BETWEEN THE “LION OF SACRAMENTALISM”
AND THE “BEAR OF MERE SYMBOLISM:”
TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF
BAPTIST BAPTISMAL THEOLOGY IN AMERICA,
WITH A CORRESPONDING PROPOSAL
FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
_______________
Presented to the Members of
The Young Scholars in the Baptist Academy
Regent’s Park, Oxford
July 2006
_______________
by
Dr. Sheila Deann Klopfer
Assistant Professor of Religion
Georgetown College
400 East College Street
Georgetown, KY 40324
(502) 863-8361
Sheila_Klopfer@georgetowncollege.edu
1
In 1745, an English Baptist, Samuel Wilson assessed baptismal theology in his
day: “It is certain, men are apt to run into extremes; Some may possibly make too much
of baptism; supposing it to be a regenerating, or justifying ordinance; that it washes away
the guilt of original sin, and is always accompanied with the conveyance of grace. Others
may think as meanly of it as a mere circumstantial ritual, or test of obedience to a positive
precept, with little, if any spiritual meaning.”1 Wilson recognized the extremes of
baptismal theology—that it was either a regenerative act or a mere circumstantial ritual—
and, as a Baptist, he rejected both.2 Similarly, in the latter half of the nineteenth century,
Thomas Swaim, a Baptist pastor in America, noted, “Christian Baptism—the immersion
of a believer in water, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is a divine
institution, alike distant from the two extremes of non- essentialism and baptismal
regeneration.”3 Swaim likewise noted that Baptists expressed their theology between
non-essentialism and baptismal regeneration. In a further reflection, nearly a century
later, in 1958, Presbyterian J. M. Ross, in his brief analysis of Baptist history, argued that
Baptists had not found a clear expression of baptism that would avoid the “lion of
sacramentalism” or the “bear of mere symbolism.”4 Based upon his reading of Baptist
history, Ross concluded that Baptists had not developed a strong theology of baptism
because they were more concerned with opposing the sprinkling of infants than they were
with defining a theology associated with the immersion of believers.5
Through their independent observations in three successive centuries, Wilson,
Swaim, and Ross each recognized that Baptists historically expressed their baptismal
theology in the conversation between two theologies. On one hand, Baptists opposed the
1
Samuel Wilson, A Scriptural Manual; or, a Plain Presentation of the Ordinance of Baptism
(Newport, RI: S. Southwick, 1772), 5. This was first published in England in 1745 and circulated among
Baptists in America. The fourth edition was printed in America as early as 1772. In 1827 the Baptist
General Tract Society published it for a new generation of Baptists.
2
Ibid., 31. Wilson argued that it was no “mere” symbolism, but a profession of faith, a declaration
“entrance into Christ,” and a lively representation of the burial and resurrection of Christ.
3
Thomas Swaim, Baptism and Saving Truths (Philadelphia: ABPS, 1870-1884), 2.
4
J. M. Ross, “The Theology of Baptism in Baptist History,” Baptist Quarterly 15 (July 1953): 110.
Although Ross is a Presbyterian, his work is one of the few to assess Baptist history in an attempt to
understand Baptist baptismal theology.
5
Ibid., 100. Similar reflections have been made by Baptist scholars studying the period associated
with this paper. See Michael Haykin, “Postcript” in On Christian Baptism, by Adoniram Judson (Laurel,
MS: Audubon Press, 2000), 118. Haykin argues that Baptists during the early nineteenth century limited
their baptismal works to proper New Testament mode and subject, rather than addressing questions of
baptismal theology.
2
assertion that baptism was a sacramental act—a regenerative ordinance that conveyed
grace. On the other, Baptists rejected a theology of baptism that suggested baptism was a
non-essential act and mere circumstantial ritual with little spiritual meaning. The
reflections made by such observations on Baptist baptismal theology prompted the
question that drove the research of this paper. What baptismal theology emerges in an
historical investigation of Baptists in America? The question of the historical
development of Baptist baptismal in Britain has been addressed in length by twentieth
century scholars,6 but few have investigated the historical contours of baptismal theology
conveyed by Baptists in American history.7
The thesis of this brief analysis is that the contours and content of American
history reveal that Baptists developed a rich theology between mere symbolism and
sacramentalism. Contrary to conclusions, such as those expressed by Ross that Baptists
did not develop a strong theology of baptism, this paper argues that the theology of
baptism carried much doctrinal weight. Baptists were not merely opposing sprinkling, in
favor of the biblical mode of immersion. They were not simply being contentious or
reactionary in their denial of a biblical precedent for baptizing infants—the subject of
baptism. They believed that baptism was an authentic expression of the candidate’s faith.
They regarded baptism by immersion of believers as a confessional act of faith, in which
a believer symbolically confesses, as an act of faith, that Jesus Christ is Lord. In this way,
baptism is a relational act of a believer, who responds in obedience and faith to the call of
Christ Jesus. This paper explores the baptismal theology that was expressed by Baptists
6
Most recently Stanley K. Fowler has written a work incorporating British Baptist baptismal
theology and history in his More Than a Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal
Sacramentalism (Carlisle, California: Paternoster Press, 2002). Other scholars, such as Paul Fiddes,
Anthony R. Cross, George Beasley-Murray, and Reginald E. O. White have contributed primarily to the
theological discussion of British Baptist baptismal sacramental theology.
7
The best works on various aspects of Baptist baptismal history and theology in America include:
James Leo Garrett, “Baptists Concerning Baptism: Review and Preview,” Southwestern Theological
Journal of Theology 42 (Spring 2001): 52-65; James Leo Garrett, “The Theology and Practice of Baptism:
A Southern Baptist View,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 28 (Spring 1986): 65-72; R. Wayne Stacy,
“A Baptist Theology of Baptism,” in Proclaiming the Baptist Vision: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, ed.,
Walter B. Shurden (Macon: Smyth and Helwys, 1999), 94-115; Morgan Patterson, “The Role of Baptism in
Baptist History,” Review and Expositor 65 (Winter 1968): 33-41; Wayne E. Ward, “Baptism in Theological
Perspective.” Review and Expositor 65 (Winter 1968): 43-52; and Ross, “Theology of Baptism,” 100-12;
The present essay is a brief summary of a larger study of Baptist in America and baptismal theology, see
Sheila Klopfer, “Baptists in America (1742-1833): An Historical and Theological Assessment of Baptism
with a Corresponding Proposal for Baptist Theology of Baptism in the Twenty-First Century,” (Ph.D. diss.,
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, May 2006).
3
in dialogue with sacramental and mere symbolic theologies. In consistently affirming and
connecting the two concepts, baptism by immersion (mode) and baptism of believers
only (subjects), Baptists expressed a rich theology that was integral to their soteriology,
ecclesiology, and the doctrine of Christian life.
Due to Baptist congregational polity and confessional nature, there is no single
governing doctrinal source available to observe the definitive Baptist doctrine of baptism.
At best, the shifting patterns of discussion throughout history reveal the range of theology
that Baptists have employed in their various debates. Therefore, a study of Baptist
doctrine, such as baptismal theology, is best viewed in historical context, observing
Baptist conversations, dialogues, and confessions during a specific era. In particular, the
research question of this paper focuses on a narrow slice of American Baptist history
(1742-1833). These dates correspond with the baptismal theology articulated by Baptists
in America during the period associated with the First and Second Great Awakenings, the
formation of America as an independent nation, and the adoption of two influential
Baptist confessions in America: The Philadelphia Confession (1742) and The New
Hampshire Confession (1833). Because Baptist confessions are rich sources for
understanding the beliefs of a large consensus of Baptists, the research is framed by a
comparison of the two confessions and a historical investigation of the theological
dialogue that emerged between them.
Essential to the investigation is the establishment of several key terms and their
working definitions. First, since there are various definitions for “sacrament,” this paper
identifies sacrament as an objective means of obtaining grace, the remission of sins, or
the seal of saving union with Christ.8 Sacramental theology suggests that the act, in and
of itself, is essential to salvation.9 Baptists argued firmly that salvation came by grace
through faith, and was not mediated objectively in the waters. Second, Baptists have been
more inclined to describe baptism as an “ordinance,” meaning that baptism “has been
ordained, commanded, or established by Jesus Christ and that its symbolic nature is
8
James Leo Garrett, Systematic Theology: Biblical, Historical, and Evangelical, vol. 2 (North
Richland Hills, TX: BIBAL Press, 2001), 578-79.
