What the Meaning of 'Eis' Is

Scrolling in FaceBook, I came across a preacher passionately holding forth about people who would answer to God at the judgment for spreading the falsehood that baptism was connected to the forgiveness of sin. The evidence he offered that baptism was not connected to the forgiveness of sin was from Acts 2:38. If we trim Acts 2:38 down to the basics, Peter responds to the question of “What shall we do,” with the instruction, “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.”

 The controversy arises because in English the preposition ‘for’ can be interpreted in more than one way. English is like that. For example, you might fly ‘on’ a plane, but you would not fly ‘on’ a helicopter. You would fly ‘in’ a helicopter. When you enter a plane, you step ‘onto’ the plane, But you would not enter a house by stepping ‘onto’ the house.

The question in Acts 2:38 seems to be, “Does the English word ‘for’ mean ‘because of’ what has happened, or ‘in order to’ achieve a result?” Did Peter tell the people in his audience to be baptized because their sins had been forgiven, or did Peter tell them to be baptized in order to achieve the forgiveness of their sins. The preacher mentioned above was adamant that Peter was telling the people that they should be baptized because their sins had already been forgiven.

As was pointed out in, “Where the Reformation Went Wrong,” June 16, 2026, Trying to Walk, the teaching that baptism was inherently connected to the remission of sins existed intact and unchanged from the days of the apostles until the 1500’s when the reformation arose. The reformation changed that because the reformers saw baptism, which was perverted from its Biblical definition by 1500 AD, as “works salvation,” i.e. something one does to earn salvation outside of the grace of God. Their reaction was to negate the importance of baptism in salvation.

However, the problem was not baptism. The problem was that baptism had been perverted over the years. Baptism had never been introduced nor taught in the Bible as a work by which a person could earn salvation outside of the grace of God. In the Bible, the only source of Christian doctrine, baptism is taught as the means by which a person connects with the grace of God offered to mankind through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Also, in the Bible, baptism is connected to the remission of sins.

Disconnecting baptism from salvation meant that baptism must also be disconnected from remission of sins, because carrying the guilt of sin will keep one from being saved eternally in Heaven with God. So says Isaiah 59:2, “your sin has separated you from God,” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? . . . Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolater, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God,” and Revelation 21:27, “But nothing unclean will ever enter [Heaven], nor anyone who practices an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life,” and other verses. If baptism is the Bible means of remitting, i.e. cancelling or pardoning, these sins, then baptism is an essential factor in salvation.

Against this background, it is clear that understanding baptism correctly is of the utmost importance. Are we to be baptized because our sins have been forgiven, or are we baptized to obtain the forgiveness of our sins. If the Bible were only written in English this would be a legitimate question. But the New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek, and the Greek word that is translated ‘for’ in Acts 2:38 is ’eis.’

The following information regarding the Greek word ‘eis’ comes from Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. From the article on the word ‘eis’: In Section B.I. “[eis] retains the force of entering into anything.” In B.I.2 “after verbs of [motion], eis . . . designates the condition or state into which one passes.” In B.II.1. ‘[eis] denotes motion to something.’ In B.II.3.a. ‘[eis] denotes the end to which a thing reaches or extends.’ Moreover, eis is always used pointing forward, to the future. It is never pointing backward, to the past. It references a place to which one is going, not a place in which one has been.

In sum, the use of the word eis in Acts 2:38 explicitly means Peter was telling those believers that they should repent and be baptized in order to obtain the forgiveness of their sins. He was telling them that by being baptized they would be entering into, passing into, the condition of having remission of their sins; that they would be in motion toward remission; that baptism was reaching, extending to the end (result) of remission of their sins. He was telling them to repent and be baptized for the future result of obtaining remission of their sins, not because in the past they had already obtained remission of their sins.

The Greek word eis serves to emphasize that baptism is in order to obtain remission. It is not ambiguous like the English word ‘for.’ If a Greek meant to say ‘because of (what has already happened)’ they would have used a different word, possibly ‘dia.’ But there is more.

In a passage worded similarly to Acts 2:38, but this time spoken by Jesus, we read in Matthew 26:28, “For this is my blood of the covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Our concern is “shed . . . for the remission of sins.” The Greek construction is identical to Acts 2:38. We have ‘baptized for the remission of sins,’ and we have ‘shed for the remission of sins.’ Both verses employ the Greek word eis. If we assume that ‘eis/for’ means ‘because of’ then we have Jesus giving His life on the cross, shedding His blood, because our sins were already forgiven. This is preposterous. No serious individual would give a second’s consideration to such an interpretation.

The FaceBook preacher is not the only one who gets this wrong. The reformers have sadly misled millions. Peter told his listeners on the day of Pentecost to repent and be baptized in order to obtain remission of sins. Ananias told Saul to “be baptized and wash away thy sins.” For 1500 years the history of Christian literature shows baptism was correctly connected to remission of sins in keeping with these and other verses. It still is. God’s word has not changed. It is my prayer that people will turn to and hold fast to what the Bible actually says about baptism (and every other subject as well) and reject the erroneous ideas taught by misguided reformers who saw a perverted version of baptism and threw the baby out with the bath water.

See related Trying to Walk articles:

“Where the Reformation Went Wrong,” June 16, 2026

“Understanding Grace,” May 18, 2026

“Baptism, a Colosse Paradigm,” November 24, 2025