“Do I need to be rebaptized?”

Steve Brown:
“Do I need to be rebaptized?” The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone, so grace is for all of us, but there is a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author, Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hey Peter.

Pete Alwinson:
Here we go, man.

Steve Brown:
We’re going to keep doing this till we get it right.

Pete Alwinson:
I know. And one day we will, but it’s.

Steve Brown:
And then we’ll both retire.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s good to see, no.

Steve Brown:
And then we’ll retire.

Pete Alwinson:
No, no retirement.

Steve Brown:
I agree with you.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s not going to happen, man.

Steve Brown:
No, I’m going to drool or die first. I think it’s called DD Day. That’s Pete Alwinson, by the way and You can go to ForgeTruth.com and there is so much good stuff on that website. And by the way, tell us about your podcast.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, yeah, we’ve got a podcast, ForgeTruthPodcast go and download that. All things men and grace and growth.

Steve Brown:
Okay. And people can find that on any platform where they get their podcasts.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Okay. Pete comes in, as you know, and we answer questions on Friday, and we honestly love to get your questions. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, and we record your voice and sometimes put it on the air. You can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, we would appreciate it. Be as generous as you can, and we’ll be as faithful with your gift as you were in the giving of it. We realize that most can’t or don’t feel called to, and we get that, say a prayer for this ministry. But if you pray about it and you get moved and say, you know, I’m going to stand with those guys financially, we’ll rise up and call you blessed. So, help us if you can. If you can’t, we understand, say a prayer. And speaking of prayer, Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll answer these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Let’s pray together. Our Great God, we come to you right now on this Friday, and what a joy it is to pray. Lord, thank you for the access that you have granted to us and in the presence of the one who spoke and all things came into existence, the one who loves us, the one who redeemed us by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. We honor you, we praise you, and we ask that you continue your great work in our lives because you are the God who is merciful and kind and gracious. Yes, just as well. And thank you that we know at the end of the age, you will bring full justice into this world and reestablish your great glory and your visible kingdom. We long for that day, but until then, Lord, we pray that your power would flow into our lives, your people. That you would advance your kingdom in the lives of so many people on this planet. And thank you for Key Life as a ministry that talks about your grace and goodness and power, and the radical grace that comes to us in Jesus Christ. So, we commit this time of Q&A to you, and we look forward to worship this week-end as we pray in the strong name of our risen savior Jesus. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
I was baptized many, many years ago, over 50. I was wondering if one needs to be rebaptized when they don’t feel like they really have been, or it’s a matter of really wanting to do it and not sure.

Steve Brown:
You know, I can identify with that. I later, when I was a believer, got rebaptized and if I’d known what I know now, Pete, I wouldn’t have. But I don’t think it bothered God cause he knew my heart. And dear, I, you know, you’re getting up in years and I get that too. And I don’t think, if you got rebaptized, I don’t think God would have perspiration on his upper lip.

Pete Alwinson:
No.

Steve Brown:
And if you don’t, I don’t think God will have any perspiration on his upper lip. But with all of that being said, there are some theological issues here. And they’re pretty important. Baptism doesn’t have to do with how we feel, does it?

Pete Alwinson:
No, it really doesn’t. You know, and I like the way of putting the two sacraments that we Protestants see out there. Baptism is the sign and seal of the covenant of grace, and it’s the entry sacrament into the covenant of grace. And then the Lord’s Supper is the ongoing sacrament, that renews and refreshes the covenant of grace in our life. So, I think sometimes when people want to be rebaptized, they’re really wanting that refreshing.

Steve Brown:
Exactly.

Pete Alwinson:
But that’s what the Lord’s Supper is supposed to do.

Steve Brown:
And you’re absolutely right. And you know, in some Calvinist circles, and I’m not a part of those circles, there is a discipline thing that’s excercised if you are rebaptized. And I think sometimes that makes God into something that he just isn’t.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. Right.

Steve Brown:
And you say, alright, what if my baptism wasn’t legitimate? What if it, what if my parents were not Christians? Well, you’re moving into another area where maybe you need to be baptized, but maybe you don’t because again, it was the claiming if you were an infant of the promises of God and that claim was aside from you or your parents’ belief.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. Right. And if it was a Trinitarian Christian baptism,

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
then it really fulfills its purpose. And one thing that’s important to understand is that we don’t believe that baptism is dependent upon the one who administers it.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
Or even the state of the person in infant baptism.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s really the grace of God.