9
Primarily Baptists in America during this period entered into dialogue with the covenantal
sacramental theology associated with Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Methodists. See E. Brooks
Holifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New
Haven: Yale University, 2003), 274-76.
4
primary.”10 Baptist use of ordinance reflects their commitment to sola scriptura and their
desire to adhere to scriptural commands, rather than traditions. The use of ordinance is
closely connected with the affirmation that Baptists follow Christ’s commands as
ordained in scripture, and that baptism is the voluntary response of believers who follow
in obedience by accepting baptism by immersion.
Third, the thesis of this paper is that although Baptists have regarded baptism as
symbolic, they have not considered it “merely” symbolic.11 They have argued that the
practice of immersing candidates is representative of the death, burial, and resurrection of
Christ and the believer’s subsequent death, burial, and resurrection in Christ. Baptism in
water also pictures cleansing and the forgiveness of sins. However, baptismal theology is
not merely symbolic. “Mere” symbolism means that the relevance of the act is derived
“solely” from its symbolic nature, proposing a legalism related to the simple restoration
of New Testament cultic rituals. Mere symbolism often leads to the conclusion that
baptism is unessential or a matter of indifference. The Quakers were one of the few
denominations to propose mere symbolism and baptismal conversations with Quakers in
America regarding baptism were scarce. However, Baptists were faced with accusations
by pedobaptists that Baptist baptismal theology was merely symbolic—accusations that
Baptists denied.
By examining baptismal doctrine as it developed in the writings and events
between 1742 and 1833, this paper provides an important source of reflection that will be
helpful to current dialogue, theology, and practice. The research is beneficial for
practical, didactic, and ecumenical reasons. Morgan Edwards, a Baptist historian and
theologian of the eighteenth century, rightly called believer’s baptism the “denominating
article” that distinguished Baptists from all other denominations.12 Certainly the practice
of baptism by immersion of believers makes Baptists unique among the denominations,
10
Garrett, Systematic Theology, II, 578.
Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Volume One: Reason and Revelation, Being and God. vol 1
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 239-240. Along these lines, Tillich has argued that a symbol
is true has a double meaning. “A symbol has truth: it is adequate to the revelation is expresses. A symbol is
true: it is the expression of a true revelation.” Mere symbolism loses this double meaning. It emphasizes
that the symbol has truth, without expressing that a symbol needs also to be an authentic expression of the
candidate’s relationship with Christ.
12
Morgan Edwards, Materials Towards a History of the Baptists, vol. 1 (Danielsville, GA:
Heritage Papers, 1984), 4.
11
5
but more importantly Baptist theology of baptism carries much doctrinal weight in
Baptist life. Baptismal theology communicates what Baptists believe concerning
salvation, the church, the Christian life, and eschatology. As such, baptismal theology is
integral to a comprehensive understanding of Baptist identity.
The Philadelphia Confession (1742)
Historical Context
Due primarily to the toleration that the Middle colonies offered Dissenters, such
as Baptists, Philadelphia became the center of Baptist life throughout America until after
the Revolutionary War.13 David Benedict, a nineteenth century Baptist historian,
identified Philadelphia as the “emporium of Baptist influence” in the American
colonies.14 The Philadelphia Association, formed in 1707, was the first Baptist
Association in America.15 By 1770 the association had expanded, consisting of churches
that stretched from New England to the Southern Colonies.16 In 1742 the Philadelphia
Association adopted The Philadelphia Confession, the first confession of faith adopted by
a group of Baptist churches in America.17 It was instrumental in shaping Baptist life and
was particularly influential in spreading baptismal terminology and concepts throughout
America. Historian, H. Leon McBeth, stated that The Philadelphia Confession “fixed for
generations the doctrinal character of Baptists in this country.”18 As Baptists from the
Philadelphia Association migrated and itinerated into the frontier regions of the colonies,
they spread the doctrines and theology of the confession. Baptist associations that
emerged in Rhode Island, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, adopted The
Philadelphia Confession as their statement of faith. It has since been referred to as the
13
H. Leon McBeth, Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987), 216.
David Benedict, Fifty Years Among the Baptists (New York: Sheldon, 1860), 46-47.
15
Bill J. Leonard, Baptists Ways: A History (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2003), 115. The initial
members of the Philadelphia Association included: First Baptist Philadelphia; Lower Dublin or Pennepek,
in Pennsylvania; Piscataway and Middletown in New Jersey; and Welshtract Church, Delaware.
16
McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 211-12, 239-42, 572, 693. The Philadelphia Association included
Baptist churches from Connecticut, New York, Maryland, and Virginia; and Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A
Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 375-76. The
Philadelphia Association also entertained plans of designing a national organization of Baptists and
chartered, in 1764, Brown University in Rhode Island, the first Baptist College in America.
17
William L. Lumpkin, ed., Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1969), 23540, 348-51. Benjamin Franklin printed the copies of what is now known as The Philadelphia Confession.
The original title was much longer.
18
McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 241.
14
6
Baptist Confession due to its influence among Baptists in America, dominating the
theological landscape until the formulation of The New Hampshire Confession in 1833.19
The Philadelphia Confession (1742)
Theological Context
The Philadelphia Confession was particularly important for establishing Baptist
baptismal terminology and theology throughout America. It was forged in the context of
stating Baptist beliefs in dialogue with a pedobaptist theology shaped by sacramental
covenantal theology. Congregationalists had only partially worked out the details of the
visible church. They employed the dual covenants of grace and works, arguing that infant
baptism sealed children into the church through a covenant of grace. However, the
children were expected, through a covenant of works, to express their salvation visibly by
faith as adults.20 Congregationalists believed that, on one hand, baptism somehow sealed
or mediated the covenant of grace.21 On the other hand, baptism was not efficacious for
an unregenerate infant, one in whom God did not choose to exhibit his grace.22 Not only
was this theology confusing, it eliminated the necessity of the candidate’s faith in the
obedient act of baptism. It was an act of the church, rather than the baptismal candidate.
Eighteenth century Baptists who adopted The Philadelphia Confession presented
a baptismal theology that responded to the doctrines associated with sacramental
covenantal theology and pedobaptism.23 Particularly, Baptists in this confession
19
Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 352-53; and McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 211.
E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the
Civil War (New Haven: Yale University, 2003), 53.
21
“The Westminster Confession,” in Creeds of the Churches, ed., John H. Leith (Louisville: John
Knox Press, 1982), 223-25. See specifically, article twenty-seven, “Of the Sacraments,” and article twenty
eight, “Of Baptism.”
22
Ibid., 224-25; and Holifield, Theology in America, 53-55. Even among themselves, eighteenth
century sacramental covenantal theologians disputed over whether baptism “sealed” the covenant of grace
or whether it was simply a pledge and promise that would hopefully eventuate in conversion.
23
Lumpkin, ed., Baptist Confessions, 235-40. The Philadelphia Confession was an adaptation of
the Particular English Baptist’s The Second London Confession (1689) which in turn was a revision of The
Westminster Confession (1646), a Presbyterian document.
20
7
addressed the question of the role of “obedience” in the act of baptism.24 Under the
sacramental system, infant baptism was considered primarily an act of God’s grace, and it
was severed from any connection to the obedient response of the baptismal candidate.25
Baptists, in The Philadelphia Confession, countered this confusion by omitting words
such as “seal” and “sacrament,” which emphasized the objective conferring of God’s
grace. Instead, Baptists defined baptism with such words and phrases as, “ordinance,” a
“sign of fellowship,” and a “positive command.” These terms communicated the
importance of the candidate’s obedience as expressed out of an authentic relationship
with Christ through faith by grace.
