This week, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler took questions from listeners on his podcast “The Briefing.” One of the questions dealt with a listener’s mother, who is nearing the end of her life on this earth and believes she is saved because she was baptized as a teenager.
“My mom is now facing several health challenges and it looks as if her time on earth is short,” the listener wrote, expressing concern that his mother had placed her sense of eternal security in the ordinance itself. “Is she really going to hell because she thinks that one must also be baptized to go to heaven?”
Mohler answered, “No. No one’s going to hell for that.” The theologian then pointed out the fact that “theologically and biblically, just remember we go to hell as God’s just verdict on our sin, unless God’s just verdict on our sin falls on Christ rather than on ourselves.” Mohler explained that salvation comes through the substitutionary atonement which was achieved by Christ on the cross.