Jaroslav Pelikan on Baptismal Regeneration in Acts

The instructions given to Paul at his conversion, as he reported them here, speaking in Aramaic and to a Jewish audience, were: “And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (22:16). In Peter’s formula at Pentecost, the prepositional phrase in English, “for the forgiveness of your sins,” renders the prepositional phrase in Greek, εἰς ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ὑμῶν, the preposition εἰς being used here as a “marker of goals” or “to denote purpose.” To the recurring objection of those who reject the orthodox doctrine of sacramental grace that works ex opere operato and who insist that the sacraments do not convey the forgiveness of sins but only announce it—which does seem reminiscent of the objection of the scribes and Pharisees, as reported by Saint Luke, “Who can forgive sins but God only?” (Luke 5:21)—the tenor of the preposition εἰς here would appear to be that the God who alone can forgive sins had, in sovereign freedom, chosen to attach that forgiveness to the means of grace, and specifically to baptism, in a connection described by the Epistle to Titus: “He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). (Jaroslav Pelikan, Acts [Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2005], 239)