Questions about Baptism
“I’m not good enough”
This is one of the most common objections. When we compare ourselves with others we can all too readily see the imperfections in our thinking and actions - others seem so much better than we are. Shouldn't I wait until I’ve changed a bit more before being baptised?
It is striking that in the New Testament people were baptised as soon as they recognised who Jesus was.
When people heard John the Baptist preach, many were convicted of their sin and the fact that God wanted to forgive them. They were immediately baptised to symbolise the washing away, the forgiveness, of their sins.
2. When Peter gave that first sermon at Pentecost many were ‘cut to the heart’ and asked what they should do. Peter’s reply was simple,
“Repent and be baptised, 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
3. When Peter was told by God to go to the household of the Gentile Roman Centurion, Cornelius his listeners were convicted of their need for Jesus. Peter then said,
“‘Can anyone keep these people from being baptised with water? They have received the gift of the Holy Spirit just as we have.’ So he ordered that they be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ.” Acts 10:47-48
There are many such examples in the Bible and there is no suggestion that these people were any different to us. They would certainly not be the finished article - the perfect Christian. Baptism is the initiation into the new life as one of God’s people.
Many people, when they first believe in who Jesus is, feel condemned by wide ranging faults in their characters and by things they have said and done. They feel defeated and unworthy. But that feeling should not exclude people from the benefits of being in Christ. Jesus did not come for polished religious types. When he called the cheating tax collector Levi (later called Matthew) to become one of his followers, Levi invited many of his friends to meet Jesus. The religious people objected that Jesus wanted to associate with non-pious types:
“When the Pharisees saw him eating with the ‘sinners’ and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ On hearing this Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” Mark 2:16-17
Nothing could be clearer - God calls us when we are in a bad way and washes our sin away. A general feeling of inadequacy and hopelessness may help us recognise our need for Christ but it is not how God wants us to be. Such depression is a sign of Satan’s work, he wants to do anything to prevent us relying on Christ who longs to both forgive our past and start the work of changing us. It is important to contrast such general feelings of worthlessness with the work of the Holy Spirit who is always specific in pointing out particular aspects of out lives that he wants to change.
Ephesians 2
Before a person becomes a Christian he is indeed helpless - the Bible calls us spiritually dead. There is nothing we can do to help ourselves to become acceptable to God, we cannot lift ourselves up by pulling on some fictitious spiritual shoe-laces!
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live.” Ephesians 2:1
But then a miracle occurred,
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:4-5
This is so important, all true Christians are saved when we put our trust in Christ, we are saved by turning to Christ, our trying to change the way we live has nothing to do with our salvation. It is God who has washed our sin away and who then gives us his Holy Spirit to enable us to live a new life.
“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:6
Doesn’t this thrill you. We have been chosen by God and been given the privilege of becoming part of his family - and he has chosen us just as we are, ‘warts and all’. Our role is simply to accept who Jesus is, what he has done for us on that cross and then permit him to change us; this change is called ‘repentance’. Paul stresses this again as it is so important:
“For it is by grace (i.e. love you didn’t deserve) that you have been saved, through faith - and this is not yourselves, it is the gift of God - not of works, so no-one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
It is therefore wrong for someone to say they don’t feel worthy to be baptised - being forgiven depends on us accepting that we are unworthy and recognising the rule of Jesus Christ.
Romans 3
The first three chapters of the letter to the Romans stresses that those who think they are special and better than others have missed the point that all people are unworthy.
“There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12
When we become Christians, God sees in us the righteousness we have been given by Christ. our own righteousness can never be good enough for God. Our attempts to live by God’s rules or laws can never be enough for God.
“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, . . . This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” Romans 3:21-22
You can now see how wrong it is to reject the righteousness Jesus won for us on the basis that we are not yet good enough. Paul repeats this basic teaching,
“There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Romans 3:22-25
If we have understood what God has done for us by sending his only Son to die, to take responsibility for our sin, then how can anyone refuse to accept what he has done and refuse to be washed of their sin? The question is not whether I am good enough but who is Jesus. How can anyone refuse the love and kindness of God? In another letter Paul again stresses this point.
“But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Titus 3:4-6
To reject this love that Jesus Christ has poured out on us is certainly not wisdom - it is certainly not what God wants. The Holy Spirit, both in Scripture and through our God-given instincts, supports the call of God’s church, the bride of Christ, as the call goes out to all people,
“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” Revelation 22:17
This is virtually the conclusion of the Bible. Baptism is the beginning, it is the acceptance of who Christ is and the fact that I can never match up to the ideal of God’s standards. Yet the good news, or gospel, is that God is willing to give us the water of life. This water both washes away our sins and sustains us by God’s Spirit for the new life he has planned for us in the future.
