Baptism and Brethren
W. Carl Ketcherside
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In this issue I want to share with you a portion of a taped interview held with several young preaching brethren who asked me to meet with them so they could personally explore my position. I will not have space to provide the entire proceedings which lasted several hours, but will try to give you a fairly comprehensive idea of what transpired.
1. Brother Ketcherside, you claim to be working for the unity of all of the brethren, but I would like to know who you regard as your brethren.
Certainly that is an important question, and it is as important to me as it is to you. I do not just claim to be working for such unity as you suggest, but I am working for it. I am traveling, speaking, writing, and otherwise seeking to promote the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. I regard every child of God as my brother or sister, since I am a child of the Father. Wherever God has a son I have a brother.
My recognition and acceptance of a person as a brother is based upon God's acceptance of him as a child. I want to receive and share with all whom God receives, and it is my conviction that God receives men on the basis of their response to the gospel, the good news about the person of His Son. The gospel is the message of God to enlist soldiers, or to enroll students, under the leadership of the Son, to whom all authority has been transferred.
The response to the good news is clearly stated. He who believes the news announced and who is immersed upon the basis of that faith, is freed from the guilt and penalty of his past transgressions. He ceases to be an alien and becomes a citizen of the commonwealth, spoken of in the scriptures as the rule of heaven. I regard every sincere believer in the fact of the Messiahship and Sonship of Jesus, who is immersed because of that faith, as God's child and my brother. I shall receive every such person as a brother, but what is even more important in our modern sectarian world, I will treat him as a brother.
I am probably more aware of it than you are, but it does not bother me, except as I feel compassion for those who prefer to engage in falsehood rather than reporting the truth. But I am older than yourselves and I have long since learned that a lot of preaching brethren are not too trustworthy in repeating the views of another, and especially if they tend to differ with him and would like to see him wiped out. I am glad that I will be judged by the Lord instead of by preachers, for
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I am also happy that, in order to find anything against my position, my brethren have to lie to do it. I have really learned to rejoice and be exceeding glad when brethren say all manner of evil against me falsely for his sake. It wasn't easy to come to that but it has been a valuable kind of discipline. I take a lot of comfort from Miguel de Cervantes, who wrote in Don Quixote, that, "Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as oil does above water."
You will note that not one of those to whom you refer has ever produced one quotation from my pen to validate his accusation. Most of them have never read what I have said about anything. Upon the basis of rumor, innuendo, and sheer gossip, they judge and sentence me in absentia, and I feel sorry for them and for all who have to resort to such unscrupulous tactics to demonstrate their own party loyalty. But God will straighten all of this out, and I am content to await his action.
My position now is, and always has been, that obedience to the gospel, that is, acquiescence in the truth and credibility of the seven great historical facts related to Jesus of Nazareth, and immersion in water as a recognition of his lordship over life, introduces one into that fellowship to which we are called by the wonderful grace of God. My position is identical with that of Alexander Campbell, that the belief of one fact, and the obedience of one act as a confirmation of that belief, is all that is required for entrance into the glorious family of the Father of spirits.
Certainly I can tell you and will be delighted to do so. I regard baptism as the culmination and not the beginning of the birth process. One is never born in order to have life in either the physical or spiritual realm, but because he is alive. Life results from begettal or conception, not from delivery. Birth simply changes the state of one who is alive, bringing him into a new relationship where he can enjoy the blessings and fulfill the responsibilities for which life is intended.
Before one is delivered into the new spiritual state he is begotten of the Spirit through the Word, which is the seed or sperm. He must pass through an embryonic stage in the spirit leading him to delivery. One is begotten of the gospel according to the apostle Peter, and his begettal takes place, not at the point of delivery, but at the point of faith. In the physical realm one is begotten when the seed from the body of the father unites with a receptive ovum in the body of the mother. In the spiritual family one is begotten of the incorruptible seed when the good news planted by the Spirit unites with a warm and receptive heart by faith.
