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Christian Baptism

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Framing the Question: Excerpts from the book by Dr. Steve Woods Christian Baptism An Introduction By The Rev. Dr. Steve Woods Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity. (1.Corinthians 16:13-14). More folks are confused about this issue than almost any other in the church. Thus, it is for that reason that I compiled this work. I make a strong appeal for intense charity (agape, Godly love) in this debate; there is way too much hostility over this matter of baptism on the part of some, both clergy and laity. Before we begin this study in earnest, let us review a few items in our minds. First, understand that the issue is really two-fold. The first part of the issue regards the proper subjects of Baptism. Should the young children and infants of at least one believing parent be baptized? That is, should you, Christian, have your baby baptized? Alternatively, should a person wait until he or she makes a public profession of faith is made before being baptized? The second part is concerned with the mode of baptism. Is the best mode sprinkling (aspersion), pouring (effusion), or immersion? We may refer to the position that one may only be baptized upon profession of faith by immersion as the Strict Immersionist view. Moreover, we may refer to the position that children may be baptized in the most proper way by sprinkling or pouring as the Reformed or Covenantal view. Both views are widely held in the true church and thus both deserve consideration. Bear in mind that the Strict Immersionist has the higher burden of proof, as this position demands exclusivity of both mode (immersion) and subjects (those who profess faith publicly). The Covenantal view does not demand exclusivity. To be sure, if you are baptized by immersion upon your profession of faith in a Baptist church, but then you wish to join a Presbyterian church, the Presbyterians will not rebaptise you (that is, if both denominational groups remain true to their confessional standards): The Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed Presbyterian Covenantal View) in Chapter XXVIII declares the following: III. Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but Baptism is rightly administered by pouring, or sprinkling water upon the person. IV. Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized. VI. The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongs unto, according to the counsel of God's own will, in His appointed time. VII. The sacrament of Baptism is but once to be administered unto any person. The Second London Confession (Baptist, Strict Immersionist View) in Chapter 29, alternatively declares the following: 2._____ Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to, our Lord Jesus Christ, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance. 4._____Immersion, or dipping of the person in water, is necessary to the due administration of this ordinance. The Baptist must show that his way is the only acceptable way, while the Presbyterian need only show that his way is a defendable way, accords with Scripture, and constitutes a methodology which therefore cannot be excluded from the practice of the church. The strength of the Strict Immersionist position seems to lie mainly in the linguistic evidence that the Greek word baptidzo (transliterated) and its New Testament derivatives can ONLY mean immerse. The weakness of that position, clearly, is that if it can be shown that the “baptidzo equals immerse only” view is not valid; that is, if baptidzo and its derivatives can indeed have other meanings, then the exclusive immersionist argument is severely damaged, perhaps beyond repair. The strength of the Covenantal position seems to lie in several areas, but the most noteworthy perhaps is the way that it ties in and hearkens back to the Old Testament practices of both baptism and circumcision. Our Covenantalists will argue that baptism replaces circumcision, and they will point out that children were included in the Old Covenant by circumcision. Therefore, children, including females, ought to be included in the New Covenant by baptism. They note that there is no evidence from Scripture or elsewhere that Jewish converts to Christianity ever complained or inquired about their children being excluded from this covenantal rite, and therefore, those children must have been included; that is, they must have been undergoing baptism. Moreover, they will argue that there are no baptisms by immersion codified in the Old Testament; and again, the Jewish converts seemed to have no trouble with the New Testament mode of baptism, lending credence to the idea that the mode was one familiar to them; in which case it would have been most likely an aspersion (i.e., sprinkling). The Strict Immersionist, then, must rebut this line of reasoning first by contending that these Covenantal positions all derive from arguments from silence. They must disprove the ties between the old covenant baptisms and circumcision on the one hand, and new covenant baptism on the other hand. Above that, they must positively advance the concept that the baptism of the New Testament represented a completely new, different, and previously unknown practice, initiating only believers with intellectual assent to the gospel into the covenant of grace. Again, this is a very thorny issue and it can be divisive. I have many good friends who may lean one way or the other, but who do not possess a clear understanding of the issues. They typically (though not always) depend upon what their pastor or someone else has told them, and typically such advice is rather one-sided and very much overly dogmatic. This causes them great consternation. Maybe they are Christians who belong to a Presbyterian church, they have a child, and now they are in some quandary over whether or not to have their baby baptized. Perhaps one worships in a Baptist church; you want to join, but you were baptized as a child in an Episcopal church. Now the Baptist church will insist that you be baptized again. Perhaps you believe that baptism should only be administered one time. What shall you do? Therefore, this treatment of the subject is intended to help clear the air. It would indeed be wonderful if the church could settle upon a common practice without the undue anger that so often characterizes debates on this issue. It is odd really that exclusionist views exist in light of the fact that there is no such malicious debate over the practice of the Lord’s Supper in Protestantism! Do you partake together, or just whenever you receive one of the elements? Do you go to the altar rail and kneel or are you served in your seat? Do you use real wine or just grape juice? No one is really fighting hard over these things. Why do we fight so hard about baptism? Like the Lord’s Supper, baptism is something we are commanded by Scripture to do, and so it is incumbent upon us as Christians to obey our Lord. You will find treatises in this book which represent both sides of this controversial issue. There is also some great material out there which is not reprinted here. For the Strict Immersionist perspective, I would recommend “Lectures on Baptism” by William Shirreff (available from Sprinkle Publications in Harrisonburg, Virginia). For the Covenantal or Reformed perspective, I would recommend “What About Baptism” by Robert Rayburn. The latter book is presently out of print but I have noticed a few copies. It might be located at www.alibris.com or at the bookstores of the Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson, Mississippi or Charlotte, N. Carolina), or at the bookstore of the Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