The Philadelphia Confession emphasized that the baptismal candidate’s
obedience was demonstrated in the act of baptism in a number of ways throughout the
document. First, the authors carefully worded the article on baptism. Where the
covenantal theologians used “sacrament” and “seal” in The Westminster Confession
(1646), Baptists substituted the term, “ordinance.”26 By the eighteenth century, and the
adoption of The Philadelphia Confession, the use of “ordinance” had become the
preferred term for the Baptist understanding of baptism.27 Baptists used “ordinance”
because it emphasized that Jesus Christ ordained or commanded baptism.28 Whereas
“sacrament” or “seal” identified baptism as an avenue of objective grace, “ordinance”
expressed the primacy of baptism as an act of the believer’s obedience and following of
Christ. The use of “ordinance” was an intentional substitution and a means of delineating
24
This paper will refer often to the Baptists emphasizing baptism as an act of obedience. The
Baptists did not regard salvation as an act of faith and obedience. Salvation was by grace through faith
alone. However, obedience had a significant role in the doctrine of the Christian life. Obedience was
neither salvific, nor was it a legalistic ritual merely following the conversion experience. By obedience, this
paper means that the believer, summoned by the Holy Spirit, is following Christ by faith into the baptismal
waters.
25
“The Westminster Confession,” in Creeds of the Churches, ed., Leith, 224-25. It was still
regarded as an act of obedience and faith, but the emphasis was on the obedience and faith of the believing
parents and the church, rather than the immediate obedience and faith of the baptismal candidate.
26
Ross, “The Theology of Baptism in Baptist History,” 101; and Lumpkin, ed., Baptist
Confessions, 237. Both authors agree that the Baptists deliberately substituted non-sacramental language
for the Westminster definitions.
27
Fowler, More Than a Symbol, 16-19, 53-57. British Baptist historian Stanley K. Fowler argued
that by the eighteenth century British Baptists asserted their non-sacramental view of baptism by using term
“ordinance,” in place of “sacrament.” This was the case in eighteenth century America as well, where the
Baptists rarely used the word “sacrament” as a label for baptism.
28
Garrett, Systematic Theology, II, 578.
8
Baptist theology from a sacramental presentation. Baptism as an ordinance brought the
element of the believer’s obedience and following of Christ back to baptismal theology.
The word, “ordinance,” was closely linked to “positive command,” another
prominent term in Baptist baptismal doctrine that emphasized the believer’s obedience.
The article on baptism in The Philadelphia Confession asserted that “Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper are ordinances of positive, and sover[e]ign institution; appointed by the
Lord Jesus the only Law-giver, to be continued in his Church to the end of the world.”29
Baptism as a “positive command” carried with it several significant concepts. First, it
emphasized the perpetuity of baptismal observances, in response to the claims that
baptism was incomprehensible and a primitive practice that was no longer necessary.30
Unlike the Quakers, Baptists considered baptism a required ordinance of the church for
all times. Jesus Christ, the Law-giver, appointed the practice in the first century in order
that the churches continue it until his return.
Second, the term “positive command” associated baptism with a believer’s act of
obedience. A basic definition given for positive command was that it was a “precept
observed simply because God has commanded it.”31 It emphasized the importance of
following Christ in obedience by faith, even when the reason for doing so was not clear.
Joseph Burroughs, an English Baptist, wrote in 1742, “The obeying of the divine will
herein is fulfilling of righteousness: and we do not fulfil all righteousness, if we pretend
to choose for ourselves, and to stick to moral obligations, in the neglect and contempt of
positive commands.”32 While the reasons for obeying a moral law might be self-evident,
positive commands were not as easily recognizable.33 Baptist emphasis on positive
command was closely connected to their emphasis on sola scriptura. Baptism was a
scriptural act that should involve the believer’s obedience regardless of his or her
The Philadelphia Confession (Pittsburgh: D. & M. Maclean, 1831), 67. See Article 29, “On
29
Baptism.”
30
Joseph Burroughs, Two Discourses, Relating to Positive Institutions (London: J. Noon, 1742), 78. Burroughs was an English Baptist. The concept of “divine command” is not original to Baptists in
America. It is at least traceable in Baptist thought to The Second London Confession (1689), but may be
older still.
31
Fowler, More Than a Symbol, 54.
32
Burroughs, Two Discourses, 7.
33
Abraham Booth, “Vindication of the Baptists from the Charge of Bigotry, in Refusing
Communion at the Lord’s Table to Paedobaptists,” in Richard Pengilly, The Scripture Guide to Baptism
(Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1849), 19.
9
complete understanding. It underscored the magnitude and perpetuity of the baptismal
act; the scriptures commanded baptism and through it, the believer learned the
importance of obedience in living a new life in Christ. Baptism, then, was an obedient
response made possible by grace in the believer’s new relationship with Christ. Therefore
it expressed Baptist understanding of the doctrine of the Christian life.
The emphasis upon the candidate’s obedience in the baptismal act was not the
only contradistinction between Baptist baptismal theology and sacramental covenantal
theology. The Philadelphia Confession stated that baptism was a “sign of fellowship”
with Christ and an engrafting in him to live and walk in newness of life, a phrase that
meant several things.34 First, that it was a “sign” meant that baptism was both a
“symbolic” and a “visible” act. Baptists emphasized the symbolic nature in their
insistence on immersion, or dipping, as the proper mode of baptism. Immersion was a
symbol of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. It was a symbolic act that demonstrated
the believer was living and walking in the newness of life made possible by a relationship
with Christ. The term, “sign” also carried the meaning of “visible.” Baptism enabled
believers to make visible their fellowship with, or engrafting in, Christ. Consistent with
Baptist soteriology, identifying baptism as a sign of fellowship made clear that baptism
did not initiate fellowship with Christ. Baptism was a visible and authentic expression of
the new believer’s relationship in Jesus Christ. Those who had already been initiated into
fellowship with Christ through repentance, faith, and obedience, were the only ones who
could participate in this confessional act as a sign of that relationship.35
Second, as a “sign of fellowship,” baptism expressed the fellowship or
relationship of the candidate to Christ, and the candidate’s new relationship to other
believers in the body of Christ. In other words, “sign of fellowship” also expressed
Baptist ecclesiology. Baptism was both an act of worship in fellowship with other
believers and an obedient response—a following of Christ—that only a believer could
make. For that reason The Philadelphia Confession identified the proper subjects of
baptism as “those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and
Philadelphia Confession, Article 30, “On Baptism,” 68.
Ibid., Article 29, “On Baptism,” 67.
34
35
10
obedience, to our Lord Jesus.”36 Grace was not conferred objectively in the baptismal act,
but grace was the avenue of fellowship that summoned the Christian to baptism. In The
Philadelphia Confession, the article, “Effectual Calling,” recorded that God’s “free and
special grace” was offered by the Holy Spirit, who “quickened” and “enabled” the
believer to a willing response to the call.37 Article twenty-two, “Of Religious Worship,
and the Sabbath Day,” stated that, “the administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper
are all part of religious worship of God, to be performed in obedience to him, with
understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear.”38 Immersion was symbolic of the work
that was being accomplished by God through the Holy Spirit in the life of the baptismal
candidate. As a “sign of fellowship,” Baptism signified the fellowship or relationship that
the candidate had with Christ and the fellowship the Christian had with other believers.
Believer’s baptism by immersion communicated Baptist soteriology, ecclesiology, and
theology of the Christian life.
The New Hampshire Confession (1833)
Historical and Theological Background
Between 1742 and 1833 America reverberated with revivals, struggled to develop
her identity as a new nation, and expanded into the frontier. The years were formative for
Baptist identity as well. Baptists became the major benefactors of the two great revivals
that swept across America and England. Between 1750 and 1800, they grew, from a
small, persecuted minority, to become the largest Protestant denomination in America.39
Pro-revival Baptists, often identified as Separate Baptists, revitalized Baptist life. As
Baptists expanded numerically and geographically, they began to unify, organizing into
associations and formulating and adopting doctrinal statements. Since Baptists were the
36
Ibid., Article 30, “On Baptism,” 68. This is not to say that the authors of The Philadelphia
Confession believed that a person was saved by repentance, faith, and obedience, and was therefore made a
proper subject of baptism. This article refers to the fact that, in baptism, a believer—the proper subject,
displays repentance, faith, and obedience. Article Ten, “Of Effectual Calling,” stated that salvation is by
grace through faith alone. See Philadelphia Confession, Article 10, “Effectual Calling,” 34.
37
Ibid., Article 10, “Effectual Calling,” 34.
