Why faith and not baptism?
A reader acknowledges that in the NT the baptism of a trusting penitent sinner is a part of the conversion experience and is connected to the forgiveness of sins. But he also notices that the NT says we are justified "by faith" and never says that we are "justified" by confession or repentance or baptism or other faith-filled obedience. He asked for comment on that.I need to make clear at the outset that justification, salvation, reconciliation, forgiveness, eternal life, sanctification, and the like, are all intimately related concepts and they all come to focus in Jesus Christ. But—and this is an important but—to reduce the meanings of these words to the point that they are all "saying the same thing" would be tragic as well as misleading. It just isn’t true that "saved" is the same as "justified" even if the two terms relate to the same person. Vincent Taylor is right when he insists that we mustn’t devalue our verbal currency. The glory and richness of the gospel is obscured when we say of such words, "they all mean the same thing." They do not. When Paul says we are "justified by faith" (Romans 5:1) he is not saying we are "saved by faith" even though the one involves the other. Each of these big words has its own contribution to make in describing the glorious relationship we have with God in Jesus Christ.
It’s true the NT never says we are "justified by confession or repentance or baptism." But the NT does say that we are saved by baptism through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21). And the NT does say that confession by the mouth is unto salvation (Romans 10:10). And the NT does say that repentance is unto life (Acts 11:18). And the NT does say that repentance and baptism are unto the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). And the NT does say that baptism is into Jesus Christ and into his death (Romans 6:3-7). And the NT does say that obedience is unto righteousness/justification (Romans 6:16). And so forth.
Yes, but it never says that we are justified by confession or repentance or baptism, and this is the point the reader makes! This is true and the reader wonders why that is.
There must be numerous reasons for that. One of them must surely be that "baptism" is an ordinance from God that has no meaning apart from faith. If it is not the expression of the faith of the one baptized, whatever else it is, it is not the baptism spoken of in the NT. It follows from this that faith is the more embracing and the more fundamental reality. To isolate NT baptism from faith is to destroy it. As a faith-filled act baptism has profound truths to tell but, again, if it doesn’t express the underlying notitia (taking note of the message when heard), assensus (genuine agreement to the truth of the message) and fiducia (the trusting commitment of the heart and will to the One we've heard of) all of which is NT faith--if baptism doesn't express that it is nothing! By its very nature, faith must be the inner reception of the gospel message. Consequently it’s a larger and richer human response than baptism. And since it expresses itself in baptism it is prior to baptism. Baptism doesn’t give meaning to a person’s faith; it expresses it! Baptism doesn’t give meaning to a person’s faith; faith gives meaning to baptism.
You can see this illustrated in Galatians 3:26-27. In 3:26 Paul insists that the Galatians are sons of God "through faith" in Christ Jesus and goes on to say (using an explanatory gar—for or because) "all of you who were united with Christ in baptism have been clothed with Christ." He’s explaining that they became children of God not by commitment to the Jewish Torah because it wasn’t into Judaism or into the Jewish community they had been baptized; it was Christ they were baptized into and it was Christ with whom they were clothed. They hadn’t come into a particular ethnic or cultural or social society by faith; no, they entered Christ in whom all that divides and segregates humans is done away with.
But perhaps more to the point they didn’t enter Christ and they were not clothed with Christ by committing to Judaism, with its ethnic exclusivity. No, they entered Jesus Christ by faith, which in Galatians is made to stand over against Judaism and the Sinaitic covenant.
Let me repeat, baptism isn’t big enough to carry the load that Paul wanted carried. Nevertheless, Israelites were "baptized unto Moses" (1 Corinthians 10:2) as the Corinthians had been baptized into Christ (compare Acts 18:8). Baptism in those cases stands for the faith which baptism expresses. And Paul feels free to ask some believers "to what therefore were you baptized?" (Acts 19:3; the NIV is not at all helpful here.) He asks nothing of their faith (in the wording, I mean) because when they tell him what they were baptized unto he would know about their faith (that is, what they had learned and committed to). So baptism is, very occasionally, a stand-in for faith. But by the very nature of things, and in light of what Paul and others are contending with, baptism isn’t a big enough word.
