Go therefore … baptizing them
Introduction:
• what do you think is an issue to fight about which is worth splitting the Christian world over? As you might imagine, that is a slightly hairy question to put to a church congregation! It might be that you can hardly think of an issue at all, that the supreme value is getting on with each other – in which case you might need to re-read a few of the things that Jesus said to the Pharisees. Some things really are worth fighting about, and even worth splitting over. On the other hand, there have been great splitters in the history of the church, groups and individuals who think that any point of disagreement is a hill to die on, and so they keep slicing off this or that supposed heretic, until it’s pretty much just you and them, and there’re not real sure about you.
• it would be true to say that the European Reformation of the 16th century was one of the great church conflicts of all history, and it would be likewise true to say that much of it centered on what will be our focus for the next 3 weeks – the nature and significance of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, or what have come to be called the Sacraments. The fact that the Sacraments were at the heart of this conflict is both right and tragic – right because they touched on issues that really were worth fighting about, and yes even splitting over; but tragic because one of the very things that the Sacraments are meant to do is to bind a church together in unity in Christ. Paul says that in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – whatever past divisions there might have been between people, one of the things that baptism does is to wash them away and unite us onto a single body, that is the body of Christ and we’ll see more of that in a little while. And at the same time, the Apostle says that we who are many are one body, for we all share in the one bread. There it is again, the sharing of the bread, and for that matter the wine, uniting us in one body, and we’ll look more at that next week. In other words, both baptism and the Lord’s supper are profound moments of unity in Christ, not division.
• and that is my hope and prayer as we begin this series. I suspect that most of us hardly think about these things today – for either of 2 reasons – on the one hand, I suspect some have settled on a view of these things, and rarely revisit that view – the sacraments are more something to do than to think about. On the other hand, we live in a hugely anti-institutional and anti-objective age, and baptism and Lord’s supper are concrete and objective actions that are associated with an institution, and the result is that we just never think about them. Either way, for the next few weeks, we are going to think through exactly what the Scriptures have to teach us about baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and their place in the life of the church. [10am7pm – question time, this week and in a fortnight, to help us explore together]
1. What does baptism do?
• so, let’s start at the beginning and ask the question, why do we baptize people in the first place, and the simple answer is because Jesus told us to. I grew up without going to a church, even though I was baptized as a baby, and when God turned my life around late in high school the church I went to didn’t seem very interested in baptism, at least there were lots of people who became Christians, but I can’t remember a single baptism. So I went along for 10 years, and thought baptism was just this funny thing that some old fashioned churches did. It was only when I went to Moore College that anyone made this point – Jesus told us to baptize people, as the point of starting the Christian life, or what you might call initiation.
• see it in our gospel reading, Matt 28.18:
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, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
• in a sense, it’s a simple as that – the program Jesus has for the word is a function of the glory he has received from the Father, crucified and raise – all authority and heaven and earth have been given to him, and therefore all nations, white people black people, brown people yellow people, Indians, Arabs, Jews, Brits, Scots and even Hungarians and Australians, are to be discipled, made his disciples. And the way that disciples are made is that they are brought to Jesus, that is baptized, and to grow in obedience to Jesus, that is taught everything that he has commanded.
• the apostles were not especially confused about this – although a bit slow about the all nations bit, they knew well enough that Jesus was the Lord of heaven and earthy and all people everywhere, and therefore all should be his disciples, and that meant proclaiming Christ to them and for those who received Christ, baptizing them and teaching them – after the first Christian sermon, on Pentecost, we read, Acts 2.37, that:
when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you
and a little later on, that’s exactly what happened, v. 41:
41 So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
• and that’s the pattern throughout the history of the first churches – when Phillip proclaims the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ in Samaria, and the Samaritans believed him, they were baptized; when Philip proclaimed the good news about Jesus to the Ethiopian Eunuch, he believed him and he was baptized; when Jesus interrupts the life of the persecutor Saul and claims him as an Apostle, after being blinded by his vision of Jesus, he recovers when Ananias lays hands on him, gets up and is baptised. What jesus commanded is what the disciples did, they made other disciples by baptizing those who received the word of Christ.
[• it raises the question, where did Jesus get the idea from – was it a wholly original new religious rite that he invented? As it turns out, no, baptism has a history, and that tells us something of its meaning – 4 elements:
– First, Jesus himself was baptized, byt John the Baptiser, a remarkable occasion when heaven met earth, and the Spirit descended on Jesus; and the baptism of Jesus was a moment of identification – Jesus is identifying with us sinners who need to repent, initially there in Jordan and ultimately nailed to a cross, taking our place under the judgment of sin; and that tells us that baptism is about identification – in his baptism, Jesus identifies himself as one of us; in our baptism, we identify ourselves as one with him;
– But this itself was a re-enacting of Israel and their baptism; John didn’t pick the Jordan because it was te most convenient river going, no it was highly symbolic of the completion of the rescue of Israel, which can be called a baptism – how is that you say? Well listen to the Apostle Paul 1 Cor 10.1–2: I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, – Israel came through the waters to freedom, and that’s what baptism is all about, freedom from the enemies of God, sin and death and the journey to freedom.