38
Ibid., Article 22, “Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day,” 55.
39
Winthrop S. Hudson and John Corrigan, Religion in America: An Historical Account of the
Development of American Religious Life, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999),134; and
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 1987), 206. In 1740, there were only 60 Baptist churches in America, with
3,142 members; by 1790, after the revivals, Baptists had established 979 churches, with 67,490 members.
McBeth copied this information from Robert Gardner’s handwritten notes. Robert Gardner, Baptists of
Early America: A Statistical History, 1639-1790 (Atlanta: Georgia Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 63.
11
primary non-pedobaptist Dissenters in America during this period and as Baptists
continued to grow in number, baptismal debates between Baptists and pedobaptists
increased.
One of the first events to prompt baptismal discussions was the First Great
Awakening and subsequent revivals of the mid 1700s. Primarily Baptist defended
baptism in dialogue with the Congregationalists during the revivals. In 1747, Abel
Morgan, a Separate Baptist in New Jersey, entered into a baptismal debate with a local
Presbyterian.40 The baptismal discussions were prompted by a local revival and the
resultant conversion of several Presbyterians to the Baptist faith. In Anti-Paedo-Rantism,
Morgan focused on baptism as an act of “obedience” and the “acting faith” of a
candidate. The use of these terms coupled together enabled him to qualify obedience and
distinguish it from legalism. He asserted that the baptismal act was an obedient faith
response to the divine command. Baptism was a gospel duty that required the faith of the
baptismal candidate.41 God only received it favorably from a candidate who was able “to
act faith in the adorable Trinity.”42 The phrases, “acting faith” and “exercising faith,”
which he also used, were expressive of baptism as a confessional act of faith.43 These
terms suggested that faith expressed itself in the movement of obedience in baptism.
Obedience was a relational act. This is not to say that Morgan believed a person was
saved by faith and obedience, but that obedience was the act of a believer, who followed
Christ in baptism by faith. The believer obediently responded, in faith, to scriptural
command. These concepts prevented Morgan’s baptismal theology from succumbing to
mere symbolism or legalism.
40
See Edwards, Materials, I, 82-84; William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopaedia: A Dictionary
(Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883), 814-15; Benedict, Fifty Years, 34-39; and Sprague, Annals of the
American Pulpit, 33-34. The Baptist historian, David Benedict, listed Morgan among the “Baptist men of
distinction” in America. Abel Morgan Jr. was the nephew of Abel Morgan Sr., a Baptist pastor at Pennepek
for many years.
41
Abel Morgan, Anti-Paedo-Rantism; or Mr. Samuel Finley’s Charitable Plea for the Speechless
Examined and Refuted: The Baptism of Believers Maintain’d; and The Mode of it, by Immersion,
Vindicated (Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin, 1747), 70.
42
Ibid., 85-86. See also Josiah Osborne, another Separate Baptists, who used the term, “acting
faith” in a similar manner. Josiah Osborne, David and Goliath or a Treatise on Water Baptism; Shewing
the Proper Subjects and Mode of that Ordinance, With Observations on the Writings of several Champions
in that Cause (Botetourt County, VA: D. Amen, 1807), 18, 54.
43
Morgan, Anti-Paedo-Rantism, 87.
12
Another event that initiated baptismal discussion in the second half of the
eighteenth century involved the Baptist struggle for religious liberty. Due to the
antagonism that they encountered as Dissenters, Baptists did not thrive in the northern
colonies. Congregationalism, established by law in New England, ensured that Baptists
faced legal opposition and persecution until after the American Revolution.44 In 1767
Baptists in Rhode Island formed the first Baptist association the Warren Association with
the stated purpose of agitating for religious liberty and the Baptist’s right to exist apart
from the state church.45 The topic of baptism emerged hand-in-hand with the issue of
religious liberty. Pedobaptism was foundational to the standing order because it ensured
that all members of the established government, identified as such by infant baptism,
were obligated to obey church state laws. Baptism, therefore, was not only a theological
issue, but also a political one as well, because it was interrelated with the theocratic
government. Correspondingly, New England Baptists utilized the revolutionary rhetoric
of “freedom” in their baptismal debates more heavily than did Baptists in the other
Colonies.
Isaac Backus, a Congregationalist-turned-Separate Baptist, published his major
baptismal treatise the same year that he converted to the Baptist faith.46 In The Difference
Between the Bond-Woman and the Free (1756) Backus supported believer’s baptism and
a voluntaristic church. He argued that baptism was not a ceremonial law equivalent to
circumcision in the Old Testament.47 In the New Testament Gospel church, signified by
the “freewoman,” God established a covenant of grace through Jesus Christ.48 Believers
in Christ “are made free to serve God and walk in his ways so that his commands are not
a yoke of bondage but a law of liberty to their souls.”49 In Backus’ theology, baptism was
not a legalistic ritual, but an act of the believer’s freedom and a voluntary declaration of
44
McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 124-44, 206-11, 242; and Leonard, Baptist Ways, 112-13.
McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 262-66. In 1769, Baptists in the Warren Association created a
Grievance Committee and, led by Isaac Backus in 1772, agitated for religious liberty.
46
William McLoughlin, ed., Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 17541789 (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1968), 9; Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 54-58; and Cathcart,
Baptist Encyclopaedia, 52-53. Backus was also a Baptist historian. He published A History of New
England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists (1777).
47
Backus, “Bondwoman and the Free,” in Isaac Backus, ed., McLoughlin, 173. The “bondwoman”
was a reference to the “Jewish church in her legal standing.”
48
Ibid., 144, 161.
49
Ibid., 143.
45
13
faith that Christ was the Liberator. Backus not only drew the concept of believer’s
obedience back into the baptismal discussion, but brought “freedom” along with it, by
reminding his readers that obedience was not slavery, but true liberty. Baptism as an
expression and act of freedom was not possible for an infant. On the other hand, he
disputed with the Antinomians, who disregarded responsibility to the law. Backus
believed that although believers were set free in Christ, their freedom was constrained by
the “Gospel order.” 50 In this way, followers of Christ had been set free to obey, and
freedom was also a relational term..51 Baptism was no mere symbol or sacrament, but
was an act of a believer’s true freedom in Christ.
As the American Republic emerged from the Revolution in the early 1800s,
Baptists in America began to gain the necessary freedom to establish a cohesive national
identity. No longer the persecuted Dissenters of the colonial standing order, Baptists
continued to unite, strengthening and clarifying their Baptist identity. Baptismal theology
fostered cohesion among Baptists in America, who first united on a national scale in 1814
when they gathered to support foreign missions at the inaugural Triennial Convention. In
the first decade of the 1800s, a steady stream of baptismal theology written and published
by Baptists in America began to appear with the arrival of the Second Great Awakening,
which became the continuing catalyst for baptismal discussion. The revivals provided
cohesion as evangelical theology spread along the newly built roads and canals that
linked the states together. Baptists engaged in baptismal discussions with the sacramental
covenantal theology of the Congregationalists, the Presbyterians, and the recently formed
Methodists, who all adhered to the doctrines of baptism expressed by The Westminster
Confession. Along the frontier, camp meeting revivals became the forum for open
debates between evangelists from the various denominations. In the Northern States
baptismal discussion erupted when New Light Congregationalists, identified as such for
their support of the revivals, converted to the Baptist faith.
Daniel Merrill, a Congregationalist pastor in Maine, stirred the baptismal
conversations when he and his Congregationalist church voted to become Baptist during
Backus, “A Fish Caught in His Own Net,” in Isaac Backus, ed., McLoughlin, 266. Backus
asserted that a proper understanding of baptism must come from the “further light” of scripture, a reference
to the Holy Spirit’s work in revealing the text.
51
Ibid., 278-82. See also McLoughlin’s editorial discussion in the same work (169).
