A. L. HADDON,
graduated Glen Iris, M.A., Melbourne University, D.D. Butler University. Ministries: Wedderburn, Bambra Road, Ashfield, Enmore, City Temple, Youth Director N.S.W., 30 years principal Glen Leith College, 18 years editor "N.Z. Christian", 2 years President N.Z. National Council of Churches. Twice Conference President, twice preacher of Conference Sermon. Member N.Z. University Faculty of Theology and its examiner in Church History 10 years. Three visits to U S.A, lecturing and preaching. First Vice-President Melbourne World Convention.

      Now that South India has shown the way to union of episcopal and non-episcopal churches, the next step is to find a way of union between churches which practise infant baptism and those which have only believers' baptism.

      Schemes at present under discussion assume that, in the united church, both forms will be used and both meanings taught. The "Greenwich Plan" (U.S.A.) leaves it to each congregation to determine its mode of administering baptism. The Ceylon Scheme takes the two forms of baptism as alternates, with the provision that any minister who cannot conscientiously administer infant baptism may invite another minister of the united church to do so.

      North India is facing the practical difficulty that arises when a person who has been baptised in infancy comes to the conviction that believers' baptism is more truly in keeping with the mind of Christ. It is suggested that ministers will help him to seek the remedy of what he now believes to be a grave lack in his own baptism, not by re-baptism, but by some other means, for baptism is unrepeatable in the life of any one person. If the ministers fail to satisfy the person, the matter is to be referred to the Bishop for pastoral advice and direction.

      It is not to be expected that all difficulties can be removed before union takes place. But the abovementioned provisions place a serious limitation on the Reformation principle of personal liberty in responding to the divine grace A person for whom a decision has been made by someone else, that he be baptised in infancy, is deprived of the opportunity of making a later personal decision concerning believers' baptism. In the present divided state of the churches such opportunity exists and is sought. In this respect union would involve a spiritual loss. The problem is a deep-rooted one and the whole matter is due for further consideration.

      In spite of what the Apostle Paul wrote of the "one baptism", modern Biblical scholars insist on describing two. This is not as in the old controversy when one party argued for one form of baptism and the other party contended for a second form. Now the individual writer presents two different baptisms. On the one hand, in the light of familiar New Testament teachings, he expounds Christian baptism in relation to new life in Christ. Then he turns to infant baptism, to which the New Testament description does not apply, and for this he finds a different theological justification, for it is something different in its nature and purpose.

      Thus, Pierre Marcel, of the French Reformed Church, in his "The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism", has a section on the meaning of baptism of adults. Here, with the great New Testament passages as guide, he presents the catholic position. He says: "It is universally admitted in all the Christian churches that the candidate for baptism ought to give evidence of repentance and faith, and to declare his desire to obey Jesus Christ." (p. 183). He goes on to describe a significant Christian experience, but clearly all that he says is inapplicable to infants. For baptism is a sign and seal of remission of sins, of our justification, of regeneration, of the death

of the old man and the resurrection of the new man by communion with the death and resurrection of Christ. The principal element in baptism is that the believer puts on Christ and is conformed to Him. Baptism is also the sign and seal of the believer's communion with the church, the body of Christ. "According to the New Testament, since for adults faith and repentance are the condition for receiving it, baptism is thus the sacrament of the believer's entry into the covenant of grace" (pp. 153-4). As would be expected from his Calvinist background, Marcel stresses the Divine action in baptism but does not fail to indicate the place of faith in receiving the Divine grace--"We have nothing else in baptism than what we receive by faith" (p. 166) "A sacrament received without faith confers nothing more than the Word heard without faith." (p. 49).

      It is obviously impossible to equate baptism so understood with a rite performed in infancy on a passive participant. Surprisingly, Marcel asserts: "At the present moment the cause of pedobaptism is theologically lost, and its advocates, deprived of theological arguments, attempt to find a precarious refuge in facts and notions which cannot afford the least bit of genuine justification, such as the testimony of history, the tradition of the ancient church or Reformed tradition, inscriptions, mosaics, sculptures, pieces of money, citations from the fathers, and so on--what have they not tried to seize upon!" (p. 19.)

      Whether the theological justification of infant baptism attempted by Marcel is any more satisfactory titan the others is seriously questioned, but that is not our main concern in this article. He reasons from partial analogies found in the Old Testament, and asserts that the sole basis for infant baptism is that the children of believers are born into the covenant of grace.

