BAPTISM

EXTRACTED FROM ‘SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY’ BY AUGUSTUS HOPKINS STRONG

THE ORDINANCES OF THE CHURCH

By the ordinances, we mean those outward rites that Christ appointed to be administered in his church as visible signs of the saving truth of the gospel. They are signs in that they vividly express this truth and confirm it to the believer.

In contrast with this characteristically Protestant view, the Romanist regards the ordinances as actually conferring grace and producing holiness. Instead of being the external manifestation of a preceding union with Christ, they are the physical means of constituting and maintaining this union. With the Romanist, in this particular, sacramentalists of every name substantially agree. The Papal Church holds to seven sacraments or ordinances (ordination, confirmation, matrimony, extreme unction, penance, baptism, and the eucharist). The ordinances prescribed in the NT, however, are two and only two (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper).

It will be well to distinguish the words, symbol, rite and ordinance from one another.

1. A symbol is the sign, or visible representation, of an invisible truth or idea. For example, the lion is the symbol of strength and courage, the lamb is the symbol of gentleness, the olive branch of peace, the sceptre is dominion, the wedding ring is marriage and the flag is country. Symbols may teach great lessons. As Jesus’ cursing the barren fig tree taught the doom of unfruitful Judaism and Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet taught his own coming down from heaven to purify and save and the humble service required of his followers.

2. A rite is a symbol, which is employed with regularity and sacred intent. Symbols became rites when thus used. Examples of authorised rites in the Christian Church are the laying on of hands in ordination, and the giving of the right hand of fellowship.

3. An ordinance is a symbolic rite that sets forth the central truths of the Christian faith, and which is of universal and perpetual obligation. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are rites, which have become ordinances by the specific command of Christ and by their inner relation to the essential truths of his kingdom. No ordinance is a sacrament in Romanist sense of conferring grace but, as the sacramentum was the oath taken by the Roman soldier to obey his commander even unto death, so Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are sacraments, in the sense of vows of allegiance to Christ our Master.

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BAPTISM

Christian Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water, in token of his previous entrance into the communion of Christ’s death and resurrection or, in other words, in token of his regeneration through union with Christ.

1. Baptism is an Ordinance of Christ

A. Proof that Christ instituted an external rite called baptism.

(a) From the words of the great commission, Matthew 28:19 — ‘Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’; Mark 16:16 — ‘He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved’.

(b) From the injunctions of the apostles, Acts 2:38 — ‘And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remissionof your sins’.

(c) From the fact that the members of the New Testament churches were baptised believers, Romans 6:3-5 — ‘Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection’; Colossians 2:11,12 — ‘in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.’

(d) From the universal practice of such a rite in Christian churches of subsequent times.

The only marked exceptions to the universal requisition of baptism are found in the Society of Friends and in the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army does not regard the ordinance as having any more permanent obligation than feet washing. General Booth: ‘We teach our soldiers that every time they break bread, they are to remember the broken body of the Lord, and every time they wash the body, they are to remind themselves of the cleansing power of the blood of Christ and of the indwelling Spirit.’ The Society of Friends (Quakers) regard Christ’s commands as

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fulfilled, not by any outward baptism of water, but only by the inward baptism of the Spirit.

B. This external rite was intended by Christ to be of universal and perpetual obligation.

(a) Christ recognized John the Baptist’s commission to baptise as derived immediately from heaven. Matthew 21:25 — ‘The baptism of John, whence was it? From heaven or from men?’ — here Jesus clearly intimates that John’s commission to baptise was derived directly from God; cf. John 1:25 — the delegates sent to the Baptist by the Sanhedrin ask him: ‘Why then baptisest thou, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elijah, neither the prophet?’ thus indicating that John’s baptism, either in its form or its application, was a new ordinance that required special divine authorisation.

(b) In his own submission to John’s baptism, Christ gave testimony to the binding obligation of the ordinance (Matthew 3:13-17). John’s baptism was essentially Christian baptism (Acts 19:4), although the full significance of it was not understood until after Jesus’ death and resurrection (Matthew 20:17-23; Luke l2:50; Romans 6:3-6). Matthew 3:13-17 — ‘Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness’; Acts 19:4 — ‘John baptised with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus’; Matthew 20:18-19, 22 — ‘the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify ... Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?’ Luke 12:50 — ‘But I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!’ Romans 6:3, 4 — ‘Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the deed through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk innewness of life.’

(c) In continuing the practice of baptism through his disciples (John 4:1-2), and in enjoining it upon them as part of a work which was to last to the end of the world (Matthew 28:19, 20), Christ manifestly adopted and appointed baptism as the invariable law of his church. John 4:1-2 — ‘When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself baptised not, but his disciples)’; Matthew 28:19-20 — ‘Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’

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(d) The analogy of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper also leads to the conclusion that baptism is to be observed, as an authoritative memorial of Christ and his truth until the time of his second coming. 1 Corinthians 11:26 — ‘For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come.’ Baptism, like the Lord’s Supper, is a teaching ordinance and the two ordinances together furnish an indispensable witness to Christ’s death and resurrection.

(e) There is no intimation whatever that the command of baptism is limited, or to be limited, in its application, that it has been or ever is to be repealed and, until some evidence of such limitation or repeal is produced, the statute must be regarded as universally binding.

2. The Mode of Baptism.

This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:

A. The command to baptise is a command to immerse. We show this:

(a) From the meaning of the original word BAPTIZO. That this is to ‘immerse’, appears: firstly, from the usage of Greek writers, including the church Fathers. Thayer, in his NT Lexicon, states that ‘baptizo’, literally means to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerge, to submerge ... metaphorically, to overwhelm. I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon that gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bible Dictionary, article on Baptism, says the same. Cheyne, Encyclopaedia Biblica, agrees that ‘such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul’s words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Romans 6:3-5).’ From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, no example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.’

Secondly, every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning ‘immerse.’ Matthew 3:6,11 — ‘I indeed baptise you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptise you in the holy Spirit and in fire’ See 2 Kings 5:14 — ‘Thenwent he [Naaman] down, and dipped himself [baptizo] seven times in the Jordan’; Mark 1:5, 9 — ‘they were baptised of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins ... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptised of John into the Jordan’; 7:4 — ‘and when they come from the market place, except they bathe [lit. ‘baptise’] themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings [lit. ‘baptisings’] of cups, and pots, and brass vessels’; Matthew

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15:2 (and the parallel passage Mark 7:4); Luke 11:38 — ‘And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed [lit. ‘baptised’] himself before dinner’; Acts 2:41 — ‘They then that received his word were baptised: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.’ Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant during the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. (On July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptised by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptise all the time. There were six men engaged in baptising, but never more than two men at the same time.) Acts 16:33 — ‘And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptised, he and all his, immediately’ – the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether public or private, provided with tank and fountain.

1. ‘Baptizo’ undoubtedly signifies immersion.

2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the NT, and in the most ancient Christian literature.

3. There is no passage in the NT that suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the word baptizo any other sense than immerse or submerge.’

(b) From the use of the verb baptizo with prepositions: Firstly, with ‘eis’ (into): Mark 1:9 — where the water of the river Jordan is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptised). See also Mark 1:2 margin — ‘and it came to pass in those days; that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee; and was baptised of John into the Jordan.’ Secondly, with ‘en’ (Mark 1:5, 8; cf. Matthew 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33; cf. Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, en is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place. Mark 1:5, 8 — ‘they were baptised of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins...I baptised you in water; but he shall baptise you in the Holy Spirit’. In Matthew 3:11 — ‘en’ is in accordance with the meaning of baptizo (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.’ Those who pray for a ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power. (See Acts 2:2)

(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance. Mark 1:10 — ‘ek’ of the water - John 3:23; ‘into’ the water - Acts 8:38-39; Mark 1:l0 — ‘coming up out of the water’; John 3:23 — ‘And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there’ — a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; Acts 8:38-39 — ‘and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch;

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and he baptised him. And when they came up out of the water. In the case of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in Sunday School Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says: ‘The baptism was apparently by immersion.’ The Editor adds that, ‘practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word ‘baptise’ was to immerse.’

(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance. Mark 10:38 — ‘Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?’ Here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane (cf. Luke 22:42 — ‘Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me’; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow; cf. Luke 12:50— ‘I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I am straitened till it be accomplished!’ Death presented itself to the Saviour’s mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering; Romans 6:4 — ‘We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life’. 1 Corinthians 10:1, 2 — ‘our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea’; Colossians 2:12 — ‘having been buried with him in baptism, where in ye were also raised with him’; Hebrews 10:22 — ‘having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water’ — here Trench, NT Synonyms, p216-217, says that ‘washed’ implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.’ 1 Peter 3:20, 21 — ‘saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ’ — as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them, that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolises.

B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ. This is plain:

(a) From the nature of the church. Notice firstly, that besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly, that the local church is not a legislative but is simply an executive body. Only the authority, which originally imposed its laws can amend them or set them aside. Thirdly, that the local church cannot delegate to any organisation or council of churches any power that it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly, that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ and would sanction all the heresies of Rome. As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both elements, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus’ command and example is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.

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(b) From the nature of God’s command: firstly, in forming a part, not only of the law, but also of the fundamental law of the Church of Christ. The power, which is claimed, for a church to change it is not only legislative but also constitutional. Secondly, is expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly, as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. For example, at first, baptism symbolised not only entrance into the church of Christ but also a personal faith in him as Saviour and Lord. It is assumed that, entrance into the church and personal faith, are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former and not to the latter. We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance, and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. ‘Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles.’ (O. M. Stone)

Objections:

1. Immersion is often impracticable. We reply that when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.

2. It is often dangerous to health and life. We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.

3. It is indecent. We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.

4. It is inconvenient. We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance, which symbolises his sacrificial death and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of

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inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.

5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them. We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him even by erroneous forms such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ’s commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.

3. The Symbolism of Baptism.

Baptism symbolises the previous entrance of the believer into the communion of Christ’s death and resurrection, or, in other words, regeneration through union with Christ.

A. Expansion of this statement as to the symbolism of baptism. Baptism, more particularly, is a symbol:

(a) Of the death and resurrection of Christ. Romans 6:3 — ‘Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?’ cf. Matthew 3:13 — ‘Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptised of him’; Mark 10:38 — ‘Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? Or to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?’; Luke 12:50 — ‘But I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!’; Colossians 2:12 — ‘buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.’ Romans 6:3-5 — ‘The argumentative requirements of the passage...demand the idea of an actual union to, or incorporation in Christ. We were buried with him [in the actof immersion] through that baptism into his death. If the baptism, which is a picture of Christ’s death, has had a reality answering to its obvious import, so that we have really died in it as Christ died, then we shall have a corresponding experience of resurrection. Baptism, inasmuch as one emerges from the water after being immersed, is a picture of resurrection, as well as of death.’

(b) Of the purpose of that death and resurrection, namely, to atone for sin and to deliver sinners from its penalty and power. Romans 6:4 — ‘We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life’; cf. 7, 10, 11 — ‘for he that hath died is justified from sin...For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye also

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yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus’; 2 Corinthians5:14 — ‘we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died.’ Baptism is therefore a confession of evangelical faith both as to sin, and as to the deity and atonement of Christ. T. W. Chambers in ‘Presbyterian and Reformed Review’ concedes: ‘It is to be admitted that nearly all modern critical expositors consider that there is a reference here [in Romans 6:4] to the act of baptism, which as the Bishop of Durham says, ‘is the grave of the old man and the birth of the new. It is an image of the believer’s participation both in the death and in the resurrection of Christ. As he sinks beneath the baptismal waters, the believer buries there all his corrupt affections and past sins and as he emerges thence, he rises regenerate, quickened to new hopes and a new life.’

(c) Of the accomplishment of that purpose in the person baptised, who thus professes his death to sin and resurrection to spiritual life. Galatians 3:27 — ‘For as many of you as were baptised into Christ did put on Christ’; 1 Peter 3:21 — ‘which [water] also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ’; cf. Galatians 2:19, 20 — ‘For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me’; Colossians 3:3 — ‘For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.’ C. H. Mackintosh (a Brethren writer) - ‘A truly baptised person is one who has passed from the old world into the new. The water rolls over his person, signifying that his place in nature is ignored, his old nature is entirely set aside. In short, that he is a dead man and that the flesh with all that pertained thereto, its sins and its liabilities is buried in the grave of Christ and can never come into God’s sight again. When the believer rises up from the water, expression is given to the truth that he comes up as the possessor of a new life, even the resurrection life of Christ, to which divine righteousness inseparably attaches.’

(d) Of the method, in which that purpose is accomplished, by union with Christ, receiving him and giving one’s self to him by faith. Romans 6:5 - ‘For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection’; Colossians 2:12 — ‘having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith is the working of God, who raised him from the dead.’ Dr. N. S. Burton: ‘The oneness of the believer and Christ is expressed by the fact that the one act of immersion sets forth the death and resurrection of both Christ and the believer.’ As the voluntary element in faith has two parts, a giving and a taking, so baptism illustrates both. Submergence = surrender to Christ; emergence = reception of Christ. ‘Putting on Christ’ (Galatians 3:27) is the burying of the old life and the rising to a new. William Ashmore holds that incorporation into Christ is the root idea of baptism, union with Christ’s death and resurrection being only a part of it. We are ‘baptised into Christ’ (Romans 6:3), as the

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Israelites were ‘baptised into Moses’ (1 Corinthians 10:2). As baptism symbolises the incorporation of the believer into Christ, so the Lord’s Supper symbolises the incorporation of Christ into the believer. We go down into the water but the bread goes down into us. We are ‘in Christ,’ and Christ is ‘in us.’ The candidate does not baptise himself but puts himself wholly into the hands of the administrator. This seems symbolic of his committing himself entirely to Christ, of whom the administrator is the representative. Similarly in the Lord’s Supper, it is Christ who, through his representative, distributes the emblems of his death and life. E. G. Robinson regarded baptism as implying death to sin, resurrection to a new life in Christ and entire surrender of ourselves to the authority of the triune God. Baptism ‘into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28:19) cannot imply supreme allegiance to the Father and only subordinate allegiance to the Son. Baptism therefore is an assumption of supreme allegiance to Jesus Christ.

(e) Of the consequent union of all believers in Christ. Ephesians 4:5 — ‘… one Lord, one faith, one baptism’; 1 Corinthians 12:13 — ‘For in one Spirit were we all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit’; cf. 10:3,4 — ‘and did all eat the same spiritual food; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ’In Ephesians 4:5, it is noticeable that, not the Lord’s Supper, but baptism, is referred to as the symbol of Christian unity. Our fathers lived in a day when simple faith was subject to serious disabilities. The establishments frowned upon dissent and visited it with pains and penalties. It is no wonder that believers in the New Testament doctrine and polity felt that they must come out from what they regarded as an apostate church. They could have no sympathy with the ones who held back the truth in unrighteousness and persecuted the saints of God. But our doctrine has leavened all Christendom. Scholarship is on the side of immersion. Infant baptism is on the decline. The churches that once opposed us now compliment us on our steadfastness in the faith and on our missionary zeal. There is a growing spirituality in these churches, which prompts them to extend to us hands of fellowship. There is a growing sense among us that the kingdom of Christ is wider than our own membership, and that loyalty to our Lord requires us to recognize his presence and blessing even in bodies, which we do not regard as organized in complete accordance with the New Testament model. Faith in the larger Christ is bringing us out from our denominational isolation into an inspiring recognition of our oneness with the universal church of God throughout the world.’

(f) Of the death and resurrection of the body, which will complete the work of Christ in us, and Christ’s death and resurrection assure to all his members. 1 Corinthians 15:12, 22 — ‘Now if Christ is preached that he hath been raised from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead.’ For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall

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all be made alive.’ In the Scripture passages quoted above, we add to the argument from the meaning of the word baptizo the argument from the meaning of the ordinance. Luther wrote - ‘Baptism is a sign both of death and resurrection. Being moved by this reason, I would have those that are baptised to be altogether dipped into the water, as the word means and the mystery signifies.’

B. Inferences from the passages referred to:

(a) The central truth set forth by baptism is the death and resurrection of Christ and our own death and resurrection only as connected with that. The baptism of Jesus in Jordan, equally with the subsequent baptism of his followers, was a symbol of his death. It was his death, which he had in mind when he said: Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?’ (Mark 10:38); ‘But I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!’ (Luke 12:50). The being immersed and overwhelmed in waters is a frequent metaphor in all languages to express the rush of successive troubles; compare Psalm 69:21 - ’ … am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me’; 42:7 — ‘AII thy waves and thy billows are gone over me’; 124:4, 5 — ‘Then the waters had overwhelmed us, The stream had gone over our soul; Then the proud waters had gone over our soul.’ So the suffering, death, and burial, which were before our Lord, presented themselves to his mind as a baptism, because the very idea of baptism was that of a complete submersion under the floods of waters. Death was not to be poured upon Christ, it was no mere sprinkling of suffering which he was to endure but a sinking into the mighty waters and a being overwhelmed by them. It was the giving himself to this, which he symbolised by his baptism in Jordan. That act was not arbitrary or formal or ritual. It was a public consecration, a consecration to death, to death for the sins of the world. It expressed the essential nature and meaning of his earthly work: the baptism of water at the beginning of his ministry consciously and designedly prefigured the baptism of death with which that ministry was to close. Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism of repentance, the rite that belonged only to sinners, can be explained only upon the ground that he was ‘made to be sin on our behalf’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). He had taken our nature upon him, without its hereditary corruption indeed, but with all its hereditary guilt, that he might redeem that nature and reunite it to God. As one with humanity, he had in his unconscious childhood submitted to the rites of circumcision, purification and legal redemption (Luke 2:21-24; cf. Exodus 13:2, 13 and Luke 2:24) — all of those rites appointed for sinners. ‘Made in the likeness of men’ (Philippians 2:7), ‘the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Romans 8:3), he was ‘to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself’ (Hebrews 9:26). In his baptism, therefore, he could say, ‘Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness’ (Matthew 3:15). Because only through the final baptism of suffering and death, which this baptism in water foreshadowed, could he ‘make an end of sins’ and ‘bring in everlasting righteousness’ (Daniel 9:24) to the condemned and ruined world. He could not be ‘the Lord our Righteousness’ (Jeremiah 23:6), except by first suffering the death due to the nature he had assumed, thereby

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delivering it from its guilt and perfecting it forever. All this was indicated in that act by which he was first ‘made manifest to Israel’ (John 1:31). In his baptism in Jordan, he was buried in the likeness of his coming death and raised in the likeness of his coming resurrection. 1 John 5:6 — ‘This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not in the water only but in the water and in the blood’ = in the baptism of water at the beginning of his ministry and in the baptism of blood, which was to close that ministry. As that baptism pointed forward to Jesus’ death, so our baptism points backward by the same, as the centre and substance of his redeeming work, the one death by which we live. We who are ‘baptised into Christ’ are ‘baptised into his death’ (Romans 6:3), that is, into spiritual communion and participation in that death which he died for our salvation. In short, in baptism we declare in symbol that his death has become ours.

(b) The correlative truth of the believer’s death and resurrection, set forth in baptism implies a confession of sin and humiliation on account of it, as deserving of death, a declaration of Christ’s death for sin, and of the believer’s acceptance of Christ’s substitutive work. It implies an acknowledgment that the soul has become partaker of Christ’s life and now lives only in and for him.

A false mode of administering the ordinance has so obscured the meaning of baptism. To multitudes, it has lost all reference to the death of Christ and the Lord’s Supper is assumed to be the only ordinance that is intended to remind us of the atoning sacrifice to which we owe our salvation. For evidence of this, see the remarks of President Woolsey in the Sunday School Times: ‘Baptism it [the Christian religion] could share in with the doctrine of John the Baptist and if a similar rite had existed under the Jewish law, it would have been regarded as appropriate to a religion which inculcated renunciation of sin and purity of heart and life. But [in the Lord’s Supper] we go beyond the province of baptism to the very penetrale of the gospel, to the efficacy and meaning of Christ’s death.’

Baptism should be a public act. We cannot afford to relegate it to a corner or to celebrate it in private, as some professedly Baptist churches of England are said to do. Like marriage, the essence of it is joining of self to another before the world. In baptism we merge ourselves in Christ, before God and angels and men. The Muslim stands five times a day and prays with his face toward Mecca, caring not who sees him. Luke 12:8 — ‘Every one who shall confess me before man, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God.’

(c) Baptism symbolises purification in a peculiar and divine way, namely through the death of Christ and the entrance of the soul into communion with that death. The radical defect of sprinkling or pouring as a mode of administering the ordinance is that it does not point to Christ’s death as the procuring cause of our purification.

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It is a grievous thing to say by symbol, as those do say who practice sprinkling in place of immersion, that a man may regenerate himself or, if not this, yet that his regeneration may take place without connection with Christ’s death. But if Christ’s death is the procuring cause of our purification, we may expect it to be symbolised in the ordinance, which declares that purification; if Christ’s death is the central fact of Christianity, we may expect it to be symbolised in the initiatory rite of Christianity.

(d) In baptism we show forth the Lord’s death as the original source of holiness and life in our souls, just as in the Lord’s Supper we show forth the Lord’s death as the source of all nourishment and strength after this life of holiness has been once begun. As the Lord’s Supper symbolises the sanctifying power of Jesus’ death, so baptism symbolises its regenerating power.

The truth of Christ’s death and resurrection is a precious jewel and it is given us in these outward ordinances as in a casket. Let us care for the casket lest we lose the gem. Through every doctrine and ordinance of Christianity runs the red line of Jesus’ blood. It is their common reference to the death of Christ that binds the two ordinances together.

(e) There are two reasons therefore, why nothing but immersion will satisfy the design of the ordinance. Nothing else can symbolise the radical nature of the change effected in regeneration, a change from spiritual death to spiritual life and nothing else can set forth the fact that this change is due to the entrance of the soul into communion with the death and resurrection of Christ. Christian truth is an organism. Part is bound to part and all together constitute one vital whole. To give up any single portion of that truth is like maiming the human body. Life may remain, but one manifestation of life has ceased. The whole body of Christian truth has lost its symmetry.

(f) To substitute for baptism anything, which excludes all symbolic reference to the death of Christ, is to destroy the ordinance. Just as substituting for the broken bread and poured out wine of the communion some form of administration, which leaves out all reference to the death of Christ would be to destroy the Lord’s Supper, and to celebrate an ordinance of human invention. Baptism, the Passover and the Lord’s Supper, is an historical monument. It witnesses to the world that Jesus died and rose again. In celebrating it, we show forth the Lord’s death as truly as in the celebration of the Supper. But it is more than a historical monument. It is also a pictorial expression of doctrine. Into it are woven all the essential truths of the Christian scheme. It tells of the nature and penalty of sin, of human nature delivered from sin in the person of a crucified and risen Saviour, of salvation secured for each human soul that is united to Christ, of obedience to Christ as the way to life and glory. Thus baptism stands from age to age as a witness both to the facts and to the doctrine of Christianity. To change the form of administering the ordinance is therefore to strike a blow at Christianity and at Christ, and to defraud the world of a part of God’s

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witness to salvation. Immersion = Death; Submersion = Burial (the ratification of death); Emergence = Resurrection (the ratification of life).’ Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the two flags of Christ’s army, and we cannot afford to lose either one of them.

4. The Subjects of Baptism. The proper subjects of baptism are those only who give credible evidence that they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit or, in other words, have entered by faith into the communion of Christ’s death and resurrection.

A. Proof that only persons giving evidence of being regenerated are proper subjects of baptism:

(a) From the command and example of Christ and his apostles, which show: firstly, those only are to be baptised who have previously been made disciples. Matthew 28:19 — ‘Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’; Acts 2:41 — ‘They then that received his word were baptised.’ Secondly, those only are to be baptised who have previously repented and believed. Matthew 3:2, 3, 6 — ‘Repent ye...make ye ready the way of the Lord ... and they were baptised of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins’; Acts 2:37-38 — ‘Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said unto them, Repent ye and be baptised every one of you’; 8:12 — ‘But when they believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptised, both men and women’; 18:8 — ‘And Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue believed in the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptised’; 19:4 — ‘John baptised with the baptism of repentance saying unto the people that they should believe on him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus.’

(b) From the nature of the church, as a company of regenerate persons. John 3:5 — ‘Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God’; Romans 6:13 — ‘neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.’

(c) From the symbolism of the ordinance, as declaring a previous spiritual change in him who submits to it. Acts 10:47 — ‘Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptised, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?’ Romans 6:2-5 — ‘We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection’; Galatians 3:26-27 — ‘For

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ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptised into Christ did put on Christ’ As marriage should never be solemnized except between persons who are already joined in heart and with whom the outward ceremony is only the sign of an existing love, so baptism should never be administered, except in the case of those who are already joined to Christ and who signify, in the ordinance their union with him in his death and resurrection.

B. Inferences from the fact that only persons giving evidence of being regenerate are proper subjects of baptism:

(a) Since only those who give credible evidence of regeneration are proper subjects of baptism, baptism cannot be the means of regeneration. It is the appointed sign, but is never the condition of the forgiveness of sins. Passages like Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:4; 16:16; John 3:5; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Ephesians 5:26; Titus 3:5; and Hebrews 10:22, are to be explained as particular instances ‘of the general fact that, in Scripture language, a single part of a complex action and even that part of it, which is most obvious to the senses, is often mentioned for the whole of it. Thus, in this case, the whole of the solemn transaction is designated by the external symbol.’ In other words, the entire change, internal and external, spiritual and ritual, is referred to in language belonging strictly only to the outward aspect of it. So, the other ordinance is referred to, simply by naming the visible ‘breaking of bread.’ The whole transaction of the ordination of ministers is termed the ‘imposition of hands’ (cf. Acts 2:42; 1 Timothy 4:14). Matthew 3:11 — ‘I indeed baptise you in water unto repentance’; Mark 1:4 — ‘the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins’; 16:16 — ‘He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved’; 1 John 3:5 — ‘Except one be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ Here Nicodemus, who was familiar with John’s baptism, and with the refusal of the Sanhedrin to recognise its claims, is told that the baptism of water, which he suspects may be obligatory is indeed necessary to that complete change, by which one enters outwardly as well as inwardly, into the kingdom of God. He is taught also, that to ‘be born of water’ is worthless unless it is the accompaniment and sign of a new birth of ‘the Spirit’ and therefore, in the further statements of Christ, baptism is not alluded to. See verses 6, 8 — ‘that which is born of the Spirit is spirit...so is every one that is born of the Spirit.’ Acts 2:38 — ‘Repent ye, and be baptised...unto the remission of your sins’ — on this passage see Hackett: ‘The phrase ‘in order to the forgiveness of sins’ we connect naturally with both the preceding verbs (‘repent’ and ‘be baptised’). The clause states the motive or object, which should induce them to repent and be baptised. It enforces the entire exhortation, not one part to the exclusion of the other’ i. e., they were to repent for the remission of sins, quite as much as they were to be baptised for the remission of sins. Acts 22:16 — ‘arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on his name’; Ephesians5:26 — ‘that he might sanctify it [the church], having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word’; Titus 3:5 — ‘according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration [baptism] and renewing of the Holy Spirit [the new birth]’; Hebrews 10:22 — ‘having our hearts

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sprinkled from an evil conscience [regeneration]: and having our body washed with pure water [baptism]’; cf. Acts 2:42 — ‘the breaking of bread’; 1Tim 4:44 — ‘the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.’

Dr. A. C. Kendrick - ‘Considering how inseparable ‘believe and be baptised’ were in the Christian profession and how imperative and absolute was the requisition upon the believer to testify his allegiance by baptism that it could not be deemed singular that the two should be united, as it were, in one complex conception. We have no more right to assume that the birth from water involves the birth from the Spirit and thus do away with the one, than to assume that the birth from the Spirit involves the birth from water, and thus do away with the other. We have got to have them both, each in its distinctness, in order to fulfil the conditions of membership in the kingdom of God.’ Without baptism, faith is like the works of a clock that has no dial or hands by which one can tell the time, or like the political belief of a man who refuses to go to the polls and vote. Without baptism, discipleship is ineffective and incomplete. The inward change (regeneration by the Spirit) may have occurred but the outward change (Christian profession) is lacking. Campbellism (a modern comparison would be the Jehovah's Witnesses), however, holds that instead of regeneration preceding baptism and expressing itself in baptism, it is completed only in baptism, so that baptism is a means of regeneration. But Peter commanded that men should be baptised because they had already received the Holy Spirit: Acts 10:47 — ‘Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptised, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?’ The Cambellites baptise sinners, and in baptism think to make them Christians. This is a form of sacramentalism.

We believe that regeneration must be so far accomplished before baptism that the subject is changed in heart and in faith and penitence must have yielded up his heart to Christ, otherwise baptism is nothing but an empty form. But forgiveness is something distinct from regeneration. Forgiveness is an act of the Sovereign, not a change of the sinner’s heart. While it is extended in view of the sinner’s faith and repentance, it needs to be offered in a sensible and tangible form, such that the sinner can seize it and appropriate it with unmistakable definiteness. In baptism he appropriates God’s promise of forgiveness, relying on the divine testimonies. ‘He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved’; ‘Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ He thus lays hold of the promise of Christ and appropriates it as his own. He does not merit it nor procure it nor earn it in being baptised but he appropriates what the mercy of God has provided and offered in the gospel. We therefore teach all who are baptised that, if they bring to their baptism a heart that renounces sin and implicitly trusts the power of Christ to save, they should rely on the Saviour’s own promise — He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved.’

Matthew 3:11 — ‘I indeed baptise you in water unto (eis) repentance’, does not imply that baptism effects the repentance. The baptism was because of the repentance, for

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John refused to baptise those who did not give evidence of repentance before baptism. Matthew 10:42 — ‘… whosoever shall give ... a cup of cold water only, in (eis) the name of a disciple’ — the cup of cold water does not put one into the name of a disciple, or make him a disciple. Matthew 12:41 — ‘The men of Nineveh... repented at (eis) the preaching of Jonah’ = because of. A good parallel, in our judgment, is found in Romans 10:l0— ‘with the heart man believeth unto (eis) righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto (eis) salvation,’ where evidently salvation is the end to which works the whole change and process, including both faith and confession.

(b) As the profession of a spiritual change already wrought, baptism is primarily the act, not of the administrator, but of the person baptised. Upon the person newly regenerate, the command of Christ first terminates; only upon his giving evidence of the change within him does it become the duty of the church to see that he has opportunity to follow Christ in baptism. Since baptism is primarily the act of the convert, no lack of qualification on the part of the administrator invalidates the baptism, so long as the proper outward act is performed, with intent on the part of the person baptised to express the fact of a preceding spiritual renewal (Acts 2:37-38). Acts 2:37, 38 — ‘Brethren, what shall we do? Repent ye and be baptised.’

(c) As entrusted with the administration of the ordinances, however, the church is, on its part, to require of all candidates for baptism credible evidence of regeneration. This follows from the nature of the church and its duty to maintain its own existence as an institution of Christ. The church which cannot restrict admission into its membership to such as are, like itself in character and aims, must soon cease to be a church by becoming indistinguishable from the world. The duty of the church to gain credible evidence of regeneration in the case of every person admitted into the body, involves its right to require of candidates, in addition to a profession of faith with the lips, some satisfactory proof that this profession is accompanied by change in the conduct. The kind and amount of evidence, which would have justified the reception of a candidate in times of persecution, may not now constitute a sufficient proof of change of heart. The church may make its own regulations with a view to secure credible evidence of regeneration. Yet it is bound to demand of the candidate no more than reasonable proof of his repentance and faith. Since the church is to be convinced of the candidate’s fitness before it votes to receive him to its membership, it is generally best that the experience of the candidate should be related before the church. Yet in extreme cases, as of sickness, the church may hear this relation of experience through certain appointed representatives. Baptism is sometimes figuratively described as ‘the door into the church.’ The phrase is unfortunate, since if by the church is meant the spiritual kingdom of God, then Christ is its only door. If the local body of believers is meant, then the faith of the candidate, the credible evidence of regeneration which he gives, the vote of the church itself, are all, equally with baptism, the door through which he enters. The door, in this sense, is a double door, one part of which is his confession of faith, and the other his baptism.

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(d) As the outward expression of the inward change by which the believer enters into the kingdom of God, baptism is the first, in point of time, of all outward duties. Regeneration and baptism, although not holding to each other the relation of effect and cause, are both regarded in the New Testament as essential to the restoration of man’s right relations to God and to his people. They properly constitute parts of one whole and are not to be unnecessarily separated. Baptism should follow regeneration with the least possible delay, after the candidate and the church have gained evidence that a spiritual change has been accomplished within him. No other duty and no other ordinance can properly precede it. Neither the pastor nor the church should encourage the convert to wait for others’ company before being baptised. We should aim continually to deepen the sense of individual responsibility to Christ and of personal duty to obey his command of baptism just so soon as a proper opportunity is afforded.

(e) Since regeneration is a work accomplished once for all, the baptism, which symbolises this regeneration is not to be repeated. Even where the persuasion exists, on the part of the candidate, that at the time of Baptism he was mistaken in thinking himself regenerated, the ordinance is not to be administered again, so long as it has once been submitted, with honest intent, as a profession of faith in Christ. We argue this from the absence of any reference to second baptisms in the New Testament and from the grave practical difficulties attending the opposite view. In Acts 19:1-5, we have an instance, not of rebaptism, but of the baptism for the first time of certain persons who had been wrongly taught with regard to the nature of John the Baptist’s doctrine. These people had so ignorantly submitted to an outward rite, which had in it no reference to Jesus Christ and expressed no faith in him as a Saviour. This was not John’s baptism nor was it in any sense true baptism. For this reason Paul commanded them to be ‘baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus.’ In the respect of not being repeated, Baptism is unlike the Lord’s Supper, which symbolises the continuous sustaining power of Christ’s death while baptism symbolises its power to begin a new life within the soul. In Acts 19:1-5, Paul instructs the new disciples that the real baptism of John, to which they erroneously supposed they had submitted, was not only a baptism of repentance but a baptism of faith in the coming Saviour. ‘And when they heard this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus’ — as they had not been before. Here there was no rebaptism, for the mere outward submersion in water to which they had previously submitted, with no thought of professing faith in Christ, was no baptism at all — whether Johannine or Christian.

Whenever it is clear, as in many cases of Campbellite immersion, that the candidate has gone down into the water, not with intent to profess a previously existing faith, but in order to be regenerated, baptism is still to be administered if the person subsequently believes on Christ. But wherever it appears that there was intent to profess an already existing faith and regeneration there should then be no repetition of the immersion even though the ordinance has been administered by the

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Campbellites (a modern equivalent might be the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses). A re-baptism, whenever a Christian’s faith and joy are rekindled so that he begins to doubt the reality of his early experiences, would, in the case of many fickle believers, require many repetitions of the ordinance. The presumption is that, when the profession of faith was made by baptism, there was an actual faith, which needed to be professed, and therefore that the baptism, though followed by much unbelief and many wanderings, was a valid one. Rebaptism, in the case of unstable Christians, tends to bring reproach upon the ordinance itself.

(f) So long as the mode and the subjects are such as Christ has enjoined, mere accessories are matters of individual judgment. The use of natural rather than of artificial baptisteries is not to be elevated into an essential. The formula of baptism prescribed by Christ is ‘into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Matthew 28:19 — ‘baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’; cf. Acts 8:16 — ‘they had been baptised into the name of the Lord Jesus’; Romans 6:3 — ‘Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?’ Galatians 3:27 — ‘For as many of you as were baptised into Christ did put on Christ’ Baptism is immersion into God, into the presence, communion, and life of the Trinity. (Matthew 28:19)

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