50
14
a period of revival in 1802.52 In his subsequent defense of believer’s baptism by
immersion, The Mode and Subjects of Baptism Examined, Merrill argued that baptism
represented “communion with Christ,” a relational phrase. Baptism symbolized the
believer’s “communion” with Jesus Christ and the newness of life that the Holy Spirit
created in the new convert.53 He argued that baptism was not “bare conformity” or a mere
symbol of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, but was a relational act of a person
who was in Christ. Baptism did not merely picture Christ’s death, burial and resurrection
in the first century. It represented the candidate’s present communion with Christ, which
brought death to sin and resurrection to walk in newness of life. In this way, the
baptismal act promoted piety both in the believer and also in the church.54
As the tides of the revivals continued to soften the strict Calvinism of The
Philadelphia Confession, they gave rise to the need for new confessions that reflected
Baptist’s more evangelical theology.55 In 1833 Baptists in New England adopted a
milestone document, The New Hampshire Confession. As early as 1830 Baptists
comprising the Baptist Convention of New Hampshire appointed a committee to prepare
a formal declaration of faith and practice.56 The New Hampshire Baptists originally
adopted The Philadelphia Confession in 1785, but in the 1830s called for a confession
52
Merrill, Autobiography of Rev. Daniel Merrill, 2-3; Benedict, Fifty Years, 81; and Sprague,
Annals of the American Pulpit, 507-11. Sprague recorded that reports of Merrill’s conversion to the Baptist
faith “occasioned much remark.”
53
Daniel Merrill, The Mode and Subjects of Baptism Examined, in Seven Sermons. To Which is
Added, a Brief History of the Baptists, 2nd ed. (Boston: Manning & Loring, 1805), 41-42. Merrill wrote,
“The eminent thing signified and represented in baptism is not singly the blood of Christ, as it washes us
from our sins, but there is a further representation therein of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, in the
baptized: and this is not in a bare conformity to Christ, but is a representation of a communion with Christ
in his death and resurrection.”
54
Ibid., 80-84. Merrill, expounding on Matt 28:20, “Lo, I am with you always,” argued that Christ
is “really, although not apparently” with believers presently.
55
The rise of the Free Will Baptists and the revivals of the Great Awakenings were the two
primary factors that contributed to the need for a new statement of faith among New Hampshire Baptists
that would reveal their moderate Calvinism. Lumpkin, ed, Baptist Confessions, 360-68; 375; and Michael
R. Pelt, A History of Original Free Will Baptists (Mount Olive: Mount Olive College Press, 1996), 86-101.
56
The Baptist Convention of New Hampshire was made up of the Separate Baptists, who arrived in
the 1770s and the Regular Baptists, who abided by The Philadelphia Confession. They first formed a
convention in 1785 and formally adopted The Philadelphia Confession at that time. See McBeth, Baptist
Heritage, 208-09.
15
that reflected their more moderated Calvinist views.57 John Newton Brown (1803-1868)
was the primary author of The New Hampshire Confession. Although it was adopted by
New Hampshire Baptists, it was generally unknown among Baptists in America for more
than two decades until Brown became an editor for the American Baptist Publication
Society. He revised The New Hampshire Confession and published it in The Baptist
Church Manual (1853) which was widely distributed among Baptists in America. The
New Hampshire Confession is now “one of the most widely disseminated creedal
declarations of American Baptists.”58 In 1925, eighty years after the formation of the
Southern Baptist Convention (1845), the convention revised The New Hampshire
Confession, using it as the foundation for The Baptist Faith and Message.
The New Hampshire Confession (1833)
On January 15, 1833, the Board of the New Hampshire Baptist Convention
approved what is now known as The New Hampshire Confession.59 The same year John
Newton Brown, the principal architect of the confession wrote, but did not publish, a
pamphlet entitled, The Baptismal Balance.60 The New Hampshire Confession and The
Baptismal Balance are reflective of Brown’s theology. The New Hampshire Confession
consisted of eighteen brief articles outlining a Baptist understanding of such doctrines as
scripture, God, the fall, salvation, the church, Sabbath, civil government, and the last
days. Article fourteen, “Of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper,” presented the doctrine of the
ordinances: “That Christian Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water, in the name
of the Father, Son, and Spirit, to show forth in a solemn and beautiful emblem, our faith
“The New Hampshire Confession,” in Baptist Confessions, ed., Lumpkin, 361-67. The general
tendency of the confession is moderately Calvinistic. Article 3, “Of the Fall of Man,” speaks of the
"voluntary transgression" of the fall and "in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners." Article 9,
“Of God's Purpose of Grace,” God's election "according to which he regenerates, sanctifies, and saves
sinners" is said to be "perfectly consistent with the free agency of man." In Article 6, “Of the Freeness of
Salvation,” the blessings of salvation are said to be "made free to all by the Gospel." Calvinistic theology
appears in Article 11, “Of the Perseverance of the Saints,” where true believers are said to "endure to the
end."
58
Ibid., 361.
59
“New Hampshire Confession,” in Baptist Confessions, ed. Lumpkin, 361-67; and “New
Hampshire Confession,” in W. J. McGlothlin, ed, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American
Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 301-07. Copies of the original New Hampshire Confession no longer
exist. Lumpkin took this confession from McGlothlin’s work, which is thought to be similar to the original
1833 edition.
60
His work, The Baptismal Balance was not published until 1853, when it was picked up by the
American Baptist Publication Society.
57
16
in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, with its purifying power; that it is prerequisite to
the privileges of a church relation; and to the Lord’s Supper. . . .”61 This confession
regarded baptism in characteristic Baptist language; the mode was immersion and the
subjects were believers. Baptism, in the name of the Trinity, was typical of Baptist
rhetoric, but its presence in The New Hampshire Confession was particularly timely due
to a rise in anti-trinitarian sentiment in the early nineteenth century.62
The confession emphasized baptism as an “emblem” and, as an act that “shows
forth” the believer’s faith in Christ. The use of emblem carried the meaning of baptism as
a symbol and as a relational act.63 In 1828 Irah Chase, an important New England Baptist
leader, argued that for Baptists baptism by immersion of a believer was an emblem that
had two reference points—“the one, to the death and resurrection of Christ; the other, to
the state and prospects of the believer, as connected with that death and resurrection.”64
The first reference point, the death of Christ, was the center of redemption history for the
believer. The second reference point was the believer’s conformity to Christ’s death.
Immersion was not merely emblematic of Christ’s death, as a ritual, but the believer
“shows forth” her relationship with Christ by following him obediently by faith. In this
way, baptism was a relational act and a confessional act of faith.
That The New Hampshire Baptist Confession identified baptism with the phrase
“purifying power” was unusual in Baptist baptismal discussions. There are several
possible meanings for this phrase as it was associated with Brown’s theology of baptism.
The phrase, “with its purifying power,” may have referred to the preceding clause, “our
faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour.” If the phrase referred to Christ’s death,
burial, and resurrection, then the use of “purifying power” was a reference to the cross
event. The New Hampshire Confession did not make clear what was meant by purifying
“New Hampshire Confession,” in Baptist Confessions, ed., Lumpkin, 366.
Holifield, Theology in America, 201-03.
63
The use of “emblem” was particularly effective in the nineteenth century. The newly formed
United States continued to develop its own national emblems, which referred to unifying ideals in America.
In the early nineteenth century, Richard Pengilly, a British Baptist, wrote a popular treatise on baptism that
identified baptism as an emblem. See Richard Pengilly, A Scripture Guide to Baptism (Philadelphia:
American Baptist Publication Society, 1836), 11, 17, 48; and Starr, Baptist Bibliography, vol.18
(Rochester: American Baptist Historical Society, 1973), 65-69. Starr records that Pengilly’s work was
published as much as twenty times in America between 1825 and the 1850s.
64
Irah Chase, Obligations of the Baptized; or Baptism an Emblem of the Death and Resurrection of
Christ, as Connected with the State and Prospects of the Believer (Boston: William R. Collier, 1828), 11.
61
62
17
power, but The Baptismal Balance called baptism a symbol of the renunciation of sins
and new birth to righteousness.65 Brown stated that baptism was “a symbol of the
renunciation of sin, and the new birth to righteousness.”66 The use of “purifying power”
most likely described baptism as a symbol of the renunciation of sins. Later, in 1853
when Brown edited The New Hampshire Confession, he deleted “with its purifying
power” and substituted in its place the phrase, “with its effect in our death to sin and
resurrection to a new life.”67 Baptism’s purifying power was not salvific, but symbolized
the cross’s victory over sin. Baptism by immersion symbolized a life that was dead to sin
and resurrected to newness of life. Baptism was the believer’s first public step in living a
Christian life defined by the Spirit’s miracle of newness.
