Scripture Journal

Contrary to what many people think, baptism was not a new principle to the Jews of Christ's time. The Jewish baptism is called the Mikvah and involves a similar procedure to Christian baptisms. The unique thing about John is not that he was baptizing, but who he was baptizing. Like in Christian religion, Jewish baptisms where preformed in order to induct the individual into the house of Israel. John was baptizing those who were already Jews. According to their laws they needed no baptism. This is where John's discussion with the Pharisees and Saducees arises. They felt no need to be baptized, because in their mind baptism was part of the process to become a Jew, and they were already Jews; but John's baptism was not meant for that purpose. It instead was meant to cleanse the individual from sin so that they might be ready to accept the Christ when he came.
This is not the only time in history that those already under the covenant where baptized again for repentance. Those baptized in the early days of the church, before its official organization in 1830, where rebaptized after the organization ceremony. Before the organization the church had not existed. As such they had not been baptized into the church. But only for the remission of sins. They were then re baptized as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Much the same way that John would baptize them and then the Apostles would baptist them again after Christ organized his church.