The reason my blog is called "The Worst Baptist" is because of the reception I have had in many Baptist spaces to some of my views, mostly on matters of application. I disagree broadly with Evangelical trends concerning political matters, I'm still a bit more Charismatic than many Baptists who don't have a background in Pentecostalism (and some that do), and I have an anti-authority streak you could land a plane on. These, and other (often related) matters, put me at odds with my Baptist brethren, and have raised suspicions about my true affiliations more than once. So the name of the blog is kind of a joking acknowledgement of that. I don't actually believe I'm the worst Baptist, I am simply comfortable knowing that there are those who would view me as certainly among the worst of the Baptists. But the fact remains that, regardless of how good or bad I am at being a Baptist, I am a Baptist. And part of the reason I ended up among the Baptists in the first place is that I affirm the Baptist view of baptism. Which doesn't take very long to say, certainly not long enough for its own blog post. But I was asked a little while back by a Lutheran friend to explain the Baptist view of baptism, so I'm going to take this opportunity to do so.
Baptists believe that baptism is done by immersion. That is, if you have not been dunked into the water and then brought back out of it, whatever else happened, you haven't been baptized. Now, this was not always the case; the first Baptists performed baptism the same way everyone else did at the time, by pouring water over the subject. This was something that had to be worked out, but if we're honest, it's one of the simplest aspects of our beliefs about baptism to explain: the word "baptize" most literally means "immerse." The English word baptize is just a transliteration of the Greek word βαπτιζω (baptizo), which means to immerse and wash. It is only used in the New Testament to signify a ritual immersion, so it may have taken on a certain connotation in the culture of first century Palestine, but even under these conditions the actual meaning of the word always found its root in immersion. The early church took an existing practice of ceremonial immersion and saw in it a picture of redemption and applied it as such. As far as we are concerned, the Baptist practice of baptism by immersion is little more than a return to this practice. That is not to say there isn't some degree of wiggle room here. Technically speaking, one of the possible meanings for βαπτιζω is washing, and washing doesn't technically always include immersion. Nor does every form of Jewish ceremonial washing include immersion, at least not of the whole person; it is possible that the practice being described in scripture was more like non-immersive methods of ceremonial washing. However, given that it was not the only word used for washing, and that it is primarily used for immersion and has clear ties to βαπτω (bapto), which means to dip, I maintain the historical Baptist position that the scriptures which use the term are most easily read as involving immersion. As will be discussed later, the Didache (the earliest known non-Bible writing of Christian teaching) also discusses baptism. In this instance, it demands immersion (in running water), and allows for the pouring of water over the head of the baptized only in the instance where absolutely no better method can be performed (1). It is not only the wording of scripture then, but also the practice of the early church, that baptism done properly relied on immersion or the closest one could come to immersion. The result of this is that I, as a Baptist, not only insist on practicing baptism by immersion, but cannot accept a baptism delivered by another means. Baptist churches generally have a requirement that a person be baptized in order to be accepted as a member of the church; if someone is joining a Baptist church and points to their being sprinkled as a baby, I and the bulk of Baptists hold that they have not met that requirement and must be baptized. This isn't strictly because of mode, however. It also comes back to whether or not what was administered to them was even theirs to receive.