Finally, The New Hampshire Confession identified baptism as an ecclesiological
act. In particular it stated that baptism was a prerequisite to “church relations” and
therefore church privileges, which included the Lord’s Supper.68 The Philadelphia
Confession (1742) made no mention of closed communion, but in the late eighteenth
century Baptists increasingly closed the table to those who did not practice believer’s
baptism by immersion.69 In 1789 Thomas Baldwin, a denominational leader and pastor in
Boston, published one of the first defenses of closed communion among Baptists in
65
James Newton Brown, The Baptismal Balance (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication
Society, 1853), 63-64, 67. He asserted that Baptists regard baptism as a symbol of: the solemn profession of
our faith in the Holy Trinity; of our adoption by the Father; of our union to the Son; of our sanctification by
the Spirit; the public pledge of the renunciation and remission of sins; the expression of our hope of a future
and glorious resurrection; and a visible bond of union among Christians.
66
Ibid., 62-67. Brown also argued that baptism was a “boundary of visible Christianity.” As a
perpetual ordinance, it bound together all of Christ’s disciples throughout the ages.
67
“New Hampshire Confession,” in Baptist Confessions, ed., Lumpkin, 366.
68
“New Hampshire Confession,” in Baptist Confessions, ed., Lumpkin, 366.
69
For a discussion of the various types of closed or open communion see Garrett, Systematic
Theology, II, 675-77; In 1778 Abraham Booth, an English Baptist, wrote a popular pamphlet, Vindication
of the Baptists from the Charge of Bigotry, in refusing communion at the Lord’s Table to Paedobaptists.
Booth was not an American Baptist, but his popular work circulated widely in America and was published
in Philadelphia or Boston in 1787, 1788, and 1808. See Edward Caryl Starr, A Baptist Bibliography, Being
a Register of Printed Material by and About Baptists; Including Works Written against the Baptists, vol. 18
(Rochester: American Baptist Historical Society, 1973), 57-65; However, a few Baptists in America
adopted open communion. An 1829 letter to the editor of The American Baptist Magazine celebrated the
open communion practices of many Baptists in England and the late Dr. Samuel Stillman (1738-1807)
Baptist pastor in Boston. See Anonymous, “Review: A Letter on Communion at the Lord’s Table,” 292.
18
America,70 and the resulting Baptist practice of closed communion became increasingly
controversial around the turn of the nineteenth century. In 1808, the Baptist historian,
David Benedict wrote his poem, The Watery War, in response to the baptismal
controversy which he argued, “[had] of late become a common cause” between the
pedobaptists and Baptists.71 In the poem he noted that the pedobaptists blamed the watery
war on the Baptists’s “troublesome” commitment to closed communion.72 Baptism, for
many of these Baptists, was “front door discipline” of the church that enabled believers to
become visible members of the local body of Christ.73 It was the act that made visible
one’s profession of faith—a profession made by all those gathered into the church body.
As such, it was a confessional act that identified the believer with Christ, as well as with
other believers, who had made similar confessions.
Baptist Baptismal Theology Between 1742 and 1833
Summary and Critique
This brief assessment of the theological landscape of baptismal conversations in
America between 1742 and 1833 reveal that Baptists expressed their baptismal theology
as a position between sacramentalism and mere symbolism. Baptists primarily
emphasized the role of obedience, acting faith, freedom, and fellowship in their baptismal
theology. Whereas infant baptism denied the importance of the candidate’s relationship to
Christ, Baptist baptismal theology emphasized terms that were pivotal to a relational
70
Thomas Baldwin, The Baptism of Believers Only and the Particular Communion of the Baptist
Churches, Explained and Vindicated, 2nd ed. (Boston: Manning & Loring, 1806). The historian, William
Brackney argues that this work was the inaugural defense of baptism and closed communion by a Baptist in
America. See William H. Brackney, A Genetic History of Baptist Thought: With Special Reference to
Baptists in Britain and North America (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004), 225-26.
71
David Benedict, The Watery War, or a Poetical Description of the Controversy on the Subjects
and Mode of Baptism (Boston: Manning & Loring, 1808), 1; and Benedict, Fifty Years, 33. Benedict wrote
that other denominations considered Baptists “rigid and uncharitable” for their strict practice of closed
communion. He did not speculate as to why the issue of closed communion had recently caused such a stir,
but it may be related to the fact that the Baptists were the largest denomination in America at the end of the
eighteenth century. See William G. McLoughlin, New England Dissent 1630-1833: The Baptists and the
Separation of Church and State, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 437. Between 1770
and 1780, the Baptist churches in New England more than doubled in number. Pedobaptist evangelicals
were willing to trade pulpits and share revival events with other denominations, a practice which made
Baptist adherence to closed communion much more conspicuous and “uncharitable” by comparison.
72
Benedict, Watery War, 22.
73
David William Kirkpatrick, lecture in a class titled, “The Church,” spring 2004, Southwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas. Kirkpatrick used this phrase and discussed this concept
in a lecture. It implies that every believer shares the same baptism, which, in turn, allows those who are
already in the church to have confidence in the profession of faith of those who are being baptized into the
same spiritual fellowship.
19
understanding of baptism. Baptism was the believer’s act of freedom and obedience made
possible by grace through faith. It was a confessional act of faith that “Jesus Christ is
Lord.” Baptism was a sign of fellowship, which emphasized the importance of the
candidate’s relationship with Christ and with other believers. Grace was not conferred
objectively in baptism, but as an avenue of fellowship. These terms and ideas were used
as a necessary correction to the Congregationalists whose practice of infant sprinkling
emptied baptism of its ability to communicate the free obedient response of the candidate
and the relational significance of salvation and the Christian life. For Baptists, baptism
was not a sacrament in which grace was objectively mediated in the act itself. Baptism
was not a mere symbol that denied the importance of God’s word, the believer’s
obedience, and the relationship by grace through faith in Christ. It was neither a matter of
indifference nor a legalistic act.
Baptists regarded baptism as an ecclesiological symbol and a reference to Baptist
soteriology and theology of the Christian life. These theological symbols were
intertwined. As a symbol, baptism by immersion communicated the death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ. It was a confessional act of faith in Christ Jesus that expressed the
freedom of obedience and the Lordship of Christ. Baptism was an authentic symbol,
portraying the believer’s faith, something that infant baptism failed to communicate. The
baptismal symbols communicated soteriology and the theology of the Christian life.
Baptism was also an act performed as an integrating feature of church life—ecclesiology.
Believers came together to celebrate their own faith, along with affirming and witnessing
the confessional act of faith of the baptized candidate. It symbolized the believer’s act
and the church’s act. Fellowship with Christ and fellowship with the church were closely
interconnected in the baptismal event.
Baptism was a relational act, rich with symbolisms that pictured the relational
reality of the believer’s salvation. The new believer was scripturally commanded to come
to the baptismal waters by the summoning work of the Spirit. Believers, summoned by
the Holy Spirit, followed Christ obediently by faith into baptism. A nineteenth century
baptismal hymn sung by Baptists in America perhaps best describes baptism:
Jesus! my Saviour and my all, Methinks I hear thy gentle call.
These are the sounds that chide my stay, “Arise my love and come away.”
Amazing grace, and shall I still, Prove disobedient to thy will?
20
Ah! No dear Lord, the wat’ry tomb, Belongs to thee, and there I
come.74
The hymn associated baptism with the call of grace summoning the believer to
obedience. Baptism was not a monologue; it was a dialogue between Jesus Christ and the
willing disciple. The believer heard the Saviors’ call and responded in faith by following
Christ. The “wat’ry tomb” belonged to Jesus and was not the believer’s own act in
isolation, which reflected the importance of baptism as a relational act. Baptism was
neither a sacrament nor a mere symbol. It was a confessional act of faith in the Lordship
of Jesus Christ. It was a relational act and an authentic symbol. For Baptist, it has been
symbolic of a rich theology integrating soteriology, ecclesiology, and the doctrine of the
Christian life.
