What is baptism, it's meaning, and it's mode?

Ishmael LaBiosa: Welcome to the You Ask Podcast, where the goal is to answer common questions about Christianity. Let's listen in as Pastor Rusty answers today's question. Today's question is: what is baptism, its meaning, and its mode? Well, I'm sure you're listening to the podcast here, and I'm a Baptist pastor, so I assume you have some sense of where I'm going with baptism. But I'm gonna try to have a fair hand here today and talk about the full spectrum of options for baptism and then give you my take on why I land where I land. Let's talk a little bit about baptism, baptism in the old testament, and then even some baptism in the New Testament. Baptism in the Old Testament, at least in regard to Judaism, is a Jew who wanted to follow the Jewish religion had to undergo a proselyte baptism. And even to this day, Jewish people for ritual purification will dip themselves in what looks to some Christians like a baptistry. It's actually not a baptistry, it is something called a mikveh. And if you go to Israel today, you'll certainly see mikvas around and or other places where there's Jewish population. And ⁓ so the Concept of baptism per se is ⁓ rooted in Judaism. We get to the New Testament, and there's a particular person who's associated with baptism, and that is John the Baptist. Now, there is a little issue here with translation because I never like to use Greek words, but the word for baptism, just listen to it. That's the English word, the Greek word. Baptizo. So r rather than the translators of the Bible cleaning this up for us and actually giving us a translation, which I would propose in most contexts is immersion, they gu gave us a transliteration. They took a Greek word baptizo and just transliterated it, because it almost sounds like the Greek word John the Baptist. Okay. Or baptism. We ought to notice why John the Baptist is called John the Baptist. He's Called John the Baptist because he innovates baptism. In Judaism, people baptize themselves. You dip yourself. But John was unique because he did the dipping. He did the plunging. So if you want a new name for John the Baptist, call him John the Dipper or John the plunger. Doesn't sound as good. So maybe we're going to stick with John the Baptist. Nevertheless, John the Baptist does not, listen carefully, ladies and gentlemen, does not engage in Christian baptism. That's a surprise to some people. John the Baptist engages in what we call a baptism of messianic anticipation. Jesus is coming, and John says, Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand and calls for people to be baptized in a ceremonial way to say, I'm ready. Whatever God's gonna do, I'm ready. And they confess their sins at the Jordan River and were baptized. Clearly, in the early church, we see baptism there in Acts 2 when Simon Peter preaches the Pentecost message that a whole group of them are baptized on the day of Pentecost. Now, this is what happens, and this is where the debate kind of comes about is outside the New Testament, this is so I want to hold two ideas in your mind. I see zero evidence in the New Testament for infant baptism. And I don't think that's a controversial opinion, that within the New Testament itself, zero evidence that there are baptism of babies. While that is true right outside the New Testament, period. So the New Testament was written in the first century. In the second and third century, we do have the presence of infant baptism and And there's kind of a mixed bag here. Some people argued for it, some people argued against it. But by the time we get to St. Augustine, for example, which is fourth century, the practice of infant baptism is is pretty entrenched in the church. So I see zero evidence of infant baptism in the New Testament. It appeared very early in the history of the Christian church, and once we got to the fourth century, it was the normative practice in the church. Now, that doesn't mean that it was right, but you know, we got a long and venerable history of infant baptism. Now, this may come as a surprise to you that the Protestant Reformation, which took place under primarily Martin Luther and John Calvin, they they didn't Object to infant baptism. That may surprise you a bit. They let infant baptism continue on. And there was only one major group in church history that objected to the practice of infant baptism, and that group was called the Anabaptist. Anna in Greek means again, and Baptist means to plunge or to be baptized. And these people were again baptized because they've been baptized as a Roman Catholic. And then they came to understand that no baptism is by immersion for believers. You say, where did these Anabaptists reside? They resided in Switzerland for the most part. And those are kind of the first people of any significance. There were others, there's always been groups who've argued for believers' baptism, but the Anabaptists were kind of. The most well-known group who were in Switzerland who said, we believe in infant baptism. The Anabaptists today, who are their modern day, where does their legacy found? It's found primarily in the Amish and Mennonite communities, is where the Anabaptists kind of developed into as far as today. And then by the way, the Anabaptists in Switzerland are not to be confused with the English Baptists, and the English Baptists that Are obviously in England are kind of the forerunners of American Baptist. All right, there's a little h church history for you there. Let's talk about the various views of baptism, and then I'm going to give you what I think is the correct view, but I'll try to deal here with an open hand. Let's talk about the Roman Catholic view of ⁓ baptism. Now, a lot of people struggle to understand Roman Catholicism, so let me try to help you understand at least this part of it. Roman Catholicism believes in what we call sacramentalism. That's a big word for people. And sacramentalism is basically through, here we go, listen carefully, through a physical action, one receives spiritual blessing. Okay, do you understand this? So a physical action gets you a spiritual blessing. That's kind of a dumbed-down version of sacramentalism. And what Roman Catholicism says, now to muddy the water here a bit more, that baptism