The Relation of Baptism to Fellowship
W. Carl Ketcherside
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This is a forum for free men in Christ Jesus. It is not a partisan conclave nor a factional conference. The brethren who participate are not invited to do so because they agree upon everything but because they do not. The purpose of our discussions is not dogmatic or arbitrary. It is pragmatic and exploratory. We have simply met to share our insights into truth with each other and to do so in that attitude of mutual respect which should characterize mature children of God. But the very fact that we can meet together on such a program and in such an amiable atmosphere is indicative of the great gains that have been made in cultivation of the fraternal spirit, and betokens the brighter future awaiting the heirs of the restoration movement.
My theme concerns the relationship of baptism to fellowship. This requires, at the outset, a definition of the two major terms. By fellowship I mean simply that state or condition in which we have a joint participation with God, Christ, and the other saints through the Spirit, and into which we are called by the Father (1 Cor. 1:9). As respects our relationship with God our fellowship is based upon sonship; as respects the other heirs it is a brotherhood resulting from a common Fatherhood. The fellowship in Christ Jesus includes every person on earth in whom the Holy Spirit dwells and is therefore designated the fellowship of the Spirit.
Baptism, as defined for this thesis, is the immersion in water of a believing penitent, in obedience to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. What relationship does this act have to admission into the fellowship of the saved ones? To offset any doubt and to make it easier for you to follow my presentation, let me inform you now that it is my conviction that baptism is the enabling act by which a proper subject is translated, or transferred, from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. It is the inductive act by which he enrolls in the fellowship of the saved ones. Before such an audience of informed students of the word of God one need only mention certain scriptures without giving the contextual setting. I shall briefly state some of my reasons for regarding baptism as essential unto entrance into the fellowship.
1. The fellowship embraces those who are in Christ Jesus. Whatever is requisite to bring one into Christ is essential to induction into the fellowship. "For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:26, 27).
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3. The fellowship embraces those who have been brought into relationship with the Godhood. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19). Note that the original does not bear out the idea of baptism in the name of the Godhood, but into the name. Jesus is not giving a ritual to say when performing the act of baptism nor did he mean to imply that in performance of the act the apostles would be doing so by the authority of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He was telling them into what relationship they were to disciple believers of the Good News by means of baptism.
4. The church of God at Corinth, composed of those who were sanctified in Christ Jesus, that is who were saints by calling, was made up of those who were distinctly said to have been "called into the fellowship." They were temporarily divided over men and for this reason the apostle proposed certain questions. Not one of these, however, related to whether they had been baptized. He did not say, "Were you baptized?" but "Were you baptized in the name of Paul?" Indeed, he affirms that all were baptized, and by this act brought into the one body. "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:13).
I think the scholarship of the world will agree that within the period of apostolic labor and teaching every congregation of saints on earth was composed only of baptized believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no record in the apostolic memoirs of any person being recognized or regarded as being in the community of the saved ones who had not been baptized into Christ. All such ideas are post-apostolic and, therefore, without scriptural warrant. While they may appeal to those who would construct a religious economy based on human wisdom and philosophy they can have no place in the thinking of those who are wholly committed to a restoration of the primitive order and who should have as their starting-point a recognition of the Christian scriptures as "the only rule and measure of Christian faith and learning."
Our responsibility is not to reveal to God what we would believe, but to believe what God has revealed unto us. We should seek to recover what he has uncovered in His word and to abide therein regardless of cost. Our task is not to draw lines, but it is to discover where God has drawn them, and remain within them while urging others to do likewise, not out of respect for our views but out of reverence for His authority.
I have repeatedly said that I will make nothing a test of fellowship which God has not made a condition of salvation. Unthinking and casual critics have assailed this in an attempt to find some inconsistency. These critics have been of two sorts. One is made up of those who would remove the limitations God has set, the other of those who would set limitations God has not placed. The first would receive those whom God does not and the second would debar many of those whom God has received. To be quite frank and candid, I do not regard as being in the one body those who have not been baptized for the simple reason that this is a condition of entrance established by God.