As an area of critique pertinent to baptism as a relational act, it should be noted
that Baptists in the eighteenth century never clearly addressed the role of grace in
baptismal theology. In reaction to sacramental covenantal theology, which tended to
regard baptism as an objective means of God’s grace, the Baptists steered clear of
mentioning grace in their discussions of baptismal theology. It seems that Baptists
wanted to avoid any confusion with sacramental theology. In the process, however, they
created a false dichotomy between God’s grace and His command. While Baptists argued
rightfully that the candidate must be a believer who is able to follow Christ obediently,
they did not provide a relational definition of grace. God’s grace is His empowering
command, which summons and makes obedience possible. Believers do not act in
isolation from God as if God merely infused his grace into their lives, and they could
fulfill the obligation of God’s command on their own. God’s grace is neither relegated
merely to the salvation experience nor infused as a substance into the believer during the
sinner’s prayer. God’s command calls the believer to himself and not merely to baptism.
God’s grace does not have to be objectively conveyed in the act of baptism for it
to be present in a relational sense. God’s grace is the relational presence of Christ in the
74
Josiah Osborne, David and Goliath or a Treatise on Water Baptism; Shewing the Proper
Subjects and Mode of that Ordinance, With Observations on the Writings of several CHAMPIONS in that
Cause (Botetourt County, VA.: D. Amen, 1807), 29. Josiah Osborne, a Baptist in the nineteenth century,
recorded the verses of this unknown baptismal hymn in his work.
21
believer.75 Grace is his presence summoning and empowering the believer to obedience
through the Holy Spirit. That is not to say that baptism is a salvific act, but it was the act
of a believer who was saved by grace, through faith. The same grace that called the
believer out of sin and into saving union with Christ was the grace that called the believer
to the free act of obedience in baptism. Grace enables the obedience of the baptismal act
to be more than a mere symbol. In baptism, the believer acts obediently in faith not just to
yesterday’s command, but also to the present call of grace through the Holy Spirit. The
believer acts obediently and with expectation, not for saving grace, but to discover and
know God through faith in Christ Jesus. Baptism is a relational act, an understanding that
the eighteenth century Baptists expressed when they addressed the issue of obedience,
freedom, and fellowship with other Christians. However, grace too is a relational concept
that needed to have a place in baptismal theology in order to clearly communicate
baptism as a relational act.
Toward a Baptist Baptismal Theology:
A Proposal of Baptismal Theology
Twenty-first century Baptists have much to learn from the rich historical heritage
of Baptist baptismal theology. The following proposal is modern day proposal of
baptism, which is based on an historical and theological analysis of Baptists, who have
been dedicated to congregational polity, as well as being committed to a theology of
baptism that refuses to acknowledge that baptism is a sacramental or merely symbolic
act. The proposal is founded on the belief that the Holy Scripture is the basis for all
theological interpretation; the Holy Spirit inspired text and the empowering presence of
the Spirit, focusing the proclamation of the word, gives rise to the central features of the
gospel and inherently to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In this sense, the following
baptismal theology follows the Reformation’s hermeneutical principle that “scripture
interprets scripture.”76 This expositional hermeneutic mines the soteriological intent of
the text and its fundamental theme of “faith righteousness”—and faith alone, lest the
75
For a discussion of grace as a relational term, see Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. G. W.
Bromiley and R. F. Torrance, vol. 2. The Doctrine of God, pt. 2 trans. G. W. Bromiley et al. (Edinburgh: T.
& T. Clark, 1957), 9-10.
76
James T. Spivey Jr., “The Hermeneutics of the Medieval and Reformation Era,” in Biblical
Hermeneutics: A Comprehensive introduction to Interpreting Scripture, eds., Bruce Corley, Steve W.
Lemke, and Grant I. Lovejoy, 2nd ed. (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2002), 112-15. That
“Scripture interprets Scripture,” was one of three rules, known collectively as the “analogy of faith.”
22
believing community should “boast” in anything added to the response of faith for
salvation (Eph 2: 8-9). In this way, baptism functions as a symbol in the same way that
preaching functions—to proclaim the gospel and to focus the congregation’s fundamental
confession that Jesus is the incarnate Christ who has come from God to redeem all of
creation from sin and death. Baptism is an instrument of proclamation in which the new
believer may authentically participate—“buried with him in baptism” (Col 2:11-12 NIV).
Baptism by immersion of the believer, its symbol and act, is a relational reality.
By grace the believer is saved through faith and confesses in the confessional act of
baptism that Jesus Christ is Lord. Baptism is not an act in the void, any more than prayer
is merely a cry in the still air.77 The believer comes to the water boldly in faithful
anticipation and expectation, not for conversion, but because of the miracle of God’s
presence in their lives. God’s Word has commanded baptism, the Holy Spirit has
summoned those who believe, and asks for an obedience that has been made possible
through the redeeming grace of Christ Jesus. In the act of baptism, the believer confesses,
the Stone that has shattered their lives: Jesus Christ is Lord. The phrase is not uttered as a
magical incantation, and baptism is not an act in itself, which conjures grace. In baptism,
the believer, in Christ, confesses an authentic relational reality. The believer no longer
merely gazes at the cross as an onlooker and an enemy, but has been drawn, by the
Spirit’s miracle of salvation, into the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
Baptism symbolizes, proclaiming in a pictured sermon often more powerful than
words, the gospel message of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. This triad of
baptism, death, and resurrection is repeated in scriptures (Rom 6:4; Col 2:9-12; 1 Pet
3:21). Immersion itself is an important imagery of the death, burial, and resurrection of
Christ—“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life” (Rom 6:4 KJV).
Baptism: A Soteriological Symbol
Baptism by immersion of believers only is a soteriological symbol, which
represents the vicarious and substitutionary atonement of Christ. The believer is lowered
77
Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4, pt. 4: 209-11. Barth makes similar claims along the lines of baptism
being an act of prayer.
23
and raised from a watery grave, representative of the death, burial, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. The baptismal water, although symbolic of cleansing, is not mere cleansing.
The act does not objectively bring remission of sins. Baptism represents, therefore, the
atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It pictures the relational reality that has brought “death
to sin” into the life of the believer. Immersion is oriented by the work of Christ, whose
death and resurrection bring new life to the believer (Rom 6:4 KJV). Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, a Christian martyr during World War II wrote, “As we embark upon
discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our
lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing
and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.”78
Baptism as a symbolic act, is a confession that Christ’s death and resurrection was an act
of God’s redeeming love that makes the believer’s communion with Christ possible (John
3:16; Eph 2:8-9). Jesus gave his life to the world and the believer proclaims, in baptism,
reconciliation with God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Baptism is an authentic act of faith, which communicates the nature of salvation,
a living relational reality. Believers, by God’s grace, have been saved from sin and death
to life in Christ. In Christ, sin and death no longer have mastery over the believers’ lives.
In Christ, believers have the spiritual power to obey and to walk in newness of life.
Baptism, as an existential symbol, teaches the believer the nature of the gospel and
identifies the believer with the sacrificial life of Christ. The orientation is that the believer
is to walk in life characterized by faith, repentance, obedience, and confession. The
Christian life is a life being made into the image of Christ, working out its salvation daily
in the world (Phil 2:4-13). Baptism is the first time that the believer preaches the gospel
before the congregation in an authentic and meaningful act of humility and confession. It
is a confessional act of demonstrated faith and a confessional symbol of the gospel’s
power to change lives. Christians, through faith and by following Christ in baptism, give
testimony that they are freely and willingly participants in the proclamation of the gospel.
It is this willingness to follow Christ in baptism that not only makes the church strong,
but also confessionally evangelistic.
78
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Collier books, 1963), 99.
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Baptism: An Ecclesiological Symbol
Believer’s baptism by immersion, an ecclesiological symbol, is an integral
dimension of the life of the church. Jesus of Nazareth, the head of the church, submitted
himself to be baptized by John the Baptizer (Matt 3:13-15). In order to “fulfill all
righteousness,” according to the scripture (Matt 3:15), He convinced a reluctant John to
baptize him—along with all the others, who had gathered that day to muddy up the
waters of the Jordan. In Jesus’ baptism, the Savior of the world identified with humanity
and in so doing, revealed a God who was willing to identify with sinful humanity. In
baptism the believer is tied to the body of Christ. Just as in the Ephesian reference, “One
Lord, one faith, one baptism,” the believer becomes a part of the spiritual unity implied
by the metaphor used by the apostle (Eph 4:1-12). Oneness is a rich relational concept
reflective of the dynamic presence of the Holy Spirit. “For we were all baptized by one
Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the
one Spirit to drink” (1 Cor 12:13 NIV). In the church, oneness emerges through the Holy
Spirit, who unifies the believers in Christ.
