One day, several years ago, a preacher by the name of Moses E. Lard received a letter, which said:

Mr. Lard:
DEAR SIR:—Will you have the courtesy to state explicitly whether the body of the people with whom you stand connected hold that baptism is for, that is, in order to remission of sins? I have no motive in putting this question but to collect Information.
Very respectfully yours,
A BAPTIST.

This question was answered in a series of eight letters, appearing over the span of a year or more.

Lard goes into more detail and more depth in answering this question than anything I’ve ever read before, often using textual arguments that (while close to 200 years old) were new to me.

If you want a deep study of baptism and what it is for, according to the Scriptures, take a look at this relatively short book (just 36 pages), which is today’s addition to the Jimmie Beller Memorial eLibrary!

To read it online, or to download it to your device for later viewing, just click the link below.  And as always, we’ve gone through it, fixing any typos we found, and reformatting the whole thing to make for a pleasant reading experience.

What Baptism is For (Moses E. Lard)

-Bradley S. Cobb