I hold that entrance into the fellowship of the saints is conditioned upon belief of one fact and obedience to one act in validation of that fact. That fact is the only foundation of Christian union and communion. It is the only creed to which
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The reason I regard baptism as a test of fellowship is because God has made it a condition of salvation. Jesus said, in commissioning the apostles to proclaim the good news to the whole creation, "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). It is not my prerogative to question why God proposed this condition. I must simply recognize it and abide by it. The fellowship is constituted of those who are saved from their sins, belief and baptism are divine conditions for such salvation, consequently I regard baptism as a test of fellowship. Those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus are in the fellowship, those who have not been baptized into him are not in the fellowship.
Because of my attempt to be plain in stating my conviction I am charged with condemning many good people who are as sincere as myself. To this charge I plead not guilty. I do not question the goodness or the sincerity of those who differ, but freely acknowledge it. Nor do I condemn those who differ, for it is beyond my power to condemn them if I were inclined to do so, and I am not. My insistence that I must recognize and enforce the will of my Saviour as I understand that will, no more condemns those who differ with me, than their position condemns me. I do not change either their state or status one bit by what I recognize as the will of God. They are not answerable to me at all but to the same God as myself. "There is one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy" (James 4:12).
If it should turn out in the day of final accounting that I was wrong in who composes the fellowship, and if the good and sincere folk who were not baptized, were in the communion of the saints all of the time, then my mistake will not affect their eternal welfare. If it should turn out that I was right, and God who knows the secrets of the heart is willing to accept them on the basis of their goodness and sincerity without their having been baptized, I will rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. My theme then, will be the same as my theme now, "Thy will, O God, be done!" In any event, right or wrong, I must cast myself upon His mercy and grace, and I must, like all others, prove my worthiness to plead for divine mercy upon my willingness to do His will as I understand it. And the question with which I am dealing is not the relationship to ultimate triumph and eternal salvation but to the fellowship of the saints here and now. There may be a difference!
You will note that I have defined baptism as immersion. This presents another problem to a great many among my brethren in this day. It is obvious that my definition is much more restricted and limited than one found in a contemporary American or English dictionary. In view of the fact that thousands of people will rely upon the dictionary to justify sprinkling, and thus conclude that they have been baptized because they have been sprinkled, the spirit of charity would prompt many of the brethren to receive such into the fellowship, or, at least regard them as having been received of God.
Again, let me make it clear that I do not doubt the sincerity nor impugn the motives of those precious souls who are sprinkled under the impression that they are being baptized. Neither do I question or censure the charitable attitude of those who would receive such upon what I regard as mistaken views. But neither sincerity nor charity can change a fact, and the meaning of any word is a question, not of opinion, but of fact, and thus it must be ascertained by examination of credible witnesses.
The English Dictionary is not a proper criterion for judging the meaning of a term used by the Holy Spirit. A dictionary only purports to give the current
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It may be urged that common usage can so alter and amend the meaning of a term as to make it extremely unlikely that the average person will even doubt or question the validity of that meaning, and such person with the deepest sincerity will take the action suggested by popular usage in full conviction that he has done all that is required. This we freely and unreservedly admit, and yet in the spiritual realm such reasoning may be of little genuine consequence. It overlooks the fact that our relationship to God is individual and personal, and that each individual is obligated to ascertain the will of God and to implement it in his life. If he is incapable of determining or understanding the will of God that is a wholly different thing.
The will of God could not be known by man until it was communicated to him and the method of communication had to be that which was familiar to man. Since the highest form of communication known to man is that which employs words as symbols of ideas or vehicles of thoughts, we must turn to the words of God if we would know the thoughts of God. It is affirmed that "No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. 2:12). It is further affirmed by the same apostle that he did not receive the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, and the purpose of such reception was to enable him to understand the things communicated or bestowed by God. He then says, "And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things in spiritual language."
No man can do what God requires by doing something else. That God requires one to be baptized as a means of entrance into the one body few of us would deny. The only problem which concerns us then is as to the action required by the word "baptism." The question is not what a modern dictionary, a theological creed or an ecclesiastical compendium assigns as a meaning of baptism, but what significance was attached to it by the Holy Spirit. The apostle clearly distinguished between words as taught by human wisdom and those taught by the Spirit. It is just as essential that we maintain the distinction between what human wisdom suggests and what the Holy Spirit taught as that the distinction be made originally. Indeed, to do otherwise would place us in the position of sitting in judgment upon the apostles and prophets and declaring by caprice that what they wrote was of little consequence and could be abrogated by subsequent denominational creeds and vagaries of opinion.
