I was recently involved in a discussion on the necessity of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I understand the intent: that one must surrender one's will and life over to the care of God. However, we are talking about the Lord God Almighty of the Universe here. This is NOT a relationship of equals, nor do we merit in the least His love, His forgiveness or even having a personal relationship with Him. So I usually avoid usage of that term though I do admit that after a few days of heroin withdrawal in a rehabilitation center some three plus decades ago, I did have a "come to Jesus meeting," and that meeting began my eventual entry into the Catholic Church. As my Catholic faith deepened, I learned that salvation is a whole lot more than just getting on my knees and asking Jesus to forgive me of my sins.
Typically Protestants invoke verses of Scripture like Romans 10:9-10:
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
But they ignore other verses of Scripture like Mark 16:16:
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
And they ignore 1st Peter 2:18-22:
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
Obviously baptism is required for salvation as well as believing by faith and confession with the mouth. Yes, most New Testament verses omit the "and baptism" part that St. Mark points out. However, the equation is an AND Gate - you must believe AND be baptized. Both conditions must be true for the output to be true. That most verse of Scripture omit this "and be baptized" does NOT invalidate St. Mark's identification of this criterion.
Now why must one be baptized? Because the Baptism of the New Testament replaces Circumcision of the Old Testament. In the Abrahamic covenant every child had to be circumcised. Genesis 17:9-14 explains:
And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He that is eight days old among you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house, or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he that is born in your house and he that is bought with your money, shall be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
St. Paul explains in Romans 6:1-4:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Indeed, Christ said in Matthew 28:18-20:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
If baptism isn't necessary for entry into the New Covenant of salvation (for circumcision was necessary for entry into the Old Covenant), then why did Christ command it? Indeed, it is by baptism that we enter the Church which is the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ. A personal relationship with Jesus does not mean that we have a separate, unique and isolated relationship with Him. Rather, it means that we submit ourselves in obedience to Him, and He is both Head and Body, which means He is both Head and Church, which means we must obey both Him the Head and His Church. 1st Corinthians 12:12 & 27 states:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ...Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
And Romans 12:4-5 echoes this:
For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
This is why I dislike the term "personal relationship with Jesus." Rather we enter Christ's Body through believing by faith, confessing with the mouth and being baptized. Therefore, the Protestant paradigm that we must submit ourselves to Jesus but NOT the Church is in error. To have a personal relationship with Christ means obeying Christ the Head and Christ the Body. In fact, John 20:21-22 states:
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Thus the Disciples were given authority and this authority was passed down to the Bishops and Priests of the Church through the laying on of hands described through the Acts of the Apostles. It is this authority that Christ gave to the Bishops and Priests of the Visible Church which must be obeyed. Thus does John 14:15 state:
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Therein did the Protestant so-called Reformers - Martin Luther, John Calvin, Henry VIII, etc. - err. They disobeyed the Christ in rejecting His Body and setting up their own man-made religious denominations. Indeed, one cannot have God as one's Father and Jesus as one's Savior unless one has the Church as one's Mother, and that makes sense because St. Paul also describes the Church as the Bride of Christ in 2nd Corinthian 11:2:
I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband.
In conclusion, there is no salvation outside the Church. Pope Benedict XVI explained this in the Declaration "Dominus Iesus" on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. To reject Christ's Church is to reject the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ, and is effectively a rejection of Christ Himself.
