01.001. Baptism: Our Lord's Command

Baptism: Our Lord’s Command.

"Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.-- Mark 7:8.

"The authority of men, though learned and pious, is worthless, when set against the authority of God; and tradition, valuable in its own subordinate sphere, becomes unmixedly pernicious when employed to propound a doctrine, or establish an ordinance."--!. Stacey (Methodist).

All Christians deeply regret that the most sacred Bible themes should be matters of controversy, and that amongst believers in the Scriptures. The Divine Sonship of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Lord’s Supper, Baptism--it is sad to think that these have been made the occasion of strife and bitterness. Our sorrow, however, will not relieve the situation, or prevent those who are not content with that which the Lord has revealed from teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men. The ordinance of Baptism particularly is now being made the subject of discussion. Many recently, having seen that the sprinkling of water upon the face of an unconscious infant has no divine authority, have accordingly as believers been buried with Christ in baptism. The building of a baptistery in St. Paul’s Cathedral has attracted the attention of many to the New Testament ordinance. An evidence of the interest aroused is seen in the number of letters of enquiry which have been sent to the religious papers. Pedobaptists are having forced upon them the necessity of justifying their position. The success of the Scoville mission called forth many sermons intended to counteract the teaching and practice of the Churches of Christ. The Methodists especially have felt constrained to defend the practice of affusion, and of infant baptism. The Spectator, the Methodist organ, has labored zealously in the cause. Three little pamphlets on Should Only Believers be Baptized? Does Scripture Teach Immersion? and Is Baptism Necessary to Salvation?--all written by the same author and published by the Spectator Publishing Co.--are being widely circulated. The religious book depots stock and advertise a book by Mr. A. Madsen, Methodist minister, assistant editor of the Spectator, entitled, The Question of Baptism, a Handbook on Infant Baptism. This book goes out with the imprimatur of the Literature Committee of the Victoria and Tasmania Conference of the Methodist Church. This Committee-including E. H. Sugden, M.A., B.Sc., Master of Queen’s College, W. Morley, D.D., W. Williams, D.D., and R. Ditterich, who is also editor of the Spectator--cordially recommend the manual "as a very important and weighty statement of our doctrinal position in relation to this Sacrament."

Members of Churches of Christ welcome the unusual interest being taken in the subject of baptism. We feel that while many will be content to read the tracts and books referred to and to accept without question the statements therein, a great number will go to the Word of God, as did the Bereans of old, to see whether these things are so. Therein we shall rejoice, for when a man is willing to accept the Scriptures as the sufficient guide to baptism, we know the inevitable result. When what we are assured is the teaching of God’s Word is thus being written and spoken against, it is clearly right that we should examine the arguments being put forth. This we intend to do, giving special notice to the publications referred to, yet bringing other Pedobaptists statements under review. If sprinkling is baptism, we wish to know it and to practice it. If it is not, we wish others to know it and so cease to leave the commandment of God for the traditions of men. It is but obeying the precept of God’s Spirit to "put all things to the test" and "retain the good." As we proceed, we hope to speak the truth in love. We lament the lapse on the part of Mr. Kelly, the editor of the Presbyterian Messenger, in writing and publishing an undignified reference to certain unspecified "villainous proselytizers" who provide "a blend of spiritual conceit and bad manners sufficient to win for them the contempt of honest men." The baptismal controversy really cannot be settled by a scream! Such language hurts its user. A weak cause alone could need such weapons. One who has the truth of God can afford to be courteous. We do not need to impute motives in order to show that a doctrine is erroneous. We do not sanction error because we are polite. It was a Pedobaptists who said, "An endeavor to detect error and to establish truth is an act of friendship to every member of the body of Christ."

Why do we notice the matter at all? Partly, because silence would be taken as weakness. The reiteration of arguments, often answered though they have been, needs a new reply. Some people are being confirmed in their disobedience. Were baptism an unimportant thing, as trivial as some of our religious friends delight to declare it, we would not trouble to write. But that which Jesus did and commanded cannot be unimportant. Again, Christian union, for which all lovers of the Lord must work and pray, cannot come without agreement on the subject of baptism. "One baptism" appears in the Scriptures as one of the things included in "the unity of the Spirit" (Ephesians 4:3-6); and we can only get such unity when we agree to follow the plain teaching of the Word of God.