– and that itself was not arbitrary – God had created life itself through the primeval waters, parting the waters to bring into being new life. And so this is the form of the thanksgiving in one of the services – thanking God for the waters of creation and life, red sea and freedom, Jesus’ baptism with us.
– but one more – Jesus takes all this and focuses its meaning on a specific event – his death and resurrection – Mk 10.35–40 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” 37 And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” 39 They replied, “We are able.” Then 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;. You will be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized; you see what Jesus is saying, the passing through water to life and freedom takes place in the baptism of Jesus, that is through his death.]
• so what is baptism?
– To be baptized is to be joined, connected, or as the Apostle Paul puts it, united o Christ, so that you are in Christ – identified with him so that what is his is yours and what is yours is his. See how he puts it, Rom 6.1: What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
– But this Christ to whom we are united is the crucified and risen Christ, and therefore baptism is also to be crucified and raised again – Paul goes on 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
- Baptised into his death – the unique, once for all events of the cross are brought to you. His death counts for you, so that you have died, and all past debts are wiped away. United to Christ’s death, your sins are dealt with, washed away, their hold on you broken. No longer are we identified by anything else other than Jesus – not sin, nor any thing for that matter. Listen to what the Apostle says in – Gal 3 – for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. You are new you, all those previous things that marked your identity are goine – this is who you are, clothed in Christ Jesus.
- But secondly, baptized also into Christ’s resurrection – death strikes you as a rather negative experience, but that’s not where we are left, just as it was not where Jesus was left; baptism is the entrance to new life and freedom – you die and you rise, Col 2.12 when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead, you are marked for a new life – Paul goes on in Rom 6 to say that having died to sin, and been made a alive to God in the death and resurrection of Jesus, therefore get busy living this new life, present your members, you body, for righteousness. Baptism includes the adoption of a destiny, a pattern of life, but precisely in the power of the resurrection life of Jesus – not just try harder to put into practice this year’s new year’s resolutions.
- Notice that this is all passive – it is something done to us, not something that we do – we don’t baptize ourselves, we are baptized firstly by God.
• corresponding to this basic meaning of baptism as being united to the death and resurrection of Jesus are the basic blessings of baptism, remember back to Acts 2, the first Christian sermon – repent and be baptized so that your sins may be forgiven and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. :
– the forgiveness of sins, symbolized in the washing of water –
– and likewise the gift of the Spirit, the Spirit who is the Spirit of holiness, and therefore the Spirit who empowers and enables living the new life into which you have been raised in baptism;
- so baptism is being untied to Christ in his death and his resurrection, being connected to him; but there’s one more thing to notice – because connected to Christ, therefore connected with the body of Christ; getting baptized and not then taking full part in the life of the church is like getting married and then going on honeymoon and then sleeping in different apartments – don’t ask such a couple to explain why they did this and how that might make sense, just tell them to stop being so stupid and get into bed; they’re married and so should live their life together, that’s what it is to be married. Same with baptism, baptized into one body, that is the body of Christ, belonging to Christ’s people – there is no such things as a lone baptized person; hence it is a community celebration, we do it on Sundays in regular services, since person is joining us, we gather round and celebrate.
2. How does baptism work?
• now this may all come as a bit of a shock – you may never have thought that the NT had such a high view of baptism. It’s worth pausing and asking the question, how does it work, how are we to understand this – 2 equal and opposite errors have dogged the church
– on the one hand, Roman Cthaolic answer is that baptism is automatic entry to glory. They have a phrase Ex opere operato – it operates from the operation itself, the mere act automatically effects the forgiveness of sin and the gift of the Spirit. But as one Roman Catholic cardinal put it, perhaps betraying his roots, the world is full of baptized non-Christians.
– on the other hand, Zwinglian answer, which says baptism, and the Lord’s supper for that matter, are bare signs – just symbols that point to a wholly different and independent reality.
- like many theological disputes, there is truth in both.
• the truth in the Catholic view is that baptism is more about what God is doing than what you are doing; or to put it more accurately, what God is doing through what you are doing – there is an objective reality to the baptism. As one author rote – it is given as the trysting place of the sinner with his Saviour. Jesus says, ‘I’ll meet you here’. And when we meet him there, Jesus is not faithless to his promises. We saw that in the way that we are not said to baptize ourselves, we are baptized, that is baptized by God.
