Questions About Baptism
W. Carl Ketcherside
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"There is no reason why those who advocate justification by faith alone should hesitate to admit that baptism is an antecedent to the granting of that blessing to faith. It would not be adding another condition to faith, but simply determining whether the candidate's faith fills out the required measure. That the faith of a man should be measured before it is reckoned for righteousness, is a perfectly natural and necessary procedure, growing out of the fact that justification is not by faith simply, but by an adequate faith."--N. J. Aylsworth in Moral and Spiritual Aspects of Baptism.
I am going to tender an apology to our regular readers for interrupting our routine to insert another article dealing with my concept of baptism and its relation to citizenship in the kingdom of heaven upon earth. My previous articles on the theme appearing in the May and June issues, produced a mixed reaction and stimulated a number of questions. I have neither the time nor space, and hardly the inclination, to deal with all of these. I am going to make one exception because I think it is important that I do so and place myself on record before this journal breathes its last and expires in 1975.
One particular blessing accruing from editing MISSION MESSENGER has been the forming of friendships with eminent Biblical students outside of our specific background. These associations I cherish because of their impact upon my own thinking. For example, there is a professor of theology in a Biblical Seminary, known throughout the world, who has been a reader of the paper for a number of years. A writer of renown, his literary compositions have often forced me to examine afresh my own convictions.
After my first article on baptism he was prompted to write me a letter which I shall reproduce herewith. At first I thought of making a personal reply, but after meditation upon the matter I reached the decision that I owed it to all of my readers to share my views. This brief preliminary statement will serve to explain the reason for this issue and the inclusion of the letter which follows.
Dear Brother Ketcherside:
Frequently on reading the MISSION MESSENGER, I feel like sending a note either of appreciation or of enquiry: as I gain increasing awareness of some of the specific dimensions of the radical Campbellite movement, I also have new questions of information to ask.
Your major text in the May 1973 issue prompts me to ask simply one question of clarification. The extended discussion of those who are "begotten but not born" or who sincerely believe but are not immersed, is not tested by asking which categories of persons it would apply to. The image of conception as contrasted with birth, and phrases like "not yet bap-tized" would of course point to a person just recently responding to the Gospel.
[Page 114]What I am not clear on is several other categories of unbaptized believers. Since your position in general is more open than that of those with whom you have to argue most of the time, I hesitate to guess what you would believe.
One category would be persons within specific denominational traditions who, on the ground of the best scriptural understandings available in their own experience, and often in connection with a concern to correct some abuse of past dominant sacramental practice, would not use the outward symbols at all. The Salvation Army and the Friends would be the best examples. The other category would be those who, also on the basis of the best scriptural understandings available to them do not in the practice of the baptism of believers in water use a form which corresponds to your convictions.
One question which it would be helpful to see you respond to is simply whether these two classes are the same: i.e., whether the use of water in an outward ceremony to testify to the faith obedience of the believer is any good at all in your eyes if it is not done in the correct form. But the larger question is whether there is some active sense in which you can refer to such persons as brethren in a reality that you can relate to, or whether they can only be left through the loophole of being "brothers in prospect" who might by the grace of God be saved by virtue of the intent rather than the deed....
There is a very real question, I suspect, whether our brethren should be longer regarded as a part of the restoration movement launched primarily by pious Presbyterians, some 175 years ago. They have renounced many of the principles and repudiated virtually all of the attitudes characteristic of the pioneers. Even worse, they have excluded posthumously all of the fathers of the movement by driving out their present-day successors for advocacy of the very things enunciated by the fathers. Can a people maintain tenuous historical links with a movement while berating as heresy the very principles which gave birth to it? Can a state of fellowship be maintained with brethren of yesteryear while making tests of fellowship out of the very ideas they promulgated?
