Baptism
On a Saturday evening as I stared into two inches of cold water in the bottom of the church’s baptismal tank the thought came unbidden, “I should have been an Anglican! Or a Catholic! Or a Lutheran!” The tank should have been full of to the brim with whirlpool warm water by now. It wasn’t– and that meant the baptismal service was going to be very cold. We Baptists, after all, are little concerned with the temperature of the water but, we are absolutely convinced that there must be a lot of it. This wasn’t the first time that baptism by immersion had caused me trouble. There was the first outdoor baptism I ever performed. The candidate shared his testimony on the beach and I told him, “Let’s walk out until the water is waist deep.” We walked until the congregation on the shore was barely visible and the water still hadn’t risen above our knees. Another time I miscalculated the time it would take to fill the tank. On that occasion the beanie babies, and matchbox cars that had been carefully stored away for Operation Christmas Child were all buried with Christ in the waters of baptism.
Across the church there are a wide variety of practices relating to baptism. There are two things that make our practice of baptism unique. The first is that we baptize only believers. The second is that we baptize by immersion. So why do we do it this way? There’s a bit of doggerel now approaching two hundred years old that attempts an explanation:
Not at the Jordan River,
But in the flowing stream,
Stood John the Baptist Preacher,
When he baptized the Lamb,
So Jesus was a Baptist,
And thus the Baptists came.
So there you have it! John was a Baptist and Jesus was a Baptist so, why would anybody ever do anything any differently? As is usually the case the answer is a little bit more complicated..
The Baptism of Believers
On the day of Pentecost Peter, got up to preach the first sermon in the history of the Christian church then he went to the back of the church to shake everyone’s hand and hear them tell him what a nice sermon it was. Well, not quite! If they had been in a church Peter never would have made it to the back. His sermon had left everyone clambering for an answer to one question, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter’s answer is straightforward, “Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:37-38). This is the beginning of a pattern that will occur throughout the book of Acts. The first step in response to Jesus has two parts that are wound intricately together: repentance/ belief and baptism. They are never separated. This is what happens when Philip preaches the gospel in Samaria (Acts 8:12). It is what happens when Peter preaches to Cornelius and his friends (Acts 10:43-48). It is what happens when Paul preaches to the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:30-34). This tying together of belief and baptism in the New Testament is the reason our church practices believer’s baptism.
Baptism by Immersion
Contrary to the poem above, John wasn’t the first Baptist. I am somewhat disappointed to tell you that Jesus wasn’t a Baptist either. The first Baptist didn't arrive on the scene until 1609. That’s the year that John Smyth stood in front of his congregation of English refugees living in Holland and baptized himself by pouring, before proceeding to baptize the rest of his congregation. Yes, you read that right the first baptist baptized himself and, yes he did it by pouring. In fact, baptism by immersion wasn’t commonly practiced until several decades later. If nothing, else this little history lesson should teach us to hold our view humbly! It also leads to a question– what changed between the beginning and the middle of the 1600s? Why begin with pouring and then change to immersion? Remember, this is the time of the reformation and during the reformation there is a sense among some people that everything needs to be questioned. It is no longer enough to argue from tradition instead, the church must be taken back to its source– the New Testament. When Smyth’s descendants begin to examine what the New Testament says about the how of baptism, they take note of several things. First, the usual meaning of the Greek word for baptism is something like “to dip.” Second, they notice that the practice of the early church is to bring the believer to the water and not the water to the believer. For instance when the Ethiopian eunuch decides to be baptized he doesn’t pass Philip the bottle of Evian from the cup holder in his chariot. Instead they take advantage of the fact that they are close to enough water for them to “go down into” and "come up out of” it (Acts 8:26-40).
Now you might say, “So what? Is it really important that we try to copy this way of doing baptism?” Fair enough but, before we make room on the stage by boarding up the baptismal, consider one more thing. Consider the meaning of baptism– not the word but the act. What does it mean to be baptized? This is a difficult question to answer because baptism is a symbol that points in a variety of directions. It is the washing away of our sins. It is the putting off of sin and the putting on of righteousness. It is also death and new life. In Romans Paul vividly describes baptism as being “buried with Christ” and being raised “to walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:1-4). This being buried with Christ and raised to new life is beautifully shown in the act of baptism by immersion. The believer is buried in the water and his or her old sinful person is put to death. They emerge from the water as if raised from the dead. Through the power of God they are new people, created for a new life.
This is what we believe about baptism. This is the reason I refilled that tank and entered into the cold water– to testify to the life-giving power of the gospel.