BAPTISM
Someone
says, 'I can be saved without being baptized.' So you will do nothing that
Christ commands, if you can be saved without doing it? You are hardly worth
saving at all! A man whose idea of religion is that he
will do what is essential to his own salvation, only cares to save his own
skin. Clearly, you are no servant of Christ's. Baptism, if not essential to
your salvation, is essential to your obedience to Christ.
A
man who knows that he is saved by believing in Christ does not, when he is
baptized, lift his baptism into a saving ordinance. In fact, he is the very best protester
against that mistake, because he holds that he has no right to be baptized
until he is saved.
C.H. Spurgeon
Baptismal Regeneration, sermon 10.326.
(Baptism
by immersion is) the usual form of the original meaning of the Greek baptidzein and baptismos;
from the analogy of John’s baptism in the Jordan; from the apostle’s comparison
of the sacred rite with the miraculous passage of the Red Sea, with the escape
of the ark from the flood, with a cleansing and refreshing bath, and with
burial and resurrection; finally, from the general custom of the ancient
church, which prevails in the East to this day.
Philip Schaff
History of the Christian Church, Quoted in
Morris, Baptism: How Important is It? p. 15-16.
Several
factors all demonstrate with clarity and strength that baptism, as a church
ordinance, must be conducted by the immersion of a believing Christian in water
upon confession of his faith and evidence of his repentance for the purpose of
signifying to all the world his identification with Christ in His death, burial
and resurrection.
Henry Morris
Baptism: How Important is It? p. 126.
A man may go
to hell with baptismal water upon his face.
John Trapp
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 201.
I do not
elevate the time or mode of baptism to a primary doctrine.
John Piper
Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 2002, p.
128. www.DesiringGod.org. Used by
Permission
Every baptism
recorded in the Bible was the baptism of a person who had professed faith in
Christ. Nowhere in Scripture is there
any instance of an infant being baptized.
The “household baptisms” (Ac. 16:15, 33; 1 Cor. 1:16) are exceptions to
this only if one assumes that the “household” included infants. But, in fact, Luke steers us away from this
assumption, for example in the case of the Philippian
jailer (Ac. 16:32) by saying that Paul first “spoke the word of the Lord…to all
who were in his (the jailor’s) house,” and then baptized them. This looks like Luke’s way of showing that a
person needs to hear and believe “the word of the Lord” in order to be
baptized. …I also noticed – as every Baptist schoolboy knows – that the order
of Peter’s command was, “Repent and be baptized” (Ac. 2:38). I saw no reason to reverse the order.
John Piper
Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 2002, p.
130. www.DesiringGod.org. Used by
Permission
(In
Colossians 2:12 and 1 Peter 3:21) baptism is an expression of the faith of the
person being baptized. I (do) not see
how an infant could properly receive this ordinance as an expression of his or
her faith.
John Piper
Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 2002, p.
131. www.DesiringGod.org. Used by
Permission
The visible
people of God are no longer formed through the natural birth but through new
birth and its expression through faith in Christ. With the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus
and the apostles, the emphasis now is that the spiritual status of our parents
does not determine our membership in the covenant community. The beneficiaries of the blessings of Abraham
are those who have the faith of Abraham.
These are the ones who belong to the covenant community.
John Piper
Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 2002, p.
134-135. www.DesiringGod.org. Used by
Permission
John's
baptism...was a radical act of individual commitment to belong to the true
people of God, based on personal confession and repentance… This is one of the
main reasons that I do not believe in baptizing infants, who cannot make this
personal commitment or confession or repentance. John's baptism was an assault
on the very assumptions that give rise to much infant baptism.
Sermon: I Baptize You With
Water, Matthew 3, May 4, 1997, By Permission of www.DesiringGod.org.
In...the New Testament, and indeed in all
the first two centuries of the Christian era until A.D. 200 when Tertullian
mentions infant baptism for the first time in any historical document...all
baptism was the baptism of believers, not infants. And the reason was that
baptism was the sign of belonging to the new people of God who are constituted
not by birth or ethnic identity, but by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
Sermon: I Baptize You With
Water, Matthew 3, May 4, 1997, By Permission of www.DesiringGod.org.
Most American
evangelicals are familiar with what Billy Graham does at the end of his
preaching, calling people to walk to the front. Sometimes these are called
"invitations." Sometimes "altar calls."
When you look for something like this in the Bible there is no clear example…
If you ask what the decisive, public way of taking a Christian stand was in the
New Testament, the answer is, baptism. The message
Peter gave in Acts 2 ended with the words, "Repent and be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ" (Acts 2:38). Our renewed conviction is that we need
to regularly offer baptism as the decisive public way for people to respond
publicly to the gospel.