2. “I fear I won’t be able to keep it up”
This fear also betrays a lack of understanding of what God promises to do for us. It was he who chose to give us faith in his Son. God called us when we were dead and breathed spiritual life into us. Do you really think he would then leave us to sink on our own.
God has given his Holy Spirit to everyone who recognises their need for Jesus and wants him to both forgive them and change them. God does do this. Recently I was talking with a lovely godly Christian who said that she had had an illegitimate child before she became a Christian. Another friend was on drugs and another an alcoholic and another an addicted thief. When the Spirit of God entered their lives they began to change. Sometimes this change was painful and the temptations kept coming to return to the ‘easy, old way of life’, Satan’s way, but the Lord stayed by their side.
God has promised us,
“. . . but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24
Throughout the Bible, God repeats the following promise to those who trust in him. Moses spoke the following reassuring words to all God’s people as they were given the frightening task conquering the Promised Land,
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD you God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6
Later God reminded Joshua of this promise,
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
It was straight after this that the Chosen People went through the waters of the Jordan to begin the difficult task of living for God in the promised land. In the same way the waters of baptism represent the beginning of the Christian life but the Lord God has promised to be with us throughout our lives.
King David understood the greatness of God’s promise to him,
“Though my Father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.” Psalm 27:10
This same confidence in the Lord is ours as Christians. Many of those who first read the book of Hebrews were facing all sorts of difficulties yet God said,
“‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’” Hebrews 13:5-6
If you have heard Jesus speak to you, respond knowing this promise the Lord Jesus made to us,
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out of my hand.” John 10:27-28
In order to emphasise that God will work to keep living closely with God he repeats the promise,
“My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no-one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:29-30
What a wonderful reassurance this is for those of us who have recognised and welcomed the Saviour. When we turn to Christ we are given eternal life. That life is a gift, it is God who has chosen us and will then train us and empower us to be his people. Alleluia, what a message! Jesus said,
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” John 5:24
We know that Satan does not want people to align themselves with the Lord Jesus but that is what he calls us all to do, to pass over through the waters of baptism into the Promised Land of God’s eternal presence. God has promised his Spirit to dwell in each of us to keep us living as He wants until he calls us to be with him in heaven.
3. “I was baptised as a baby”
This is a complicated issue. We have seen that baptism represents a two sided contract or covenant between god and his people. Is the rite valid if there is no faith in the family? Unfortunately in many churches babies are now baptised as a routine, irrespective of the faith of the family. The vows made by the parents and God-parents at the child’s baptism are significant.
When a baby or young child is baptised, the parents and Godparents make these promises that they believe in Jesus on behalf of the child. The baptism of a child is a public commitment to bring the child up to know and love and serve the Lord Jesus, and share in regular worship. Later, when older, the child may wish to say these promises for themselves at a service of Confirmation.
It is only a personal faith in the Lord Jesus that saves anybody. No-one receives the Holy Spirit without that faith. Just as circumcision was a sign of faith in the Old Testament and children were accepted and brought up in the Jewish faith so it seems right that children of believing Christian parents are admitted to and brought up in the faith. They can then be taught from the beginning that Jesus is their Saviour because he is God, they can be taught to say the Lord’s prayer and Psalm 23 without concerns about honesty.
However if that personal faith in the family is not there then that covenant is surely invalid. If such a person later in life comes to a personal faith in Jesus then it seems right that the covenant can be enacted with both sides of the contract valid. It will mean much to the person concerned and is a reminder that people are not saved by ritual but by faith in Jesus.
Such decisions need to be made carefully as the person getting baptised again as an adult is really saying that their upbringing was not really Christian, with possibly difficult ramifications.
Nobody is saved by the ritual of baptism itself but baptism is an important public sign of faith in the Lord Jesus.
4. “Does baptism make me a member of the local church?”
When a person recognises who Jesus is and enters into a covenant or contract with the Lord he or she is accepted into God’s catholic family. We are saved by grace alone. The word ‘catholic’ is derived from the Greek ‘katholikos’ and means ‘universal’. This therefore supersedes all denominations. However it is vital that a newly baptised person does become involved in a local church community to enable them to grow as Christians. According to the Bible, this church should be a group of people where the basis is the teaching of the Bible, the word of God, where they are longing to promote knowledge about the claims of Lord Jesus in their society and abroad and where they support each other to live for Christ.