All the members of the body have similarly confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord.
By faith, through grace, believers are adopted not only as God’s children, but as fellow
heirs with Christ and one another (Rom 8:17). It is no inconsequential matter that the
baptismal rite requires the assistance of another Christian; one who lowers the candidate
into the water. The believer does not act alone in baptism, but through the power of the
Spirit, is united with Christ and with the congregation of the redeemed. As a relational act
that becomes a symbol of Christian unity for the congregation, the church participates,
not passively, but actively, having recognized the authentic faith of the believer. In the
Spirit of Christian unity, the church having commissioned the baptism, bears witness of
the confessional act of faith. In this way, it could be said that baptism functions as a
“front door discipline” for the church. Every believer’s salvation experience is personal
and unique, but the testimony of baptism becomes a common reference point, which is
important to the believer and to the body of Christ. Baptism is symbolic of the oneness
that the Holy Spirit creates in the church. The believer is baptized into Christ, whose
presence in the world is communicated by the Holy Spirit, through the church and the
proclamation of the gospel. Baptism has the potential of offering confidence to the
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gathered community that the believer’s baptism is a reference to their own faith in Jesus
Christ so that everyone is united in faith in Jesus Christ in the fellowship of the saints—
“One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
Baptism: A Symbol of Christian Life and Ethics
It takes no stretch of the imagination to understand that baptism is symbolic of the
doctrine of Christian life and ethics, which are defined by faith, repentance, confession,
and obedience. By faith, the believer steps into the waters obediently as a disciple,
committed to following the Lordship of Christ. Baptism is a celebration of the new birth
of faith. In the life of the believer, death does not have the victory and the grave has lost
its sting (1 Cor 15:55-56). The believer confesses, in Christ, that he or she is dead to sin
and no longer its slave. The theologian Douglas John Hall asserts that Christ’s death
creates the possibility for the believer’s new life: “And therefore the faith that emanates
from the cross is a faith that enables its disciples to follow the crucified God into the
heart of the world’s darkness, into the very kingdom of death, and to look for light that
shines in the darkness—the life that is given beyond the baptismal brush with death—and
only there.”79 The “baptismal brush with death” marks Christians’ birth into new life and
is the watery tombstone that declares their death. Death becomes the beginning of life –
true, abundant, full, and new (John 10:10).
The baptized life is not an “idle gaping” from a distance.80 Just as the waters are
disturbed with the plunging and dunking of the believer, the baptized life, drawn by the
Spirit, rises from the baptismal pool to ripple the waters of the world. Baptism is a
reminder, first and foremost, that believers’ lives are not their own. The baptized life—
dying to self—that the believer continues to live after baptism is offered to God as an
instrument of righteousness (Rom 6:11-14). Believers are raised from the baptismal
waters, to discover God’s will in serving their Lord in the world. In baptism, the believer
anticipates discovering God’s will through the Holy Spirit, who reveals that God is
faithful and present, even in the discovery of obedience.
79
Douglas John Hall, The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2003), 32-33.
80
Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4, pt. 2: 533.
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The synoptic Gospels each record that Jesus’ baptism had a Trinitarian reference
(Matt 3:16-17; Mark 1:9-11; John 3:21-22). The heavens were opened, with the voice of
the Father confirming the Sonship of Jesus, whose baptism inaugurated his Spirit-led
ministry. Likewise, baptism, “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit,” moves the believer toward the ministry of reconciliation which must become the
focus of every believer and the life of the church. As in their baptism, believers follow
the Spirit’s leading out of the waters into the ministry commissioned by the Christ. Upon
his ascension, Christ commissioned his followers to “go and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you
always, to the very end of the age" (Matt 28:19-20 NIV). The baptized life embodies the
gospel as it moves into the world.
The Christian life or ethics is a definitive part of the baptismal formula—“raised .
. . to walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). It is a life-affirming life that arises from the
baptismal waters and engages in the world, negating the death-defining work of Satan in
the power of the Spirit. It wages a war against despots, abusers, oppressors, diseases, and
sicknesses, all of which deny human worth and dignity. The baptized or cruciformed life
engages, without conforming to the world, setting a question mark against evil’s
deceptive promises and false hopes. Baptism is theologically an immersion into the
“sufferings of Jesus Christ” (Luke 12:50; Mark 10:38). In the Spirit, the baptized life has
the potential to fill up “what is lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions” (Col 1:24 NIV).
However, just as the theologian Jürgen Moltmann began his work The Crucified God
with the phrase “the cross is not and cannot be loved,” so too the believer echoes in
baptism a similar awareness at the beginning of his or her new life with Christ.81 The
believer does not love death, but despises it and fashions no delusions, assuaging death’s
reality. The baptized life offers no pat or glib answers to struggles and sufferings.
There is no sanctuary or withdrawal from the world for those baptized by the
Spirit into life. Instead, those baptized in the name of Jesus Christ engage the world,
exposing the emptiness of the world, its pain, persecution, and its struggles for what they
81
Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian
Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 1.
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are in contrast to the blessed hope realized through faith and the power of the Spirit.
Those who are baptized do not seek martyrdom, but are crucified with Christ that he
might live in them (Gal 2:20). They are vigilant, prayerful, and watchful, lest weariness
overtake them, like the disciples in Gethsemane, and they are lulled to sleep and to the
dreamy lies of Satan. There is a sense in which baptism becomes a historical marker, not
of salvation’s completion, but of the miracle of salvation that continues to work the
reality of God’s grace into the life of the believer.
Baptism: An Eschatological Symbol
The reference to the gospel that is expressed in the act of baptism and in the
language that accompanies the act, specifically the phrase, “raised . . . to walk in newness
of life,” is also a reminder of the hope that identifies the life of faith (Rom 6:4). Baptism
by immersion is an eschatological symbol, a symbol of Christian hope. In baptism,
believers are identified with Christ’s death and resurrection. Not only are they buried
with Christ in the watery grave, but believers are raised from the waters as a symbol of
Christ’s resurrection and live in anticipation of the Great Resurrection at the
consummation of the ages – the resurrection of all believers (1 Thess 3:13-17). Baptism
should become a reminder for the believer that, in being baptized, the believer will
forever be identified with those who have been called to live resurrected lives that testify
to the future hope and to bear witness to the only light that is able to penetrate the
darkness. The symbol proclaims the victory of Christ over sin and death. The victory has
been won!
Christ’s resurrection offers living hope; and by walking in faith in the power of
the Spirit, the believer lives in anticipation of this blessed hope—“Praise be to the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a
living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Pet 1:3 NIV).
Baptism is a symbol and, in a sense, a sermon that proclaims the reason for the hope that
is within the believer. The resurrection hope is not a wish or empty promise. It is a hope
that is filled with the promises and the faithfulness of God. Like the waters that carried
Noah’s ark, the baptismal waters symbolize the great salvation by which the faithful are
saved through the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:21-22). Baptism
bears witness and testifies, in a most profound way, like the Baptist Forerunner, that the
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“true light has come into the world and offers light to every man” (John 1:6-9). The
message of the baptismal waters becomes an orientation for the church and for the newly
baptized convert that an eschatological faith in the resurrected Christ exposes the lie and
the false claims of death’s work. The power of the living, resurrected Christ, expressed in
the message of baptism by immersion, identifies the new believer with the living hope
that God has set before all who believe in Jesus Christ—crucified and resurrected by the
power of God.
The importance of baptism for the life of the confessional church should never be
underestimated or trivialized. Baptism is neither a sacrament nor a mere symbol. It is a
relational act and an authentic symbol. As such, it is an integrating expression of the
church’s theology; and, an integrating focal point for the doctrines of salvation, church,
the Christian life and ethics, and the eschatological hope that the believer finds by faith in
Jesus Christ.