This week we are hitting the seventh article of the BF&M and the article which defines us most as a denomination (along with last weeks statements about the local church being autonomous), that being the one on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In this post we will look at what the BF&M has to say about Baptism in particular, tomorrow we will focus on Communion. To begin, the article says,
VII. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.
As we go on, there seem to be very few statements in the Baptist Faith & Message that I would not handle with a little care as to exactly what they say, but on this paragraph concerning baptism I have to admit that I am completely in agreement with what has been written.
From the beginning, they assert that Christian baptism is by immersion (as opposed to by sprinkling) which is the precedent we see in places such as with the baptism of Christ in Mark 1.9-11 and the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8.38, as well as by the linguistic analysis of the Greek word translated as ‘baptism,’ that being baptizō. This is of first importance, not that it has any affect on the persons salvation, but to be in full obedience of the symbol which baptism is to hold (and to which we will speak in a moment).
Secondly, it is “immersion of a believer,” hence us calling it “Believers baptism.” Though I love my reformed Presbyterian brothers, this is where they get it totally wrong. Baptism is not a perfect equivalent to circumcision the way they try and pursue it. Baptism is for the believer who, after placing faith in Christ as Savior and Lord, partakes in it as “a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead.” Look at the most controversial of the baptism verses, Acts 2.37-39:
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
What evidence does this give us that the baptism is for believers? Because it says that the people were under convicttion from the Holy Spirit and were seeking to respond somehow (v.37). So, Peter instructs them that, since they have been convicted (regenerated, no?) then they should repent of their sins and follow after the Lord in baptism. The following after in baptism is done as a public testimony of faith, since it is something that a devout Jew (which reasonably we should assume these people were) would not be willing to participate in.
Notice, that is all he says to them about baptism. The next verse, which is where the Presbyterians go awry, deals with the promise of the Holy Spirit’s availability. The Presbys interpret this as a promise of his actual gifting and how to receive it, that through baptism “[this] promise is [realized] . . . for your children.” However, clearly, if nothing else, this neglects the remainder of v.39 about “all who are far off,” since we never see any hurry to baptize those people in the Presbyterian church, and so should immediately be rejected as the proper understanding of what Peter is saying. (Note: for comments on why this verse doesn’t teach baptismal regeneration, see my earlier words here.)
Next, we see that baptism is done in the full Trinitarian name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is Jesus’ clear command on what to do in the Great Commission, particularly Matthew 28.19.
Then we get to the crux of why we do it. I think this is so crucial. It seems to me that some people in the Southern Baptist church cling to baptism so strongly simply because it is one of our distinctives and so is what sets us apart from the other denominations, specifically from Catholics and Presbyterians. As a whole, this is a crumby reason to be sold out on believers baptism by immersion. The true reason, the biblical reason, why our holding up the symbol of baptism in this way should always be because of what it signifies. Believers baptism by immersion is not just some form of Baptist hazing ritual. If we don’t take to heart why we are doing it then we are no better than anyone else who corrupts this act. At the end of the day, performing the correct mode and method of baptism are honestly unimportant if the symbol is still obscured.
That said, what does the BF&M say is the symbol of our baptism? It says that baptism symbolizes “the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus.” This can be easily justified in the biblical teachings on baptism found in Romans 6.3-5 and Colossians 2.12.
Finally, we see that baptism is a “prequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.” This, as I have argued previously, is most clearly seen in the order of events for the first members into the church of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. It says in Acts 2.41, “So those who [first] received his word were [then] baptized, and [afterwards] there were added that day about three thousand souls,” where we should understand that the “three thousand souls” were added to the initial body of 120 (Acts 1.15) to make up what was the church at that time. In tomorrow’s post on the Lord’s Supper we shall see a practical controversy which is arising out of the statement that baptism “is prerequisite . . . to the Lord’s Supper.”
February 28, 2009 at 3:45 pm |
“From the beginning, they assert that Christian baptism is by immersion (as opposed to by sprinkling) which is the precedent we see in places such as with the baptism of Christ in Mark 1.9-11 and the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8.38, as well as by the linguistic analysis of the Greek word translated as ‘baptism,’ that being baptizō. This is of first importance, not that it has any affect on the persons salvation, but to be in full obedience of the symbol which baptism is to hold (and to which we will speak in a moment).”
Where is the proof that Jesus and the Ethiopian were immersed?
