Warning - Long post
There are at least five reasons why I don’t like this question. They are as follows:
1. It is laden with assumption.
Let me ask you a question: “When did you decide to quit smoking pot?”
Do you like this question? Of course you don’t. For one, it makes the assumption that you were at one point a pot smoker. For another it makes the assumption that you went for a while deciding that you should smoke pot. Third, it leaves no room for you never having smoked pot. And fourth, it’s really personal for a first question. It’s not a bad question in the right context. However, there are few right contexts for this question to be asked. Most of the time, this would be an offensive question because embedded within the question is the assumption of wrongdoing. There is blame in the question.
For the pot question to be appropriate there must have been a relationship, a connection, some prior knowledge and so on that makes such assumptions acceptable to the person asked this question. Busting out with it is just not right.
So, for the baptism question, it assumes too much. It assumes there is one thing or a clearly definable collection of things that combined result in salvation. It’s easy to spew out the 1 thing or the collection of things, but there has been some pre-existing thinking going on in order to get there. The Bible never says definitively that baptism is essential for salvation. Now, you can select a hermeneutic (command, example and inference is the c of c hermeneutic) apply it to scripture, cut and paste together a theology and get there from here, but Jesus never did that. So in essence, to get to baptism is essential for salvation, you have to do something unbiblical to get to your biblical posture. Not a good idea.
Assumed in this question are the following:
God has selected to limit himself to a singular human act.
Salvation is mono-dimensional, hinging on one thing.
God only intends for people to be right.
Correct knowledge is essential for salvation.
The question itself is value free and honest.
There are more assumptions buried in this question, but I will let it rest there.
2. It’s reductionistic
To reduce something as important as eternal life down to one question – one poorly constructed question is a really shallow sense of eternal life. What bothers me is how simplistic this sounds, but how immense the consequences are. Everything is on the line here. Everything is at stake. And to flippantly and unwaveringly attached the eternal home of the soul on this faulty question full of assumptions which is contaminated with a shallow hermeneutic is at best a tragic mistake and at worst a monumental heresy of galactic proportions.
I know baptism is important, but it must be dealt with more sensitively than a sucker punch question like this. Too much is at stake to get this wrong.
I think people in the C of C get so crazy about baptism because it is clearly measurable. Faith is not clearly measurable. Repentance is, I guess, but it would require constant monitoring. Belief is not measurable; everyone lies (stretches the truth, is biased, deceptive etc) at some point and we don’t always pick up on it. None of these is an observable one timer like baptism. So, it is the easiest to turn into a formula. It saddens me that we so quickly choose easy over honest.
Yes, easy over honest.
“How is your son’s spiritual life?”
“Oh, he was baptized last year.”
“Whew. I am so glad to hear that.”
What’s missing in this little conversation that happens more often than we would like to admit is the essence of a life with Christ. Who cares if someone got dunked if that is all that is there. We automatically assume that if someone got baptized, everything else must have been in place. That’s a flying leap over the Grand Canyon – and not even Evil Knievel can do that.
3. It’s Overstated
It’s not enough to say it’s important, I will admit, but to say no one goes to Heaven unless they are baptized is overstated. We really want Mark 16:16 to end this conversation, but it doesn’t. We really want the thief on the cross to be some kind of once only exception that only Jesus can make. Well, Jesus can make as many exceptions as he wants and who is going to argue with him? We elevate it to essential to say “here is where we draw the line.” It’s useful for in-grouping and out-grouping, but it not necessarily useful in the actual process of salvation. Far too often do we flippantly use baptism as a litmus test for how to treat people. You know you treat “one of them” differently than you treat “one of us.” Baptism is the quick and easy test by which to know without actually having to get to know the person.
Yes, it’s useful for social decision making, expediency, and in-grouping, but it does not serve the Kingdom the way we overstate it.
4. It’s Formulaic
It’s been the fifth step in the process of salvation in many of our churches. Run ‘em through and get ‘em dunked. NEXT. People are not chemical s dumped into test tubes. Christians are not manufactured with a cookie cutter process and pumped out like an assembly line. Yet, we have adopted our culture’s concepts of how things are made and applied them to evangelism. If a frenzied consumer culture makes people shallow, then a formulaic Christian consumer culture makes shallow Christians – if it makes actual Christians at all.
