belong to Christ, and it is a name that every follower of Christ can wear.  Our plea to the Christian world is for all Christians to unite under his name and together follow the simple teaching of the New Testament.

Acts 11:26
²⁶ The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

Galatians 3:26-28
²⁶ You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 4:16
¹⁶ However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.

We believe that Christian baptism is part of receiving Christ as Lord and Savior.

Since this is such an important point, we need to be clear about two things.  1) That we treat baptism the same way we treat every other doctrine we hold: we believe and teach exactly what the Bible teaches about baptism—nothing more and nothing less; and 2) That we reject two commonly held, but mistaken, ideas about the role of baptism in the plan of salvation: the divorce of baptism from saving faith and the divorce of saving faith from baptism.

What the Bible says about the role of baptism in God’s plan of salvation

Jesus commanded every person who wants to become his disciple be baptized.  Just before he ascended into heaven, Jesus left the church with these instructions recorded in Matthew 28:18-19, which we have come to call the Great Commission:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

There’s no missing the fact that Jesus said the way to become his disciple or follower involves baptism.  In Mark 16:16, Jesus promised that whoever believed in him and openly demonstrated that faith by being baptized would be saved:

“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

In John 3:3-5, Jesus told the Jewish teacher Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom of Heaven he must be “born again.”   Nicodemus then asked:

⁴ “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”

⁵ Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.

The most important reason to be baptized is not because your church requires it or someone thinks you should, but because Jesus said so.

On the day Pentecost, when the church began in Jerusalem, Peter included baptism in the very first invitation to accept Christ.   Peter promised that everyone who accepted Christ that day by being baptized in his name would receive the forgiveness of his sins and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit (that is, he would be saved).  Peter also extended that promised to every person who would ever receive Christ as their savior in the future.  Here’s what he said:

Acts 2:38-39
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  ³⁹ The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Two verses later, the Bible records that the people who accepted Christ at Pentecost obeyed the command to be baptized.  Nobody chose to debate the issue, they just did it.

Acts 2:41
Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

Every person in the New Testament who became a Christian was baptized into Christ.  There are nine individual conversion stories told in Book of Acts, the New Testament book that records the history of the early church in the days of the apostles.  All nine include the baptism of the people who were said to have believed in and accepted Christ.  We’ve already seen the case of the three thousand saved on Pentecost (Acts 2:38-41).  Here are the other eight:

• Acts 8:12 says of the Samaritans converted by Philip’s preaching:
  “¹² But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.”

• Acts 8:35-38 tells the story of Philip teaching an Ethiopian Eunuch who was reading from the prophet Isaiah.  Verse 35 says that “Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.”  In the very next verse, Acts records that:
  ³⁶ As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” ³⁸ And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.

• Saul of Tarsus (Acts 22:16; 9:18)
  ¹⁶ “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” . . . .
  ¹⁸ Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized.”

• The household of Cornelius (Acts 10:47-48)
  ⁴⁷“Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” ⁴⁸ So  he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

• Lydia of Thyatira (Acts 16:14-15)
  ¹⁴ One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. ¹⁵ When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

• The Philippian Jailer and his family (Acts 16:30-34)
  ³⁰He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
  ³¹ They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” ³² Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.  ³³ At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized.  ³⁴ The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family.

• Crispus, his family, and Paul’s converts in Corinth (Acts 18:7-8)
    ⁷Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. ⁸ Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized.

• Twelve disciples of John the Baptist at Ephesus (Acts 19:1-5)
  ¹While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples   ²and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
  
  They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
  
  ³So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”
  
  “John’s baptism,” they replied.
  
  ⁴ Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” ⁵ On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

Note, again, that every person in the Book of Acts who is said to have believed on and accepted Christ was immediately baptized into Christ.  There were no exceptions!

The Bible says that we are baptized “into Christ.”

Galatians 3:26-27
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

The Bible says that we contact the saving power of Jesus’ death and resurrection in baptism.

Romans 6:3-5
³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  ⁵ If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

The Bible says that we enter the church through baptism.  

Acts 2:41 & 47
⁴¹ Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. . . .  ⁴⁷ And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13
¹² The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one S pirit to drink.

The Relationship Between Faith and Baptism

The second thing we must be clear about is the relationship between faith and baptism.  On this point we reject two commonly held, but mistaken, ideas about the role of baptism in the plan of salvation.

Some church traditions make the mistake of separating baptism from faith. They teach that baptism alone, apart from a person’s decision to put their faith in Christ, will save them.  This is the view of the Catholic church and other groups that baptize infants.  That view is false.  Look again at the conversion case studies in Acts.  You will find that not only is every believer baptized into Christ, but only believers are baptized into Christ.  Also remember that Jesus’ promise in Mark 16:16 is:  “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”  Apart from a saving faith in Jesus, baptism does absolutely nothing for a person’s soul.

Other church traditions make the mistake of separating faith from baptism, teaching that as long as someone believes in Christ, baptism can be dispensed with.  For most evangelical groups, leading someone to accept Christ usually involves having them “pray the sinners’ prayer” or “asking Jesus to come into their heart.”  Then, at some later time that “saved” person can be baptized if he chooses.

But go back a read through Acts.  No one is ever told to be saved by praying the sinners’ prayer.  No one.  You cannot even find the sinners’ prayer anywhere in the New Testament.  No one is ever told to “ask Jesus to come into their heart.”  No one.  But every person who came to believe in Christ was told to be baptized.  Therefore, it is our position that accepting Christ as your savior includes baptism.

The strangest thing about this common oversight among other evangelicals is that all of them believe that faith, repentance, and confession of Christ are necessary to be saved.  We agree.  But the Bible also connects each of these steps to baptism.  Note just three examples:

Mark 16:16
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

Acts 2:38
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 22:16
And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.