My friend and brother proposes some good questions which my position obligates me to try and answer. What shall be my attitude toward sincere men and women who have been reared in a denominational tradition which rejects all outward symbols and formal ordinances as having no vital relationship to a spiritual walk with God? Is there some active sense in which I can refer to such persons as brethren in a reality to which I can relate?
The Society of Friends has been suggested as an example. Let me first of all express my deep appreciation for those who are a part of the Quaker heritage. I give grateful thanks to the Father for every ministration of good which they accomplish, and certainly their influence has been a leaven for peace in many parts of the world. I freely confess that I have never been the same since reading the journal of John Woolman.
But, having said this, I must add that, as I view God's purpose for our lives, the Friends are seriously in error, and their error is precisely the kind which will keep them from obeying a plain requirement of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is admitted by them that most professors of the Christian name regard water baptism as "the essential means of initiation into the church of Christ." Why do they reject it? First, they have become convinced that
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I have striven to be absolutely fair in presenting the position occupied by the Friends. I would gain nothing by misrepresentation. Although they accord the title "word of God" only to Christ and not to the Scriptures, they regard the latter as having been given forth by the Spirit and as binding upon every Christian. It is from the scriptures they have learned that John baptized in water, but the same scriptures teach that baptism in water did not cease with John.
After his resurrection, Jesus commissioned his apostles to enroll students or disciples from all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Godhood, and one of these apostles, several years after Jesus had ascended to the Father, asked who could forbid water that certain ones should not be baptized who had received the Holy Spirit as indicative of the reception of the Gentiles by God.
When Jesus commissioned the apostles to baptize he did so upon the basis that all authority had been conferred upon him in heaven and upon earth, and when the apostle baptized those to whom we have alluded, he did so on the basis of the word which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached" (Acts 10:37). The view that baptism in water was limited to an inferior dispensation is not taught in God's word.
In John 3:30 the matter under consideration is not the inferiority of water baptism to baptism in the Spirit, but the relative inferiority of one who was of the earth fulfilling a preparatory work of introduction and one who came down from heaven and who was above all. Baptism in water was perfectly adapted to the purpose it was ordained to accomplish and in this respect could not be inferior to anything not ordained for that purpose.
The Quakers are sadly misled by their assumption that baptism and the Lord's Supper are mere ceremonials and therefore have no efficacy in conveying the blessings of God. On the contrary, a careful study of the scriptures will show that the Creator has universally bestowed his blessings through ordinances, and one could safely affirm that this has been his invariable procedure as well, in both the natural and spiritual realms.
Our brother intimates that the deep aversion to the ordinances may result from "a concern to correct some abuse of past dominant sacramental practice." I doubt not that the undue emphasis on ritual and liturgy which often results in empty formalism devoid of the Spirit, has had a great deal to do with formulation of the position I am examining, but the answer to abuse of what God has ordained is not abandonment, but correction of it. The will of God is not revered by forsaking the ordinances because others make a fetish of them. It is as wrong to flout them as it is to flaunt them.
Jesus is my Lord, and he conveys his will for my life, not through visions, dreams or subjective inner light, but through the word of his chosen envoys. From them I learn that penitent believers are to be baptized unto the forgiveness of sins and into the wonderful relationship signified by the glorious triune name of the Godhood. The record is clear. "For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Galatians 3:26, 27).
If a member of the Society of Friends had been with Peter at the home of Cornelius when Peter asked if any man could forbid water that these should not be baptized, to be consistent the Friend would have had to forbid it. If I went today to a meeting of Friends and asked them to baptize me upon a profession of my faith in Christ Jesus they could not
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Much as I deplore what may seem to many the manifestation of an uncharitable attitude toward a people renowned for their gentle goodness, I freely acknowledge that, upon the basis of my understanding of the teaching of God's precious word, the Quakers are not in the fellowship of the called-out ones. They may have heard the invitation to become citizens of the kingdom, but they have not responded to it in the manner prescribed by the King.
