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Just Once Before I Die
Authentic Community, Part II: The Initiatory Ordinance - Baptism
Matthew 28:18-20
18And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Just over 10 years ago, some atheists in France began promoting a “debaptism movement.” At the time, forty-five million of France’s fifty-five million people had been baptized. Again, at the time, the atheists claimed that somewhere between one thousand to three thousand people had asked to have their names taken off the baptismal rolls.1 This story resurfaced in March of last year when it was reported that, “
More than 100,000 Britons have recently downloaded "certificates of de-baptism" from the Internet to renounce their Christian faith.
The initiative launched by a group called the National Secular Society (NSS) follows atheist campaigns here and elsewhere, including a London bus poster which triggered protests by proclaiming "There's probably no God."
"We now produce a certificate on parchment and we have sold 1,500 units at three pounds (4.35 dollars, 3.20 euros) a pop," said NSS president Terry Sanderson, 58…. In Spain, the high court ruled in favor of a man from Valencia, Manuel Blat, saying that under data protection laws he could have the record of his baptism erased, according to a report in the International Herald Tribune.
Similarly, the Italian Union of Rationalists and Agnostics (UAAR) won a legal battle over the right to file for de-baptism in 2002, according to media reports. The group's website carries a "de-baptism" form to facilitate matters.
According to UAAR secretary Raffaele Carcano, more than 60,000 of these forms have been downloaded in the past four years and continue to be downloaded at a rate of about 2,000 per month. Another 1,000 were downloaded in one day when the group held its first national de-baptism day last October 25…2
Debaptism? Can you believe it?
And yet, the whole weird phenomenon raises an interesting question: is it possible that atheists seeking a debaptism might understand baptism and take it more seriously than many who have been baptized but never really think about what it means? After all, to want to get rid of your baptism you have to first of all believe that baptism means something, that it’s making a statement, that it’s a mark of identification on you.
Could an atheist who wants to be debaptized have a better understanding of baptism than some of us?
It’s an interesting question and a disturbing thought.
I do suspect that our understanding of baptism is deficient. In our tradition we have a pesky habit of devaluing baptism, of always speaking about what baptism is not, of reducing the importance of this command from our Savior. But it does not have to be this way. In fact, I believe that a New Testament understanding of the act of baptism is revolutionary once it’s been grasped. I believe that understanding our baptism rightly can have a profound effect on how we live our lives as Christians. And so what I’d like to do is present to you a positive, constructive, biblical case for baptism. Our journey towards New Testament enactment will not be complete until we grasp what I’m calling here the “initiatory ordinance” of baptism.
I. Baptism is the initial act of obedience for new disciples.
Verses 18 and 19 of Matthew 28 are important in that they establish a basic principle concerning baptism and who it is intended for:
18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Who is the “them” that we are to baptize? They are the “disciples” from all nations. That is, the New Testament teaches what Baptists have traditionally called “believer’s baptism.” Disciples are baptized. That means that those who have come to Christ in repentance and faith, have taken the hand of the Savior, and have bowed heart and knee before His Lordship are the ones who are to be baptized.
I want to acknowledge at this point that there are almost certainly some in the congregation today or listening on the radio or watching on TV who hold to the other major position called “paedobaptism” or “infant baptism.” Please understand that I feel compelled to preach the Scriptures as I understand them, but it is not my desire to cause unnecessary offense to you. I will not, therefore, be preaching against infant baptism so much as I am going to preach for believer’s baptism, for truly I believe that believer’s baptism is the biblical position. I would simply challenge all of us to search the scriptures and ask this question, “In the New Testament, who is the object of baptism and to whom is baptism to be applied?”
I believe you will find that the New Testament consistently records the baptism of disciples, those who have come to Christ in faith.
