Re-Baptism & Vow Renewals

Candy posted a blog today about re-baptisms and vow renewals. Her thoughts were that she meant her vows the first time why renew them? On baptism she said when you are saved you get baptized there are no "re-baptisms" end of story. That is my belief also. When you get baptized its symbolic of your new life in Christ. There is no reason to get baptized again. Getting baptized does not get saved or get to you to heaven but baptism is a biblical principal.


Matthew 28:18-20

18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

In Romans 6:3-5 the Apostle Paul is teaching that baptism is a symbol of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus hence our new life in Christ.

Romans 6:3-5

3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: (KJV)

Jesus himself says that you must be saved and then baptized. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. We are to follow Jesus in everything and obey his Word. He was baptized and the Bible also states about baptism. We should be baptized only once. Jesus did not get baptized two or three times, the scripture reads that Jesus was baptized only once so this is the principal we are follow.

On vow renewals I will tell you about my wedding day. It was August 5th, 2005. My husband and I were only 20 and 18 years old. On a whim (because we hadn't planned on getting married for a few months) and for some crazy reason and in direct defiance of my parents we got married in another church (because our pastor would not marry us) without my parents blessing. His parents and my parents were in attendance as well as grandparents and a few friends. It was the stupidest thing we had ever done. Before the "wedding" my parents took us aside and pleaded that we could have a wedding in a few weeks that we could speed up the process and get everything together. We were engaged at the time and already planning a December wedding date. We had had a bad couple of weeks so we decided we needed to be together right then and there. We kept telling my parents no and went through with it. One good thing was my husband had already bought a nice house so we didn't have to worry about that. We were also in direct defiance of God and our church. When you do not have your parents blessing then you do not have God's blessing or your churches. We had our honeymoon at the our house. We were out of church for a couple weeks and decided we better get back to our church. Our Pastor talked to us and told us he was disappointed in us but he loved us. And that we could take our time but when we felt like apologizing to God, the church and our parents we could. We talked about it and Josh felt like we should apologize because he and I felt terrible. So we did. We stood in front of the church and apologized to God, the church and my parents. We all cried and hugged and everyone told us they loved us. Its so great to have friends in our church. We had grown up in that church so it was great they forgave us so quickly. Flash forward a year to August 5th, 2006. I was 3 months pregnant and I was having a real wedding day! We had a vow renewal in our church, in front family and friends. Our Pastor performed it and my parents and God blessed it. It was so much better having it in our church. Everyone was there to support us and it was great. We had a Hawaiian reception and had real fish in fish bowls on the table. It was a great day and we have pictures to remember it by. So this is why I think sometimes vow renewals are a good thing. This was a bad circumstance but because we had a vow renewal I don't even think about the first wedding, I tell everyone about my 2nd wedding.