The following text is translated from the fifth edition, still in preparation, of the studies for outsiders: Conheça a Deus. It is from lesson 11, about immersion in water.
And now, what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on his name. Acts 22.16 NET.
The book of Acts records Saul’s conversion three times. In the last two instances, Paul himself recounts his experience. In the middle account of the three, he speaks to a crowd of Jews in Jerusalem. He speaks in Aramaic, Acts 21.40, the native language of the Jewish people at that time.
When Ananias came to Saul, he had been fasting and praying for three days. Ananias told him to stop doing that, but to “get up,” in order to obey the command of immersion, for it is this that brings forgiveness.
In immersion, we are freed from our sins, washing them away in the blood of Christ. Calling upon the name of Christ refers to the confession made at the moment of receiving immersion.
Saul was not saved the moment the Lord Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, for after three days he still had his sins. He was saved and forgiven when he publicly confessed Jesus and Ananias immersed him in water. At that moment, he was born of water and the Spirit.
In this way, Saul’s experience serves as an example for everyone to this day. It is necessary to do today what he did to wash away sins: confess the name of Jesus and be immersed in water, so that the blood of Christ may purify the soul from sins.
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