John said that "whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Messiah is begotten of God, and everyone who loves the one who begets, loves those who are begotten by him" (1 John 5:1). The very moment that one ceases to trust in his own righteousness, which is by deeds of law, and comes to trust in the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus, he is begotten. Faith does not become alive when one is delivered into the family, else he is born of a dead faith. One does not repent or reform his life in order to be begotten, but because he has been begotten. Repentance is a manifestation of faith, a living and vital faith, not a dead one.
Faith is the initial response of the good and honest heart to the gospel, and represents a change of will. It is an indication of the germination of the seed. The engrafted word begins to grow and to transform at the point of faith. One comes under the grace of God when he acknowledges grace as the only hope of his salvation, and it is grace which leads to a change of mind coupled with a change of life, just as it is grace which
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One is not baptized to share in the grace of God, but because he shares in the grace of God he is baptized. Grace operates on the heart of the alien sinner through the word of the gospel, and when the alien acknowledges the power of that grace and believes in him who was grace personified, he is begotten of the heavenly Father. Baptism does not change the life of any person. There is nothing in the act of baptism to transform a life. Lives are changed by repentance, which is nothing more nor less than reformation, caused by a change of mind. It is repentance which alters the set of the sails and trims them to head for a different harbor. Baptism changes our state, but faith operates before baptism to change life.
So the penitent believer, begotten by the Spirit, is God's child in prospect and he is my brother in prospect. Every sincere conscientious believer in the Sonship of Jesus upon the earth, is in that category. I love all of them because I love the Father who begot them. Baptism does not bring them unto the faith, but it is the faith which brings them unto baptism.
Our relationship to God is covenantal, not legal. Ignorance of this fact has betrayed us into a sectarian spirit which will destroy us if not altered. From the moment one makes an agreement to belong to Jesus Christ, body, soul and spirit, he is prospectively in Christ. No earthly example can compare with this or adequately illustrate it. But in the purchase of insurance one is a prospect when he makes a verbal commitment. One becomes a prospective husband from the time when he is betrothed to his beloved. Joseph was told to take Mary, his wife, when they were only engaged. An alien is a prospective citizen, not from the day he takes the oath, but from the moment he files the original papers of intent.
I am astounded at the wounded "howl" raised by some of the guardians of orthodoxy and the keepers of the gate over the position that I occupy. When Paul was in Corinth, the center of lasciviousness, the Lord spoke to him at night in a vision and told him not to be afraid. He said, "For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city" (Acts 18:10). McGarvey says, "He called them his merely because he foresaw that under Paul's preaching they would yet believe." Evidently, then, they were children of God in prospect. They were also brothers and sisters of Paul in prospect.
Regardless of the time elapsed from the moment one believes until the time he is immersed, the intervening period is one of spiritual gestation, during which the Spirit operates upon the heart and strives with one through the power of the word of faith, the gospel of our salvation. But begettal is one thing and delivery is another, and begettal does not usually take place in the delivery room.
Pardon me for saying so, but to me nothing indicates the paucity and superficiality of scholarship in our day as does this kind of reasoning. If one must resort to this type of rationalization in order to sustain his position on baptism then that position hangs by a thin cobweb strand. The fact is, regardless of the rendering of the King James Version, one cannot be born of God at all. The idea that he can is not even in the original Greek scriptures.
In 1 John 2:29, the King James Version reads, "If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him." Dr. James McKnight renders the passage, "If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that everyone who worketh righteousness hath been begotten of him." In explanation he says, "This is the literal significance of gegennetai from gennao, I beget. Accordingly our translators have so rendered the word, chapter 5:18. Besides, born of God is nowhere else found in scripture.
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The whole problem of exegesis stems from the fact that we have separate English words for begetting, conceiving and bearing, or delivering. The Greeks had only one word, gennao. But they did not use it indiscriminately nor did they confound or eliminate the distinctions as do a lot of casual readers and interpreters in our day. I am frequently treated to cavilling upon this term by those who have never taken the time to even study it, and who expose their ignorance in an attempt to set aside what I offer. Even faculty members in our schools reveal their ignorance of the implications of the usage when fighting for party principles.