Baptists believe that baptism should be reserved only for those who have made a confession of faith. As I've discussed before, this is related to our belief that the covenant community only includes those who have been redeemed, that is, those who have saving faith in Christ. Ultimately, what this comes down to is the nature of the new covenant in Christ. You see, it is generally agreed upon by the various denominations within Christianity that baptism is a sign of entry into the covenant community of Christ (some hold it as more than a sign, but none hold it as not at least a sign; that is, they may hold it as a sign and as something greater, but it is always a sign, and as a sign it is always a sign of entry into the community). Therefore, the question of who gets baptized and who doesn't, and when baptism should be applied, ultimately comes down to the question of who is in the covenant community and when they enter it. Baptism should be applied to a person who is entering the covenant community at the time when they enter; defining one category will inherently define the other. The Baptist (and Baptist-adjacent) view is that the covenant community is composed only of those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ; there are other views which hold a different view of who belongs to the covenant community, and therefore who receives baptism. Now, in my last post I argued for a definition for the church that is incompatible with a view that anyone not yet saved is part of the covenant community, but I want to lean a bit more into how that plays out here. Paul did baptize people into bodies that were not yet churches, see for instance the story of Philippi in Acts 16. Here, Lydia and her household are baptized on their reception of the gospel, and the jailer and his household are baptized on conversion, but the body was still not yet a church when Paul left the city. Which would suggest that the local church and the covenant community are not perfect synonyms, and usually the language used is that baptism is part of entry into the church. But I have used the phrasing 'covenant community' on purpose in the paragraph above; that is, we baptize into the body of Christ, of which the local church is an expression. Essentially, you can have a covenant community where there are believers gathered for the advance of the gospel in service to Christ, but it is not a church until it reaches a certain level of establishment. The definition of 'church' is a refinement of the definition of a 'covenant community,' in which all churches are covenant communities but not all covenant communities are churches. But the fact remains that the covenant community must be composed of those who are actually within the covenant. Astute readers will note that I cited a passage often used to argue for the baptism of infants. The argument essentially goes that, since whole households were baptized, we can reasonably assume children were included, and therefore Paul baptized children. But assumptions cannot guide us here. The fact is that households are not ever guaranteed to have children in them, even in our modern day, and especially then. At the time of writing the Acts accounts, the concept of a household included everyone who participated in the life of the home, which included extended family and servants. Note also that the description of baptizing whole households happens in the context of people who were in certain stations of society. These are people like a rich woman, a jailer who was tasked with significant responsibility, a centurion (encountered by Peter) with a body of servants actively discussed in the text. Their households absolutely did include more than merely themselves and a possible spouse, but there is no reason to believe that this must have included children. There were, in all cases, enough people in the home to use a broad term such as 'household' without the addition of infants. We cannot, therefore, safely assume there were children being baptized in those instances, and the rest of the New Testament offers no support for the baptism of children. Even the statement that "the promise is for you and your children," as is sometimes cited by pedobaptists, is a statement of scope and perpetuity rather than a statement of infants as members of the body, as evidenced by the rest of the statement, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself." (Acts 2:38-39, NASB). That is, the promise being tied to baptism here is for those who are brought to Christ, regardless of generation or location. Where the Bible offers no direct support for the baptism of infants, it does consistently address churches as places where the members are assumed to be in Christ. In every letter of the New Testament, the recipients are held to the standard that they have already accepted the gospel of Christ, and at no point is there discussion of people being part of the church but not saved by Christ, unless it is an urging to remove them from the church. Further, the teachings of the early church did not align with the idea of infant baptism. Consider the way baptism is described in the Didache, where baptism happens "after first explaining all these points," that is, the preceding body of the Didache, and the command to "require the candidate to fast one or two days previously"(2). Both elements cited here operate only within an environment where the one being baptized has some ability to receive and respond to instruction. All told, then, the Bible contains no stated baptism of infants and has no knowledge of a definition of the church which includes those not yet saved, and the known practices of the early church required a candidate for baptism to be capable of receiving instruction and following that instruction. "But," one may argue, "what about Jesus' command not to forbid the children from coming to Him?" And to this I would state simply that we don't. We point our children to Christ, we encourage them to rely on Him for salvation and rejoice in Him for His goodness, and we baptize children as soon as they make a confession of faith. The only way to read this behavior as keeping children from Christ is to operate on the understanding that baptism itself carries the power to bring people to Christ.
In every instance of baptism in scripture, it occurs after the person has repented. This should, itself, be sufficient evidence that baptism affirms salvation but does not confer it, except for one statement in the Bible that requires a moment of discussion. This is the statement in 1 Peter 3:21 that "baptism now saves you." Let us begin by looking at the statement in context. For Christ also died for sins once for all, [the] just for [the] unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits [now] in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through [the] water. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you--not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience--through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him. |
Growing in Faith | |
The Christian life is a dynamic one. It is not static and unchanging, we do not begin with all the answers, and we have to spend the rest of our lives growing. Jude begins his exhortation by reminding us that the work of growing is to be built on faith. It is by fixing ourselves on the hope of salvation, on Christ, that we are made pure and the Christian life begins to manifest in our lives.
