In the Catholic/Protestant dialogue, the topic of baptism often arises, as some Protestant denominations reject the idea that baptism saves, whereas Catholics believe that baptism is the instrumental means through which God ordinarily pours His grace into the soul of a person and washes away the recipient's original sin. Various passages in the Acts of the Apostles are frequently raised by both sides, since there are verses that appear to contradict the Catholic understanding of baptism's salvific nature, while there are simultaneously verses that appear to support it. These kinds of debates are unproductive, because each side can accuse the other of cherry-picking verses and will simply refute the opposition by listing their preferred biblical passages. Therefore, it is important to survey the biblical evidence in context, instead of taking snippets out of context and propping them up as irrefutable evidence of one's position.
Setting the Stage: Acts 2:37-39
We begin with the second chapter of Acts, which takes place on the day of Pentecost, immediately after the apostles received the Holy Spirit. The Jews who were visiting Jerusalem for Pentecost gathered around the room in which the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, because the apostles were speaking in tongues. The crowd was amazed that they could hear their native language being spoken by people who were from Galilee. As the crowd debated among themselves over whether they were truly speaking in tongues or were merely drunk with new wine, Peter exited the room and preached to the crowd and proclaimed the Good News of Christ, namely that although Jesus was crucified, He rose from the dead on the third day. Peter concludes his speech by saying, "Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Acts 2:36.
These words caused the crowd to be cut to the heart, and they asked what they should do, to which Peter responded "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Acts 2:38. Thus, strictly from this verse alone, Peter's explanation of the order of events is as follows: (1) repentance, (2) the receiving of baptism, and (3) receiving the Holy Spirit. Additionally, Peter explains that the reception of baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, which appears to mean that being baptized causes the forgiveness of sins.
The Protestant Retort: Acts 10
However, a Protestant will likely respond that this cannot be the proper interpretation of Acts 2:38, because there are two other chapters in Acts where baptism is discussed, yet those other chapters have a different order of events than what was outlined above. One of these chapters is Acts 10, where Peter visits Cornelius' house and preaches the Gospel to him. Before Peter's visit, however, he received a vision from God of a sheet descending upon him, showing animals that the law of Moses condemned as unclean, accompanied by God's voice telling Peter to kill and eat. In response, Peter said he would not eat what is common or unclean, to which God responded "What God has cleansed, you must not call common." Acts 10:15. This vision appeared to Peter two more times.
Then he was visited by three Gentiles who told him that Cornelius the centurion, wanted to hear the Gospel of Christ, and so Peter visited Cornelius at his house, bringing along ethnically Jewish Christians (which was the only kind of Christian before Cornelius converted) and preached the Gospel to him. Upon hearing the Good News, Cornelius and the other Gentiles there who also heard Peter's words received the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. At this, Peter asked " 'Can any one forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?' And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." Acts 10:47. Thus, a Protestant would argue that the order of events here proves that baptism does not cause the forgiveness of sins, and it in fact proves the popular Protestant position that baptism occurs after someone is saved. Here is the order of events in Acts 10: (1) hearing the Gospel, (2) receiving the Holy Spirit, and (3) receiving baptism. This supposedly demonstrates that water baptism is not necessary to receive salvation, and it is actually a symbolic representation of the salvation already received through faith.
The Third Baptismal Example
However, Acts 2 and 10 are not the only places in which the steps of salvation in relation to baptism are featured. There is also Acts 8, in which the Samaritans come to believe in the Gospel, and they receive baptism, but they do not receive the Holy Spirit. As a result, Peter and John were sent to Samaria, where they conducted the laying on of hands, which allowed the Samaritans to finally receive the Holy Spirit. Acts 8:14-17. Thus, according to Acts 8, the order of events is the following: (1) hearing the Gospel, (2) receiving baptism, and (3) requiring the laying on of hands by an apostle in order to receive the Holy Spirit. We are left with three different orders of events regarding baptism and salvation. To determine which one was intended to be the normative practice for all Christians, we must begin by examining the context of Acts 10, to determine why Cornelius received the Holy Spirit before getting baptized.