The Holy Spirit used gennao 97 times and it is translated begat or begotten 49 times, and born 39 times. In the first sixteen verses of Matthew it is found 39 times and is translated begat in every instance. To substitute the word born in either of these would make the rendering absurd and ridiculous.
The first place in the new covenant scriptures where the word is rendered born is Matthew 1:16, and the change is obviously necessary and required to make sense. In this verse gennao appears twice. Once it is rendered begat and once it is rendered born, and neither can be substituted for the other. "And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ."
It would be incongruous to read this, "And Jacob born Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was begat Jesus who is called Christ." One is not born of the person who begets him, nor is he begotten of the one who bears him. We should not make ourselves silly nor confuse language in our zeal to oppose someone who introduces a new thought which cuts across a traditional position.
Since you have asked the same question which we hear so often, especially where brethren labor ardently for a foothold from which to refute my position, perhaps I should take time to repeat a few things which I have offered in the past, but which many have not taken the time to examine for one reason or another. Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea (Matthew 2:1) but he was begotten in Nazareth a city of Galilee (Luke 1:26). It is possible for one to be begotten of the Spirit in Viet Nam and born into the family of God in Virginia.
The circumstances surrounding the birth of John, the son of Zacharias and Elisabeth, illustrate what I am talking about. Elisabeth conceived (Luke 1:24), six months later the babe leaped in her womb (Luke 1:41), and when Elisabeth's full time came she brought forth a son (1:57). The words "brought forth" are a rendering of gennao and it is evident that "begat" would no more apply than it would in Matthew 19:12, "For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb." There is a difference in the time as well as in the act of begettal and birth, and the former always precedes the latter. One who is begotten and not yet delivered is a prospective child of the one who begets him and a prospective brother of all others sired by the same father. Every person on this earth begotten by the Holy Spirit is my brother in prospect!
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a. When the word refers to the action of the Father, or to the inception of life, it cannot be rendered born and must be uniformly rendered by begotten.
b. When the word refers to the induction into a state, condition or relationship, or when it has to do with bringing forth into a visible existence, it cannot be rendered begat or begotten, and must be uniformly translated born, delivered, or brought forth.
c. When the entire process, including both the phases of begetting and birth, is described by one word, the final or consummating act may be put for the whole, as in John 3:5.
The means employed in our salvation are defined in Titus 3:5, "He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit." I take it that the washing referred to here is baptism, but this does not change the nature of the gospel subject. This is effected by the renewal of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit operates upon and quickens the heart of the alien through the good news and leads him to reformation by testimony of the goodness of God through the Word, he is begotten of God.
There is nothing in being immersed which will quicken the heart, any more than delivery of a child quickens it. The quickening took place in the act of begettal or conception. We are quickened by the Spirit, but for one so quickened to change his state he must be led to the washing of regeneration which completes the birth process and makes him a child of God. I think your question confuses the King James Version with "the word of God" of which it is a translation.
Of course the answer to that is that we do not know. When God has not revealed unto us what his judgment will be we ought not to usurp the divine prerogative and take care of the judgment in advance in order to save him the trouble. There can be abortions or miscarriages in the spiritual as well as the physical realm, and we should be careful that they do not result from our action or attitude.
One thing we need to avoid is categorizing and stereotyping everyone. No two persons on earth are alike and no two have the same responsibility. God deals with all of us as individuals and we are not to be saved or damned in groups. I am under orders from the King whom I serve, to proclaim the Good News that he has been made unto us wisdom, sanctification and redemption. I am also under orders to tell those who enquire what to do to reform their lives and be immersed unto the forgiveness of their sins. When I have done that, I have done all that I can do.
I cannot force men to be baptized or to enter the new relationship to which baptism inducts us. Rome attempted this with the Jews in Madrid and Seville as well as other Spanish cities once, and brought them to the christening font at the point of the sword. But the gory "Mother on the Tiber" succeeded only in bringing their bodies in. Their hearts were far away and their thoughts were of reactionary revenge and hostility.
