VARIOUS VIEWS FOR MODE AND SUBJECT
There are numerous interpretations of how you should baptize and who you should baptize within the Church. Most of you are probably aware of how much various denominations differ with regard to Baptism and today I’ll attempt to outline some of the major points of view.
One thing to keep in mind is that I’ll be trying to tell you the official position of a denomination. This will not necessarily reflect the position of any particular individual in that denomination. People, especially in America, often feel no need to present, or even understand, the position of their denomination on any topic. I saw a survey the other day that indicated that over 50% of American Roman Catholics were in favor of abortion (for most reasons) while the official position of the Roman Catholic Church is opposed to abortion. That illustrates the problem of defining a community’s position from the official position of their leadership. I’m sure with Baptists it would be even more like herding cats. See Grudem’s Systematic Theology and Armstrong’s (editor) Understanding Four Views on Baptism for more detail.
I’ll work mainly from a discussion of how our position as Baptists differs from other typical positions. Well I’d like to start with the Roman Catholic position since it is the position that the reformation moved away from. The position of the Roman Catholic Church has probably hardened since 1600 because of the opposition from Protestants.
Roman Catholic
The Roman Catholic Church is a paedobaptist teaching. They logically must teach paedobaptism because they believe that baptism is necessary for salvation. In fact, they teach that the act of baptism causes regeneration. Wow! Right so the church can then actually apply saving grace to people. Consequently it would be tragic not to apply baptism to infants.
Remember how important tradition is within the Roman Catholic teaching. Church tradition can be viewed as having an authority that we never give tradition (officially, but imagine what would happen if our pastor started wearing a clerical collar). Here are some descriptions of the Roman Catholic position.
Ludwig Ott, in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma states:
Baptism is that Sacrament in which man being washed with water in the name of the Three Divine Persons is spiritually reborn. Baptism, provided that the proper dispositions (Faith and sorrow for sin) are present, effects: a) the eradication of sins, both original sin and, in the case of adults, also personal, mortal or venial sins; b) inner sanctification by the infusion of sanctifying grace. Even if it be unworthily received, valid Baptism imprints on the soul of the recipient an indelible spiritual mark, the Baptismal Character....The baptized person is incorporated, by the Baptismal Character, into the Mystical Body of Christ....Every validly baptized person, even one baptized outside the Catholic Church, becomes a member of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Baptism by water...is, since the promulgation of the Gospel, necessary for all men without exception for salvation. Yea, even a pagan or a heretic can baptise, provided he adheres to the form of the Church and has the intention of doing what the Church does. Faith, as it is not the effective cause of justification...need not be present. The faith which infants lack is...replaced by the faith of the Church.
So based on their teaching you must be baptized to go to heaven. It works to remove sin when an adult approaches with the right attitude but even when it is “unworthily” received the “Baptismal Character” is imprinted on the soul and you are incorporated into the Body of Christ. They would normally require a priest for baptism but when in death is possible then even a pagan or heretic can baptize if he intends to do it. You must cast aspersions intentionally and not accidently asperse.
So, in their view, you have the added possibility of saving an infant or someone on their death bed since faith “is not the effective cause of justification” and need not be present. You’ll see here, and in our study of communion, that it is important for the Roman Catholic view that you believe the sacraments work apart from the faith of the people participating in the sacrament.
Ott says:
The Catholic Church teaches that the Sacraments have an objective efficacy, that is, an efficacy independent of the subjective disposition of the recipient or of the minister....The Sacraments confer grace immediately, that is, without the mediation of Fiducial faith. The Sacraments work ex opere operato .... That is, the Sacraments operate by the power of the completed sacramental rite. … in the case of the adult recipient faith is expressly demanded...nevertheless the subjective disposition of the recipient is not the cause of grace; it is merely an indispensable precondition of the communication of grace...The measure of the grace effected ex opere operato even depends on the grade of the subjective disposition.
So they do, in effect, add a work to salvation. The reformation was partly in response to this extra added on to “Sola Fide”. If you believe that you need a sacrament apart from faith to be saved then you have got a problem with Scripture. In effect, you have a new form of circumcision and Scripture condemns that approach in Galatians and calls it a different gospel. Scripture is very hard on any attempted addition to faith and says that anyone who teaches such a thing is severed from Christ.
The idea that the sacrament functions apart from faith really doesn’t have any support in context. You can pull Scriptures apart and quote 1 Peter 3:21, where Peter says, “Baptism...now saves you”? and high five and claim you’ve proved your case but Peter keeps going and says “not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience” so it really isn’t the sacrament but the spiritual transaction that matters as we saw last week.
Lutheran
Lutherans teach that the baptismal act is regenerative. They practice paedobaptism because “children are entrusted to God and become pleasing to him through baptism” (Melanchthon). Luther taught that the Word of God is with and alongside the water and faith trusts the Word of God in the water. They teach that baptism transmits the Word like preaching transmits the Word. So, since children are sinners by nature, they baptize them. Since adults can respond to the oral and written forms of the Word and since infants can’t respond to oral or written communication they teach that you should assume that God is having conversation with infants via baptism.
However, as best I can tell, a Lutheran would not necessarily teach that a person who was a believer but not baptized would be going to hell. They would, I think, uniformly teach that the conversation of God with that person was effective and they would want baptism but if they died first then it would not prevent their salvation.
