The Proclaimer

"Christ Did Not Send Me To Baptize"

When discussing the necessity of baptism to one’s salvation, I occasionally encounter someone who makes an appeal to Paul’s statement to the Corinthians, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 1:17).  Their argument is that Paul would never have made such a statement if baptism were essential to salvation.  But to make such an argument, one must completely misunderstand or disregard the context of Paul’s statement.

The situation in Corinth was that division and contentions existed (1 Cor. 1:10, 11).  Some of the Corinthians were inordinately enamored with the man who had baptized them into Christ even to the extent that they were saying, “I of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas, “ or “I am of Christ” (v. 12).  To this Paul writes,

“Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?  I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone say that I had baptized in my own name.  And I also baptized the household of Stephanas.  Besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other” (vv. 13-16).

It is within this context that he then says, “ For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.”

Obviously, Paul’s concern was the fact that these Corinthians had placed an unwarranted importance upon the one who administered their baptism.  Paul is in no way suggesting that baptism itself was unimportant nor is he disassociating baptism from the gospel of Christ.  He is simply trying to impress upon them that the one who had actually baptized them was a matter of relative unimportance.  What was important is that they had been baptized.

It is the gospel of Christ that is God’s power to save (Rom. 1:16).  Paul shows the facts of the gospel to be “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3, 4).  These same facts are portrayed in our own spiritual resurrection from the dead as one is “buried with Him by baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised form the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

Any attempt to divorce baptism from the gospel of Jesus Christ is an attempt to alter the facts of the gospel – the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.  Only as we are “buried with Him” and “raised with Him” through baptism (Col. 2:12) can we experience the forgiveness of sins for which Christ died.  In an attempt to exclude baptism from the gospel of Christ, many today not only thwart their own spiritual resurrection from the dead, but they deny the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as well.

Paul makes it clear that the only way that one can get into Christ is to be “baptized into Christ” (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 6:3).  This is the gospel that Christ sent Paul to preach.  This is the gospel that is God’s power to save.

                                                                       -- Clark Dugger

The Proclaimer