I have neither the right nor the inclination to promise salvation to any person for I am not in a position to fulfill such a promise. I am personally in need of salvation which I can only attain through his marvelous grace. So I shall simply enunciate the terms of the human response to the divine offer as I understand it and leave the results with God who is love.
But I would be less than fair if I did not comment a bit further. Receiving people into the fellowship of the one body on earth and receiving them into ultimate glory are two different things. Baptism is not a door to heaven. If it was there
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It is one thing for me to say that we will accept into the fellowship of the local congregation only those who have been immersed, but it is a wholly different thing to say that God cannot receive into heaven one who has not been. Grace existed before the church and is greater than the church. The church is the recipient of grace and not the dispenser of it. Grace does not come by the church, but the church came by grace.
If God, in his sovereign power and wisdom, decides to receive unto himself some humble soul who believed implicitly that Jesus was the Messiah and the divine Son I will not attempt to thwart him on the ground that this is unfair to the rest of us who have been immersed, and makes some of our sermon outlines appear silly. I suspect that God loves people more than he loves a lot of our sermon outlines, and if this is true, I am becoming more like God every day that I live. The grace of God can do some wonderful things as it has already demonstrated and it is not subject either to the decrees or interpretations of men. Praise God for that!
God is obligated to save all whom he has promised to save, but he may save more than he has promised, and to do so will neither violate nor vitiate his promise. If I offer my grandson three dollars for mowing the lawn and I give him five dollars when he has finished, I did not contradict or contravene my promise.
We operate under the authority of Jesus but it is specifically said that God is not under that authority (1 Cor. 15:27). We dare not bind God with the rules which he gave to bind us. We cannot subject to authority one who is the source of, and superior to all authority (Romans 13:1). To say that one who, for some reason, has not been able to render perfect obedience, must be damned in order to uphold the integrity of God, is to judge God rather than the person.
I am under specific instruction not to judge those who are without, and am informed that God will judge them. The apostle wrote, "For what have I to do with judging outsiders?...God judges those who are on the outside" (1 Cor. 5:12). Since judging has to do with rendering a decision or passing sentence I would usurp the prerogatives of God if I were to pronounce a sentence upon others. It is one thing to instruct men what to do to enter the fellowship of the saints, a wholly different thing to decide the eternal destiny of those who do not enter. It is one thing to be assured of my own salvation but a wholly different matter to be just as sure of the damnation of all others. When I am as eager that others be damned as I am that I be saved there is something wrong with my thinking!
Let me say once more that the source of all authority cannot be captured and bound by any authoritative statement which was issued as a guideline for human behavior. The fountain of authority cannot be measured with our little cups any more than you can measure the waters of the ocean with a gourd dipper. If it be argued by shallow thinkers that this kind of reasoning will weaken our zeal to take the Good news to others then I reply that this demonstrates a lack of personal faith in what God has laid upon me as a responsibility. I should labor as intensely to do His will if I accept the wideness of His mercy and the breadth of His grace as if I thought he was both merciless and graceless.
6. But are you not saying that God may possibly overlook rebellion against his will?
Certainly not! We have not been talking about rebels. Your problem is that you cannot distinguish between rebellion and honestly mistaken views or an uninformed attitude. If you were sent out to quell a rebellion and shoot rebels, you would blast everyone who could not tell you how to get to town, or who was ig-
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Certainly not every alien in the United States is a rebel. Some of them even act a little better than some citizens. And not every person who has not been baptized is a rebel against Christ. We are talking about sincere believers who have not seen clearly the relationship between baptism and God's forgiveness of their sins. They love Jesus and respect his present rule and Lordship, but because of some mental block or hangup they have not been led to be immersed. It could be that after seeing the lives and dispositions of some who have been immersed, they have concluded it is not very effective. But there is a great deal of difference in saying, "We will not have this man to reign over us," and in saying, "I am sorry, but I do not yet see the necessity of immersion in water as a validation of my faith in Jesus."