First let me state that I believe that the most complete symbol is immersion. However, in neither case do we have evidence of immersion. That the word is used does not need to mean submersed is attested to elsewhere: “Now why do you delay ? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name…; And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.” In the first case baptizo is equated with apolouo; to wash away, in the second the concept of wash away is encapsulated in baptismos unless they were about immersing their tables in water. No, here it means to pour water on and wash away, and if the word can mean the symbol and vice verse then washing away can mean that baptism can be symbolized in pouring and fit the definition of washing away, or to overwhelm. Beyond that, the baptism of Christ on the Cross in not immersion in water. There are other cases where it does not mean immersion, and cannot such as the reference to being bapized in the sea and in the cloud where in neither case does it mean immerse. In the case of the Ethiopian, when it is said that they went up out of the water, are we to imagine that Phillip immersed himself with the eunuch? So also can be the case with Christ at his. He was not necessarily immersed any more than the ritual washings of the Jews were always immersion.
Here is a fuller definition and explanation: “to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge (of vessels sunk)
to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, to wash one’s self, bathe,
to overwhelm…
Not to be confused with bapto. The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be ‘dipped’ (bapto) into boiling water and then ‘baptised’ (baptizo) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptising the vegetable, produces a permanent change. When used in the New Testament, this word more often refers to our union and identification with Christ than to our water baptism. e.g. Mark 16:16. ‘He that believes and is baptised shall be saved’. Christ is saying that mere intellectual assent is not enough. There must be a union with him, a real change, like the vegetable to the pickle! Bible Study Magazine, James Montgomery Boice, May 1989.”
And a thing to be noted is that the pickle is not removed, but is left in the solution until it has “ripened”. In other words, to be more accurate we should immerse the candidate and leave them under until the full effecaciousness of the one we are baptized is accomplished. Our motto then perhaps should be: Immersed until the last bubble pops. Once baptized into Christ, we remain hidden… at least until the parousia when Christ will open the pickle jar to reveal the new creation. To be in full obedience to symbol, if indeed it has to do with the person and not Christ, perhaps we should not raise the same body, but that which has been completed. There is more to the definition that Scripture has for its own words than a simple lingusitic analysis.
The is a fatal flaw in the argumet for immersion only, not that it is not the best way to symbolize it (though it is incomplete), but that it is not necessary to be accounted as Christian baptism for as we admit it is a symbol and not the substance.
The BFM says that baptism is a symbol the faith of the believer. That, in my opinion overthrows the symbol. It is a symbol the work of Christ, and not the work of the believer. The candidate’s immersion does symbolize his identification with it and a separated life, but primarily it is not about the believer, but about Christ. I think in this the BFM does a gross disservice to the meaning of baptism. Though there is some truth to this: “the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus,” that is not the primary meaning, it is only derivative. Instead of an emphasis upon Christ, making it about the believer, the BFM places an emphasis upon pragmatics and not faith. But what would we expect from the SBC where pragmatics is the measure of the work of the Spirit?
Baptism is about Christ, what he did for those who will believe and not about the believing, self-sanctification, nor anything else the believer will do as a benefit of Christ’s work. It is about our identification with His works, which is as Boice says, about our union with him by him and not by anything the believer does.
‘Finally, we see that baptism is a “prequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.”’
This is a local preference with long historic support within Baptistim and without, but what is here meant by the church? Universal, or visible? And a final question, if the Supper is only for those who have been duly baptized, why is it that the believer to be a believer has already partaken of the supper before baptism? For isn’t that what it means to become a partaker in the person and work of Christ? Before one can be baptized as a believer he must have already eaten and drunk of the Lord, or as he said, they have no part in him. (aside* Was the baptism of John sufficient, for no one had “believer’s” knowledge of Christ’s work at that time and we have no record that the disciples were ever rebaptized?) So, if the fact is that a believer has already partaken, if he is a believer indeed, before believer’s baptism, isn’t it anachronistic to say that he must be baptized first? And if we go that way, doesn’t it place the priority of baptism before union and actually invoke the same kind of condemnation that Baptists say that Presbyterians are deserving of?
I think much of the undestanding of Presbyterian baptism in the minds of Baptists is a little askew of reality. But I agree that they have gotten this wrong for they make no distinction between the circumcision of Abraham and Isaac’s and Ishmael’s. His was one of a believer, theirs was not. But, even in this, the circumcision done in youth without understanding becomes for the heirs of promise that which was Abraham’s when they later understand the meaning of it. It is in that aspect that Presbyterian’s view the child’s baptism as valid and sufficient when the later come to faith. (Remember John’s baptism noted above.) How many baptisms are necessary, and if symbolic, then who says what is the only symbol that can be used? For most who are baptized in the SBC have no true knowledge of its meaning, and in all consideration are but babes, so how is the symbol legitmized? By those who say what it must mean? But what if they are wrong, as I believe they are, in the BFM? The question must be asked, and this is where the Presbyterian gets it right and the Baptists wrong, what validates the baptism for the believer, his faith, or the timing, the mode, and the authority that performs it? The later is far more Catholic than Protestant, which is why it is often said that Baptist baptism inches closer to Rome’s baptismal regeneration than the other for it becomes sacramental and not merely symbolic at that juncture.