• in other words, it’s more than a bare sign, it is a sign of grace, it is how a person becomes a Christian – but that’s not the right way of putting it – because becoming a Christian is not something that we do for God, it is something that God does to us – he redeems us, he transfers us, he rescues us, he saves us, he adopts us as one of his children. And likewise, baptism is not something we do – it is a moment where god does something to us.
• This is why there is only one baptism, as the Apostle Paul says in Eph 5 – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one entrance. Even if the minister doing the baptism are really bad, and the parents are really bad, and the water is really smelly water and the baby can’t think a rational thought, let alone have proper faith, yet God is doing something, and what God does he does well, without it ever needing to be redone. Hence, no rebaptisms – once you are a baptized person, always a baptized person. Can’t un-baptise yourself, anymore than can stop God from having created you.
- and at the same time, baptism is also an occasion of faith, an enactment of faith – an outward performance of faith. All the promises made of baptism are also made of faith in the NT, to receive Christ is to receive him in faith. In other words, baptism is the divinely appointed rendezvous of grace and faith.
• this all makes sense for the normal first century case – the worshippers in Jerusalem on that first Pentecost or the Ethiopian Eunuch – Christ is proclaimed to him, repents and believes and is baptized – all part of the same process. And that is the way to understand baptism, according to the center case. But there are also some edge cases, which raise important questions – just don’t base view of baptism around them, answer them according to your view of baptism
3. Issues on the edge
• questions –
– [adult believers, wonderful and fruitful Chridtians who for whatever reason haven’t been baptized – actually, see an example of this in Acts – Apollos, who knew the baptism of John, but not that of Jesus. Obviously fruitful Christian person, full of the Spirit – in contrast to some others, no record of him being baptized. See the same thing – story of Lynette – went to an adult baptizing church as a kid, and a kid baptizing church as an adult, and so never got there – later decided to catch up, in the context of her home group, as a fairly simple act of obedience. ]
– What about the question of infant baptism – hardly anything on this because it is a second generation issue – real issue is, do we bring up our children to be little Christians or little pagans. Of course, there is a place for a child as she or he grows to maturity, taking on the reality of the faith as theirs in an adult sense. No dispute – but the issue is more basic than that – are they little Christians or little pagans, for there is no such thing as little neutrals. And the answer is that they are little Christians, that is how you are to bring them up, like Timothy instructed from his childhood in the Scriptures, 2 Tim 3. What’s really interesting here is that word childhood is actually infant – elsewhere refers to the infants that were cast into the Nile by the Hebrew mothers, and even the unborn child, John the Baptist, who leapt in his mothers womb. So we bring up our kids as little Christians, and the only way, according to the ordinary scheme of things, that a person can be a Christian, that is claimed by God, is to be baptized. And because baptism is more about what God is doing than what we humans are doing, I trust that he can do even in the absence of a fully formed human response of faith. That is why we baptise infants, even before they can talk, just as the Israelites circumcised their infants.
– The role of confirmation – no status in the NT, but rather is the entirely predictable and thoroughly helpful complement to infant baptism – to provide a moment of public confession for a young person who has grown into her or his baptism. But nothing theological hangs on it – it doesn’t add to baptism; but it is a good idea. It’s a Scripurally high view of baptism, as providing full entrance to Christ and his church, that helps keep confirmation in place.
– Purely cultural baptism – ie people who get he kid done smply because that is the done thing. Reading a report on the church of England, for generations virtually every single child born was baptized, even as late as 1950, 2 out of every 3 babies born in England were baptized, even though most never went to church at all. Can I say we don’t do that here – take very seriously the responsibility to talk through with people what baptism is, and what they are doing when they have their child baptized. And I believe them – sometimes people say to me, ‘but they’re obviously not Christian, they don’t mean what they say, they have no intention of keeping the promises they make’; to which I say it must be a marvelous thing to be have access to people’s hearts like that, where do you get that ability, it could be useful in my line of work. None of us have the right t make private judgments like that; it may be that people
• if you are baptized – know that you have been claimed by God and given a vocation – to live the crucified and risen life.
•if haven’t been baptized, then get baptized – catch up sacramentally, where you are up to spiritually.
I get what you are saying, but I wonder if there is a more helpful question to ask than ‘do we bring them up as little Christians or little pagans?’
I think those who agree with believers baptism would still be keen to instruct their children in the ways of the Lord (in a gospel-centred way), but without assuming they are Christians (i.e. born again). I guess it might be unhelpful to assume your children are Christians when they may not be.
Waiting until your child becomes a Christian so that they can decide to get baptised themselves might make it a much richer experience for them. Baptising an unbeliever can be quite empty, for them at least.
The other discussion point might be to say that believers baptism actually paints a better picture of the gospel, while baptising an unbeliever can be misleading in this sense.