I dare not judge such a person. I cannot assume that he does know and understand the significance of baptism and is deliberately lying about it. I propose to love him, and patiently share my views with him, and leave the outcome with God. I can only plant and water. It is God who gives the increase. If a believer dies without being immersed he is in the hands of God exactly as I will be when I die. It is not necessary that I determine the fate of every person on earth or make a pronouncement of their eternal destiny. Regardless of what I say or think God will take care of the situation without consulting me as to the best means of handling it. He will not be influenced by my own pre-judgment in the matter.
We are not justified by baptism but by faith. I believe that justifying faith will lead one to be immersed when his knowledge of baptism is sufficient to show him its essentiality. I cannot conceive of it doing otherwise. But the faith which justifies is the faith which possesses the quality which induces one to automatically accept every truth of God as he apprehends it or becomes aware of it. If one possesses this faith and dies before his obedience is perfected God can justify him because of his faith. All of us will die before our obedience is perfected, and all must be justified by faith and not by perfect obedience if justified at all. Any person who postulates that justification by faith is on the ground of perfect human obedience or compliance with law is knotting a noose for his own neck. It is with the judgment we mete out that we shall be judged. Since we are writing our own ticket we need to be a little merciful.
Abraham was chosen by the inspired apostle as an example of God's basis of justification. He was the first person of whom it was said that he believed God (Genesis 15:6). And God counted his faith for justification. He was the father of the faithful. From the time that Abraham became fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able to perform, and from the time that he trusted in God without question, he was under the grace of God. God knew that this kind of faith would lead Abraham to perform anything that was required of him when it was made known to him, and he counted such faith for justification.
It will come as no surprise to me if God does the same thing in the case of honest men and women who are earnestly disposed to do everything they learn to be God's will. This is my own real hope. It is not based upon my perfect knowledge or perfect obedience, for I am persuaded that I will be imperfect in both of these departments when I die. I must be justified by my faith if I am justified at all. And I have resolved to trust in God with all of my heart and to constantly search his will so that I may grow both in grace and knowledge of the truth.
It will be no violation of God's principle of judgment if he takes the intent for the deed when the performance of the deed is not possible for some reason. He certainly does this in the case of sin. "Whoso looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." If a man's desire and
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This in no sense argues that God will save any person who has not been immersed. It does not argue that he ought to do so. I am not in a position to determine the sense of "oughtness" for the divine. I do not know whether God will save any person who is accountable and has not been immersed. My only contention is that, if he chooses to do so, it will not be a violation of his declared will and purpose, nor will it be contrary to the tenor of the sacred scriptures for him to do so. Certainly the ideal is for everyone to be immersed upon the basis of faith and thus have the assurance which accrues from compliance with the stated requirements.
I believe that there are rebels with relation to the divine sovereignty. There are those who wilfully and maliciously oppose the purpose of God in their lives. Regardless of the amount of testimony brought to bear upon their hearts they will summarily reject it and go their own way. Their motto is "Not thy will but mine be done"! But it is a grave error to place in such a category every honest and humble person who just does not understand or grasp the will of God while possessed of an eagerness to know and implement it. There is a great deal of difference between the armed robbers who assault a bank and the humble custodian who ignorantly admits them under the mistaken impression that they are customers.
7. If God does as you say, and takes the intent for the deed, why will not the man who is sprinkled be saved on his sprinkling?
I am sure that question simply had to be injected, because all of you, like myself have been reared in a "Church of Christ" background, and it is a typical "Church of Christ" question. I trust that you'll forgive my terminology. I do not mean to be offensive, but I think that we must recognize that our traditional approach to God's grace is upon the basis of legalistic compliance or conformity, and legalism, unlike grace, can never allow for God's mercy. In our view, grace is mediated unto us through compliance with the law, and mercy is earned and deserved only by perfect obedience. What we can never seem to understand is that this really negates both grace and mercy and rules them out while binding God's hands. The fact is that neither grace nor mercy can even exist within the system which we have constructed. For God to be merciful by our code would make him unjust, and for God to be just he must be unmerciful.
