Baptism: It should be more than just water

The church I visited today had a baptismal ceremony.

And as I've thought for a very long time now about the sacrament and is often the case, it was WAY too brief.

It was three people being baptised (I prefer that word with a lovely "s" rather than a jagged "z") and the entire ceremony lasted less than a minute and a half.

Were I a stranger to seeing such things... and there are MANY for whom the act of baptism WOULD be an alien spectacle... I would be absolutely bewildered at the brevity of so mystifying a ritual.  Clearly, some context is in order.  WHY would one subject himself or herself to being immersed in a vessel of water, before a cloud of witnesses?

I think we are depriving ourselves as the body of Christ when we reduce baptism to so few fleeting moments.

A baptism should be much more than a quick dunking in the baptistery (or the "cow trough" as it resembled at this particular congregation).  It should be a time of sharing with the spiritual family one is joining about what Christ has done in one's life to bring him or her to that moment.  It should be preceded by a minute or so of testimony by the candidate himself or herself, in their own words, expressing faith and gratitude and hope and... well, whatever it is that God might place on their heart to say.  

I am not alone in believing this.  Many churches in Great Britain, Canada, and Australia give each of their candidates for baptism several moments to address the congregation and speak of what God has done to bring them to have faith in Him, before being baptised.  It is a beautiful prelude to the act of baptism itself.

But in America the vast majority of the time, we don't do that.  Everything that God means to us comes down to a baptismal candidate merely muttering the word "yes" when asked if he or she is saved.  Maybe that suffices for some people and it's okay if it is.  But there are others who might have more they are led to say, and they are not afforded the opportunity to do that at the time when it would be most meaningful and appreciated.

Baptism in American churches has become like seemingly everything else in this land: fast and now.  And the body of Christ deprives itself of some nourishment when we treat this sacred act of obedience to God so.  It should be one of the common cords that bind us to one another and together, to the Lord we are pledging to serve as His bride.

That loses something precious when we reduce baptism to a quick plunge in the tank, without at least a few moments of testimony and gratitude for the body of believers to appreciate what God has done in the person's life... and to also be reminded to be thankful for their own salvation.

When I was in college at Elon, I attended a weekly worship service on campus.  It was a ministry of a nearby congregation.  There was a time of sharing and testimony around the beginning of each service.  A few moments of praise reports and prayer requests.  That was a very special time of worship, of drawing closer to Gods and each other.  I know that's not feasible for a larger congregation to manage during a single service (praise reports are often perhaps better suited for small groups), but testimony such as that edifies and encourages us as Christians.  It makes the act of worship something that more thoroughly fertilizes our faith, instead of simply showing up for an hour each week in the church sanctuary.

I can think of no better time of such sharing than those first few moments when one is about to scripturally become a vibrant and active member of the body of Christ on this earth.

It's NOT simply about joining a local body of believers.  Baptism is the ceremony that formally connects us to two millennia of believers, as well as to all of those who will come after us.

That merits more than a momentary getting oneself wet and nothing more than that.

Just something I'm feeling led to share this afternoon, for consideration by my brothers and sisters in Christ.

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A response to a challenge on baptism

A few days ago the following e-mail arrived...

"Chris you are WRONG. Baptism is required for salvation! Acts 2:38 has Peter commanding that we be baptized FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS. Mark 16:16 commands baptism and without it we are damned."

There was more to it but that's the heartmeat of this individual's contention. I don't know what precipitated this correspondence. Maybe it was the "Meditation on Baptism" post nearly three years ago. Maybe it was one of the numerous posts I've had to make about a certain cult operating in this area: a group that has among other things harassed others who have met to worship in peace.

Okay, fine. I'll respond to it.

Here is Acts 2:38, as translated in the 1611 Authorized Version (AKA the King James Bible):

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

For all the beauty of the King James Version, it is rife with problems. Those stem from two primary factors: that the Authorized Version was a project that King James used to placate the Puritan faction of the Church of England (i.e. it was a political stunt, plain and simple) and the fact that the primary source material of Greek manuscript for the Authorized Version was apparently the Textus Receptus of Desiderius Erasmus. Now, Erasmus was otherwise a brilliant scholar, no doubt about it. But the Textus Receptus was hands-down his sloppiest piece of work ever (he was rushing to win a contest... and he didn't have that many manuscripts to draw from to begin with). Combined with the aforementioned purpose of affirming in approved canon the doctrines and ordinances of the Church of England over all others and you get the idea of what is wrong with the King James Version (though I still love the overall beauty of its language).

But anyhoo, let's look at the passage that this reader (and others) have attempted to use to insist that water baptism is necessary for salvation: "Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins..." I emphasized the word "for" because in the Greek the original word is "eis". And "eis" does NOT easily translate into "in order to receive..." Rather, the more accurate rendition is "because of".