This understanding of baptism exerts a strong hold on you once you come to see it in the scriptures. For instance, theologian Timothy George has summarized well the role that believer’s baptism has played in the life of some of the founders of the modern missionary movement:
“On February 19, 1812, Adoniram and Ann Judson, a couple of newlyweds, bade a tearful farewell to their family and friends and boarded the Caravan, a three-mast brig in Salem harbor, and began the long ocean voyage from Massachusetts to India. Convinced that God had called them to spend their lives in missionary service, the Judsons devoted themselves to prayer and intensive Bible study during their four months at sea. Judson had studied the Greek New Testament at Andover Seminary, and he poured over the meaning of the word baptizo. As he and Ann studied the meaning of baptism in the N.T., they both became convinced that this sacred rite was intended for believers only. Both of them had been baptized as infants and brought up in godly Congregationalist families, but when they reached India they made contact with the renowned Baptist missionary William Carey and requested baptism in keeping with their newfound convictions. On September 6, 1812, they were immersed at Calcutta in the baptistery of Carey’s Lal Bazar Chapel by William Ward.
Their friend Luther Rice, who had followed the Judsons to India on another ship, also became unsettled in his own views about baptism. After further study and prayer, he too was baptized as a believer on November 1, 1812."3
I do believe that scripture bears a clear and consistent testimony that disciples are to be baptized.
Perhaps you will notice that whenever we baptize somebody here at First Baptist Dawson I ask them, “What is your confession of faith?” They reply, “Jesus is Lord.” Whenever I counsel with prospects for baptism I stress to them the importance of their truly believing these words. In fact, I encourage them not to say this confession if they do not believe it truly.
When I say that baptism is the “initial act of obedience” for the new believer or disciple, I am not suggesting that they do not have opportunity to obey before the moment of actual baptism. I mean instead that it is the first stated command of Christ they are to obey: they are to follow Christ in baptism.
We do not believe in what’s called “baptismal regeneration.” Baptism does not contribute to our salvation, but it is what the saved do. In fact, baptism is so important that I do believe there is reason to at least challenge one who might say that he or she is a disciple but that they do not care about being baptized. If you are a disciple you will care about the commands of your Savior and King, the first of which is baptism for the new disciple.
Baptism, then, does not contribute to salvation, but it does contribute to discipleship and sanctification. It plays an important role in how we know and follow Christ.
To be a disciple, then, is to be baptized.
II. Baptism is Trinitarian and therefore makes a powerful theological statement.
Luther Rice, the friend of the great missionaries Adoniram and Ann Judson who I mentioned above, who was baptized on November 1, 1812, wrote these words in his diary entry for that day: “Was this day baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity. The Lord grant that I may ever find his name to be a strong tower to which I may continually resort and find safety.”
It is indeed interesting that Luther Rice would reflect on “the name of the Holy Trinity” on his baptism day. After all, Jesus connected the act of baptism with the Trinitarian name in Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
When you are baptized, you are baptized into a name, and not just any name. You are baptized into the Trinitarian name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Now, being baptized into the name of God doesn’t mean that His name is used as an incantation over the waters. Rather, it means that you are saying in and through the act of baptism that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is the God before whom you bow. In other words, baptism is a profound theological statement of conviction. You are saying that God is your God and you are His.
When we speak of the church as “an authentic community around the whole gospel for the glory of God” we are speaking of a community of disciples who have been baptized by conviction in the name of God.
The church is not a casual association. The church is a body of professing believers who have followed Christ’s instructions and example by being baptized.
Think, for instance, of the powerful statement that baptism makes about your convictions concerning Jesus Christ. We believe that baptism is a powerful symbol of a profound truth: that Christ has been crucified, that Christ was buried, and that Christ has risen again.
Jesus spoke of His atoning work as a baptism in Mark 10:35-40:
35 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." 36And he said to them, "What do you want me to do for you?" 37And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." 38Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" 39And they said to him, "We are able." And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, 40but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared."
In fact, Jesus' very coming was a kind of baptism or immersion, wasn't it? Just think about it: He leaves the right hand of His Father, He comes to earth, He is crucified, He dies, He is buried, He rises again. Then He ascends back to the right hand of the Father. Jesus' very ministry was a baptism.
