The Law of Baptism - Part Two

FOREWORD:

I was recently given for consideration a challenging article on the topic of baptism written by Lacy Crowell. Lacy graduated from Bear Valley Bible Institute and is clearly guided with humble and pure intent by Church of Christ doctrine.  I encourage you to read her article carefully and prayerfully before continuing with my response to her article.

http://comefillyourcup.com/2013/09/09/what-about-baptism/

After you’ve read her article – please come back to this document and share with me in the process of evaluating such a theology of salvation through baptism – what I will call the “law of Baptism”.  My article is not intended as an argument with Mrs. Crowell and is more reflective of my own personal study and evaluation of the passages being used by ambassadors of the “Church of Christ” in their attempt to exclude other Christians from salvation who have not been baptized – or baptized properly.

I’ve divided this response into four parts – because so much scripture is involved.

Part one was posted yesterday - I've provided it here, for anyone who hasn't yet read it.

PART TWO:

The author’s next scripture reference is the baptism described in Romans 6 as “a literal re-enactment of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ”. 

I am very humbled by this passage – so will approach it with an extra measure of carefulness.  Here is a summary of what Paul says in Romans 6 – the chronology of events is less important, but I’ve kept my notes in order, nonetheless.  Also, because the first verse of chapter 6 refers to what was previously just stated, I’ve included the last few verses of chapter 5 in my summary.  

• Grace through righteousness brings eternal life through Jesus. From this passage alone, we see the formula: Grace + Righteousness + Jesus = Eternal Life
• Sinning more doesn’t increase the grace applied to us because righteousness is also part of the equation.
• Paul reminds us of baptism in two components – death and resurrection.
• We are united with Christ in this baptism…so that in his death, our sinful life dies. And because we are united with Christ, we also are resurrected as he was.
• Paul says those “who were baptized” were also “buried” and “raised from the dead”.  He then states that we were “crucified with him [Jesus]” so that the old self has died and we are now free from sin.
• Paul reminds us that Christ has conquered death – conquering it for all of us. 
• For this reason we should live as if we are dead to sin and alive in Christ.
• If we are dead to sin, we should stop submitting ourselves to it.
• We are no longer to live as slaves to sin because we are no longer under the law – but under grace.
• That said, we are slaves to the “one you [we] obey”.  Obey sin and die or obey righteousness and live.
• Paul expects that we have obedience “from your heart the pattern of teaching” of Jesus Christ.
• Paul admits that he is making an analogy using the terms of slavery. 
• We should be ashamed of the acts we committed while we were slaves to sin.
• Those acts resulted in our death.
• But – praise the Lord – we’ve been set free from that sin and can now receive the benefit of being slaves to God – holiness, which leads to eternal life. 
• The formula is restated in last two verses:
• In verse 22 we have this concept – being slave to sin results in death.  But being slave to righteousness leads to eternal life.
• And in verse 23 we have this concept – God’s gift (grace) is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Again, Paul is not specifically giving instructions on the importance of baptism in this chapter.  He speaks purposefully about baptism in verses 3 & 4 – using our baptism in Christ as a poignant method of illustrating how we are unified with him in death and resurrection.  But the purpose of that statement is not to emphasize the importance of baptism – but to illustrate the overarching themes of God’s grace, our newfound allegiance to righteousness and the result which is eternal life.

Now, if we were seeking to establish a “law of Baptism”, then we must consider some additional concepts.  First, as Crowell states, baptism “is a literal re-enactment…” So we must properly follow the steps so as to get this right.  And if we are to literally re-enact Christ’s death, burial and resurrection – then should we not all actually be crucified, buried and physically resurrected so as to receive salvation?  Literal means literal.  

Next, Crowell clarifies that through baptism we “contact the blood of Christ”.  OK…so we aren’t literally crucified, etc.  But there does appear to be some symbolism being used here.  If not, then to "come into contact with the blood of Christ" would imply that the baptismal water literally turns to blood?!?  Honestly, every literal explanation of this is really weird.  