Although we will never admit it, our "theology" means that God in giving us "the new law" has forged a set of handcuffs with which we can bind him in all of his future actions. In attempting to set us free He became entangled. We really believe, if we analyze our own position, that if God shows mercy based upon any contingency, he compromises his own revelation and violates his own law. We cannot think of God being a "liberal" or a "lawbreaker" and in our finite reasoning we cannot realize that he is above all law, and what he does in any given situation is the divine will for that situation, and is therefore consistent with every announced divine principle, and it is not subject to human review or criticism.
Without realizing it we have assumed the same position of the Jews. God specifically established the right of primogeniture, the primacy of the firstborn. "And yet, in order that God's selective purpose might stand, based not upon men's deeds, but upon the call of God, she (Rebekah) was told, even before they were born, when they had as yet done nothing, good or ill, 'The elder shall be servant to the younger'; and that accords with the text of scripture, 'Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated'" (Romans 9:11-13).
This appeared to be a clear-cut violation of an established principle upon which God had always operated. So Paul asks the pertinent question, "What shall we say to this? Is God to be charged with injustice?" Then he answers, "By no means. For he says to Moses, "Where I
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It is assumed by some of us that when God states a law or principle of action this immediately precludes any manifestation or demonstration of mercy or pity except upon perfect compliance with those terms. But that is not mercy at all. Mercy is not required where there is perfect obedience. All that is required then is acknowledgment of the perfection. Mercy is accorded only to those who fail because of extenuating circumstances. We think that no human failure will ever reach heaven, when the truth is, that no one else will be there.
If man can be saved by perfect compliance with law, the death of Christ was wholly unnecessary. But if the death of Jesus was a demonstration of God's grace the cross is a plain and stark testimony that man cannot be saved by perfect conformity with law. This means that all of us must rely upon God's mercy and pity. It does not mean that this makes void the revelation of God, for that revelation is God's will. It is a sharing of the mind of God so that I can know the way my Father would have me walk in order to be pleasing unto him.
We must never forget that we are under the revealed will of God as announced by his ambassadors in a historical perspective, that is a space-time situation. We dare not ignore it. We dare not teach others to ignore it. We dare not weaken its impact. We must diligently study it and apply it and urge others to do so as well. But God did not exhaust his will by his revelation unto us. His will is still active and he has not grown senile. In his sovereignty he does not need to consult the book nor study precedent to act in the determination of any case. He can have mercy upon anyone. He can take circumstances into consideration. He can weigh all of the exigencies of a case in making a determination of its outcome. He is not frightened by the thought that he might be branded a "situation ethicist" knowing that this is another term bandied about by finite creatures. With this rather lengthy and even somewhat rambling dissertation I am now ready to face up to your question. First, as relates to sprinkling, it must be remembered that most of those who have been sprinkled in the post-apostolic, modern sectarian, theological mix-up, had no idea of being baptized at all. With them, sprinkling was not an arbitrary choice in place of immersion, because they had no choice and their will was not operative. It was not a decision but an imposition. They were sprinkled while helpless infants and under complete subjection to others.
I can testify personally upon this matter. I was but twenty-nine days old when my beloved mother, frightened by the Missouri Synod Lutheran emphasis upon original sin, which she did not understand, turned me over to the Reverend Mr. Peterson for christening. I did not choose sprinkling. It was as harmless in my case as I was helpless. Sprinkling is not baptism. It cannot be equated with baptism philologically, philosophically, or scripturally. It is a different action altogether. One who has been sprinkled has not been baptized in the scriptural usage of that term.
A man is not going to be "saved on his sprinkling" as you put it. If a man with full knowledge of the meaning of the Greek baptizo, chooses something else, or even prefers some other action, it is obvious that he is deliberately thwarting a requirement of the Father. I doubt that very many do this. If one is that knowledgable it would be easier to be immersed than to oppose it. I rather think most people are sprinkled under the impression that they are fully complying with the divine requirement and being born or brought into a new relationship. They equate their action with the ordinance of baptism.