Sermon: I Baptize You With
Water, Matthew 3, May 4, 1997, By Permission of www.DesiringGod.org.
The Bible
indicates that a person must understand the gospel, repent of his or her sin,
and savingly trust in Christ before being baptized.
If water baptism is an external sign of genuine conversion, then genuine
conversion must take place first.
Matt Weymeyer
Pulpit Magazine, April 18, 2008.
The
temptation for many parents is to rush their child’s baptism. Our elders here
at Grace Church believe it is better to wait, and be absolutely convinced of a
child’s conversion, than to baptize the child prematurely — and thereby
potentially give an unsaved child a false sense of assurance.
Matt Weymeyer
Pulpit Magazine, April 18, 2008.
Baptism
signifies that the old Adam in us is to be drowned by daily sorrow and repentance,
and perish with all sins and evil lusts; and that the new man should daily come
forth again and rise, who shall live before God in righteousness and purity
forever.
Martin Luther
We have not a
single command in the Scriptures that infants are baptized, or that the
apostles practiced it. Therefore we
confess with good sense that infant baptism is nothing but human invention and
notion.
Menno Simons
Why get
baptized?
1. Imitate
and identify with Christ's example (Mt. 3:13-15).
2. Follow
Christ's command found in Scripture (Mt. 28:19; cf. Ac. 2:38).
3. Declare an
oath of allegiance to Christ - "in the name" (Mt. 28:19).
4. Symbolize
the purification from sin through Christ (Ac. 22:16; cf. 1 Cor. 6:11; Tit.
3:5).
5. Symbolize
the union with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection (Ac. 6:3-5).
Matthew, Judson Press, 1886, p. 59.
Baptism with
water is the sign and seal of baptism with the Spirit, as much as it is of the
forgiveness of sins. Water-baptism is
the initiatory Christian rite, because Spirit-baptism is the initiatory
Christian experience.
John Stott
The Baptism and Fullness of the Holy Spirit, Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1964, p. 28.
Disciples are
not made going forward to an altar, but by being baptized (Mt. 28:19)! This is the biblical way in which repentant
sinners…publicly declare their faith in Jesus Christ (Ac. 2:41; 16:15, 31-33).
Kim Riddlebarger
The Word and Sacrament in Worship, Table Talk, Jan. 2005, p. 12. Used by Permission.
Probably in
our own, modern substitutes for (immediate baptism upon profession) – raising
hands, coming forward, etc. – are the result of a felt need to do something for
those who believe. It seems certain that
those who believed were distinguished from those who did not. There is no evidence that the New Testament
evangelistic preachers asked them to come forward, but there is every
indication that they did invite those who believed to be baptized (Ac.
2:38). And it seems that this was the
way in which new converts professed their faith in Christ and came under the
care and discipline of the church.
Jay Adams
Preaching with a Purpose, Zondervan, 1984, p. 74.
It is the job
of the church to baptize every true convert as “an outward symbol of an inward
reality” and we must do that as soon as possible. But we must emphasize in the
case of children and really every professing believer that it is valid
converts we baptize, not just anyone who says he has believed. We find that
knowing this is more difficult with children because they cannot express
themselves as an adult would and because their experiences in life have not as
clearly demonstrated that they have life from God. But we still cannot baptize
those we only hope are Christians. So we must wait until we know, and
then we will baptize as immediately as possible.
Jim Elliff
Reading
Our Children: Is There Somebody Alive in There? Christian Communicators
Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org.
Used by Permission.
Throughout
the book of Acts, baptism is always the first act that follows conversion. The
three-thousand at Pentecost, the eunuch in chapter 8, Saul in chapter 9,
Cornelius in chapter 10, Lydia and the Philippian
jailer in chapter 16 – all of these were baptized following
conversion.
Jim Elliff
The Communion
of the Body of Christ, Christian
Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org. Used by Permission.
When the church baptizes a child, that
action concerns me, for that child is thereby connected to that which is my
head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a
member.
John Donne
We may never be martyrs but we can die to self, to sin, to the
world, to our plans and ambitions. That
is the significance of baptism; we died with Christ and rose to new life.
Vance Havner
(We ought to)
regard the sacrament of baptism with reverence. An ordinance
of which the Lord Jesus Himself partook, is not to be lightly esteemed. An ordinance to which the great Head of the Church submitted,
ought to be ever honorable in the eyes of professing Christians.
Commentary: Matthew 3.
(Baptism) is
simply a testimony - the first profession of faith that the believer
makes. The rite shows the community that
the individual is now identified with Christ.
It is a symbol of an inward reality.
H. Wayne House
Charts of Christian Theology and Doctrine, Zondervan, 1992, p. 123.