Steve Brown:
It really is.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, you look back on the fact that you were, and you fulfilled your baptism.

Steve Brown:
And we’re speaking, as you know, as Presbyterians. And I wouldn’t suggest you have to be a Presbyterian to get to heaven, but if I were you, I wouldn’t take a chance. No, I’m kidding. Pete and I are both Presbyterians, but if you’re into only adult baptism, believers baptism, everything we said about this particular subject is applicable to you too. You know, you get baptized and you say, I didn’t know Jesus when that happened, still the triune formula, still the promises of God were claimed. So, if you must do it, God probably won’t be angry, but you don’t have to. Let’s go back to our phone lines.

Caller 2:
If I lose something valuable, can I rely on the Holy Spirit?

Steve Brown:
No. Rely on daddy long legs. Now, some of you are going to know that what I’m going to say, we decided ahead of time I can tell this story cause Pete simply needs to be educated. And Jeremy even more so cause he was laughing harder. But when I was a kid, and this is true. If you lost something, you know what a daddy long legs.

Pete Alwinson:
I know, I do. We had those out in California too. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
If you ask, we were taught, if you ask a daddy long legs where that whatever you lost is watch that spider and he’ll pick up or she, I’ve never checked. He or she will pick up a leg. Now, wait, listen, listen to me, I’m teaching you.

Pete Alwinson:
I’m sure this is dead truth right here.

Steve Brown:
It’ll pick up a leg and, and if you’ll go to where that leg is pointing, you’ll find out what you lost.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay, now. And I really appreciate that feeds my soul in a deep way, Steve. You know, but that is not what our caller asked.

Steve Brown:
Well, I just was trying to be helpful.

Pete Alwinson:
I know. And always.

Steve Brown:
Listen. All right. Seriously.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright.

Steve Brown:
What if you lose something? Can the Holy Spirit help you find it?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, is there, can you think of one promise in Scripture that would allude to that. What Scriptural principle?

Steve Brown:
No, there is none, however. You can extrapolate from God’s sovereignty, God’s Spirit, which is the third person of the Trinity. And since they’re sovereign, they do whatever they want. Or he does whatever he wants.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And if he wants you to find what you lost. Ask him.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, you have not, because you asked not James said. We can ask all day long.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
But we can’t make it dependent, he might want us to lose that thing.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And we’re not making fun of your question. It was an honest question. And we’re making fun of ourselves and mostly of me, in daddy long legs, but you can ask.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. He’s our Father, for crying out loud.

Steve Brown:
Somebody said, can I ask God about little things? That was Barnhouse. And he replied, Madam, can you think of anything that isn’t little

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
with God.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s good. That’s good. That’s great.

Steve Brown:
What happens to a Christian at death?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, I mean,

To be absent for the body is to be present with the Lord.

Paul says.

Steve Brown:
That’s enough. I mean, we could talk about time and space and being outside of time, some very sophisticated philosophical and metaphysical principles. Some different answers to that particular problem. But whatever, you can rest in the fact.

That to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

Pete Alwinson:
Amen. Amen. That’s so encouraging and so impactful for us.

Steve Brown:
This is an e-mail. How can I hold on to God?

Pete Alwinson:
Ah, I love that.

Steve Brown:
You can’t.

Pete Alwinson:
You can’t, you can’t. But he does hold on to us.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
But we can keep, you know.

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Scripture says, in James. And so that’s important, we need to do our part to keep drawing near to God. And, but he’s the one that holds onto us, that’s the whole principle of eternal security, of how he cares for us.

Steve Brown:
And you know the interesting thing is, that when we’re admonished to draw near to God and he’ll draw near to us, the desire to draw near to God is from God himself.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
So even there, he’s the initiator.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Steve Brown:
We love him because he first, Loved us.

Pete Alwinson:
Amen.

Steve Brown:
Got to remember that God. And he can even find your lost stuff if he decides that he wants to do that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. You got it.

Steve Brown:
We’ve got 30 more seconds. Do you have anything important or profound to say?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, I don’t. Do you have any advice for my prayer life? Just pray. That was one of the questions. Just pray.

Steve Brown:
Oh, I didn’t see that.

Pete Alwinson:
Draw near to God and just pray and he will draw near.

Steve Brown:
Maybe we’ll spend some time on that next program and we’ll see.

Pete Alwinson:
Sounds good.

Steve Brown:
Guys, we do have to go. We appreciate very much your spending your time with us, that is a high and holy compliment and we take it as such. And of course, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.