[EGW editor’s preface: As with any question concerning what we hope to learn from the Bible, we must always strive to apply good hermeneutics and to let the Bible interpret itself.
     (For more tips on good Bible-reading skills, click the subjects Hermeneutics and Bible study)]

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     The question was one that others had pondered.  What can we learn from God’s Word to answer the question, “can a person baptize themselves?”  Let’s look at Acts 2:38, where Peter by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, answered the question “what shall we do?”
     ‘Peter said, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins...”’
     Now if we are serious students of God’s word there are some things we need to take note of in this verse.

     1.  We need to understand that Peter is speaking here by inspiration of God.  He is being guided by God so I believe that he is speaking the truth.  Some, trying to deny what God is saying here, through Peter, try to discount Peter as being ignorant.  Listen to what a Baptist by the name of James Melton wrote, “the same Peter who is preaching in Acts 2:38 later learns a few things about Salvation that he did NOT know in Acts 2.”  “...learns a few things...”  “...did NOT know...”  This guy makes it sound like Peter is just speaking from his own human wisdom, but Peter is speaking by the inspiration of God.  Who would you choose to believe?  I choose Peter.

     2.  Peter tells them to “repent.”  In the Koiné Greek, this word is in the “active imperative.”  The imperative is the concept that this is a command.  If they wanted the mentioned result — “forgiveness of sins,” then Peter is saying that repentance is necessary.  The same thing applies to us, we must repent if we want forgiveness of sins.  Another thing we should note is that “repent” is in the active voice.  The significance of this is that the active voice means that they needed to be involved actively in repenting, in other words it is something that they each needed to participate in and do their part themselves.

     3.  The next thing that Peter said by inspiration was “and.”  Why do we need to look at this little word?  Because “and” is a conjunction and it ties together two equally important actions, in this case.

     4.  The other equally important action, tied together with the command to actively repent, is to be baptized.  Baptized, in the Koiné Greek, is in the “passive imperative.”  The imperative, just like before, is the concept that this is a command.  If they wanted the mentioned result — “forgiveness of sins,” then Peter is saying that being baptized is necessary.  But unlike, repent, which was in the active voice (they needed to do it themselves), being baptized is in the passive voice.  The passive voice indicates something done to a person that they are not actively involved in.  Baptism is something you submit to or allow to be done to you.  So your question “can a person baptize themselves?” the answer would be no, they need to allow it to be done to them.

     When these people, that Peter was preaching to, by inspiration of God, heard God’s will that they needed to actively repent and passively allow themselves to be baptized if they wanted to be forgiven of rejecting Christ and crucifying Him, those who received these words and were baptized and were forgiven of their sins.  Peter when writing about this in the first book that bears his name, said by inspiration of God, in 1 Peter 3:21, “And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you — not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience — through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”

     There is a wide variety of Baptist doctrine, but most would agree with a Baptist preacher I was talking to one time.  He said “he had NEVER baptized a lost person.”  What that tells us is that he had NEVER baptized a person like God taught through Peter, that baptism was part of what it takes to have forgiveness of sins.  What he does as a Baptist preacher, may appear to be what God’s commanded, but it is NOT what God commanded because it is being done for a different reason, than “for forgiveness of sins.”

     Paul shows that when you truly obey God’s will, it is the old man of sin (he is lost) that is buried in baptism and the new saved man is raised to walk in newness of life.  Note what Paul tells the Romans that they had done, Romans 6:3-7, “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?  Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.”

     If a person has not been baptized as the old sinful man, then they are still that old sinful man and they are not walking in the newness of life that the forgiveness of sins brings.

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