I have thus far dealt with the "denominational tradition" which has created the specific party known as the Society of Friends. But I am asked about persons within that tradition "who on the ground of the best scriptural understandings available in their own experience...would not use the outward symbols at all."
I make a distinction here between a sect, and individual members who are caught up within it, perhaps from birth, or because of circumstances arising from the vicissitudes of life. One can be a sectarian and not be identified with a sect, and one can be in a sect and not be sectarian. In the final judgment God will not be judging sects but individuals. Thus, all of us, whether in sects or not, are individually responsible before God and accountable unto him.
Responsibility is conditioned upon three bases according to the scriptures. One is accountable for what he knows and will not do; for what he could know and refuses to learn; and for what he professes to know and will not practice. All of these have to do with the exercise of will, for will is the determinant factor in life. One will not be damned because of ignorance unless it is wilful and voluntary, else heaven would be useless and without an inhabitant, since all of us are ignorant about many things.
Those who are in the Quaker tradition will not be judged as Quakers, but as individuals for whom Christ died. God judges no one as a Pharisee, Republican, Democrat, Socialist, Methodist or Presbyterian. Religious parties, like political parties, are created by men and not by God. They are all artificial and without power to save. God has promised salvation from past sins upon the basis of belief in the good news about Jesus and baptism as a validation of such faith. Certainly one cannot be expected to believe in one of whom he has never heard, nor can he be expected to obey a command which he has never learned.
Whether he could have heard and learned, only God can know. There are degrees of responsibility and only an infinite mind can determine the extent of responsibility at any given time. It does not at all disturb me to think that many pious individuals who love God and their fellowmen within a "denominational tradition" will walk the golden streets. I do not limit the grace of God, nor seek to frustrate it. But I intend to continue to disclose what I believe Jesus has taught without compromise, and I intend to implement it by my obedience to the full extent of my feeble knowledge and ability. I also intend to oppose all sectarianism, including our own.
I am not asked to determine the final destiny of man, nor called upon to decide with whom I shall associate in heaven. I am under divine compulsion to recognize the terms of citizenship for the kingdom of heaven upon earth as I understand them. I am not authorized to enlarge the borders of Zion nor to restrict them. That is the prerogative of the king
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I reject no one because he is a Quaker, for that would be sectarian. I regard one as not being in the fellowship of the saints simply because he has not complied with the terms. If the rights and privileges of citizenship are accorded to those who have not complied with the terms, both the terms and the citizenship become meaningless. The quickest way to destroy that which the right of franchise is expected to protect is by extending it to those who are not citizens. Of what value is a false charity which destroys the rights of those who have obeyed the King by extending them to those who have not? Pardon and amnesty beyond the limits prescribed by the King belong not to the subjects but to the King, and if his is a universal sway he may have mercy upon whom he will have mercy.
Any exception to a general rule given by authority must, by its very nature, be specific, and must be made by the same authority which gave the rule. The rule governing salvation from past transgressions is that men hear the good news concerning what God has done for us through Jesus, trust in that, and be immersed upon the basis of that faith. We must operate under that rule. We can make no exceptions, for to do so, would be to appropriate the authority of Jesus. But he can make exceptions, for His will is sovereign. All authority is given unto him on heaven and on earth. He can suspend the requirements in any specific situation, but we cannot.
To say this does not weaken the authority of the King. It does not abrogate the authority of his revelation. It enhances and increases his authority. His authority is so great and majestic that it cannot be bound or inhibited by any rules, regulations or terms, not even those which he has given for the general good of mankind. No man denies the authority of the scriptures who respects that authority for his own life and urges it upon others, while leaving the final disposition in the hands of him who is the source and fountain of the authority. We need to be careful that in defending the authority of the scriptures we do not deny the authority of him who is above all and over all!
I could bluntly and callously say that such practice is not scriptural understanding at all, but unscriptural misunderstanding, and dismiss them. However, being caught up in the human predicament as I am, I want to avoid such arrogance and bluster. I have a very real compassion for all who seek to do the will of my Father, and their lack of understanding of that will, as I understand it, will not deaden that concern. I admit that I am placed in a quandary by the expression "the best scriptural understandings available to them."