5. It’s a short cut
Maybe I’ve already covered this, but I think that it is a short cut that allows people to think that they are something that they are not. Baptism is so frequently used as the end of something, the goal, the result, when it is the beginning. We treat it like the guy who gets married and then quits trying to woo his wife. He’s done. He got what he wanted and the game is up. Sure, we never say this, but we do this. Where is the discipleship? Where is the mission? Where is the life change that transcends quitting simplistic behavioral changes?
When we overemphasize baptism we under emphasize spiritual formation. We think a baptized person is a spiritually formed person. The person baptized picks up on it, changes a few bad habits, but is then spiritually retarded because he has not been shown anything else. He got his butt into Heaven, what else is there?
Spiritual short cuts are bad news in the long haul.
This post has been way too long and I apologize for that. So, in sum I will say that baptism is God’s gift to humans in so many ways. We should treat it as something sacred, not a formula or other things that are meant to increase its value, but in fact only hinde
11 comments:
We were having a discussion on this very matter tonight. I quoted something you had said earlier but this post lays it all down. We have not only preached that baptism is essential but that it is the ONLY thing that matters... Where did we get that??
What we could teach is that baptism is essentially Christ-like.
I'm not sure I've ever heard that used as a persuasive argument in support of baptism. "Be baptized because Jesus was."
Why is that? Because He was sinless and was baptized to "fulfill all righteousness"? Why can't we be baptized because we are sinful and we want to fulfill all righteousness? Is it because baptism is so inextricably tied in our to forgiveness of sins that we can't also see it as the pledge of a good conscience toward God? Why must it be an either-or to us? Why not both?
Couldn't Jesus have been washing away His own sinless past? Washing away the carpenter's job and taking on a new career?
Or are we stuck on the doubt that Jesus was only baptized with John's baptism, that powerless thing by which some folks in Acts could not receive the Holy Spirit? Well, Jesus did - right after! And, well, was there some doubt that He had it before? - Especially when His cousin John is described as being filled with it from the womb?
I know I'm probably just muddying the waters of baptism, and I apologize for that.
But I've got to agree with Fajita. We should rather be asking the question, "What is salvation, essentially?"
Keith, I think it was Garry Hollaway who gave a lesson at Pepperdine a few years ago and linked our baptism with Jesus'. I will have see if I can find that.
YES. It's rare to hear a CoC'er be honest and blunt about this subject. This weekend I preach many of the things you just posted. We'll see how it goes.
Well Neal, how did it go?
I have kids walked in to my office at our campus center (across from K-State) who ask me this question on a regular basis (sometimes it is phrased - "what do you believe about baptism" My favorite was prefaced by this statement - you don't seen to have the typical c/c view on anything - so I have a question.) Then they are shocked when it turns into a conversation rather than a one word answer. I blogged last week asking how different would our churches be formatively if we talked about baptism and salvation in terms of transformation. In terms of us being transformed into the image of Christ. In terms of us being in Christ and Christ in us. In terms of a journey rather than moments.
Jen,
YES! The essence of baptism is transformation...what God turns us into. THAT'S what we have to be advocates for.
Fajita,
Got sick...gonna have to wait a week to preach on baptism...although in anticipation, many members of my congregation have pleaded for a new/better/more biblical understanding of baptism, compared to the rather legalistic, transactional view they've always been taught.
I think you raise some good points about how some of us in the church have abused baptism. Surely we can abuse everything God gives us and baptism is no exception. What a terrible sin it is to use baptism for our own pride - "I'm better than you because I'm biblically baptized and you're not." You're right on about those things.
Where I part with you is the core of your argument. People's abuse of something does not negate it's truth. Baptism IS essential to salvation. So is faith. So is repentance. To say that we cannot say baptism is essential for salvation (or ask the question) is absurd. And no, it is not putting together scriptures "unbiblically." Baptism is a wedding ceremony with Christ. At the same time it is our new birth. Those things are essential for salvation and God has chosen baptism as the way we receive God's grace. Let's stop watering down baptism.
