Sally, you ask, well stated, I have had a question coming from an evangelical background about the large number of people I know, several in my own family, who regularly attend church, sometimes study the Bible, some very regularly and who serve the congregations as Sunday school teachers, et cetera. They have prayed the sinner's prayer and so consider themselves Christians, but I have never been, but they have never been baptized yet. One second.
In several of the evangelical churches I attend, when I was younger, baptism was very de-emphasized because many of the people in leadership had come from a liturgical background of believing infant baptism saved them. So they went to the opposite extreme saying outward baptism is not necessary. Just focus on the sinner's prayer in your heart. How would the early church have viewed a young person like this, not yet a Christian, a baby Christian, almost a Christian?
So many people I know attach great meaning who does the baptism and to baptism making you a member of a local church, whereas others focus more on baptism placing you into the body of Christ, or baptism just being an outward sign of what you want to follow, sorry, sign that you want to follow Jesus, but not really having the power to place, sorry, and not having the power to place you in the body of Christ. Okay, now to you, David. Okay, so those are some good questions in there, Sally.
And one reason I'm spending a little bit of extra time on this issue of baptism is these questions were asked last month. And we felt like if we answered them, there were so many other questions that we would have to neglect the others. So we were kind of unfair to the ones who asked about baptism. And so this month, I want to give them a fair shake and give a thorough answer.
So you've asked several questions, Sally, but they reflect very much the state of evangelical Christianity where baptism is viewed as certainly not essential. Sometimes it's described just as an act of obedience is all, but you are already saved before you're baptized. So if you never get baptized, then it's not that important. But Jesus said," He who believes and is baptized shall be saved." So Jesus seems to tie baptism in with salvation. Now, of course, God isn't locked in a box.
If somebody would want to be baptized and they don't have the opportunity, they're killed, let's say the thief on the cross. Well, obviously, I mean, you know, God can make exceptions where he wants. I was talking earlier about infant baptism. Even if that is totally invalid, God can still, he knows the hearts of people. And he makes the final decision, we don't, of who he's going to admit into the kingdom of heaven.
But yeah, your question, what would the early Christians have called such a person who believes and decides not to get baptized? Well, they would have called them a catechumen, a learner. Now, you asked about, do they call them a Christian? Now, this is a little bit more complicated question because in the evangelical world, Christian has taken on a meaning that I don't think is in the Scriptures. I don't see it in the early church.
The reference to the word Christian in Acts, it just says that the disciples, I think this is where they were first called Christians. So I think anyone who is a disciple of Jesus Christ is a Christian, even if they have not yet been baptized, even if they haven't prayed the sinner's prayer or whatever, it's used almost in a sectarian sense among evangelicals. Well, do you think he's a Christian? No, I don't think he's a Christian.
And it has nothing to do with whether they believe, whether they've been baptized, whether they even live a godly life often. Is their theology right? Or this or that? It becomes a subjective thing that I never see that used in the early Christians. So I think anyone who believed whether or not they had been baptized were called a Christian. But again, they're using it in a different sense than an evangelical would use the word Christian. Like I think it's being misused today.
But someone who wasn't baptized, I think today we could maybe call them an unbaptized believer or whatever, but they are lacking something essential. I mean, if they aren't baptized simply because they choose to ignore Jesus' clear words and the rest of Scripture, what it has to say about baptism, then I think there's some you know serious potential liability there of losing their eternal life. So it's not something to treat so lightly that so many churches are doing.
I mean, this is definitely false teaching, erroneous teaching. And again, I'm not making judgmental calls, but I'm saying it is serious error. When Jesus says," He who believes and is baptized shall be saved." And then we say," Well, we don't need to get baptized," then we're trampling on what Jesus said. And His final commission to His apostles to go out and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
So if we think we can become a disciple and just stop without getting baptized, yeah we're disobeying the very commission that Jesus gave to His apostles. So once you are baptized in Acts, I don't have the verse in front of me. It says that those who were being baptized were being added daily to the church. And the church there is talking about was not the local church of Jerusalem, but the church, the body of Christ. So when we're baptized, we become assuming that we believe that we're properly baptized.
We become a member of the body of Christ. And it doesn't turn on who is baptizing us. I mean, assuming it's not an out and out heretic or someone who's not qualified to be baptized, it doesn't have to be a minister. Most churches, the ministers do the baptizing, and the early church would have certainly encouraged that.
But in an emergency situation, if the need is there, then certainly any brother, and I think in a dire emergency, even a sister could give baptism, perhaps, to somebody if they were on the point of death or something like that. But you know we don't run into that very often. So like I said, I think it's good practice to have the ministry of the church either do it or it is being done under their authority if they don't personally do it. But yeah, you become a member, not of a local church.
I mean, that may also be part of it, but you become a member of the body of Christ. And baptism should not be used as, oh, this is membership in our church. So if you join some other church and you're going to get baptized all over again, there's only one baptism. And it's not to be done over and over again every time we might change from one denomination to another. That's a very wrong practice and teaching that is out there.
No materials available for this lesson.