In this fortunate land where a copy of the new covenant scriptures may be purchased for a few cents and where the Bible is a perennial best-seller, it would appear that everyone has access to God's revelation and there really is no excuse. But then I remember that there is a great deal of difference between having a Bible in reach of your hand and having scriptural understanding. Printing Bibles is a purely mechanical process. They can be produced by the millions and everyone look and read just alike. But human understanding is not the product of a machine.
No one studies in a vacuum. No one reasons in isolation from his past or present. We approach the scriptures from where we are intellectually, because there is no other place from which to approach them. And no two of us start from the
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Regardless of what else may be said about it, sprinkling or pouring do not constitute baptism in the scriptural context. When I speak of baptism I must mean the same thing Jesus and the apostles meant when they spoke of it, else my words have no relationship to the scriptural content. If I use a word they used but mean something else than they meant, I am either deceived or a deceiver. In spite of debates and controversies which may arise as men attempt to justify their respective practices. I must transcend the semantical disputes and seek to understand the mind of God as it was revealed through the Spirit.
If baptism, as Jesus employed the term, meant a burial or immersion, it follows that one who has not been immersed has not been baptized. Whatever "form" may be used, it is not baptism. My own study has convinced me that baptism is a burial, and this view appears to me to be undeniably sustained by etymology, philology, example, symbolism and scripture. I was not baptized at all when I was twenty-nine days old. The "form" which was used was not baptism, but something else.
Therefore, as cruel as it may appear to a modern and vacillating world, I do not consider those who have used a form unauthorized by Jesus, unsanctioned by the Spirit, and unknown to the apostles, as being in the fellowship of the congregation of saints. When torn between the longing to receive all people who profess a love for my Lord, and of remaining true to him according to my understanding, the matter was settled not when the question arose, but when I pledged my full and complete allegiance unto him!
I do not regard baptism as simply an outward ceremony. I do not think of it as a mere sign. That it is a sign and a ceremony no thoughtful person can deny. But it is not something portraying a reality from which it is divorced, perhaps by time and place. Rather it is itself the actual participation with Christ Jesus in the fact of his death and in the fact of his resurrection. As I view it, baptism is not simply an engagement ring, or a wedding ring, a visible token of heartfelt affection, but it is the consummation of a relationship to which one has looked forward with supreme desire. It is obvious that two people can become one without a ring, but can they become one flesh without the act of union, without the initial act of consummation?
The apostle who once persecuted and even killed believers until he met Jesus on the Damascus Road, points out that we are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. But he does not stop with that. He immediately adds a "for" statement, an explanation of how and when it happens or transpires. "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." It is in baptism, then, that my faith becomes operational with reference to divine sonship. Shall I add to the statement another of my own, "and as many of you as have not been baptized into Christ have also put him on"? Will not the human addition negate and nullify the point made by the Spirit?
The gospel consists of testimony to the seven great facts related to the life of the One in whom there dwelt all the fulness of the Godhood bodily. Three of these are saving facts--the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. But they cannot save by the simple fact of their historicity, else all men will be saved by the mere transaction of two-thousand years ago, and all discussion of forms of acceptance is useless. They must be believed, accepted, and appropriated. One must identify with Jesus personally. Just as Jesus came in a body to identify with man, so man must come into the body of Jesus to identify with him.
What Jesus did for all men that they might be saved each man must do for Jesus that he may be saved. This means that to appropriate the sacrifice of Jesus unto himself, a man must die, be buried and rise again to walk in newness of life. That he does this in baptism is evident from the testimony of the new covenant scriptures in Romans 6:3-6. Jesus died, was buried, and rose again according to the old covenant scriptures, and I must die, be buried and rise again, according to the new covenant scriptures.
