For the last couple of weeks I’ve been preaching on Christian baptism as part of our sermon mini-series on “Understanding the Ordinances.” In part one of this series, I emphasized the essence of baptism as follows: Baptism is the church’s act of affirming a believer’s profession of faith in Christ with the symbolic application of water.
In part two of this series, I addressed some key errors pertaining to the ordinance of baptism, as understood and practiced by various churches and denominations. I sought to show that Scripture gives no warrant for infant baptism. Even though baby boys in Jewish households were circumcised to mark their entrance into the Old Covenant community (the people of Israel), this does not mean that babies should be baptized to mark their entrance into the New Covenant community (the church).
To learn more about believer’s baptism (credobaptism), and infant baptism (paedobaptism), you can listen to my sermon.
After yesterday’s worship service, our deacons chairman Tracy Thieret offered some encouraging feedback as well as share a few tidbits on the matter of circumcision and baptism. I found them interesting and asked Tracy to share them in a a brief article (max 500 words) that I could share on my blog site. Here it is.
I was blessed by our Pastor's message this past Lord's Day listing errors held about baptism by religious groups over the years and teaching what our church believes is the proper mode (immersion) and timing (following faith in Christ). While listening to the sermon, I was reminded of a couple things that have occurred to me recently on the subject.
Under the Old Covenant Law of Moses and in fact beginning with God's covenant with Abraham (Gen 17, John 7:22, Acts 7:8, Rom 4:11-12), God first commanded all males in Abraham's household and afterward in Israel to be circumcised. If they refused, they were excluded from the covenant community because they violated the covenant. This physical symbol was designed to represent the spiritual reality of a painful surgery (Gen 34:24-25, Matt 5:29-30) of the heart (Deut 10:16, 30:6, Jer 4:4, Rom 2:29) to vow allegiance to God by obedience of his commands.
But what about women? Women under the Old Covenant were excluded from participating in the same way as men from the physical sign but not from the spiritual reality. Men and women alike were bound by the Old Covenant commands, laws, and statutes, and enjoyed the benefits (e.g. Lev 18:1-5, 19:1, 37, Deut 4:1, 6:3-4, 9:1, 28:1-68, Jer 2:4, 10:1, Hos 4:1, Amos 3:1).
However, the Apostle Paul (a Jew himself) surprisingly states that under the New Covenant the question of circumcision or uncircumcision is irrelevant. What does matter is being a new creation (Gal 6:15) and keeping God's commands (1 Cor 7:19). Under the New Covenant the inequality is erased and both men and women participate equally in its blessings and responsibilities (Gal 3:28-29) as they did in the original creation (Gen 1:27, 5:2).
On another related subject, some prople have resisted believers baptism by relying on their past "baptism" as an infant or as an unbelieving adult upon admission to some religious group. Our Anabaptist forebears, while holding some doctrines we would deny, did get the command to be "rebaptized" in situations like this correct – for which they were severely vilified and persecuted. They followed the example of the Apostle Paul in Acts 19:1-7. These "about twelve" who came to Paul had been baptized by John in the Jordan. They were "rebaptized" by Paul in obedience after hearing about Christ.
Consider their prior baptism. They had repented of their sins under John's ministry. They were immersed in the same river as Jesus, by the same prophet as Jesus, and at nearly the same time as Jesus was. Surely such a distinguished baptismal context like theirs would have been sufficient, but it was not and so they were, without argument, re-baptized in the name of Jesus and received the Spirit as a result.
If it was important for these people to receive another baptism after the very significant one they had previously received, certainly those who have not yet received believer’s baptism since trusting in Christ should consider following in their footsteps.