Baptism Unto Repentance

Baptism Unto Repentance

Mosiah 26:22

  22 For behold, this is my church; whosoever is baptized shall be baptized unto repentance. And whomsoever ye receive shall believe in my name; and him will I freely forgive.

Acts 19:1-6

 1 And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples,

  2 He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.

  3 And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism.

  4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.

  5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

  6 And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.

Except in extreme circumstances we are only baptized once, nonetheless we need to repent every day.  We are told frequently in the scriptures to repent and be baptized. Why are we not told to repent and be baptized and repent, since we are to repent more than just when we are baptized by water. I believe this is because repentance and baptism are always together, even though we are only baptized by water once.

Some want that experience of being baptized again to wash away their sins.  When we are baptized we are baptized by water.  Then we have had hands laid upon our heads and are instructed to receive the Holy Ghost.  Receiving the Holy Ghost is often referred to as a baptism of fire.

While water baptism generally happens only once, the baptism of fire or of the Holy Ghost is to happen daily as a matter of our daily repentance.

The call to “repent and be baptized” is a daily event.  We repent and then are baptized again by the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost works within us to testify of our repentance.  This process is the cleansing us of our sins through repentance and baptism of the Holy Ghost, to give us access to the atonement of Jesus Christ.

It is true that when one wants to be baptized they repent before hand and then they punctuate that repentance with a covenant and the ordinance of baptism.  We will likely sin after our baptism, so we also should repent daily and be baptized by the Holy Ghost daily and make our covenant again when we take the sacrament, thus becoming clean again.