If the word "baptism" when used by the Spirit indicated a certain action, and if that action was regarded as baptism, then any other action is not baptism as defined by the Spirit. Such other action may be designated baptism by other authority and may even come to be regarded as baptism because of common usage, but it is not baptism at all when measured by the authority of God's revelation. When I speak of baptism I must mean the same thing Jesus meant when he spoke of baptism. I must mean the same thing Paul meant when he spoke of baptism. I must mean the same thing Peter meant when he spoke of baptism. If I mean something else it is not baptism at all within the scriptural context,
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Baptism is a positive ordinance and not a moral precept. God commands a moral precept because it is right, but a positive ordinance is right only because God commands it. That which makes a moral precept right is inherent in it and stems from its nature, but that which makes a positive ordinance right is the will and authority of the lawgiver. For that reason no moral precept can ever be a test of faith in God, for one who conforms to such a precept may do so because of his rational conclusion as to its utility, benefit or expediency, or a combination of these. Only a positive ordinance can truly act as a criterion by which to measure the depth of faith in the lordship of Jesus, because such an ordinance will be obeyed out of respect for His lordship, that is, His sovereign right to require it.
It would seem that, because of both its nature and purpose, a positive institution must be one which is specific and which requires a properly designed and exact action performed by a qualified subject. Since God does not act capriciously nor require that of us which is incongruous with Christianity as a system, any action required to bring us into the fellowship of the saints must be compatible with what has been done by the Godhood to create and establish that fellowship. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself and the ministry of reconciliation is based upon the announcement of three great facts, viz., that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. This is what one must believe to be saved, and by it he will be saved if he holds it fast.
To serve as a test of faith in these facts divine wisdom has ordained that each individual shall re-enact in his own life those acts which Jesus performed for all mankind. That which was done for all by one must be done once for all by each one. Every man must be a dramatic participant in the "passion play." So the apostle declares, "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4). Buried with him by baptism! This is the act God requires of us all and the purpose of the requirement is obvious.
Baptism is not an act we perform but an act performed with us or for us by another. It is the task of an administrator to baptize. The subject is passive, the administrator is active. The subject sustains the same relationship to the administrator as the corpse does to the mortician. While the subject is required to be baptized it is the administrator who is commanded to baptize. "Go you and make disciples of all nations by baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." One who is dead has no functioning will of his own, he is simply a subject for burial. No administrator has ever been authorized to do anything with such a subject except to bury him. An administrator who performs any other action has not baptized one at all. He acts with no authority except the dictates of human wisdom and the one who submits to the action he imposes has not actually demonstrated faith in the authority of Jesus, duly arrived at by honest and impartial investigation into the requirements of the Sovereign. There is a great difference between faith in Christ Jesus and belief of the articles of a creed, confession or concordat. Baptism is a divine ordinance to test faith in the former and was never intended to be a test of faith in the latter. To make it so is to abuse it and abort it from its sacred purpose.
It seems to me that a great many of our contemporaries, in an attempt to evade the force of God's revelation, employ a very subtle form of sophistry. It is argued that dipping or plunging in water was universally recognized as a means of cleansing in the age when Jesus was on earth and that baptism was chosen as a symbol of our cleansing from sin because of its adaptability to that simple era. It is further reasoned that, in
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1. There is no indication that the ordinance of baptism was to be either transient or transitory. Instead, it is in conjunction with the commission to baptize believers everywhere into the name of the Godhood that Jesus specifically says, "And be assured, I am with you always, to the end of time" (Matt. 28:20). In view of the fact that baptism was a command growing out of the universal authority of Jesus, we may logically conclude that it will be operative while he possesses such authority, or until he exercises his authority to rescind it as specifically as he authorized it.
2. In his dealings with man the divine creator has made our well-being and happiness dependent upon ordinances of his appointment. All blessing is dispensed in conjunction with ordinances. This is as true in the natural or physical as in the spiritual realm since the same God is author of both. It is not ours to question why, nor is it essential for God to tell us why this should be so. It is enough that we recognize and acknowledge it.
In neither the natural or spiritual domain can we even substitute one divine ordinance for another, much less substitute one of our own devising for the divine. Each ordinance has its own value and virtue. In the realm of nature there is no substitute for air, light, or warmth; in the spiritual realm there can be none for faith, repentance, or baptism. One cannot substitute the Lord's Supper for faith, nor repentance for baptism, without doing despite to the institutions of grace and suffering irreparable damage to his growth in Christian character. The substitution of another "symbol" for baptism is not the sign of inward cleansing but an open demonstration of presumption.