When our students go off to university we encourage them to look for a church that clearly emphasises the teaching of the Bible but also where they are invited back for a meal! Practical caring for others welfare is a good sign that the Bible is being followed!
Individual churches will have specific doctrines and practices and clearly a new Christian must ensure that these are centred on Biblical teaching. The best way to ensure that a church is applying Biblical teaching to themselves is to see how they work together for Christ, is love and evangelistic purpose clearly seen there? The church members as well as the leaders must demonstrate the love of Christ.
Such a church will surely welcome new members and help them to become integrated into the life of the church. Some churches have minimal requirements to join, an applicant just completes a form and this gives voting rights. Others are much more stringent and insist on compliance in both doctrine and practice. The hope of the latter groups is to ensure purity within the local church by this means but unfortunately history shows that it seldom works. Many churches with strict membership rules are getting older and smaller. It is all too easy for a local church to keep to rigid doctrines but to lose the love of Christ and a passion that others may be saved. |It appears that these values are passed on much better by individual example than by written rules. Churches that hold to Scripture seem best protected.
5. “How much do my attempts to be righteous contribute to my salvation?
The beautiful teaching about how there Lord Jesus has come to make us, spiritually dead people, alive and right with God is being altered in some church circles. Baptism is less a sign about what Jesus has done and is becoming a sign of what we have to offer God. We will die to self and we will live a new life.
In such circles baptism emphasises that a person has passed the test of the church leaders as having an understanding of essential Christian doctrine and so is less a sign of God’s free grace to us. But in the Bible baptism is purely a sign of grace and a means of accepting this grace, it is not used as proof that a person has started to be changed.
Pelagius was a brilliant English preacher at the beginning of the 5th century. He was widely appreciated for his gifts and spent much time in Rome in exalted circles and was even friends with the Pope. He led a protest against nominal Christianity and the decline in Christian morality. Rome then fell to the Goths under the leadership of Alaric and Pelagius fled across the Mediterranean to Hippo, where Augustine was bishop. The differences in their doctrines soon became apparent. Pelagius believed that each person could become morally perfect. He said,
“God has commanded this and would God command the impossible?”
He rejected the idea that all people have an inherent sinful bias. He taught that babies were born innocent and that salvation depends on our becoming righteous in the way we live, righteousness largely depends on us. At first this was popular as a means of improving both the church and the world but it faced two major difficulties.
1. It opposed the teaching of the Bible that no-one is righteous (Romans 3:10), that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). It opposes the teaching of the Bible that we cannot contribute to our salvation - this is simply a gift of God.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no-one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
“But when the kindness and love of God appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Titus 3:4-6
2. It places a crushing weight of responsibility on us all, which many cannot carry. We have to ensure our own personal perfection. This was the problem that the young monk, Martin Luther faced. He tried so hard to be holy but realised that he continually failed and he was full of guilt. It is also cruel to those with mental, physical, emotional or moral handicaps who feel excluded because of the impossible hurdles presented. If their defects and problems are the result of Adam’s sin, are these their fault?
Augustine recognised the problems. This teaching was too individualistic. The Bible teaches that in God’s eyes there are only two groups of people, those still in Adam and those belonging to Christ. Our destiny depends on the fate of our head. If we are still in Adam then we will share his fate, his guilt and his nature. However if we are in Christ we share his righteousness and a glorious future with him.
It is clear that a modern form of Pelagianism is still rife. After teaching at a midweek Christian Basics course in a local Roman Catholic church one of their leaders came up and said,
“We have to try very hard to be righteous and accepted by God.”
No, no, no! We have been given the status of righteousness simply because we have accepted who Jesus is and want him to be our Lord. After being made righteous he enables us, by the gift of his Spirit to life for him.
In the Old Testament God is described as wearing a breastplate of righteousness. It is part of the armour of his make-up. In the New Testament all Christians have been given this ‘breastplate of righteousness’. What wonderful news this is. The Apostle Paul recognised that this was the essence of the Christian message.
“For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed - a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’ Romans 1:17
However, just as in a good marriage, each partner will try to live in a way that pleases their spouse, so as a Christian we will want to live in a way that pleases and honours our Lord and Saviour. That is not always easy but again, as in a good marriage, it is eminently satisfying to live for the Lord who made us and our world and then came to save us.
BVP