Paul’s baptism – along with all of those people on record being baptized in the name of Jesus – were not literally crucified, buried and resurrected.   Jesus was.  Therefore, the concept of baptism is loaded with analogies…and Paul mentions it in Chapter 6 of Romans so as to bring our minds back to how we are unified with Christ. He is not mentioning baptism here so as to draw a literal example of how it works…  If he was, then we should all literally be crucified, buried and resurrected so as to receive salvation.  Even more, if Paul was trying to communicate to us about the “law of Baptism” in Romans 6, then the other themes in the chapter about God’s gift of grace, the pattern of our hearts toward righteousness and eternal life through Jesus Christ would be necessarily minimized and in their place, the importance of baptism would be obvious.

In Romans 6, should we focus on the details of the baptismal analogy Paul used to describe the grace and gift of God – or should we focus on the gift itself?  If we make a law of Baptism from this passage, then we will certainly miss out on being “slaves to righteousness leading to holiness” – which then leads to eternal life through Jesus Christ.

The next passage referenced is a very brief mention of Colossians 2:12 to support the idea of a literal baptism being necessary for salvation.  Here is Colossians 2:11-12 for just a bit more context:

“In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:11-12 NIV)”

Because of the time we devoted to the Romans 6 reference, I will address this passage very briefly…

Is the circumcision being referenced in verse 11 also to be a literal re-enactment?  Certainly not.  This verse is an analogy of how Christ removes the sin of our flesh.  If we accept that Christ does this without the need of our actual re-enactment of the event of circumcision, then why would we – in the very next verse – attempt to make a literal application for the necessity of baptism to accomplish the purpose of receiving salvation?  There is no justification to interpret two sister-passages differently.

Nonetheless, if we are attempting to use Colossians 2:12 to establish a “law of Baptism”, then the literal act of baptism must also be preceded with the literal act of circumcision.  Have fun with that.  You can't take one verse literally and not the other.  And while this is pretty rough for men (no pun intended), I feel even worse for women - who, no matter how hard they try, because circumcision is impossible...salvation just doesn't apply to them according to this passage.  Unless we see the figurative language being used here, circumcision and baptism are both literally required for salvation.

Next, we have Acts 2.  This is a beautiful example of the power of the Holy Spirit.  Crowell references this chapter as an example of how baptism is the conduit for all conversions in the New Testament (along with a slew of other verse citations).  Focusing primarily on Acts 2, she states, “In fact, every time we see a conversion in the New Testament, it is through baptism…”

First, read all of Acts 2.  As I first stated, this chapter is an example of the power of the Holy Spirit – not intended a lesson on the importance of baptism.  Peter didn’t spend an afternoon trying to convince people that baptism was how they’d be saved.  Instead, he laid out – in each person’s own natural language – how their experience at pentecost was a fulfillment of the prophet Joel’s words (from Joel 2:28-32).  Interestingly, the final words of Joel, quoted by Peter, are this:

‘And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ (Acts 2:21 NIV)

These words don’t say anything about the necessity of baptism. 

Further in Acts 2, Peter assures the Jewish listeners that  “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” (Acts 2:36 NIV).  In response to this sermon, they were “cut to the heart”.  So Peter tells them “…Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38 NIV)

And finally, this is the single verse referenced by Crowell to indicate that baptism is necessary for salvation:

“Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acts 2:41 NIV)”

This is important – Crowell improperly paraphrased verse 41.  Here is the statement quoted from her article:

“Verse 41 tells us that GOD added those who were baptized that day to the church.” [italics mine]

Read the verse again more slowly – and without bias. 

“Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acts 2:41 NIV)” [emphasis mine]

To focus on the word baptism and therefore exclude the phrase “accepted his message” unduly places importance on one concept in the place of the other. And because Peter wasn’t trying to preach a sermon about baptism – the whole idea of focusing singularly on that verse from this chapter to claim the necessity of baptism misses the point of Peter’s testimony about Jesus and the foreknowledge of God throughout history.

But if we wanted to establish a “law of Baptism” from this chapter, then we should also require re-enactment of all the other circumstances of that particular event.  Here, everyone heard the words spoken in their own native tongue.  Also, later in verse 45 of the same chapter, everyone was selling their possessions and giving to anyone who had need.  We cannot create a law from that chapter regarding Baptism if we are unwilling to also create a law from that same chapter regarding the hearing of the word in our own language, the selling of our possessions and giving to the poor.

At this point, if we want to make baptism "required", then there are lots of other works we must do so as to be properly saved.  And very quickly, the Law of Baptism starts to sound a lot like a new way to be saved by "the Law".