Baptism

It is well known that ablution or bathing was common in most ancient nations as a preparation for prayers and sacrifice or as expiatory of sin. In warm countries this connection is probably even closer than in colder climates; and hence the frequency of ablution in the religious rites throughout the East. Jews baptized their Gentile converts, some Jewish sects practiced baptism as a symbol of purification, and John the Baptist made baptism an important part of his ministry. The New Testament does not say whether Jesus regularly baptized His converts, but on at least one occasion before John’s imprisonment, He was found baptizing. (It may, however, have been John’s baptism that He was administering.) At any rate, the early Christians were baptized in Jesus’ name following Jesus’ example (compare Mark 1:10; Gal. 3:27).

It appears that the early Christians interpreted the meaning of baptism in various ways—as a symbol of a person’s death to sin (Rom. 6:4; Gal. 2:12), of the cleansing from sin (Acts 22:16; Eph. 5:26), and of the new life in Christ (Acts 2:41; Rom. 6:3). Occasionally the entire family of a new convert would be baptized (compare Acts 11:16; 1 Cor. 1:16), which may have signified the person’s desire to consecrate all that he had to Christ.

The command to baptize was linked with the command to preach the gospel. All nations were to be evangelized, and they were to be made disciples by baptism (Matt. 28:19). It appears to have been a kind of transition from the Jewish baptism to the Christian. The distinction between John’s baptism and Christian baptism appears in the case of Apollos (Acts 18:26, 27) and of the disciples at Ephesus mentioned in Acts 19:1–6. We cannot but draw from this history the inference that in Christian baptism there was a deeper spiritual significance.

Taken from NKJV Study Bible