The Context
In the Acts of the Apostles, we see three contradictory orders of events regarding baptism. At least, they are contradictory if we assume that they are all meant to be normative and prescriptive for Christians after the apostolic age. This is an erroneous assumption, because the apostolic age is not all necessarily normative, but is rather a transitionary period where the New Covenant Church is being established by the Apostles. The very fact that the Church was led by the Apostles in these early days highlights this fact, since we no longer have living Apostles in the Church.
Since Acts 2, Acts 10, and Acts 8 all present different orders of events, they cannot all be normative. We can see that the events in Acts 10 transpired the way they did for a specific and necessary purpose, namely to show the Jewish Christians that Christ came not only to bring salvation to the ethnic Jews, but to the Gentiles also. This is explicitly seen in Acts 11, where the Jewish Christians condemn Peter for having visited a Gentile's residence, to which he responded that the meaning of the vision he saw of the sheet with the unclean animals was made clear after visiting Cornelius. The unclean animals represented the Gentiles, and God was telling Peter to accept them as equal Christians if they convert, since God made no distinction. "If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?" Acts 11:17. Therefore, the purpose of the Holy Spirit falling upon Cornelius was so that the Jewish Christians could understand that God intended to save the Gentiles also, which is further made evident by the fact that Jewish Christians were with Peter at Cornelius' house that day: "While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles." Acts 10:44-45.
Moreover, if we want to say that Acts 10 is normative, how are we to make sense of Acts 8? It presents a contradictory order of events, where the Samaritans received water baptism but did not receive the Holy Spirit until Peter and John laid hands on the believers. Surely, this does not support the contention that receiving the Holy Spirit always comes first, followed by baptism, since here the Samaritans were baptized but did not receive the Holy Spirit. And then there is Acts 2, which says that you must repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, in which the believer receives the Holy Spirit. How are we to determine which one of these three different orders of events was intended to be the normative order for the Church after the age of the Apostles?
Acts 22: The Solution
The Apostle Paul received salvation and became a believing Christian in this chapter of Acts. He recounts his conversion to Christ in Acts 22, beginning on the road to Damascus. He explained that along the way, at "about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' And I answered, 'Who are you, Lord?' And he said to me, 'I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.' " Acts 22:6-8. Paul then replied "What shall I do, Lord?" and Jesus responded "Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do." Acts 22:10-11.
Due to the great light that shined from Jesus, Paul was blinded and had to be guided to Damascus. When he arrived, he met with Ananias, who restored Paul's sight. After he regained his vision, Ananias said to him "And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name." Acts 22:16. Thus, Paul's sins were not forgiven until he was baptized. His encounter with the risen Christ did not forgive him of his sins, nor did solely his confession that Jesus is Lord (in verse 8) forgive or save him. Even showing that he believes in Jesus and is willing to submit to His will (in verse 10) did not save Paul or remove his sins. Rather, when he received baptism and called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to save him, only then were his sins forgiven. As Paul explained in the recounting of his initial salvation, he was saved by turning to Christ, confessing the lordship of Christ, receiving baptism, and calling upon the name of Jesus. Thus, all of these together are necessary for salvation and are what saving belief involves. This aligns perfectly with Peter's command in Acts 2 to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.
Any Catholic can affirm with full force Paul's explanation in Romans 10:9-10 that "if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." After all, this is what it means to turn to Christ and submit to Him. Part of that is believing that He is Lord (and thus worthy of obedience) and that He was resurrected (through which we receive eternal life).
Additionally, now we can see the consistency between Paul's theology of salvation and Peter's in 1 Peter 3:20-21: "...when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ..." Here, Peter analogizes baptism to the waters of the flood during the time of Noah, and he says that the waters saved Noah and his family. In a similar way, he continues, baptism now saves us. However, the waters of baptism don't cleanse us in a physical manner, as removing dirt from the body, but it cleanses us spiritually, as an appeal to God for a conscience not tarnished by sin. Paul would refer to this process as the washing away of sin while calling upon the name of Jesus.
In sum, the Catholic doctrine of baptismal regeneration, where the waters of baptism are the instrumental means through which the recipient's sins are spiritually washed away, is thoroughly rooted in the biblical text. The aforementioned passages, of course, are not the only places where baptism is mentioned. Hopefully in a future post I will address passages like John 3:5 and delve deeper into 1 Peter 3:21. But for now, from the book of Acts, I have explained the Catholic's biblical case for the salvific role of baptism.
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