He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel (good news) to all creation (Jew and non-Jew). Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” – Mark 16:15-16 –

1. A Commentary On Mark 16:15-16

2. A Commentary On Mark 16:15-16
by Daniel Keeran, MSW
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel (good news) to all
creation (Jew and non-Jew). Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but
whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
– Mark 16:15-16 –
These are among the final words of our Lord spoken to the apostles. The gospel
included the command to be immersed in water as a pledge to keep a clear
conscience or to give up sin according to Peter’s description in I Peter 3:21 ”and this
water (of the great flood that saved eight people in verse 20) symbolizes baptism that
now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of (or to
keep) a clear conscience (a clear or good-conscience pledge) toward God. It saves
you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.“
Then in Acts 8:12, we read that baptism was in the good news presented by Philip:
”But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of
God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.”
This immersion was designed only for those old enough to survive it and required
personal faith, a pledge, obedience from the heart as per Romans 6:17-18 ”But thanks
be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from
your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have
been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”
In return for this pledge, God promises to forgive sins and to give the Holy Spirit as a
gift as per Peter’s description in Acts 2:38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized,
every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you
will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This total immersion was considered a way of
being crucified with Christ as per Paul’s description in Romans 6:6-7 “For we know
that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done
away with,[
that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died
has been set free from sin” and in Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ:
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
The gospel that must be preached and believed included total immersion in water
according to the conversion of the Ethiopian in Acts 8:35-36 which appears to be a
detailed chronological account. “Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture
and told him the good news about Jesus. As they traveled along the road, they came
to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of
my being baptized?”

3. Was baptism explained in the “word of the lord” in Acts 16:32-33? Then they spoke
the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night
the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his
household were baptized..
Did Paul’s preaching and teaching ministry in Corinth, include explaining the deep
meaning and purpose of baptism as he had done in other letters to Christians (see
Romans 6 and Colossians 2)? Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire
household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul
believed and were baptized.
Paul gives an account of his own immersion in Acts 22:!6 in which Ananias says to
Paul, “And now And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash
your sins away, calling on his name.’
Although Paul is adamant that human deeds cannot save the soul from sin, he
nowhere in his writings conveys that total immersion in water is a human deed that
cannot save. On the contrary, Paul describes this immersion as a part of faith that
makes one a child of God, in Galatians 3:26-27 “So in Christ Jesus you are all
children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have
clothed yourselves with Christ.”
This is consistent with descriptions of burial baptism by Paul in Romans 6:3-4 “Or
don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into
his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order
that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too
may live a new life” and in Colossians 2:12 “having been buried with him in baptism,
in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who
raised him from the dead.”
This saving burial baptism into Christ, is the working of God, not man, and requires
faith that “God will do what He promises when we do what He requires.”
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