A plea for solid reflection on the meaning of baptism
Baptists have excelled at emphasizing the biblical requirements for a true baptism, namely baptism should be by immersion and believers only are the proper subjects of baptism. What they have not always been equally adept at is explaining the answer to this question: what does baptism mean?
Yesterday evening when I got home from Quebec I watched a baptism via the wonder of the internet and heard a relatively extensive discourse about what baptism is not: it is not a saving event, the water is not important (by which I gather the baptizer meant that the water contains no “sacramental” properties—surely he could not have meant that baptism does not require water, which would be very odd for a Baptist to assert), and that baptism is merely a symbol.
Listening to this largely negative explanation of what baptism is not, I was struck by the fact that our Baptist forebears in the defining eras of Baptist thought—the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—would have had some concerns about these remarks. They had a rich baptismal theology. The remarks that I heard yesterday preceding the baptisms were wafer-thin in real theological reflection and stemmed more from the nineteenth-century Baptist reaction to the genuine theological errors of Campbellism than the biblical witness.
For instance, what does one make of this remark by the venerable Andrew Fuller: “The immersion of the body in water, which is a purifying element contains a profession of our faith in Christ, through the shedding of whose blood we are cleansed from all sin. Hence, baptism in the name of Christ is said to be for the remission of sins. Not that there is any virtue in the element, whatever be the quantity; nor in the ceremony, though of Divine appointment: but it contains a sign of the way in which we must be saved. Sin is washed away in baptism in the same sense as Christ’s flesh is eaten, and his blood drank, in the Lord’s supper: the sign, when rightly used leads to the thing signified” [The Practical Uses of Christian Baptism (Complete Works, III, 341)]. This statement “leads to the thing signified” seems to mean that when the person being baptized has such a faith as Fuller describes, then baptism confirms this faith and the individual’s share in the benefits of the gospel.
In other words, baptism is the place where conversion to Christ is ratified and, to borrow a phrase from another great Calvinistic Baptist theologian of the eighteenth century, John Gill, “faith discovers itself.” [An Exposition of the New Testament (1809 ed.; repr. Paris, Arkansas: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc., 1989), I, 495, commentary on Mark 16:16].
We need to recover this rich baptismal thought of our forebears that was drawn from the extensive discussion of baptism in the New Testament, and move beyond the largely negative picture of baptism I heard yesterday on the internet.
This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 9:07 am and is filed under Baptist Life & Thought. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:07 am
I totally agree! I am a missionary pastor from Britain working in Russia. One of the authoritative statements of faith in our denomination is Oncken’s 1847 Hamburg Baptist Confession which clearly teaches baptism and the Lord’s Supper as means of grace and not merely symbolic.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Thanks for this great reminder that Baptist emphases are directed to what the Bible teaches about baptism, rather than what it does not teach (though the latter is also important). The emphasis of Scripture should undoubtedly be our emphasis.
But, what if the person is fairly new to the baptism by immersion game having been in a Presbyterian church for a long number of years? The move to practicing believer’s baptism by immersion can be quite big and a lot to take in. Understandably, not everyone will get their p’s and q’s in order right away. It most definitely requires some teaching and reminding them of our Baptist forebears. But sometimes the failure can be appreciated in light of the context.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Fully agreed Ian. As usual there are nuances that need to be expressed.
Michael.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Quote from Fuller. I disagree with your interpretation. This is a quick repsonse – will think more about it.
Michael, with your view – you are too cautious. You should be more bold. Fuller was not saying what you say he was. If you are on the right lines, he was saying that baptism actually brings us to Christ, brings us to forgiveness etc. In other words, a full-blown sacramentalism. Baptism actually saves! To go half-way as you have done fails to get to grips with Fuller.
I am sure Fuller was NOT saying this. He was saying that baptism points us, directs us to, displays for us, forgiveness etc.
I will think more about it – and read Fuller – but this is my first reaction.
As for Gill, ‘discover’ means ‘reveals’, ‘displays’
Regards as always
David
May 6th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Dear David:
Thank you so much for your insightful remark. Do let me know further thoughts. I agree: Fuller was not enunciating a full-blown sacramentalism.
Hope you are well.
In Christ,
Michael.
May 7th, 2009 at 3:39 am
Forgive my length:
‘Leads to’ can mean ‘causes to go, provides access to, brings to, results in’ (see Concise). In other words, Fuller may have been saying that baptism causes, gives access to, brings to, results in remission of sins; that is, he was advocating a full-blown sacramentalism. But there is another possibility. ‘Leads to’ can mean ‘guiding, showing the way, directing, indicates, shows’ (see Concise); that is, he was saying that baptism, as a sign, points out, shows the way of remission of sin. Which is it? The issue must be decided on more than linguistic evidence. What was his overall tone? Did he speak in sacramental terms? Not at all.
Before he reached: ‘The sign, when rightly used, leads to the thing signified’, commenting on Gal. 3:27, he said: ‘The allusion is to the putting on of apparel, as when one that enters into the service of a prince puts on his distinguishing attire; and the design of the sacred writer is to remind those of them who had before professed the Jewish religion, that by a solemn act of their own they had, as it were, put off Moses, and put on Christ. There is a putting on of Christ which is inward, and consists in relinquishing the former lusts, and being of the mind of Christ; but that which is here referred to appears to be an open profession of his name, to the renouncing of everything that stood in competition with him… The amount is: That as many as were baptised in the primitive [apostolic] ages were voluntary agents, and submitted to this practical ordinance for the purpose of making a solemn and practice profession of the Christian faith… Such, brothers, is the profession we have made. We have not only declared in words our repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, but we have said the same things by our baptism…. We have confessed him…’.
Immediately following: ‘The sign, when rightly used, leads to the thing signified’, he said: ‘Remission of sins is ascribed by Peter not properly to baptism, but to the name in which the parties were to be baptised… The death of Christ is emphatically mentioned as that into which we are baptised. “Know you not that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into his death”?… the immersion of the body in baptism, being in the likeness [of this]…’. All emphases are his.
By the way, I do not think that Rom. 6, Gal. 3, Col. 2 speak of water baptism – so to that extent I do not agree with Fuller. Those who do think those passages (and others, principally 1 Cor. 12) speak of water baptism, have to come either to the sacramental position that baptism actually saves, or else they have to gloss and say that baptism ‘represents’ what is being spoken of. I see no glimmer of a suggestion of baptism representing anything in those passages. To my mind, they teach that spiritual baptism does unite to Christ.