I have pasted in a blog post from late last year. It has to do with essentials.
Essence of Essential 4: The terrorist and me
I like the catch phrase, "Many ways to Jesus; One way to God." I think I get the meaning. It embraces both the unlimited paths available for each person to come to the one path of God.
If Jesus really did come to save the world because God loved the world so much (and I believe He did), then how does that salvation happen?
When I think of salvation, I think of starting lines. In a fifty meter sprint, starting at the starting line is great. Not everyone has that opportunity. Some people start a million miles from that point. Where does an Iraqi who was born into militant Islam start and where does the suburban American been-going-to-church-since-I-was-born person start?
Could it be that salvation is not so much about location, as perceived by externals, but rather direction? Who is more likely to be saved: A person moving Godward from a milion miles away or a person moving further from God at fifty feet away? Maybe nearness and distance to God (or being saved or not saved) has little to with how people measure it, how denominations measure it, and how meta-groups (evangelicals, mainline, etc) measure it.
What if a terrorist put down his or her rifle because he or she just sensed that the God they know of does not really desire the kind of killing they have been involved in? What if that terrorist paid a great price for that renunciation of terror, even his or her life? Is it good? Yes, of course it is. But is that person saved? My fellowship would say no, because that person was not baptized. Another fellowship might say no because that person did not speak in tongues. Another would ask, "did they ask Jesus into their heart?" Jesus? You mean the prophet? Who asks prophets into their heart? Remember, people only know what they have been exposed to.
What kind of courage would it take for this terrorist to lay down his or her weapons? I'd wager to say a lot more courage than I have with my faith right now. Yet, am I saved because I "did it right" and he or she is not saved because he or she didn't?
Could it be that the terrorist was moved by the Holy Spirit, but didn't know to call it the Holy Spirit? Could it be the response was to the love of Jesus, but did not know what to call it? Could it be that this person, full of courage and "faith," could be responding to the gospel, but from what he or she knows of Christianity, would never ever dream of becoming a Christian? Could it be this person's salvation is a salvation from hate, anger, murder, and death to love, peace, and life? And then on top of that, a life continuing after a bodily death?
Did Jesus not see a greater faith in all Israel come from a Roman Centurion?
I think you raise some good points about how some of us in the church have abused baptism. Surely we can abuse everything God gives us and baptism is no exception. What a terrible sin it is to use baptism for our own pride - "I'm better than you because I'm biblically baptized and you're not." You're right on about those things.
Where I part with you is the core of your argument. People's abuse of something does not negate it's truth. Baptism IS essential to salvation. So is faith. So is repentance. To say that we cannot say baptism is essential for salvation (or ask the question) is absurd. And no, it is not putting together scriptures "unbiblically." Baptism is a wedding ceremony with Christ. At the same time it is our new birth. Those things are essential for salvation and God has chosen baptism as the way we receive God's grace. Let's stop watering down baptism.
What we could teach is that baptism is essentially Christ-like.
I'm not sure I've ever heard that used as a persuasive argument in support of baptism. "Be baptized because Jesus was."
Why is that? Because He was sinless and was baptized to "fulfill all righteousness"? Why can't we be baptized because we are sinful and we want to fulfill all righteousness? Is it because baptism is so inextricably tied in our to forgiveness of sins that we can't also see it as the pledge of a good conscience toward God? Why must it be an either-or to us? Why not both?
Couldn't Jesus have been washing away His own sinless past? Washing away the carpenter's job and taking on a new career?
Or are we stuck on the doubt that Jesus was only baptized with John's baptism, that powerless thing by which some folks in Acts could not receive the Holy Spirit? Well, Jesus did - right after! And, well, was there some doubt that He had it before? - Especially when His cousin John is described as being filled with it from the womb?
I know I'm probably just muddying the waters of baptism, and I apologize for that.
But I've got to agree with Fajita. We should rather be asking the question, "What is salvation, essentially?"
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