text: The purpose and result of baptism varies from denomination to denomination. For some, it is a guarantee of an afterlife; for others it is a symbolic cleansing of past sins, and a symbol of being born again.  Or it can be thought of as a combination of these ideas.\n\nThe idea of baptism in the Christian tradition comes out of the Jewish system of ritual bathing in a mikveh for ceremonial impurity.  Individuals who violated the laws of purity by touching a  corpse, blood or anything designated unclean, were to bath in a souce of "living water" --fresh running water in order to remove the impurity.  Here is a website that talks about this Jewish ritual: