Recently, I’ve been challenged to
explain my views on the sacrament of baptism. Today, the act represents vastly different
things to different groups. It far surpasses a simple debate between Catholics
and Protestants. The doctrine of baptism is also divisive amongst Protestants.
The debate ranges from who should be baptized (infant baptism vs. believer’s baptism)
to the mode of baptism (sprinkling vs. full immersion). However, the debate I
will cover in this post is what occurs when we are baptized. The Evangelical
notion that is most prevalent today insists that baptism is merely symbolic in
nature and represents a public declaration of a change that has already taken
place in one’s internal consciousness. In the following paragraphs, I will make
a Scriptural case that baptism accomplishes something real in the recipient. I
will lay out an argument that states baptism is the point in which one is
united to the death of Christ and is washed anew into a regenerated state. The
purpose of this post is not to spark outrage in those who disagree, but rather
to initiate a discussion regarding the means in which God works to bring us to salvation
through His son, Jesus Christ.
The
following paragraphs form the groundwork for a belief in baptismal
regeneration. I will not cover who should be Baptized (infant baptism vs.
believer’s baptism) in great detail in this post. However, the concept of
infant baptism is closely linked to baptismal regeneration. It should be noted
that the two are not necessarily held in conjunction with each other – i.e. the
Presbyterians and Reformed practice infant baptism but do not hold to Baptismal
Regeneration. Just wanted to get that
out of the way!
Our
discussion should start with defining baptismal regeneration. As painful as it
is to say, I like Wikipedia’s definition. It defines baptismal regeneration as “the name given to doctrines held
by major Christian denominations which maintain that salvation is
intimately linked to the act of baptism, without necessarily
holding that salvation is impossible apart from it.” Baptismal regeneration
does not guarantee final salvation as Scripture states that one must persevere
to the end to be saved.
Without further
ado, let’s begin setting the Biblical groundwork for a belief in baptismal
regeneration. As much as is possible, I will traverse through Scripture in
order.
Mark Chapter 16
Mark
16:14-16 reads, “Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as
they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief
and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw
him after he had risen. And he said to them, “Go into all the
world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever
believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does
not believe will be condemned.”
In
this passage (which runs parallel to the Great Commission passage in Matthew),
Mark indicates that Jesus outlines two conditions for salvation: belief and baptism.
This is a theme that you will see throughout this post – belief and baptism are
never separated. In the first book of
the New Testament, Jesus is establishing that the normative process of
salvation includes baptism. To be transparent, verses 9 through 20 of Mark 16
were not included in the original manuscript but were added a later date.
John Chapter 3
The
third chapter of John provides further detail on the nature of baptism. Jesus
is speaking to a Pharisee named Nicodemus who asks Him what he must do in order
to be saved. Beginning in verse 3, the following exchange ensues: “Jesus
answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one
is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be
born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one
is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
The
key takeaway from this passage is that we must be born of water and Spirit in
order to be saved. Throughout, the
history of the Church, “water” has been viewed as referring to water baptism. There
are a number of other theories on the meaning of “water”, but this is the one
that is most prevalent throughout history. “Spirit” is taken to refer to the
Holy Spirit, consistent with the description from Acts chapter 2, which we will
discuss later on in this post.
A
while back, I was listening to a speaker online who asserted that when God
begins a new work, he starts with water and Spirit. I can’t remember for the
life of me who the speaker was, but a little research proves the man correct.
Let’s examine the very first chapter of Scripture, Genesis 1. Genesis 1: 1-2 state, “In
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth
was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And
the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” God has
created the Earth and lo and behold, water and Spirit are found together.
Let’s
jump a few chapters to Genesis 6 through and look at another example of God
starting something new with water and Spirit. In Genesis 6, God has tired of
the wickedness of men and devises a plan to flood the Earth to destroy the
human race. Of course, Noah has found
favor with God and he builds an ark to protect he and his family from the
flood. In Genesis 8, how does Noah ensure that the flood waters have receded?
He sends out a dove! Throughout Scripture, the dove symbolizes the Spirit of
God. Once again, we have water and Spirit in the same locale. Just as God worked through water and Spirit
in historical times, he works to begin something anew in us through the sacrament
of baptism by remitting our sins.
Acts Chapter 2
Acts
chapter 2 should be very familiar to those who grew up in church. In fact, many
Christian denominations have emerged out of the desire to return to an Acts
chapter 2 model of church. The Restorationist Movement led by Alexander
Campbell and Barton Stone comes to mind. This chapter of Scripture is very important
as it represents the birth of the Church on the day of Pentecost. Amidst the
frenzy of the day’s events, someone asks Peter what the crowd should do. Beginning
in verse 38, Peter responds in accordance with Jesus’s words in Matthew 28: “Repent
and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and
for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
In
this verse, we again see the interconnectedness of faith, baptism, and the Holy
Spirit. Where one element is present, the other two are also present. In this
passage, Luke also tells us that baptism brings about the forgiveness of sins. A
real change or regeneration is accomplished through baptism rather than simply declaring
what has already happened in the internal consciousness of the new believer.
Although
this post is not intended to discuss paedobaptism vs. credobaptism, it is
interesting to note that Luke tells us the promise is not only for the new
believer – but also for their children as well as future generations. As I mentioned above, faith and baptism are
always connected. So, how can an infant have faith? The faith comes from the
parents or godparents of the infant. Baptism would not be administered to the
child of unbelievers as the faith element of the equation would be missing. Faith
and baptism can never be separated! The
idea that the faith of parents can be credited to their children is further
fleshed out in Acts 16 in the story of the Philippian jailer. Beginning in verse
31, we read: ” They replied, “Believe in
the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Then they
spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that
hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then
immediately he and all his household were baptized. The
jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was
filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole
household.”
Romans Chapter 6
In Paul’s
letter to the Roman’s, we find some very straightforward language regarding
what is accomplished through baptism. Verses 1 through 7 of chapter 6 read as
follows:
“What shall we say, then? Shall
we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By
no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any
longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into
death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been
united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him
in a resurrection like his. For we know that
our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by
sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to
sin— because anyone who has died has been set free
from sin.”
In this
passage, Paul tells us that the salvation Christ merited for us through His
death on the cross is applied to us individually in baptism. We enter the
waters of Baptism a depraved human and emerge with a regenerated, clean Spirit
that is free of the eternal consequences of sin. In baptism, we enter the
mystical Body of Christ and become heirs to the salvation and glory that could
have only been merited by Christ, Himself.
Paul is very clear that baptism plays a role in our salvation.
Colossians Chapter 2
Paul provides
additional detail about baptism in his letter to the Colossians. Chapter 2
deals with the relationship of baptism and the Old Covenant sign of circumcision.
Beginning in verse 9, we read:
“For in Christ all the
fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have
been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In
him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human
hands. Your whole self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were
circumcised by Christ, having been
buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with
him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the
dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your
flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having
canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and
condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having
disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them,
triumphing over them by the cross.”
In Old
Testament times, newborn Jewish children were circumcised (removal of the
foreskin) in order to mark their entrance into God’s covenant with Israel. In the above passage, Paul refers to baptism
as a “circumcision without hands” and a “circumcision by Christ”, drawing a
connection between the two rituals. In circumcision, the child’s skin is “put
off”. In an analogous manner, it is our sins that are “put off” in baptism. In
reading the passage you will note that Paul emphasizes being buried with Christ
in baptism and being raised with Him to new life. This should sound very
familiar to the passage we just examined from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul
is consistent in his notion that remission of sin (and thus regeneration) actually
occurs through the rite of baptism.
1 Peter Chapter 3
In our
final passage of Scripture, let’s see what Peter tells us about baptism. In Chapter
3, Peter compares the waters of baptism to the flood in Genesis. Verses 18 through
22 tell us:
“For Christ also suffered once
for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to
God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in
which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they
formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of
Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that
is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which
corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body
but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the
right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected
to him.”
Perhaps shockingly
to some, Peter tells us that baptism saves us. When the subject of baptismal regeneration
comes up, I often hear a familiar refrain – “Baptism can’t save us! Only Jesus
can save!” This passage provides an explanation as to how God works through
Christ to save us in the waters of baptism. You see, it wasn’t the water itself
that saved Noah during the flood. The water was destructive, destroying everything
in its path. It was the ark that Noah built that saved him during the flood! A
similar narrative exists within baptism. The water of baptism is destructive – it destroys
our sins and nails said sins to the cross. Nonetheless, the waters creating a
clean conscience in us. It is our refuge in the vessel of Christ that is
actually the instrument of salvation. Though the water itself is symbolic, the
grace of salvation applied through the water is very real.
The Thief of the Cross
The thief
on the cross is often used to refute baptismal regeneration. The thief was not baptized,
yet Jesus tells him that he will be in paradise. Case closed – Baptism must
only be a sign of obedience to Christ and plays no role in our salvation.
Right? Not necessarily. Scholars debate the point at which Christ instituted the
sacrament of baptism. Although Christ performed baptisms during His earthly ministry,
some scholars believe that sacramental baptism was not instituted until after
the resurrection in the Great Commission passage. If this is indeed the case,
Christ had not yet instituted sacramental baptism at the time he encountered
the thief on the cross. Thus, there would have been no need for the thief to be
baptized. The thief would have been similar to the characters from Hebrews 11
who were saved prior to the institution of baptism.
Even if sacramental
baptism was instituted by Christ prior to the Great Commission (during His
earthly ministry), it only proves that the thief on the cross was the exception
rather than the rule. Our God is sovereign and all powerful. He certainly has
the ability to save people outside of the normative method. Take aborted fetuses
for instances. God has the power to save these fetuses even though they never
had the opportunity to be baptized. An exception does not render the rule
invalid.
I know this post has been long!
Thank you for bearing with me. This is certainly not an exhaustive list of
Scriptures dealing with baptism. There are many others out there. In closing, I
believe that the above passages have demonstrated (using clear language) that baptism
accomplishes regeneration in a believer in the follow ways:
1.
Unites
believers to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ
2.
Applies the
forgiveness obtained on Calvary to individual believers
3.
Dispenses
the gift of the Holy Spirit to allow for perseverance to salvation
The entirety of this case has been derived from Scripture. I have neglected to mention the mountain of evidence from the church fathers suggesting that baptismal regeneration has been held throughout Christian antiquity. If you find my arguments to be lacking, I would highly encourage reading what the fathers of church had to say on the matter. Certainly, there is not 100% unanimity amongst the fathers, but the totality of the evidence is overwhelming and quite persuasive (to me at least!). Please
reach out to me with any questions and I can clarify in a future post or
comment!
In Christ,
Kendal May