      Our point is that here we are offered two baptisms which are different in nature, purpose and theological justification. On the one hand we have described a personal experience of self-commitment to Christ in which the believer receives new life as the gift of God's grace and enters into the covenant. On the other hand infants, without personal participation, are said to be born into the covenant, and are therefore to be given Christian baptism. To attach the same name to two such different things is misleading and has unfortunate results.

      The late Clarence T. Craig (Methodist) in "The One Church" (p. 82) lists the various meanings which all agree are associated with baptism in the New Testament--washing or cleansing, putting away of the filth of the flesh forgiveness of sins, gift of the Spirit, new birth, washing of regeneration, illumination, putting on Christ, dying and rising with Christ. He says that the later development of infant baptism "did not mean a meticulous following of the example of the New Testament." As the meanings he mentions are wholly inapplicable to infant baptism, haw can it be said that this later development involved any kind of following of the example of the New Testament? In many Churches as a result of this later development, something different has been substituted for the New Testament example and in such a way that the original significance of baptism has been almost entirely lost.

      Prof. Norman Snaith "I Believe In . . ." articles reprinted from the Methodist Recorder (pp. 110-173) says that for the majority the "matter of baptism is hedged about with confusion and error . . . By the transference of the rite to infancy it ceased to be believers' baptism, and the intention was thereby changed . . . infant sprinkling can scarcely have the same significance as believers' baptism . . . With the transference of baptism

from conversion to infancy, the rite has become one of dedication. My own opinion is that this should be made quite clear, and that the Christian communities should take steps to ensure a proper understanding of it both in theory and in practice."

      This problem confronted Kierkegaard in the Danish Church of his day. He points out that the people considered that they were already Christians because they had been born Danes and baptised in infancy. This was not Christianity, he said, but an illusion. The people were not even heathens. They were deludedly satisfied that they were Christians, though they were not. "It is indeed very possible to be baptised en masse, but we cannot be born anew en masse." In typical style he argues that it is easier to become a Christian if one is not a Christian, than to become a Christian if one is one already! It is very difficult to make a decision if there was an earlier decision (to be baptised) which was not the individual's own decision. It hinders him from becoming aware of the fact that he has still to make his own decision. Kierkegaard's concern, like that of Barth, Brunner and others, was to recover the full meaning of baptism, to present it existentially.

      Marcel emphasises that baptism effects not only the individual but the whole Church. Paul makes this clear (Eph. 5:25f)--"Christ loved the Church. He gave himself to make her holy through baptism in his name, to make her in his eyes an altogether glorious church." It is within an imposing array of spiritual experiences that baptism has its true and intended place--Christ, crucifixion, baptism, sanctification, a purified and glorious Church. "It is unthinkable to celebrate baptism as a private ceremony." (p. 177).

      The interim report of the Church of Scotland commission on baptism also refers to the corporate nature of baptism. "This baptism of the Church at Pentecost is essentially corporate. This corporate baptism of the church stands behind the baptism of every individual and is prior to every administration of the Sacrament of Baptism. It is only through and within the Church created by this corporate baptism that true administration of the sacrament can take place. When an individual is baptised within this church he too is baptised into Christ who was born of the Spirit, who died and who rose again. Hence his Baptism is his new birth, the beginning of a new life in the Spirit, in which he grows up in knowledge and stature into the manhood of Christ That is why the Baptism of children born of parents within the Church is so right that it is taken for granted in the New Testament" (p. 32). The report's conclusion is a very strange one in view of what happened at Pentecost. The Gospel was preached. Those who believed asked what they should do. They were told "repent and be baptised every one of you.." And they that gladly received His word were baptised. How can it be said that the baptism of children was taken for granted when each of the conditions mentioned made it impossible for them to be included? Then, and later, it was not the passive infant, but those who gladly responded in faith, who were incorporated into the Body of Christ to share his life.

      Rudolf Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, pp. 133-144) sets out in detail the meanings of baptism in terms similar to those given above and says: "It should be taken for granted that only adults were baptised (Joach. Jeremias. Hat die alteste Christercheit die KindertauJe geubt? (1938), to the contrary notwithstanding)." As is now common amongst scholars he rejects the idea that Christian baptism grew out of Jewish proselyte baptisms. Its forerunner was rather the baptism of John in which response

in faith and repentance was required.

