Baptism

Westminster Confession of Faith

The Westminster Confession of faith says this about baptism:

Chapter 28 – Of Baptism. Section 1.) Baptism is a sacrament of the new testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church; but also, to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life. Which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in His Church until the end of the world.

I’m beginning with the Confession, not because I think it is authoritative like Scripture is, but because it is a statement that was agreed on and is agreed on that accurately expresses what the Bible teaches on the subject of baptism. In other words, lots of smart folks in history thought this and have thought this for a long time.

What I want to take note of is that this definition of baptism asserts that baptism makes things happen. It is not just a proclamation about truth, it also changes things. Notice these phrases:

“for solemn admission…into the visible Church;”

“a seal of the covenant of grace,”

“ingrafting into Christ,”

“of regeneration,”

“of remission of sins,”

“of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life.”

When I was a young Christian, I thought baptism was just a sign of something else—the fact of my faith in Christ’s death and resurrection, and my new life in Christ (cf. the 1689 Baptist Confession here). A sign is something that points to something else. The rainbow points to the covenant that God has made with his people. The cross is a sign that God has put our sins on Jesus and thus we are saved. The miracles in the Old and New Testaments were signs pointing to the fact that God was working in the one displaying the miracles. I wasn’t wrong. Baptism is a sign. It points to whose we are, who we belong to. But baptism is more than just a sign that something has happened. It is also the event that makes something happen.

The Westminster Confession says that things are happening when we are baptized. It isn’t just a sign that something has happened. It is that, but more is going on.

The Dictionary

Before I begin this section, let make clear again that what is following isn’t an authority on the same level as Scripture, but it does mean something, and it is the language we use. This all becomes a little more obvious when we look at what baptism means in the English language. According to the dictionary, Baptism is, “1. A religious sacrament marked by the symbolic use of water and resulting in admission of the recipient into the community of Christians. 2. A ceremony, trial, or experience by which one is initiated, purified, or given a name.” We already knew the first one part of the first use but notice that the second part of the first example says, “resulting in admission…into the community of Christians.” Here, once again, we see that baptism is an entry gate into the Church.

I would like to focus on the second definition for a bit. It says, “A ceremony, trial, or experience by which one is initiated, purified, or given a name.” We see this use when every once in a while when we hear of old WWII veterans getting together for reunions. I remember bomber crews getting together and reminiscing about the events that made them men and bound them together as a unit. They were baptized under fire (the fire of war) and they were inseparably bound together because of that baptism under fire. The difficult, and extreme nature of the event bound those men together into a particular group. And the shared experience is called a baptism.

The Bible

Now we get to what really matters. What does the Bible say about baptism? Matthew 3:11 says that John the Baptist baptized “for (or unto) repentance.” This means that when people repented and believed John about their sins and the coming messiah, they were baptized by him. The Baptism was a sign that they believed John’s message and that by being baptized were associating themselves with John and the message he was preaching. This is why later, the Apostles could say something like, “Into what were you baptized?” and the answer was “John’s baptism” (Acts 17:3).

In 1 Corinthians 10, the Apostle warned the Corinthians that if they fell from faith, they would be in danger of falling from Grace. With regard to baptism, he said, “I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Cor 10:1-6).

You’ll notice that touching water was not necessary for a baptism to occur. It isn’t about water, it is about an event that binds people together and makes them a particular group. The Israelites didn’t touch the water nor the cloud (Though the Egyptians did. Or rather, they were touched by the water). They didn’t get wet or fluffy. But the Apostle says they were baptized in the cloud and in the sea. Baptism is being used here in the second sense (above). The Baptism they underwent was the trial or experience of the sea and the trial or experience of following the cloud. This experience put them into the camp or under the leadership of Moses the leader of the people during the baptism. So, the people were baptized in the sea and in the cloud—into Moses.

When we go back to John, we see that while the baptism was in water, it still functioned in the second way above. The people were baptized in water into John’s baptism, or into John’s leadership. They were saying, “I repent and want to follow God in the way John is preaching.” They were “of John,” members of John.

Then, when Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29) came along John said, I must decrease and he must increase (Jn 3:30). And from then on, Jesus was baptizing more people than John (they were really being baptized into Jesus), but the message Jesus was preaching was no longer that the Lord of the Kingdom of God was coming (Mt. 3:3). It was now, the Kingdom of God is at hand, or present because the Lord of the Kingdom was in their midst (Phil. 2:11).

This also fits with the Great Commission: Go into all the world making the nations his disciples, baptizing them in the Name… (Mt. 28:19). In every case, this baptism was a trial, experience, or event that brings people into one group under a particular leader. In this case, it brings them into the Christian church under Jesus as Lord. It should be noted here that most of the time, baptism in water, into Christ, is a very perilous act. In most of history, in most places in the world, the saints were making a very public and vocal statement when they identified with the crucified and risen Lord. So, most of the time, baptism is a trial and an extreme experience, not to be taken lightly.

At the first Pentecost Peter told the people who were cut to the heart because of their sin, that they should repent and be baptized (Acts 2:38). This is because their baptism was a sign that they had indeed repented (just as it had been for John) and were now following Jesus as the Christ. It was the beginning of the Church and that day 3,000 were added to their number (Acts 2:31). But the thing that they could point to that said, “I’ve repented and am following the Christ” was their baptism. It was a sign of their salvation and an entry gate into their membership in the body of Christ.

Consequently, when Paul said in Romans 6 that “all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were also baptized into his death” (Rom 6:3), he was talking about their baptism, the event that placed them into Christ. His point was that because we have been baptized into Jesus, we have an obligation to live like he lived, as The Man come back to life. 

In conclusion, as a young Christian, I thought baptism was simply a sign of our salvation. Now I see it as that, but also as the event that officially brings us into the body of Christ and makes us Christians.

There’s more, but that’s all I have for now.

Photo by Mourad Saadi on Unsplash