Faith, repentance, confession, and baptism are not mutually exclusive choices on a multiple choice exam.  They are all part of our response to God’s grace.  Baptism is how a person who believes in Christ, has repented of his sins, and is ready to publicly confess his faith receives Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Baptism is not our work; it is God’s.  It is not something we do; it is something we submit to.  It is not a religious rite or ritual.  Baptism is not so much obeying a command as it is accepting a promise.   It is the response that the Bible tells us we should make to God’s free gift of salvation.

We practice the original, biblical form of baptism which is immersion in water.

The baptism that Jesus received, that the New Testament teaches, and that the Apostles practiced was the complete immersion in water of the person being baptized.  In following this practice we are in agreement with some evangelical groups, such as the Baptist churches, and differ from others.  We practice and recognize immersion as the only valid, biblical form of baptism for several reasons.

The biblical word for baptism means immersion.

Our English words, baptize and baptism are adaptations, rather than translations, of the New Testament terms baptizo and baptisma.  Any standard lexicon of the Greek New Testament will define those words as immerse and immersion.  For example, the renowned Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, by Professors Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich, define the meaning of the New Testament word baptizo as “to dip, immerse, wash, plunge, sink, drench, or overwhelm.”  Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon says that baptizo means “to dip in or under water.”  Numerous other examples could be cited.  The original meaning of the word is established beyond question.

The Greek in which the New Testament was originally written is a rich and precise language.   The Greeks had numerous words for washing things with water.  Louo means to wash or bathe the body, but not always to immerse.  Nipto also means to wash, but usually to wash the face, hands, or feet as distinguished from washing the entire body.   Breko means to wet, moisten, or rain upon.  Rantizo means to sprinkle.  Keo means to pour.  Even though all of these words appear throughout the New Testament in various contexts, none of them are ever used to signify the act of baptism.   Every reference to baptism in the New Testament uses the words baptizo and baptisma, which only mean immerse and immersion.  If sprinkling or pouring water on a candidate were an acceptable substitute for baptism, God had plenty of words to use to say so.

Baptism by immersion was the universal practice of the church in the day of the Apostles.

Historians and Greek scholars are agreed that immersion was the only form of baptism used by the Apostles and the early church, without any known exception, for more than 200 years after Christ.  For example, notice that Jesus was “baptized in” the Jordan River (Mark 1:9-10), not with water from the river.  Matthew 3:16 says, “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.”  In the story of the baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch, Acts 8:38-39 says that “both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him,” then they “came up out of the water.”

The first recorded departure from the practice of immersion was about AD 250 when a man named Novatian received, on his sickbed, pouring as a substitute for immersion because he was thought to have been incapable of baptism.  From that time on these “clinic baptisms” as they were called, were occasionally resorted to in the case of acutely ill people, but weren’t actually sanctioned as an option for baptism until the Roman Catholic Council of Ravenna did so in 1317.  In the 16^th Century sprinkling was generally adopted as a matter of convenience.  The point is that for more than 1300 years immersion continued to be the prevailing form of baptism throughout the church.  To do otherwise is to substitute a human innovation for a biblical practice.

Baptism is supposed to symbolize a burial, which immersion does and sprinkling and pouring do not.

Romans 6:3-5
³Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  ⁵ If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 

By being immersed in water in Jesus’ name we identify ourselves with his death, burial, and resurrection.  When you undergo immersion you are saying:  “I believe that Jesus died for me and I am now dying to sin.  I believe Jesus was buried for me and I am now burying my old sinful self.  I believe that Jesus rose from the dead for me and I am now rising to walk with him in a new life.”  Immersion is the only form of baptism that preserves that biblical symbolism and object lesson.

We observe the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s Day.

Jesus commanded his followers to remember him by observing the Lord’s Supper.  Some churches do that every Sunday, some once a month, others once a quarter, and a few once a year.   Since in the days of the apostles the New Testament church observed the Lord’s Supper each week, we follow that precedent.  Acts 20:7 says that when the church met on the first day of each week, it was for the purpose of observing the Lord's Supper.  The central event of each of our Lord’s Day worship services is a meaningful celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

We follow the New Testament plan for church government and leadership.

There are two parts to this point.  First, in the New Testament, each congregation was a free, self-governing body of believers.  There were no presbyteries, synods, dioceses, arch-dioceses, or governing conferences or assemblies beyond the local church.  Each church was led by its own elders who were chosen by and from the congregation and each church called its own preacher.

New Testament congregations had a very simple organizational structure.  There were only three permanent leadership roles within the church.  (Apostles and prophets were temporary offices for the establishment of the church.).  Evangelists (preachers, missionaries) were men like Timothy and Titus, who preached the Gospel, edified the brethren and planted new congregations (2 Timothy 4:5; Ephesians 4:11).  Elders (bishops, shepherds) were responsible for leading, teaching, and pastoring the congregation  (Titus 1:5-9; Acts 20:17, 28-32).  Deacons (servants, ministry leaders) were responsible for carrying out specific ministries in the church (Acts 6:1-6, 1 Timothy 3:8-13; Romans 16:1-2).  That’s the list.  There were no priests, archbishops, cardinals, popes, prelates, patriarchs, nuns, monks, friars, church presidents, district superintendents, or television pastors.

Though God gave leaders to the church, the privileges and responsibilities of the ministry don’t belong to a special class of clergy, but to every member of the body.

Ephesians 4:11-16
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.

1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 

We don’t make special distinctions between clergy and laity (this is why none of our staff ministers are called “Reverend”).  Some of our ministers are leaders.  Some of our ministers have dedicated themselves to the vocational ministry and some are volunteers.  But every member of the church is called to some sort of ministry.