The Lutheran stress on the communication of the Word through the sacrament is good. I appreciate the way in which this stresses the importance of the Gospel statement within the sacrament. However, trying to get to baptismal regeneration from there or teach that infants can receive effective communication is a teaching that is apart from Scripture.
Churches of Christ
An interesting variation on the Roman Catholic and Lutheran version is the version promoted by the Churches of Christ. What makes it interesting is that they don’t teach paedobaptism but, thanks to a distinction without a difference, they teach baptismal regeneration. Now if none of you is getting ready to yell at me then no one here probably came from this background because a member of this group would take issue with me on their teaching of baptismal regeneration. I’ve said that they teach a distinction without a difference because of the way in which they teach baptismal regeneration. They would prefer to say that believer’s baptism is the occasion of salvation. They would say that God acts in the sacrament and during the sacrament He enters into a relationship and the one getting baptized accepts God’s offer. So they believe that God, in baptism, because of Grace, makes the one baptized a part of the Body of Christ and at that point instills the Holy Spirit. Now see the distinction without the difference? You are saved by Grace alone but you can only get it by being baptized. You can’t be part of the Body of Christ or have the Holy Spirit without getting baptized. So, in the end, you’re saved by the work of baptism. They really teach a form of baptismal regeneration but believe that the person has to be ready for it for regeneration to function. And … yes I remember those in Acts who received the Holy Spirit prior to salvation (Acts 10:46-48).
Just to mention again, when James says that faith without works is dead, he is completely in agreement with Paul who teaches salvation by faith only. I bring this up because a writer in support of the Churches of Christ point of view got confused about this. James was making the point that there is no such thing as a faith that doesn’t work. Faith works. It just does. You are saved by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone. A living faith is an acting faith. James and Paul are not in disagreement and besides all Scripture is given to us by God and not by James and Paul.
Rather than view this group of churches as uniform it is important to remember that some would say that believers un-immersed are not saved, some say they can’t tell, some say they are going to heaven anyway. So this is a pretty diverse group without any centralized doctrinal teaching on this point. So you may find a congregation that doesn’t teach that baptism is the occasion of salvation but it would be a congregation by congregation teaching.
A Presbyterian View
Paedobaptism is part of this tradition. The argument here is typically going to revolve around a covenant argument. The children of believers are seen as being born into a “covenant community” (read Berkhof’s Systematic Theology for this argument in detail).
The first point that is typically made is that infants were circumcised prior to Christ as an outward sign of entrance into the covenant community or the community of God’s people. Circumcision was administered to all Israelite children (that is, male children) when they were eight days old. However, from our point of view they were circumcised when they were born and baptism is applied when you are born again. The question being, “Would the Israelites have circumcised the children before they were born if it were possible?” However, their point isn’t irrational, just an extension without Scriptural support. Baptism is a parallel to circumcision but so are other things. Last week we went into great detail with regards to the symbolism. This group sees a reason to baptize infants in Colossians 2:11-12 “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; and you were buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” However, we see nothing of the sort here and see that to be raised through faith you need to be a believer.
Additional support for baptizing infants is identified in the “household baptisms” (Acts 16:15; Acts 16:33; 1 Cor. 1:16; Acts 2:39).
Baptists argue that the examples of household baptisms are ambiguous with regard to infant baptism. A number of the examples seem to indicate saving faith on the part of the entire household. So unless you buy the Lutheran argument that baptism communicates the Gospel of Grace to an infant we would not assume that the infants were baptized.
When you get to the question of what is accomplished by baptism then those who hold this position have answers that seem awkward. The infant is baptized for itself and not for the family. So the baptism is for a future conversion that may or may not ever occur. They don’t believe it results in regeneration or is the occasion for salvation so they end up with a probable future regeneration at which point the meaning of the baptism becomes clear. We really don’t see this type of symbolism in New Testament baptisms but the issue of circumcision has become so involved in this that pages and pages have been written to justify the practice of infant baptism. The effort and emphasis seem out of proportion to the Scripture. The Biblical emphasis on water as representing God’s judgment as indicated in 1st Peter ties both Old and New Testament together in a study of redemption and would seem to hold
However, Presbyterian (PCA) fellowships typically have a clear and consistent teaching on the atonement and we believe that they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. I personally find their emphasis on the parallel between circumcision and baptism less troubling than a teaching that baptism is regenerative.
I think that if we were present during the reformation many of us would have desired to teach and practice paedobaptism. The reason I say that is because when you have a population that has been told for over a 1000 years that baptism saved their infants and in particular those infants that died because of the high infant mortality then you are unlikely to depart from that practice. The issues of the Gospel were primary and in Luther and Calvin I think you find a couple of tremendous gifts to the Church who had other fish to fry.
It is not rational and we certainly don’t need to play a new age game to believe we are all equally correct when we differ on baptism. We don’t believe that all these forms are equally correct. When we get to heaven we’ll find out that someone was correct and someone was not. When I meditate on Scripture related to Baptism and move away from the arguments it seems fairly straightforward to me so, happily for me, I’m convinced that I’ve done what I need to do. However, tradition and history is a big part of the implementation as you move from one fellowship to another fellowship. I know that tradition is a part of why I’m where I am. You need to be convinced that you are consistent with Scripture. That is the bottom line for each of us.
