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.
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 remission
of 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 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 in
newness 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.’
(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 — ‘Then
went 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 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; 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.
(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)