So let's translate Peter's statement again, this time with "eis" correctly translated...

"Then Peter said unto them: Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ because your sins have been remitted."

That makes much more sense. It also reconciles that bit of scripture with the story of Cornelius, the first Gentile to become a Christian (recorded in Acts 10) who along with his household had already believed in Christ. That Peter baptized them was outward affirmation that Christ came for all nations, and not merely the Jewish people (per the vision that he received as recorded earlier in the chapter). Here also, we find that baptism is not for salvation, but is rather for all of those who are already in Christ and His church.

That might seem a small matter today, but in those heated days of the early church the issue of non-Jewish converts to the Way (as Christianity was called in the beginning) was a serious controversy. Peter baptizing Cornelius and his family was a threshold moment for Christianity. They were baptized because they had faith in Christ and because of that faith, their sins were already forgiven. Hence, they were fully entitled to baptism, without any regard whatsoever for their nationality.

So that takes care of Acts 2:38. But what about Mark 16:16? Here is what that passage has Jesus telling His followers...

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Y'all want the "nice" reason first why this verse doesn't mean that baptism is a requisite for salvation, or do you want the "nasty" reason?

Fine. I'll start off polite. Here it is: this verse does not say at all that the absence of baptism equals damnation. It only states that "whoever does not believe will be condemned". Downright obvious, actually.

But here's the biggest reason why Mark 16:16 can not be used to claim that baptism is a requirement for salvation...

Mark 16:16 doesn't belong in the Bible to begin with.

Feel free to read that again after you've come down from the initial shock.

The Gospel of Mark is apparently the oldest of the four gospels, perhaps composed only about 35 years or so after General Titus and his boys laid waste to Jerusalem and the Temple there. But of all the oldest manuscripts that we have for Mark's book, none of them contain verses 9 through 20 of Chapter 16! The last thing that can credibly be ascribed to the Gospel of Mark is that "...the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." And if you only have the King James Version to go on, it jumps from there to a sudden re-introduction of Jesus and an ending that is wildly different from the context of the rest of Mark's writing.

Long story short: Mark 16:16 and everything else from 16:9 onward is a later addition. Much later. Perhaps by a century or so. I've tried to find anything that demands why these verses do belong in Mark but as of yet, such justification has eluded me. If anyone has something that I might have missed, leave a comment here or shoot me an e-mail at theknightshift@gmail.com.

Does that mean that your friend and humble blogger is committing sacrilege by ignoring part of the Bible? Nope, not at all. Indeed it is quite the opposite: I am striving for nothing more and nothing less than to understand what the Word of God does teach, in spite of all that man has inevitably attempted to do with it during these two millenia out of either well-meaning or malicious intent.

And however one chooses to adhere to the matter of baptism, it must be acknowledged by all that the endurance of the Word of God - the Truth of God, of which the verbiage of scripture can be but a rough covering - is in and of itself nothing short of a miracle.

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Chris Knight's somewhat typical Sunday

Right now: catching up on e-mail and news.

Later: writing more of the novel that I've been working on for National Novel Writing Month, which as things stand now won't be finished by the end of November because of all the good stuff that I'm finding to add into it. But what will be done by then should still be enough to meet the 150-pages needed to qualify as "done" for the month. I'll just put the finishing touches on it later :-)

Later still: painting some more of my army of Orks for Warhammer 40,000 and then laying out all my works for turkey frying on Thursday.

And done already this morning: videography of the baptisms of a friend's children at a church in Greensboro. I'd never done a baptismal job before.

Maybe someday I'll get to film a bris. But please... no tipping! :-P

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Meditation on baptism

"Baptism in Kansas", John Steuart Curry, 1928

It was ten years ago today that I was baptized. It happened at First Baptist Church of Elon, the church that sponsored our college's Baptist Student Union. I put on a big white nightshirt and my friend Arnold Gosnell, one of the associate ministers, dunked me down in the bathtub at the front of the church. Later that night I came down with something like the flu and a high fever and leaving the church still damp into late February cold air was admittedly not something conducive to my health...

...But you know what? I couldn't have cared less how sick I might have gotten. That I had finally been baptized, after very many years of struggling to have faith in God, was one of the supreme triumphs of my personal life. Just as Martin Luther was known to often remind himself that "Baptisatus sum" ("I have been baptized"), so too have I looked back on my own baptism as a reminder, however dark the road of life has become, that I have placed my hope in Christ. And that He will never fail me in spite of how often I still do fail Him.

I haven't written very much on this blog about how I came to be a follower of Christ. The reasons for it are myriad: for one thing, the entire story is enormously long, and would doubtless be the largest essay that I'd ever post to this site (and this is one writer who has been accused too much already of being a "wordy wordy monkey"). For another, it goes into territory that I've never been completely comfortable with exploring in any public venue.