It is never as good to be mistaken as to be right, and no one ought ever to deliberately choose to make a mistake. But what about the sincere and honest person who, upon the basis of all the teaching he has ever had or heard, is sprinkled un-
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No man will be saved "on his sprinkling" because God has not made sprinkling a condition of salvation. No man will be saved on his mistake. Mistakes are not a procuring cause of salvation. It would be well for most of us if they were. The question then is not whether a man will be saved by his being sprinkled, but whether any man who sincerely seeks to obey God will be saved in spite of his mistakes. Will the mercy of God be applicable to such a person and will that mercy as an attribute of divine grace receive one who does the best he knows to do in his particular situation?
I probably would not be any happier if I knew the answer and I am content to trust in divine goodness. No problem is too great for God but some of them are a little "sticky" for me. One thing I can be assured of and that is that one who trusts implicitly in Christ and implements that faith by immersion in water has made the proper response to the good news. He has a quality of assurance which can never be the lot of one who has not thus responded. I have done what Jesus required and I speak of it in humility rather than in pride. I expect to teach and urge all others to do the same. But what God will ultimately do with those who do not or cannot understand I must leave in his hands, where I also rest.
Since you have asked the question, however, I must interpose a little more before I leave it. I do not believe that one will be saved "on his sprinkling" but I am not sure that, within the context of your question, he will be saved "on his immersion." Perhaps I misunderstand the implication and if so, I beg your forgiveness for my density. In any event I think a word of caution and clarification may be in order.
Forgiveness of sins and justification are represented in the sacred scriptures as results and, like all such results, are said to be dependent upon a combination of causes. I recall that Alexander Campbell once wrote: "Call these causes or means of justification, and they may severally indicate an influence or instrumentality in the consummation of this great act of Divine favor. He that assumes any one or two of them, as the exclusive or one only essential cause of a sinner's justification, acts arbitrarily and hazardously, rather than discreetly or according to the oracles of God."
I have found it extremely difficult to "keep the even tenor of my way" in this sectarian age in which my lot has been cast. There is ever the danger of becoming sectarian in attempting to prove that one is not. The danger is enhanced with reference to those items of revelation to which one clings while others do not, and which thus serve as marks of differentiation between themselves and him. The question of immersion unto the forgiveness of sins sets us apart in the present era of religious strife and partisan ferment and emphasis.
In our zeal to promote what we regard as essential and to offset the arguments of those who attack our thinking, there is the possibility that we may lift baptism out of its perspective and lead others to regard it as the meritorious cause of their justification before God. Because I recognize human tendency under pressure and because I am aware of my own inclinations and weakness I entreat the Father about this more than almost anything else. I do so want to grasp the majesty of grace in all of its multi-faceted demonstrations even while I cling to each individual item of revelation.
That is why I think it is important that we not think of being saved on our immersion in contrast with being saved "on sprinkling." The original and moving cause of our salvation is the grace of God our Father as manifested in his Son; while his sacrifice in our behalf through the shedding of his blood is the meritorious cause.
We are not saved by faith in immersion but by faith in Jesus. If we trust for
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If God wills, we shall continue our discussion in the issue of the paper for next month. The first question with which I will deal is stated in this fashion, "Would you receive a man into your fellowship on his "Baptist baptism?" The second question is phrased, "Can a man be baptized into Christ upon the basis of a wrong doctrine?" We sincerely trust that you will be looking forward to the answers as we shall give them.
If you would like to secure extra copies of this particular issue you may do so at the rate of ten for one dollar. We suggest also that, in view of the nature of the discussions this year, you should place an advance order for the bound copy of the papers for this year. The title of the book will be "The Question Box." You can ask to have one or more copies sent when the books are ready at the end of the year and we will bill you when they are delivered. Just send your requests for papers or books to MISSION MESSENGER, 139 Signal Hill Drive, Saint Louis, Missouri 63121.