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And everyone who has this hope [fixed] on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. 1 John 3:3 (NASB) |
1 Peter 2:4-5 (NASB)
Prayer in the Holy Spirit | |
The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober [spirit] for the purpose of prayer. 1 Peter 4:7 (NASB) |
Jude adds prayer to his exhortation. Prayer is necessary for all the rest of this. We cannot be growing in Christ if we are not in communication with Christ, we will not keep ourselves in the love of Christ or live in light of His next coming if we do not lean on Him for our strength. More on this will actually be covered below, but for now, prayer is the means by which these things become real in our lives.
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Keep in the Love of God | |
The Christian life is marked by love, specifically, that we are living out the love of Christ. This means that the Christian life must be lived in community, and that how we then treat one another (and those outside of the church) must reflect the way God loves us. We cannot be living out the Christian life if our lives do not, in fact, look like Christ; and how we love one another, and the degree to which we do so, is critical to that.
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Now I ask you, lady, not as though [I were] writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. 2 John 5 (NASB) |
Hebrews 10:23-25 (NASB)
Waiting for Eternal Life | |
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:11-13 (NASB) |
The Day of the Lord is the period of judgement that ends the systems of this world and initiates the final rule of Christ. The specifics of this period vary based on interpretive system, but all of them mark this a decisive line between the age of the church in the world and the next age.
The method of interpreting that is not a necessary topic for this post. The point is that there is a judgement coming, and those of us in Christ will be brought safely through into glory, and we must look to that day as we live out lives now. As said before, we must know where we are going if we seek to go there well. And, whether or not we are prepared, we will be going here. |
1 John 2:28 (NASB)
Discernment | |
Verses 22 and 23 of Jude give some input on what all of the above looks like in direct interaction with others, but the thing I'd like to narrow in on is that it assumes that his hearers have some way to know which approach is appropriate for the situation. The lifestyle he is proposing, then, requires a certain amount of discernment.
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And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Jude 22-23 (NASB) |
Revelation 2:2-3 (NASB)
Hebrews 4:12-13 (NASB)
Benediction | |
Hebrews 13:20-21 (NASB)
[Act] as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but [use it] as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. 1 Peter 2:16-17 (NASB) |
Applying these principles paint, in broad strokes, everything this series has sought to cover. The general epistles heavily concern themselves with these aspects of our relationship to God. The authors encourage us to see God's glory, to rely on His power, and to live under His authority, even when this puts us at odds with the world around us. We do ourselves a disservice when we gloss over these books; their words are as important to us today as they were to the original readers.
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1 John 5:5 (NASB)
I have taken a few discipleship groups or classes where we were asked to find a passage that summarizes salvation, and in every case what was cited were John 3:16 or one of maybe three sections of Paul's writing. And again, this is fine, Paul did write about this and his writing is super helpful. But in our study of the general epistles as a body worthy of equal consideration, we cannot ignore what they have to say about salvation and redemptive history. I'd like to try something that came to mind while I was reading and sorting and preparing this series, and that is actually to pull the nature of salvation from the letters to the seven churches, in chapters 2-3 of Revelation, and use those as a guide to the way the rest of the general epistles handle the subject. We will be exploring the "He Who Overcomes" statements. Each of these is tailored to the church that is receiving it, but taken together, they create a picture of what salvation is. |
Eden Restored | |
Revelation 2:7 (NASB)
Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"-- therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. Genesis 3:22-23 (NASB) |
Now, God was not concerned about us pulling a fast one on Him and eating from the tree when He wasn't looking. Having access to the tree was not some threat to Him. But there was a need to separate mankind from the Tree of Life, and so God did. Now, we will explore more about the promise of life in the next section, but the point for right now is that Christ is promising through John that there will be a restoration to the perfect created order, that we will again be in the paradise of God and have access to, not only the Tree of Life, but the giver of life Himself.
