If you don’t believe in Jesus’ baptism, it is for sure that you have sin in your heart. The Apostle John said, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). If you say that you have no sin, even though you actually have sin because you don’t believe in the baptism of Jesus, it is an act of deceiving your own conscience and is evidence that the truth is not in you. The conviction of salvation emerges in our hearts when we receive the remission of sins (Took away Sin) and the Holy Spirit as a gift by believing both in Jesus’ baptism and the Cross.
The Apostle Paul said, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:6-7). Nothing but the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which the Apostles received from Jesus and preached to people, can save us from all our sins. If we don’t believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that the Apostles preached, we certainly still have sin in us.
How could we live with the conviction of salvation when we still have sin in us? When Christians, who are not yet born again, behave well in front of God, they’re sure of their salvations in full joy and conviction; however, they lack conviction and are afraid because of the burden of sin in their hearts when they commit some serious sins. It is a pseudo-salvation based on their own thoughts and emotions, not from God. They are prone to offer prayers of repentance every day to become gradually sanctified and to maintain their easily shaken salvations.
Those who believe in this false salvation think that they’ll at last be perfectly saved someday, if they maintain holy lives, asking God for forgiveness every day and keeping the Law by deeds. Nevertheless, they’re still sinners if they haven’t laid their sins on Jesus through the faith in His baptism.
The salvation that God has made is a perfect salvation, which tells us that Jesus took away all the sins of the world through His baptism by John in the Jordan and blotted them out on the Cross.
Thus, the Apostle John said, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). If all our sins had not been washed away through the gospel of the water and the Spirit for not knowing it, we have to confess in front of the Lord that we’re still sinners, and are destined to go to hell for our sins. This is a true confession of sin. Sin cannot be washed away without the gospel of the water and the Spirit, no matter how slight the sin is. When we confess in this manner, the gospel of the water and the Spirit washes away all our sins once for all and makes us righteous.
“Now is the accepted time” (2 Corinthians 6:2). Anyone who hears and believes in the gospel of Jesus’ baptism and the Cross is saved from all their sins, becomes righteous, and has a strong faith that they are always ready to enter the Kingdom of Heaven whenever the Lord may come. Any faith in doctrines and theologies, other than the true gospel, cannot save us from all our sins. Those are simply cunning tricks that the devil has put into the thoughts of human beings.
We should get back to the gospel of the water and the Spirit and receive the true salvation from sins in our hearts. This is to love Him and His work.