Baptism Always Requires Witnesses

171 - Today's Prime Time Devo comes from 1Ti 6:12, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (1 Tim 6:12) Timothy, you, and I, and all believers, are called to eternal life by the gospel. Ro 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes,” but we do more than believe, we make a public profession of our faith in the presence of many witnesses. How did Timothy do that? How do you and I do that? We do that by submitting to baptism. It's what we Christians do. Mr 16:16 says, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. You see baptism always requires a witness. You cannot baptize yourself! And even if there be just the baptizee and the baptizer as was the case with Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunich, there still are many witnesses at our baptism as we read in Col 2:12-15, “buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” Baptism is among other things, a public spectacle, it is visible God-given proof to the invisible principalities and powers that the one being baptized is now all in with Jesus! It tells the angels, (good and bad) that the battle is on! That's why the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Apostle Paul reminds us and encourages us to “fight the good fight!” Because like it or not, he who believes and is baptized is entered into a lifelong war, the noble battle of faith. The Good News is we enter the battle with the Son of God in us and on our side. And He defeated the devil when He rose from the dead. This same resurrected power is available to us as we fight the good fight of faith!