I haven’t being baptized

Because I am not clean enough.

I have always avoided the subject of baptism. Every time baptism is announced I feign interest but in the set date I intentionally forget.

Late last year I finally opened up to someone about my restrains on the subject and recently the books of Romans and Galatians have backed up his response.

For the longest time, I never felt clean enough to be baptized to God. I always thought that for one to be baptized in water by immersion, you need to actually be HOLY - a saint, without blemish. In my recent encounters with Romans and Galatians, I have come to realize that the idea of salvation I had in my heart is salvation by Works, but Paul says that what I actually need is salvation by faith in Christ.

At first it was quite confusing because how am I saved just by believing? What do you mean by my works don’t guarantee my salvation?

Gal 3:24 tells me that the law, that makes us show our works to be saved was intended as a guided until the coming of Christ and this makes sense because when you look at the children of Isreal in the early years, the law was what kept them from going astray. Everytime they sinned, they had a list of sacrifices to offer. Any time they were tagged as unclean they had a bucket load of scarifies to offer in other to be cleanses. They had rituals they had to perform daily. They had to work to be saved. Then Jesus came, as a superior sacrifice, that no sacrifice - human or animal - can top. He did all the work and left only one task for me, to believe that he has offered every sacrifice for my sin, cleansed me with his sacrifice, performed the rituals on my behalf.

So now instead of working to be saved, I just need to believe in Christ to be saved. Instead of waiting till I am the holiest to be baptized, I just need to believe in Christ, get baptized and allow the transformative work of Christ to work in me, because if I keep working by my strength to be saved and deemed holy, the work would never end and I would never see myself as holy enough.