Question:

After checking out your minstry’s website I have a question for you. Will God save a person who has accepted Christ as his personal Savior, through faith, but dies before ever being baptized?

Answer:

This is for God to decide.  God is judge, not you or I.  All I can do is study, understand and teach what the Bible teaches.  There is no indication in the Bible that those who merely “accept Christ as their personal Savior” are saved.  Consider the first gospel sermon in Acts 2.  Surely this is intended as a pattern for all who will be saved in Christ.  Here when convicted that they were personally responsible for Jesus’ death on the cross, the men and women asked “brothers, what must we do?”  They were told to repent and be baptized so that their sins could be forgiven and so that they would receive the Holy Spirit.  There is no mention of accepting Christ as personal Savior. The point in time when one is saved is the same as when one receives the promised gift of the Holy Spirit.  This point in time is when we are baptized.  Those who are in Christ came into Christ in baptism (Romans 6:4, Gal 3:26).  This teaching is found in multiple places throughout the New Testament.  I, personally, am unwilling to teach anything else.  Nowhere in the Bible is anyone commanded to “accept Christ as personal savior.”  Surely, if this were the biblical pattern it would be found at least once.  We do not accept into Christ, we are baptized into Christ.  We do not have faith into Christ, we are baptized into Christ.

Will God change his mind or show grace to these people, despite what he said in scripture, because of their faith?  I do not know. I doubt it, but I leave the final choice to God.  That is his prerogative, but we must faithfully teach the biblical pattern and leave judging to God.

John Oakes