If you want the Cliff's Notes abbreviated account: for the better part of ten years I had found it first impossible to believe in God. And then suddenly impossible not to believe in God… but also found it incomprehensible that He would still want anything to do with me. And then I started finding myself around people who did have Christ and were joyfully living for Him, and I began wanting to have that same kind of joy as well... but I didn't think that I deserved it.

So I spent a long time "outside looking in", always hovering around the edges. Gazing longingly at those who had something that was more precious than they might have even realized. Because you can't know how wonderful something like that is until you've spent some time being without it, like I had.

But when I started attending Elon, well... God began letting things happen, I like to think. Starting with how I literally stumbled into the Baptist Student Union my first week there. And then hooking up with the terrific Christian guy who became my roommate in our first apartment. And then, finding the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and a congregation of followers of Christ that had a worship service on campus every Sunday morning. And then there was the InterVarsity retreat on the North Carolina coast that to this day, still burns bright in my memory...

A month after that, I at last came to a place where I not only became reconciled to God, but I could at last also start letting loose the things in my life that had held me down. And I've been following Him ever since. Not perfectly, mind ya. And I'll be the first to admit that my walk with God has fallen and faltered more times than I can count. But the amazing thing about God is that He is merciful. And just as the apostle Paul discovered, His grace is sufficient.

A little over two years later after that, I told Arnold and Debbie, our Baptist Student Union advisers, that I wanted to be baptized before I graduated. So we had the ceremony on the last Sunday of February, 1999. All of my friends from Baptist Student Union and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship came to the church that day to witness me taking this step in identifying with Christ. And that's why I did want to do this. It wasn't to "join a church" or to "wash away my sins". Accepting Christ into my life had already done that. I had been a redeemed follower of Him for a little more than two years. A "saint" as the pastor of the congregation that had been meeting on campus was fond of reminding us. Albeit one who was already undergoing extreme sanctification.

So why did I want to be baptized?

I don't believe that baptism is required at all for salvation. Scripture reminds us repeatedly that we cannot boast of anything that we do. That would be adding a work of our own, to the finished work of Christ on the cross. And nowhere in scripture do we find it anywhere that baptism is an absolute must in order to be saved. We are simply told to believe on Christ, and to have faith in Him.

If that seems too easy for some people well guess what: it is that easy. Christ came to tear down the burden of legalism and slavish devotion to rules unto themselves. We are now living under grace, not law. And there is no way that striving to stick to "the law" will add more of His grace to us.

But I do believe that a person who is sincerely seeking after Christ for His sake, will desire to be baptized. In 1st Peter chapter 3, Peter tells us that baptism is "the pledge of a good conscience toward God". The pledge by itself is meaningless without the desire to live up to it by the person making the pledge. But for the person who does want to make such a pledge, baptism is an enormously wonderful and powerful tangible reminder that we have died unto the old being and that we now reside in this world as His ambassadors.

I hate to say this, but modern Christianity has all too often made baptism something that it's not meant to be. It has become an initiation rite into not just the body of Christ, but into a particular sect of that body... which in turn, is not really baptism into Christ at all. We are taught in the Bible to lean not on our own understanding. So it is that such "baptism" has in many places become more a promise to accept and adhere to the limited reasoning of carnal "wisdom".

So my baptism, while taking place in a Baptist church, wasn't something I did to become a "Baptist". As from the very beginning, I have chosen to call myself simply a "follower of Christ". Which is not meant to be disparagement on those who are Baptists: I readily understand their perspective as fellow servants of God. And I have never met a Baptist who has claimed to be saved by merit of what kind of church he or she worships at either. Just as I've never met a Methodist or Presbyterian or anyone else who stakes their salvation on what the name on the church sign outside says. But I do believe that baptism for simply its own sake, is the most sincere baptism there can possibly be. And in those terms, it is... I believe anyway... one of the most powerful commitments that anyone can make in this life.

On a similar note: baptism has become too much the jurisdiction of an "elite class of Christian" to administer. Please don't take that to mean that I hold any ill regard to those who have followed the calling of God to be pastors, elders and other kinds of ministry who normally perform baptisms. But nowhere in scripture are we told that it is only to be a "higher elect" that can baptize. In truth, any Christian can baptize a new follower of Christ. And I have believed for many years that it is time that we begin encouraging all of the body of Christ to practice our responsibilities as His priests. I once witnessed a sixteen-year old baptize his younger brother in a swimming pool. It was one of the most moving scenes that I ever had the honor of witnessing.

Have we ever seen the spigot turned on full blast for followers of Christ to practice not just baptism, but the love of Christ and love toward others? I can't say that we have...

...but maybe it's time that we did. That we should break baptism out of the church buildings and, like Philip and the eunuch from Ethiopia, let it be anywhere that there is clean water.

And consequently, that we should break the love of Christ out of the buildings... and pour it out wherever God had put us.

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