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Hebrews 4:2-5 (NASB)
The Second Death | |
Revelation 2:11 (NASB)
Revelation 20:14-15 (NASB)
John himself also summarizes this promise when he says, "The world is passing away, and [also] its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever" (1 John 2:17 NASB). Jude focuses on the negative side of that arrangement in verses 5-7, where he points to Sodom and Gomorrah as evidence of the destruction that awaits those who are not in Christ.
This promise of eternal life shows up a few times in these two chapters of Revelation, as we've already seen one in access to the Tree of Life above. This, then, is our second note about salvation as the general epistles understand it: it is eternal life, and stands in stark contrast to the judgment that will fall on those who remain enemies of God. |
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:11-13 (NASB) |
A New Foundation | |
Revelation 2:17 (NASB)
The manna is a theme that gets some development earlier in scripture, though it isn't as strongly recurring topic. In fact, there are really only two places we need to go to get the general thrust of the story so far. The first is during the wandering in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt, when the people of Israel were in a barren place and hungry. God sustained them with provision in the form of a miraculous bread that appeared with the morning dew that they simply gathered. While there is very little discussion of the manna after that point in scripture, it certainly left a mark on the culture, because it gets cited after Jesus feeds the 5,000. He performs the miracle, He and His disciples ship out at night, and the people find them the next day and ask for more bread as a sign. A relevant part of that conversation includes:
John 6:31-35 (NASB)
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. Hebrews 2:14-15 (NASB) |
Whether or not the stone is a literal stone that we will be handed is an interesting discussion to have, but for our purposes here in asking what it says about salvation, we can instead focus on what is written on the stone. And what is written on the stone is, in fact, a new identity. We are, by our natures, slaves to sin, as discussed in Hebrews. We have an identity wrapped up in our relationship to the world and to death. But in Christ, we have a new identity, a new foundation to who we are, and at the very beginning of 1 John 3 we have the promise that this new identity is that we get to become children of God.
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Glory and Power | |
Revelation 2:26-28 (NASB)
Revelation 1:5-6 (NASB)
Sanctification | |
Revelation 3:5 (NASB)
Communion | |
Revelation 3:12 (NASB)
Hebrews deals with ideas related to this quite a lot. While Philadelphia is dealing with a "synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie," which is definitely not wording used for Judaism as a whole elsewhere in scripture and therefore probably a localized and specific group of people, Hebrews discusses at length that the entire temple system has seen its completion in Christ and that He is better than it was ever capable of being (Revelation 3:9 NASB). Given here is one example, where Jesus is noted as being superior as an eternal priest.
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The [former] priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:23-25 (NASB) |
A Greater Wealth | |
Revelation 3:21 (NASB)
1 Peter 3:21-22 (NASB)
Focus of Salvation | |
1 Peter 1:3-5 (NASB)
Hebrews 2:1-4 (NASB)
James 5:7-8 (NASB)
The general epistles do not spend their time overly concerned with describing the false teachers of their day. We can learn some information about the content of these early false teachings, but this is almost never the focus. This means that the information on identifying false teachers is widely applicable, which is very helpful. Even if it means that we have less historical context than we'd like. However, there are some indications on what, exactly, the writers of the general epistles were dealing with. |
Echoes of the Exodus | |
Hebrews 3:16-19 (NASB)
Balaam
2 Peter mentions Balaam as an archetype of the teachings he was condemning in 2 Peter 2:13-16. Here, Balaam is described as loving "the wages of unrighteousness," and those who are seen to be following after his character are described as "...stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children" (2 Peter 2:13b-14 NASB). In Jude 11, readers are warned that "for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam." John condemns the church in Smyrna, "'But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit [acts of] immorality" (Revelation 2:14 NASB).
