Baptism: No trivial issue
Tell someone you believe baptism is a part of God’s
saving process and you’re accused of believing in self-salvation. We
hear words like Pelagianism and the heresy of salvation by good works.
Tell someone you believe it is merely symbolic and a witness to a
salvation already gained before and without baptism and you’re likely to
be told that you don’t love God, aren’t interested in obeying him and
that you’re undoubtedly hell bound.
There are those who despite knowing it is called for in the New
Testament have no opinion on baptism at all, which I suppose is really
an opinion on baptism. They see it as an ordinance without significance;
well, except for those who care to invest it with significance. They
don’t practice it nor do they care that they don’t practice it so when
they hear robust dialogue about it they wonder what all the fuss is
about.
Those who see it as part of the whole conversion experience press it
hard on people and marshal texts to prove that it is part of the saving
process. Those who think it’s an “outward sign” of an already
experienced “inward grace” of salvation argue just as fervently to prove
their case and deny the other. If both sides in the disagreement are
sensitive they tend to avoid talking about it for fear of distressing
someone. It’s like talking about crazy Uncle Charlie in the presence of
highbrow strangers.
And again, those who think the whole thing is a waste of good time
and energy piously get on with “the real heart of Christianity” and
wonder why the debates go on and on. (I can’t help remembering that one
momentous night when the world was hungry and just as lost as now the
Savior took twelve men aside in an upper room and engaged in a “church
ordinance”. Only a silly person thinks baptism (or Holy Communion) is a
trivial issue. They didn’t learn this silliness from the New Testament.)
What strikes me with real force is that none of the above happens in
the New Testament. First of all, you simply can’t read the New Testament
and think baptism is a trivial issue. I won’t stop to cite texts
because that would be to kill a corpse. Whatever else we get from the
New Testament record, no one sighs and says, “Oh dear, more talk about
church ordinances when the world is starving and lost. What a pity we
have to descend to the trivial issues.” Those whose reading of the New
Testament shows them that baptism is a very significant matter shouldn’t
pretend it is otherwise neither should we intentionally give others the
impression that we think it is unimportant or trivial.
Then there’s this. No one in the New Testament ever tries to prove
anything about baptism, they simply call for it and those who are called
obey it. Did thousands want to be right with God in Christ? They were
told to repent and be baptized for forgiveness and the Holy Spirit (Acts
2:37-38). Were Christians with a Jewish background confused about their
responsibility to the torah? They were reminded of their baptism into
Christ (Romans 6:3-7 and Galatians 3:26-27). Was a penitent persecutor
waiting to be told what to do to have his sins washed away and enter a
living adventure as an apostle? He was told to wait no longer but get
himself baptized to wash away his sins, calling on the Lord’s name (Acts
22:16). Neither Peter nor Ananias nor Paul was attempting to prove
anything about baptism and the people who obeyed didn’t ask, “Do I have
to be baptized?” All this debating business is a modern thing that
developed out of Catholic--Protestant and then inter-Protestant
controversy. It isn’t New Testament! And all this reluctance to bring it
up in case it offends someone isn’t New Testament because in there
everyone just blurts it out.
Those who say the debate arose out of Pauline teaching about grace as
opposed to “works righteousness” seem to forget that the apostle who
opposed some form of works righteousness was himself baptized to have
his sins washed away as he took the name of Christ on him. They seem to
forget also that he wrote his most compelling words about grace to “the
Ephesians” even though he founded the Ephesian church by baptizing some
believers a second time. (I recognize their problem was a problem about
basic gospel truth and not merely their baptism. But he did immerse them
a second time once he had taught them essential truth and he baptized
them “into” the name of Christ--see Acts 19:1-7.)