Becoming a follower of Jesus Christ should be something that unites all Christians, yet the process sometimes divides. This is unfortunate.
There is infant baptism and believers baptism. Those who believe in infant baptism point to the Old Testament example of circumcision at birth and to the New Testament example of entire families converting to Christianity at the same time. The other side says that becoming a Christian is a matter of belief and therefore must be a conscious choice. John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes on Him might not perish, but have eternal life.
Of those who practice believer’s baptism, many try to separate it from salvation. They say that salvation comes at the moment of repentance and confession, and that baptism only follows as an emblem of church membership. It is unclear to me why they try so hard to separate these – the Bible certainly doesn’t. When Peter preached the first gospel sermon on the day of Pentecost following Jesus’ resurrection, he said “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.” No separation there – in fact, 3000 immediately responded and were baptized. All throughout the New Testament, whether it’s the Ethiopian eunuch, the Philippian jailer, Saul of Tarsus, or the centurion Cornelius, baptism was a part of the salvation process.
It is understandable that people want to emphasize God’s grace and that it is Jesus’ death, and not a work of man that saves us. Peter also addressed this by stating that it isn’t the work of baptism that saves (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh) but that it is the way we show our belief (the answer of a clear conscience before God.) Because baptism was part of the salvation process, Peter said that baptism saves us (I Peter 3:21).
The apostle Paul stressed that we are saved by faith and not by works, yet he identified baptism as the point at which we bury the old life of sin and rise to begin walking a new life. (Romans 6:4) Like the very first Christians who heard Peter preach, we can be pricked in our heart, repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit of God. God joined all those things together as parts of the salvation process. To use a truth from another Bible context – what God has joined together, we should not separate.