Then Paul tells us in Romans 6:3-5:
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
To be baptized, then, is to make a profound and powerful statement about the death and resurrection of Jesus and our place in those great events!
To be baptized is to remember Christ and to preach Christ.
The great Baptist from yesteryear, B.H. Carroll, once reflected on the day he was baptized. His recorded memory of the event stands in marked contrast to much of the “ho-hum” attitude that some take towards baptism today. Carroll was baptized in 1865 after coming under conviction about the ugliness of his own sins and the beauty of the gospel of Christ. He was baptized near Caldwell, TX, in Davidson Creek by a friend of his named W.W. “Spurgeon” Harris. Listen to his beautiful description of the event:
“As I went down into the water I thought of Christ’s burial and my own future burial. I saw myself cold in death. I thought of Christ’s triumphal resurrection. I felt in mind the earthquake shock and heard the chains of the terrible one bound to his chariot. The supernal glory of His demonstrated divinity illumined my heart. I thought of my own future resurrection, the trumpet sound, the waking dead, the white throne judgment, and my place at His right hand; my heart overflowed with love and joy and peace.”5
Likewise, Charles Spurgeon, who was baptized fifteen years before Carroll on May 3, 1850 (when First Baptist Dawson was one year old!), in River Lark at Isleham on the border of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, said this about his baptism: “I was privileged to follow my Lord, and to be buried with Him baptism.” He called his baptism a “[s]weet emblem of my death to all the world.”6
When you are baptized, you are making a strong statement about who you think God is and what He means in your life. Specifically, you saying that you have been crucified with Christ, raised with Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and born again from God the Father.
Have you considered the sermon you preached at your baptism? Have you considered the statement you made when you went under the waters?
III. Baptism is a covenantal statement made in the assembly of God’s people.
When you are baptized, you are also saying that you stand with the people of God in the present and throughout time who have made a similar move of obedience and proclamation. You are baptized into Christ, but you are baptized with the church, and that is no small thing.
We do not baptize in private. We baptize openly. We do so not only so that the people of God may see. We do so because it is a sacred, common expression of faith that binds us together as the baptized people of God.
So baptism, in this sense, is an act of covenant commitment. It is a statement that we will live with the crucified and risen again people of God here in this place or wherever we go.
I love the corporate language of Robert T. Daniel’s 1832 baptismal hymn:
Lord, in humble, sweet submission,
Here we meet to follow thee;
Trusting in thy great salvation,
Which alone can make us free.
Nought have we to claim as merit;
All duties we can do
Can no crown of life inherit:
All the praise to thee is due.
Yet we come in Christian duty,
Down beneath the wave to go;
O the bliss! The heavenly beauty!
Christ the Lord was buried so.7
I love Daniel’s use of the plural pronoun here: “Here we meet to follow thee.” “Yet we come in Christian duty, down beneath the wave to go.”
Baptism is truly a mark of an authentic community around the whole gospel for the glory of God.
It is a common expression of a shared commitment to a glorious Lord.
Your baptism should make you want to share the gospel.
Your baptism should make you want to be faithful in corporate worship.
Your baptism should make you want to encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ.
“Yet we come in Christian duty, down beneath the wave to go.”
1. RJN, “While We’re At It,” First Things. January 1997.
2. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ae71a038e9b3b47af4f0e9eac9598fd8.2b1&show_article=1
3. Believer’s Baptism, eds. Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Right (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Academic, 2006), p.xv-xvi.
4. Ibid., xvi.
5. B.H. Carroll, Baptists and Their Doctrines. Baptist Classics. (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), p.3.
6. Tim Grass and Ian Randall, “C.H. Spurgeon on the Sacraments.” Baptist Sacramentalism. Studies in Baptist History and Thought, vol.5, eds. Anthony R. Cross and Philip E. Thompson (Paternoster Press, 2003), p.57.
7. Robert T. Daniel, (1832), Hymn 823 in The Service of Song for Baptist Churches, New York: Sheldon and Company (1971), 331. Quoted in Believer’s Baptism, eds. Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Right (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Academic, 2006), p.xix.