      A press cable (London, July 3, 1959) reports that the Church of England's Liturgical Commission, dealing with baptism and confirmation, proposes completely revised services and recommends a reversal of the emphasis of the Book of Common Prayer and a return to the theology and practice of the New Testament and the early Church. Adult baptism is treated as the normal form and infant baptism a modification of it. "In the New Testament adult baptism is the norm and it is only in the light of this fact that the doctrine and practice of baptism can be understood."

      Christ claims the whole of man's personality. That which is less than personal is not fully Christian. Faith involves the death of self-reliance and new life in complete dependence on God. The connection of baptism with faith's surrender is being insisted on also by several writers of the Anglican Church. Dr. G W. H. Lampe Professor of Theology in the University of Birmingham, holds that faith and baptism go together in the Scripture as Paul taught the Galatians: "Ye are all sons of God, through faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as were baptised into Christ did put on Christ." "It is to those who believe on his name that he gave power to become sons of God, reborn of water and the Spirit. The New Testament does not contemplate the question whether faith is sufficient for salvation without baptism, for in the New Testament the two are inseparable. Union with Christ is entered into by faith, and faith-union is effectively symbolised in baptism. Later, this intimate connection of the two was not always fully maintained." ("Justification by Faith" p. 64) .

      Dr. C. D. F. Moule, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (The Meaning of Hope, pp. 34-35) points out that the victory over evil which the death and resurrection of Christ established is a victory of love and love cannot compel a response. "The hope which offers so firm an anchorage in the mighty acts of God in Christ only becomes hope in actual fact to us if we are penitent and trustful. That is why I spoke just now of the death with Christ of every Christian. That is the meaning of baptism."

      Significantly enough when M. A. C. Warren in his "Gospel of Victory" studies the relevance of the Epistle to the Galatians he devotes nearly half the book to the meaning of baptism. For, like Paul, he sees baptism in relation to the death of Christ and to Christian loyalties. "Faith in the case of the Galatians, as of the New Testament Church as a whole, was both affirmed and sealed in baptism . . . Submission to baptism is for Paul the symbol of faith; it is the identification of the believer with God through Christ as one of God's sons." (p. 73).

      Dr. M. Ramsey, Archbishop of York, in "The Gospel and the Catholic Church," sees that from the earliest times "baptism appears as an act of Christ whereby the baptised person is brought into a new relation to Christ and His Body. The response of continual faith is needed for this new relation to grow. None the less baptism is the Divine act creating the new relationship." (p. 58) .

      Christian baptism, as it is described in the New Testament, links Divine grace and the response of the recipient. As Emil Brunner says: "In baptism it is God first and sovereign, Who acts, Who forgives sins, Who cleanses man and regenerates him. But man acts too in baptism. He allows this cleansing of himself to take place, he lets himself be drawn into the death of Christ, he confesses his faith and his attachment to Christ. Baptism

is not merely a gift to man, but also an active receiving and confession on the part of man. Indeed, baptism precisely as this free confession of man, is the stipulation for the individual's joining the Church. Baptism is not only an act of grace but just as much an act of confession stemming from the act of grace." This two-sided experience cannot, of course, take place in infant baptism. To quote Brunner again: "Even if by being a member of a Christian household one can in some way be reckoned as being in the Covenant of God, yet he can certainly not be considered as belonging to the Body of Christ, to which none belong except believers." (The Divine, Human Encounter, pp. 130-132) .

      That complete baptism cannot take place in infancy is widely recognised. The problem does not arise for those who believe that a priestly miracle accompanies the baptism of the infant. In the Greek Church the confession of faith is first recited by the sponsor. Then the child is thrice immersed and immediately afterwards confirmed. At the first convenient opportunity it receives Holy Communion. That is at least consistent, for whatever justification there is for infant baptism applies equally to the other parts of the rite. Belief in the magical or miraculous effect of baptism was the basis of infant baptism in the medieval church. Even Luther opened his "Order of Baptism" (1523) with the instruction "The administrator blows three times under the child's eyes and says: 'Depart thou unclean spirit and give room to the Holy Spirit.'" The same words begin the revised order of 1526. ("Works of Luther". Philadelphia Edition. 6:197, 207.)