We know little about Balaam son of Beor, but the bulk of what we know is in Numbers 22-24, and we find in two different Biblical sources that he was later killed by the people of Israel while his town was being destroyed. The cultural understanding of what Balaam actually did must have drawn from other sources, however, because the actual narrative does not contain everything said of him here. Either way, the image being given of the false teachers of the day seem to include significant immoral behavior and an open enjoyment of their unrighteousness, as well as a certain amount of greed that drove Balaam to answer Balak's call after being told by God not to. This last point also indicates a disregard for God's command.
In Revelation, Balaam is associated with the Nicolaitans, a heretical sect which held that spiritual freedom was a license to live immoral lives and seems to have been present in Thyatira and Pergamum as well. Given the emphasis on good works in James, it is distinctly possible that the groups he was addressing were, if not Nicolaitans, at least similar to them in doctrine. If Peter and Jude have the same understanding of Balaam as John does, which seems likely from their descriptions, then they might also have been addressing the rise of the Nicolaitan sect. Given the context of the phrase in which Jude's use of Balaam appears, he may have also been citing Balaam's involvement in Balak's jealous attempts to usurp the will of God through sacrifices and condemn God's people.
Korah At the end of Numbers 15, a man is stoned to death for gathering wood on the Sabbath. In Numbers 16, we have the story of Korah's Rebellion. Korah, a Levite, gathered some allies and accused Moses of taking more authority over the people than he had claim to, declaring that every member of the congregation was holy. The ringleaders of the rebellion are swallowed up by the earth, while those who were offering incense but were not Levites were consumed by fire from Heaven. This is a story of jealousy of God's chosen leadership, a greed for power, a system of improper sacrifices being offered to God, and a disregard for the command of God given through Moses. Korah's associates, by using holy implements to burn incense without the blessing of God or the ritual washing necessary to stand before Him, offer improper sacrifice and thereby call condemnation on themselves. |
Nature of False Teaching | |
James 3:1-8 (NASB)
The warning is simple: teachers are held to a high standards of accountability for what they teach, and the means through which they teach is corrupt and in need of purification. Our tongues can guide our entire lives, especially if we make our living through speech, and if we do not have this under control everything else will suffer. In this way he is, somewhat indirectly, warning that the false teachers, those who do not have bridled tongues, who allow blessing and curses to come from the same source, will lead themselves and their hearers astray. Everything described in the rest of that chapter, when applied to the body at large, is a matter of significant concern. When applied to teachers, it is harrowing.
Peter, likewise, does not focus on specific false teachers. He does directly address the existence of false teachers in his second epistle. however, and in this he gives us some important information to know about them. He notes some ideas that are growing familiar: denying the work of Christ, causing destruction and division, disregarding the command of God for righteous living, and living to greed.
Where other epistles go to the period of the Exodus, Peter goes to the writing of Old Testament prophecy. He discusses how the prophets were guided by the Holy Spirit, but false prophets arose among them. Likewise, now that a new revelation has come, false teachers are arising. It is in this discussion, interestingly enough, that Peter cites in 3:15-16 that Paul's writings are scripture--and that they are being corrupted by false teachers just as surely as prophecy was. |
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in [their] greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 2 Peter 2:1-3 (NASB) |
Strange Fire | |
Balaam and Balak offered sacrifices to God in an attempt to get a favorable response from Him despite the knowledge that what they were seeking was against His will. This is an improper sacrifice. Cain offered a sacrifice that did not meet God's standards, presumably because His heart was not on pleasing God. Korah's associates used holy items to burn incense in an improper way. For this, they died, and the censers were hammered out and used as plating on the altar as a reminder to never do such a thing again. But we are now the implements of God, useful for His purposes and cleansed for holy work and tasked with the duties of priests. |
1 Peter 2:9-10 (NASB)
In contrast, then, the teacher who is honoring God properly is one who operates out of humility rather than jealousy, charity rather than greed, seeking unity and seeing life blossom in their congregations rather than destruction and division, respectful of God's commands without being legalistic, and leaning on the sacrifice of Christ rather than offering up a life that is marked by corruption. But the true mark of a sound teacher is the salvation they preach, and this will be the topic of the next post.
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