3. No man can substitute another act for baptism by divine authority. If he quotes any passage of scripture relating to initiation into Christ Jesus he must reckon with baptism. Thus, the real problem is not whether something else is just as effectual as baptism, a thing we can never possibly decide without another revelation from Jesus who authorized baptism, but whether we will respect the authority of Jesus. If we will not accept His authority as given in his revelation, on what ground do we conclude that one would accept His authority in additional revelation?
4. It is to be seriously questioned whether baptism is a mere overt symbol of inward cleansing. It is the language of the creeds which states that it is "an outward sign of an inward grace." Nowhere in the sacred scriptures is it called either a sign or symbol. Cleansing from sin is by an act of God and any sign it has been effected should be given by God to the pardoned individual. The seal given to us is the indwelling Spirit. Baptism is an act of obedience by which we announce the acceptance of the lordship of Jesus over our lives and place ourselves under His authority, thus bringing ourselves into that relationship where pardoning grace can forgive us of our sins and free us from their guilt.
Lordship creates a master-servant relationship and one can only acknowledge it by doing what the lord requires or demands. Verbal assent is not enough. "Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of the heavenly Father" (Matt 7:21). "Blessed is the man whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing" (Matt. 24:46). "Why call ye me 'Lord, Lord' and do not the things which I tell you?" (Luke 6:46). It is only those who are willing to allow the Lord to reign over them who are
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5. We readily concede that it is the inner cleansing of the temple by God which is of supreme importance, but since God imposes His will upon no man and since acknowledgment of the right of Jesus to exercise sovereignty in our hearts is essential to the divine entrance into our hearts, and since such acknowledgment must be made in action and not in mere statement, is it too much to conclude that baptism is the key provided by which we open the door of our heart by faith? Is this not faith working by love to achieve the divine purpose in our lives?
For a long time we have been endeavoring to determine what motivation prompts men in our day to disparage or depreciate baptism in view of its sacred origin and the approbation given to it by the Holy Spirit through the apostles. Often its validity and essentiality are attacked most bitterly by those who give lipservice to it. We have been forced to the conclusion that we have become victims of a plot by Satan to undermine the spiritual battlements and accomplish by gradual erosion what he cannot succeed in doing by frontal assault. Certainly if a plain ordinance connected with obedience to the Good News and the forgiveness of sins can be relegated to the realm of the indifferent, an effective blow has been struck at the authority of our Lord.
The real question is not whether we have a right to make the understanding of one word a test of admission into the fellowship but whether the Lord has established an ordinance as a condition of entrance into such fellowship and if such an ordinance is positive in nature, action and design. If there is but one door constructed by the builder of the house as a means of access to the blessings within, we argue in vain when we contend about whether we have the right to make access to those blessings contingent upon discovery of such a small thing as the right key. Our complaints are not actually against those who use the key and seek to get others to do so but constitute a reflection against the wisdom of the builder.
Perhaps because we are passing through an age of wisdom we have become imbued with "the wisdom belonging to this passing age" (1 Cor. 2:6). But in our reasoning that insistence upon clinging to the ordinance of baptism may make our plea appear foolish and weak to the theologians and philosophers, let us not forget that "Divine folly is wiser than the wisdom of man, and divine weakness stronger than man's strength." We will gain nothing by leading men together, if together they are not led to Christ. It is not simply unity that we seek but unity in Him. Whatever brings us into Him brings us into the unity for which He prayed.
We do not affirm the importance of baptism as related to fellowship because of the historical position of a reformatory movement. We do not assert its relevance because it is a tradition within that background in which we have grown up. We have nothing that is "ours" purely because of historical or traditional emphasis that we would not gladly surrender in the interest of peace. All such matters we would cheerfully entomb that they might "rest in peace" and allow us to do the same. Our view of baptism stems from a firm personal conviction that it is the will of God and that we cannot be walking in His paths while weakening His words. Our Lord still sits at the right hand of the Father and must still rule in our own lives. The word of the absent King is precious to us and we propose to proclaim it as best we can and to implement it by our conduct. The love for others which does not stem from faith in Him will eventually supplant Him in our hearts with the worship of self.