Any refusal upon the part of Jesus to die for my sins, to be buried in the tomb, or to rise from the dead, would have left me in sin. He had power to lay down his life, and he had power to take it again (John 10:18). Any refusal upon my part to die to my sins, to be buried in baptism, and to rise with Christ, will leave me in my sins. I also have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it again through the Lord Jesus Christ.
To me, therefore, baptism is more than a sign that something has happened, or is happening in me, or in my behalf. It is the very act appointed by God in which and by which, I appropriate the forgiveness through grace by personal identification with Christ. The cross of Christ is a symbol of sacrifice and divine mercy, but it is much more than that. It was the actual instrument by which death came to the Son of God. And so my death by crucifixion and my burial in the watery grave becomes a sign after the act. At the time of my surrender it is the instrument of identification.
Certainly the apostles warned against allowing it to become endemic, but the prescription for prevention is one thing while the treatment of a developed disorder is another thing. We now face sectism in all of its divisiveness and fragmentation. If we love those afflicted we cannot ignore them, nor form an isolated enclave to which we can retire in monastic seclusion while we simply mark off those who are outside our whitewashed compounds.
"The larger question is whether there is some active sense in which you can refer to such persons as brethren in a reality that you can relate to." My friend is not an outstanding professor of theology for nothing. He has placed his finger pointedly upon the sore spot which must be honestly faced by every person like myself who believes that baptism is a part of the God-ordained response to the good news about Jesus, and is the ordinance by which one enters into the relationship of the life in Christ.
I wish that I did not have to face it. I wish that I could escape or evade it. But because I must face it, I find myself more deeply opposed to the fleshly virus of sectarianism which makes it imperative that I do so. I am an inveterate foe of sectarianism for the very reason that it clouds the issue of brotherhood and fellowship. I am not so much an enemy of sects as I am of sectarianism. It is because of this that I am dedicated to a war against our own sectarianism, for recognition of brotherhood within the framework of the immersed ones is as confused by partisanship as it is beyond that pale.
Indeed, it is this confusion which militates against the power of the testimony concerning the need for an efficacy of immersion. What strength there would be in the witness for immersion if all who were immersed stood as a unit. If it is not true that we are all baptized into one body through or in the one Spirit, then why make so much of baptism? Thousands there must be who ask this question.
The "larger question" is how I must regard and how I can relate to sincere
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Here then are my conclusions. I will regard them as begotten of my Father and quickened by faith in the womb of grace. I will treat them as believers and not as pagans or heathen. I will go among them at their invitation to share any insights I may have in God's great revelation, and I will rejoice in and encourage any deeds of kindness and mercy in which they engage for the betterment of the world and the improvement of the moral and spiritual atmosphere breathed by fallen man!
I will not conclude that all of them are bound for perdition but will allow God to judge their final destiny. His disposition of all who believe in Jesus must be according to his sovereign will and I will but attest that "his judgments are true and righteous altogether." But to regard those who are unimmersed as having been brought into the family relationship upon the same basis as those who have been immersed would make an empty farce of immersion and the testimony of the scriptures on the matter both useless and meaningless. This I cannot do and answer to my God with a clear conscience.
Every kingdom in the universe has one uniform way by which those who are aliens can be enrolled as citizens. Such a way must be specific and it must be recognizable, else those who are citizens will not know whom to regard as sharing with them the rights and privileges accruing through citizenship. A kingdom without citizens is an anomaly. A kingdom whose citizenship is as broad as the unregenerate world is not a kingdom of the called out, but a kingdom of this world. It is a kingdom in which righteousness is not a qualification and sin is not a disqualification.
It is a denial of the universal authority of Jesus to assume that he is Lord of the house but not of the portal, of the temple but not of its gate. I eagerly beseech all who may read this humble entreaty to make your faith valid and operative this day. "And now, why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord." May His Spirit motivate you to obey him in love and without delay. May your motto be: "Speak Lord, thy servant heareth!"