-- Answer: One Must Be Baptized For the Right Reason --

From what we learn in Acts 19:3-7, one must be baptized for the right reason. In this passage, there were some men who did not know about the baptism Jesus commanded. They knew only of John's. They, therefore, had to all be baptized in water by the apostle Paul, after he taught them of it.

Though there are similarities between John's baptism and the one the Lord commanded, there are also differences.  For example, the baptism of Romans 6:3,4 is to be a burial into Christ's death. John's baptism, therefore, could not have been for this purpose, since Jesus was still living at the time. This is also why the thief on the cross who was saved, did not have to be baptized with the baptism Jesus had introduced in John 3:3-5.

The baptism that Jesus commanded so that the sinner can become a saint, a Christian, was not to go into effect until after the Lord had died at Calvary and, thus, put to an end the Old Law and established the New, which stipulates baptism for the remission of sins.

As we think about the seriousness of doing things for the right purpose, consider 1 Corinthians 11:18-34 about the Lord's Supper. Paul shows that the one who would not take of the Lord's Supper in a proper manner would be "guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord" (v. 27).

We have learned that baptism is a "burial or an immersion in water"; but just because a person is dunked completely under water, doesn't necessarily mean that that person has received Bible baptism.  For what about young boys swimming in a pond and dunking one another?

Obviously, baptism must be received for the right purpose: and that is so that one may be baptized into Christ and have sins washed away by the blood of Jesus.