in the New Testament is both, listen carefully, a physical action that we do, and it is a spiritual reality that we're baptized into Christ. We've been raised with Christ. That's what Romans 6, if you want a good text to look at, Romans 6 is the text. And so baptism in the New Testament is a physical action and a spiritual reality that is. True, and spiritual baptism into Christ is not actual literal baptism into water. But Roman Catholicism, they connect the two. They basically say the way in which you get the spiritual blessing associated with spiritual baptism, listen carefully, is through is through the physical act. And that's kind of the essence of sacramentalism. And so baptism is a means by which God parts in s saving grace and remission of sin. And And even though a lot of people in Baptist churches aren't Roman Catholic, this idea hangs around. I can't tell you how many times people say, Well, I gotta get to get baptized, get saved. I'm like, ⁓ no, you don't. And they say, I don't. I say, no. Salvation is separate from baptism. But see, this this idea that was and is still today very much in Roman Catholicism, still kind of in the air that we breathe. By the way, the Protestants didn't really clean this up for us because Martin Luther didn't actually disagree with infant baptism. And Luther understood, j Luther was the one who said, Martin Luther, the the Protestant doctrine is that we have right standing before God through faith alone. That's justification by faith. And so if you have forgiveness of sins by baptism, how in the world can justification by faith alone be right? And Luther kind of he doesn't do a very good job here, just to be honest. I don't. dislike Martin Luther, but he basically says that an infant possesses unconscious faith. And I'm like, come on, Martin, no, that that's not, that doesn't, that doesn't pass the test for me. I think after Martin Luther had fought the battle of justification by faith, you just get tired of fighting every battle. And I think at this point he didn't really fight that battle very well. Now There is a view that is held by Presbyterians, and this is sometimes called paedo-baptism. And now this is a little different. Okay, so listen up to this. Pedo baptism, they link New Testament baptism to Old Testament circumcision. Okay. So when a child was born in Old Testament Israel, they became part of the Community in Israel. Well, that's obvious. And one of the signs of the covenant for male children in Israel was the sign of circumcision. So basically, many Presbyterians and Reformed say that when a child is born into the church, that baptism functions as a sign of the covenant. By not saving the child, okay, listen carefully, but by bringing the child into the covenant community, okay, under the protection of the covenant community. And so there's this middle ground, the child is not a believer, but the child is brought into the covenant community. Sometimes I accuse Baptists of kind of doing something like this on Mother's Day. We often have parent-child dedication, and we kind of say, Parents are dedicating themselves to raise their child and the teaching and instruction of Christ, and the church commits to love and help the child. Well, more is being said in Pedo-Baptism, where we in Reformed and Presbyterian circles than that, but they're not going as far as saying that the baptism is salvific. For that much I appreciate a great deal. Now, the final view, which I think is the view that I hold, obviously I'm a Baptist minister, is that Baptists have never been. First and foremost concerned about the mode of baptism. That always surprises people because people think, ⁓ you Baptists, all you want to do is to dunk us until we drown. Well, we don't want to drown anybody. And that's not the point. Actually, Baptists have been far more concerned, listen carefully, over the recipient who is being baptized than the manner of baptism. I still think immersion gives the best picture of dying in Christ and being raised in Christ. But nevertheless, I'm much more concerned about the recipient. See, every other position of baptism, the person being baptized is not a Christian. It's a baby. It's a child who doesn't even know right from wrong yet. And Baptists have said, no, the person being baptized should be conscious of their faith in Jesus Christ. And see, Baptists, this is where I say that the act of baptism is showing people that you're saved. It's not the act of salvation itself. Now remember, baptism is a physical act and a spiritual one. Again, if you want a good text for this, Romans 6, Romans 6 is actually not talking about water baptism. It's actually talking about spiritual baptism into Christ. That we have been Christ died for us. We died in him. Christ rose again. We rose with him. And so I think while most importantly it's the recipient of baptism, that is the believer. The mode which we practice here regularly at Liberty Baptists is immersion, where I think the practice of immersion, I actually quote Romans 6. Because what I'm saying is baptism does not connect you to some spiritual reality that's done through Christ, but the imagery of water baptism gives the best picture of what has already occurred in one's heart. Now, just to go back, remember Catholicism says you can't get the spiritual reality. without the physical act. And see, I go just the other way around. I think if your heart's not in the right place and you're not a Christian and somehow you get baptized, it didn't take. And so I go all the just the other way round on that. So you say, what are we to say about baptism? I'm concerned, first of all, about the recipient of baptism. They should be a believer. That salvation in Jesus Christ, repentance Of sin, admission of sin and faith in Jesus is the prerequisite for baptism. Baptism does not make you a Christian, it proclaims that you are a Christian, and the recipient is uttermost and most important to me. I think the preferable mode is immersion, because I think it gives the best picture of death to sin and self and resurrection to newness of life in Christ Jesus. Thank you for listening to the You Ask Podcast. This is a ministry of Liberty Baptist Church, and we pray this podcast enables you to more faithfully live out your Christian life.