2/12/14

From Jim McGuiggan... Baptism: No trivial issue


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.)