So that, I think, is one reason, why we don’t find baptism spoken of in the way we find faith spoken of.
But there’s something more important and more to the point. Justification "by faith" is shorthand for saying "justification by faith in Jesus Christ." The NT doesn’t teach justification by faith—it teaches justification by faith in Jesus Christ.
We mustn’t take the "personal" out of saving commitment to Christ. Others cannot believe for me, that is, in my stead. If I am to enjoy life in Jesus Christ in response to my hearing the gospel, I must commit to Jesus Christ. [I hate having to say that; it should not need to be said but...]
Nor must we take the "trust" element out of biblical faith. With the Lutheran and generally Reformed stress on salvation by grace as opposed to self-salvation by moral attainment that needs to be said also. There is no self-salvation! There never was! Nor can there ever be! If we have a Pelagian hair in our head we should pluck it out and burn it! If we have a Pelagian thought that lives in our heart we should hunt it down as though it were a dangerous and rabid animal, and kill it, without mercy or remorse! [This presumes that Pelagius was all Augustine and Jerome said he was and that is becoming increasingly doubtful.]
Nevertheless, we should not take the truth-content out of biblical faith. "Faith in Jesus Christ" is not simply the description of what goes on inside a person. It is not only how a person reacts within to the gospel message, it is not simply a heartfelt attitude we have toward Jesus Christ—it must contain the essentials of the gospel message if it is to be saving faith. NT faith involves the hearing and assent to the truth about Jesus Christ as well as our trusting commitment to him. Implicit trust in Joseph Smith or Mohammed as prophets may be as real as a Christian’s implicit trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour; but the truth-content is altogether different.
When Paul says we are "justified by faith" he is saying we are "justified by faith in Jesus Christ." He is making truth claims. Other proposals were being made and Paul was rejecting them and affirming the truth of the gospel. He wasn’t talking (merely) about the psychological change in a person’s heart or the attitude they had toward Jesus Christ. In, Romans and Galatians, for example, people were proclaiming justification by subscribing to the Jewish Torah. This narrowed the privilege of life in Jesus Christ to Jews and those who would commit to living as Jews under the Torah (be sure to see Galatians 2:14-16). That understanding undermined the gospel which was open for all, independent of adherence to the Jewish Torah (compare Romans 3:21,26).
In those places Paul isn’t isolating "faith" from obedience to Jesus Christ (see Romans 6:8 and Romans 2:6-16)—that’s a 16th century move. He’s insisting that faith (that is, faith in Jesus Christ) is a whole new arrangement, a whole new revelation of God’s unfolding scheme of redemption, a whole new way of believing. The elect of God were re-defined in Jesus Christ. Formerly election meant you had to be Abraham’s physical descendant through Jacob with the covenant at Sinai and all that went with that (compare Acts 15:1-2). It was flesh and Torah. Paul taught that he no longer knew Christ after the flesh (see 2 Corinthians 5:16-17). A new era had arrived—the era of faith (in Jesus Christ).
Before faith came, he says, we were under the law (Torah)—Galatians 3:23-25. He wasn’t saying, "Before Jesus Christ you were justified by moral attainment (if you could manage it—which you couldn’t) but now you are justified by trusting in Jesus rather than trusting in yourself." God never required anyone at anytime to earn life by moral achievement! That’s a myth. Life with God was always a gift from God and faith in God was always essential to life. In Galatians Paul was opposing the "gospel" (see 1:6-9) of an exclusively Jewish Saviour. He had a specific agenda and in place of a gospel that was only for Jews and therefore was inextricably connected with submission to the Torah—he offered the gospel of life, salvation, justification by faith in Jesus Christ.
So when Paul says we’re justified or saved by faith he isn’t talking about "faith" as something distinct from heartfelt submission to Jesus Christ (expressed in repentance or confession or baptism or faith-filled obedience). To abstract faith in that way, in my view, misses the point entirely. What’s in Paul’s mind isn’t faith versus faith-filled obedience. It’s faith versus flesh & Torah
Faith (in Jesus Christ) embraces the content of a person’s convictions as well as the total personal response to it.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.