Mark 16v16

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

This verse is part of Mark’s account of the words of Jesus between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven. These are Jesus’ final words from Mark’s perspective, with Jesus here giving His final instructions to the disciples.

Firstly, Jesus commands the eleven to go out to the whole world, and preach the good news (gospel) everywhere. Jesus then shows that belief and baptism need to work together in order that the recipient will be saved. He does not leave room for believing but not being baptized, as I have heard some people teaching. The second part of the sentence, where He talks about unbelief, does not need to be qualified with baptism. To put it another way, lack belief and it doesn’t even matter whether you are baptized or not, but if you have belief it should lead to baptism. Let us not forget here “that faith without works is dead” (James 2v20, James 2v17,26) – and surely baptism is a ‘work’, as it involves firstly a Godly conviction – for repentance – and then doing something about it, by burying our sins in the waters as we are baptised.

Just as there was a sign of being under covenant with God in the Old Testament – circumcision (of the males) – so now we see baptism as the new sign of being under the new covenant with God. Just as the man’s circumcision is not on view to the general public, so too the fact that somebody has been baptised in the past is not necessarily something that another person will see straight away – in both cases, you need to look a little deeper. For the circumcision, the evidence will be found in the flesh, but for baptism the evidence should be found in the spirit firstly, although some of the evidence will manifest as changed behaviours and ways of thinking and acting. Further evidence of the baptism will see the believer manifesting the Holy Spirit by speaking in tongues, as Jesus promises in the very next verse.

As we look at the few verses immediately following this current one, we must remember that we are seeing Jesus giving more of His final instructions to the church. Jesus has just given instructions for those that believe, and now He promises some signs that will follow all those believers:

The believers will cast out devils in the name of Jesus (v17)
They will speak with new tongues (v17)
They will be able to take up snakes without fear (v18)
Drinking any poisons will not be able to harm them (v18)
Those that believe will be able to lay hands on the sick, and the sick will then recover (v18)

Notice that these promises all start with belief and baptism. These are not just optional signs, but they must be seen within the body of believers. In fact, I have seen the promises of God – not just these ones – described as covenant rights – and quite rightly so.

Looking at it another way, if something is available from God, why would I not want to see it in my own life? It is like having the faith to believe that something is possible, but not having the desire to see it come to pass. The problem with an attitude like this is that it can degenerate into an excuse, where lack of desire can lead to a lack of faith that these promises are actually possible for those that are serving God. This can be the case in much of the church today – using lack of desire to feed lack of faith, eventually leading to a downward back-spiral; with no desire and no faith meeting in lack of achievement for God and all that He has for us.