      Many scholars, however, hold that where infant baptism is practised, it needs to be completed in later years by personal decision. Schleiermacher, who thought that infant baptism could be given up without loss, wrote: "Infant baptism is a complete baptism only when the profession of faith which comes after further instruction is regarded as the act which consummates it." (The Christian Faith, p. 633). The Interim Report of the Church of Scotland has it that: "Our infant baptism discloses its effectual reality in the confession of faith and in Holy Communion." "In baptism the child is planted in Christ but this 'in Christ' comes to its full reality when in Holy Communion Christ comes to abide in the heart of the child." (41, 42) .

      The Archbishop of York asserts that confirmation is the normal completion of baptism. On this agree both Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England Thus Prof. Lampe: "For the completion of the sacrament there is needed the full personal response of whole-hearted self-committal to Christ . . . On the principle that the sacraments are efficacious because in them personal faith responds to personal grace, the administration of infant baptism without subsequent confirmation is, as a matter of regular church order, not merely anomalous but indefensible." (Justification By Faith. 65.) From a group of prominent Anglo-Catholics we must be content with a word from Dom Gregory Dix, He notes that "Christian Initiation in the New Testament is described and conceived of solely in terms of a conscious adherence and response to the Gospel:" Infant baptism should never be "allowed to be thought of as normal", but "regarded always as an abnormality, wholly incomplete by itself and absolutely needing completion by the gift of the Spirit and the conscious response of faith" (The Theology of Confirmation in Relation to Baptism, p. 37). Similarly, a common declaration of faith issued by the New Zealand Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational Churches in the present discussions of Unity, states that the baptism of infants "is not complete

until the age of personal decision (when) they covenant with Christ and His Church as full communicant members."

      This division of Initiation into two parts separated by an interval of years is confusing and, for most people destructive of real baptism. The vast majority of present unbelievers were passive participants in the incomplete rite in infancy. They have never completed it by personal response. It has meant nothing in their lives. And most of those who do go on to a confession of faith do so without realising that this is the completion of their infant baptism. It is surely a mistake to give the name of the whole (Baptism) only to the early incomplete part which by itself means nothing in the life of the infant and to which the rich meanings stressed in the New Testament cannot be applied.

      To avoid this separation of parts by conceiving baptism as a manifestation of conscious personal response to the Gospel does not involve neglect of the young. Those who so conceive baptism emphasise the prevenient grace of God even more than does Gustav Aulen for they do not think that passive infants should be baptised in order to give assurance that they are objects of Divine love. They recall that Jesus showed the Divine interest in young children without baptising them. He, himself, was in infancy brought for presentation in the Temple and later in life was baptised.

      Discussions of Christian unity are uncovering various possible changes. It is suggested that the child's relation to the Covenant of God be recognised in a service in infancy, that in this service the operation of God's grace through Church and Christian home be acknowledged and that they unitedly pledge themselves to give the child Christian nurture. Then at the age of personal profession of faith, he should be baptised into Christ and the communicant membership of the church. Something similar to this has been suggested by Dr. Kenneth Kirk, Bishop of oxford, as a solution to the difficulties being encountered in the Anglican practice of infant baptism. "Is it not possible," he writes, "that instead of being baptised in infancy a child might at that stage be admitted as a catechumen, or 'learner'; and then after a period of instruction and when 'years of discretion' are reached, be baptised and confirmed, and admitted to communion? Would this in any way help us in our difficulty?" Some such reconsideration of the matter is urged upon us by the pronouncements of outstanding theologians and the call for reform by leaders in all the reformed Churches.

      If infant baptism is to be practised in a united church it will be necessary to introduce a later act in which personal commitment is made, e. g. confirmation. Thus as Brunner points out: "the whole of the New Testament act of baptism is divided into two parts, the objective gift of grace in infant baptism and the subjective confession of faith in confirmation."

      Some urge that the unity be restored so that the sacrament, as in the New Testament, "is not only a sermon-word, but a bifrontal happening in which God says 'yes' to man, and man says 'yes' to God." (Brunner).

      Another line of thought asks whether the bogey of re-baptism is as real as it is made to appear? Seeing that we have now in the Church (and also in individual communions) two different baptisms each having its purpose and value--one related to the covenanting prevenient grace of God, and the other to the faith-acceptance of the Gospel of redemption--should not both find a place in a united Church? If each is

explained and its function understood there is no duplication of substitution. Amongst the ancient people of God those who came to John's baptism and later to baptisms into Christ found one to be preparatory to the other.

      The quotations in the paper are all from writers in the pedobaptist tradition.