An Excerpt Favoring Infant Baptism Just as visible members are addressed in the epistles, Paul teaches that the child of even one believer is not "unclean," but "saintly"--"holy." In dealing with the problem of mixed marriages (1Co 7:12-16), he writes, "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy" (1Co 7:14). When this Greek term for "holy" (hagios) is used of people, its regular and consistent rendering is "saint."(27)   “The argument in a nutshell is simply this: God established His Church in the days of Abraham and put children into it. They must remain there until He puts them out. He has nowhere put them out. They are still then members of His Church and as such entitled to its ordinances. Among these ordinances is baptism, which standing in similar place in the New Dispensation to circumcision in the Old, is like it to be given to children.”– Benjamin B. Warfield, The Polemics of Infant Baptism (in his Works, 9:408) In the baptism debate, baptists have been virtually inoculated against the use of this verse (1Co 7:14). The usual vaccine is that it means a believer's child is legitimate, rather than illegitimate. The "legitimacy" position fails to be convincing, at least to me, for several reasons. Two unbelievers can have both a "legitimate" marriage and "legitimate" children. Paul's statement, however, is that "otherwise" (epei ara)--an emphatic contrast (i.e., if one of the parents was not a believer)--"your children would be unclean (akatharta), but now they are holy" (1Co 7:14). It is even more unconvincing when baptists appeal to rabbinic, Jewish sources regarding the "marriage covenant" to prove that the children of believers do not occupy the place of covenant members (as in the Old Testament and Judaism).(28) Or, when it is argued that "Paul is here employing the concept of ritual holiness found in the Old Testament," though the children are not covenantally set apart.(29) These appeals are made as though the Jews saw Gentile children from a "legitimate" marriage as being "clean" or "holy" (!). It is extremely unlikely that this former Rabbi, Paul here teaches a "ritual holiness" of the Old Testament or Judaism, but that such a child is not covenantally set apart. On the contrary, the New Testament makes it clear that Jews considered Gentile households as unclean (akatharta), regardless of the legitimacy of the Gentile marriage. Peter had to be instructed both by a vision and by the demonstrable salvation of Cornelius' household that "What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy" (Act 10:15). "God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean (akatharta)" (Act 10:28). Looking at the entire subject of the status of children, if we stand in the sandals of the First Century Jewish (and proselyte) followers of Jesus, it is incredible (truly unbelievable) to think that a believer's little children would not to be considered part of the people of God. Imagine the shock of Crispus, the synagogue leader (Acts 18:8), who believes (on Friday, let's say) that his children are in covenant with God, part of the people of God, and members of the synagogue of God. Then, on the Sabbath after Paul preaches, he finds out that--in the fulfillment of the promised seed of the women, through the covenant promises, in the fullness of time, in the era of great David's greater Son, in the Messianic kingdom and the light to the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel--now his little children have no part in the people of God! Or imagine the new proselyte family who have recently undergone the painful passage to covenant membership only to discover upon hearing of Messiah that in the new covenant his children are afforded less of a place than they were in the shadows of Judaism. From the original audience's mindset, this view of new covenant, Messianic-synagogue membership would be more than disappointing. It would be inconceivable. And more so when the First Century Palestinian religious practices are considered. Everyone acquainted with the Jewish synagogue would have been familiar with the practice of proselyte household baptism.(30) After a family had committed to be Jewish proselytes, the males of the household were circumcised and the final act which "cleansed" their Gentile uncleanness was a ritual washing, a baptism of the entire household, including infants.(31) "Infant Baptism: Does the Bible Teach It?" by Dr. Gregg Strawbridge www.girs.com/library/theology/gs_infbap.html#top
An Excerpt Favoring Immersion Upon the Profession of Faith A plain man of average intelligence has become a believer in Christ, and knows that he ought to be baptized. He knows, also, that there is a difference among Christians around him as to what is baptism - that three different actions are called baptism. He takes up his New Testament, to read in his own tongue, and to see if, as a matter of private judgment, he can determine what constitutes the baptism which his dear Saviour enjoined? What does he find? The word baptize is only borrowed into the English language, and for him does not determine anything, being used, he knows, by different persons in different senses. And he is not acquainted with Greek. But he finds the record of our Lord's own baptism; that it was in the river Jordan; that after his baptism he came up out of the water. Does some one feel like interrupting me here to say that, literally, it is "came up from the water" (Matt. 3:16)? I answer, that is true in Matthew; but in Mark, according to the correct Greek text, it is "out of" (Mark 1:10). And in Matthew, while the word "from" does not itself show that he had been in the water, it does not at all show that he had not; and the connection makes it so plain that he had, that the versions of Tyndale, Cranmer, Geneva, and King James all render "out of." The expression is like "Let me cast out the mote from thine eye," and the statement in Tobit that "a fish leaped up from the river and wished to devour the lad." So our friend is not misled by his English Bible as to this expression. He finds also that when John, after long baptizing in the Jordan, left it for another place, he went to Aenon, "because there was much water there" (John 3:23). In reading Acts, he finds that when Philip was about to baptize the eunuch they went down into the water (Acts 8:38-9), and after the baptism they came up out of the water. In reading Romans 6:4, he finds the apostle likening baptism to a burial, and arguing that believers must not and cannot continue in sin that grace may abound, seeing that their very baptism, at the beginning of their Christian course, had reference to the death of Christ, and they were buried with Christ by baptism unto death, in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead, even so they also might live a new life. From a tract by John A. Broadus, D.D., LL.D., Professor in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky. Published by the American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1904.