What about the thief on the cross?

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What’s Your Question? for Sept. 5

Perhaps the "the thief on the cross did not have to be baptized" has caused more people to disbelieve the command of Jesus (Mk. 16:16), than any other argument. First, the thief on the cross did not live under the law that went into effect after the death of Christ (Heb. 9:15-17). Second, the thief did not believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 10:9). Can we be saved without believing that? Third, the thief could not have been buried into the death of Christ and raised in the likeness of His resurrection (Rom. 6:3,4). Can we be saved without being immersed into the death of Christ? The same reasoning that excludes the necessity of baptism into Christ’s death will exclude faith in His resurrection.