HOW MAY WE SETTLE THE QUESTION? No one knows one whit more of the Lord’s will concerning baptism than what the Bible says. "To the law and to the testimony" (Isaiah 8:20) is still good advice. The Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation (2 Timothy 3:17). The Scripture was given "that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work" (2 Timothy 2:17). Did Paul speak the truth? Or do we need to take the word of men, wise theologians and teachers? Or, again, do we require to go to the post-apostolic age to see what the Lord would have us do? If the Scripture may furnish us "completely," then it is preposterous that we should go to the second and third centuries to learn the subjects of baptism. Yet this is what the Pedobaptists always does; he gets no reference to infant baptism till the later period, and then he reads into the apostolic age the results of his research. The Church of England and the Methodist Church state the Scripture’s sufficiency in, these words: "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." The Presbyterian Confession of Faith agrees with this, and says: "Unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men"; and again, "The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself." We cordially agree with these words, and therefore occupy our present position. Members of Churches of Christ are familiar with the watchword, "Nothing ought to be received into the faith or worship of the church, or be made a term of communion amongst Christians, that is not as old as the New Testament."

"Baptism," says the Westminster Confession of Faith, "is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ." Similarly, the Church of England and the Methodists teach that "there are two sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord." If this be so, where shall we seek for instruction concerning baptism? Surely in the New Testament. As we proceed, we shall find that the leading arguments of Pedobaptists are drawn from the Old Testament, from extra-scriptural Judaistic practice, and from church usage in the centuries after the apostolic age. Strange that this should be necessary in the case of a New Testament ordinance "ordained of Christ"! The first mention of infant baptism is several generations too late to be "in the Gospel." Is it not significant that, while every minister who sprinkles water upon a baby claims to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, he cannot get an instance of sprinkling as baptism in the Word of God? He uses the name of the Lord as authority for that which the Lord never asked. We have infants mentioned in the New Testament, and we have baptism often mentioned, but we never have the infants and the baptism mentioned together. We have no command and no example: yet men without a solitary word of sanction from Jesus Christ use his name as authority for an unscriptural ceremony. As we proceed, we shall see that advocates of infant baptism lay special stress on the fact that their practice is not specifically forbidden in the Word of God. Mr. Madsen, in many places (as in p. 14 of his book) makes this plea. In this introductory article, it will suffice to call attention to the extraordinary claim involved in this. Methodists say, and we all agree, that baptism was "ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel": now they ask us to give a passage which expressly forbids infant baptism. Does the Lord ordain all he does not forbid? Rather does he expect us with his positive institutions to do that which he ordained: "What thing soever I command you, that shall ye observe to do: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it" (Deuteronomy 12:32; Cf. Revelation 22:18-19). As soon as we learn to speak where the Bible speaks, infant baptism will disappear. Our Lord rebuked the Pharisees for making void the word of God by their traditions. One of the traditions was the washing before meals (see Mark 7:3-4). Regarding this, the Pharisees could truthfully say there was no command in the Scriptures which expressly forbade it. But they exalted a human ordinance and made it a religious practice; and for this Jesus rebuked them. Again, there is not on earth a Protestant who will consistently act on the principle that an express prohibition is needed in order to exclude a practice as an ordinance of the Lord. It is not expressly stated in Scripture that there is no such place as purgatory, that auricular confession is wrong, that extreme unction must not be practiced. Shall we say what is not forbidden is permitted? Rather will we take the view of the New Zealander of simple faith who met all the arguments of the Roman Catholics regarding worship of the Virgin and the saints, auricular confession, and so forth, with the one word: "It can’t be right; for it is not in the Book." Infant baptism is not in the Book; and the attempt to get it in on the ground that it is not expressly forbidden will, if successful, bring in with it a host of practices which Protestants agree in rejecting.

Moreover, if we go to the post-apostolic age, when infant baptism is first mentioned, and seek to argue from this later practice to its primitive use, we get into similar trouble. We have either to say that the later practice does not prove an apostolic custom or to admit a host of things which Protestants reject as unscriptural. North Africa, so much appealed to regarding infant baptism, has also infant communion early in the third century. Again, "Tertullian speaks not only of baptism and the laying on of hands, but also mentions unction, the consignation or imposition of the sign of the cross, and lastly a mixture of milk and honey given the newly initiated to drink" (Duchesne). A great number of superstitious and unscriptural practices were in existence at the time when we get the first explicit mention of infant baptism. While, then, we may have to deal with the post-apostolic age to a certain extent in following Pedobaptists arguments, that will not be because we attach great importance to the views of Cyprian or Tertullian. These were great men, but not inspired teachers. If there were unanimity in the Church Fathers--which there is not--on the subject of infant baptism, we should still demand that the practice be shown to be right from the Word of God. For us, that is the final court of appeal. And neither infant baptism nor sprinkling as baptism is found therein.