Baptism---Sprinkle, Pour, Dip or Dunk?

[HKHaugan]

Our conscious spiritual life in Jesus began when we asked Him to be the One who controls our hearts. When Jesus was baptized, He didn’t do it to get rid of sin because He was sinless. What He did was to model what our response should be when we accept Him. Being right with God begins with accepting Jesus and then being baptized as a sign of obedience to Him (Jn.3:5) then living a lifestyle of the Cross, faith in Jesus and its place in us. Jesus’ first act of obedience to His Father’s will was baptism. His last act of obedience, the Cross, foreshadowed a life summed up in the Cross. His was always a spiritual obedience to His Father (the vertical beam) as He lived a life of loving others in this world (the horizontal beam). Jesus did this to show us humanity made right.

Inevitably and unfortunately, when it comes to baptism we are faced with the Reformational rift about baptism, pouring or immersion, child or adult, conscious faith or ritual obedience, who has it right? It has been a contentious issue and leads us to ask, is it a salvation issue? Does it mean if you are not immersed you are eternally lost?

In the earliest days of the Body’s existence the converts were Jewish adults. They accepted Jesus as the long awaited Messiah and received Him personally by faith. So in Acts, after Peter’s first sermon, he called for them to repent and be baptized. But being Jewish presented new issues. God gave the Law to show us how much in need of a savior we are in every area of life. Should they continue to obey the dietary, sacrificial and ritual observance of the Law, was circumcision necessary to be part of the Body of the Messiah and was it important to retain their Jewish bloodline in order to be saved?

Confronted with these issues Paul taught that a new way of being right before God had been revealed in Jesus, we are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). Faith is what makes us right before God, not legal obedience to the Law. When Jesus came and perfectly fulfilled the letter and intent of the Law He satisfied the ‘being-right’ demand of the Law through being faithful in every detail to His Father and the Word. He also fulfilled the blood requirement by being a perfect sacrifice on the Cross (Lev.17:11). So when we accept Jesus by faith (and since the Law was satisfied by Him), it is faith in Him that allows us to be spiritually born, born again. Faith in Jesus makes us right with Him and His Father through the Holy Spirit. No more salvation by bloodline and legal obedience. Now what saves us is having a direct personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Further Paul taught that it was the grace of God, His accepting love and care for all people, which provided faith as the means to direct access to God by both Jew and Gentile. No more legalistic system (priesthood, ritual rules, dietary restrictions and Pharisaic hypocrisy) blocking personal access to God. By grace all humanity was included. By the grace of God each person had personal access to God though faith (Again, Ephesians 2:8 “For it by grace you have been saved, through faith…). So grace is the Father’s heart for us, Jesus’ faith is God’s method for us and the Holy Spirit is the means by which God’s grace is effected in us.

The question arose about what to do with children if you do away with circumcision? How are they included and spiritually covered? The response seen in Acts was the baptism of an entire family and household (Acts 11:14, 16:15, 16:31, also 1 Cor.16) based on the father’s faith, the faith of the head of the household. What was understood among early Christians was the faith of the father would lead him to diligently train his children until such time as they would respond and receive Christ for themselves. This was a grace baptism that preceded faith. The first two centuries’ records witness this.

Two emphases arose that were sealed in Baptism, grace and faith. While most of the early Christians saw no separation in the two, two problems emerged. Christians grew in numbers and needed structure to accommodate growth. Thus we saw the rise of the institutional church governing the Body of Christ in an attempt to maintain the faith in a hostile political, economic and spiritually lost world. But the same problems that plagued Judaism cropped up in the institutional church, the definition of membership, legalism and social judgment. By the time of the Reformation grace and faith had been separated. The institutional church taught that the rite of baptism itself was sufficient because it was a sign of grace. It forgot personal faith as Jesus had introduced and the Apostles carried on. It no longer depended on the faith of the head of the household but on external institutional leadership. Just words and actions were necessary thus producing institutional members where the act of infant baptism (without the head of the household’s faith and training) replaced personal faith.

On the other hand the over-reaction of the Reformation was to return people to the faith dimension and emphasis was entirely on the faith of a believer, the amount of water used and the personal judgment of the one baptized. The question was what part did grace play in this if it all depends on the imperfect faith and judgment of the believer? Out of this arose a new pharisaic legalism and the rise of another kind of institutionalism, denominations. This was the other side of the issue, faith above grace. There you have it. Two sides, institutionally defined grace above faith and institutionally defined faith above grace.

What Jesus brings us is the balance of faith and grace. Grace enables us to have faith and faith enables us to grow in grace. That is the heart of the Gospel in Jesus. The danger comes when man tries to control how God works by grace through faith. Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say I am?” Peter replies, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” to which Jesus replies, “That was not revealed to you by man but by my Father in Heaven (grace)” after which Peter is given faith to build the Body of Christ and the keys, repentance and faith, to open the door the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is not through any institution or legal form but heart to heart, one heart at a time, by grace through faith. Faith and grace are inseparable. Baptism is more than just an act or intention. It is the visible seal of God’s grace through faith.

A good friend said the issue of baptism is like a teeter-totter, a seesaw, grace on one side and faith on the other, institutional authority and definition or personal authority and definition. The balance of Jesus’ wisdom seems to get it right, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.”