Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about what the early Christians believed concerning baptism. Now at the start, let me explain that the understanding of baptism that I grew up with was a good bit different from the view of the early Church. I grew up being taught that baptism is a symbol of a person's dedication of his life to God and to Jesus Christ. Later, when I became an evangelical Christian, I found that our church really had no fixed theology of baptism.
I don't think I ever witnessed a baptism, and there was certainly nothing ever said about what baptism means. It wasn't considered essential to salvation or intricately connected with salvation. So I was quite surprised to find that the primitive Christians believe that baptism and salvation are intrinsically linked. This is basically what they believe. They believe that in baptism, all of a person's prior sins are washed away.
Secondly, they believe that in baptism, a person is born again through baptism of water and the Holy Spirit. And they believe that through baptism, a person becomes a member of Christ's Church, a citizen of His kingdom. So in other words, in the normal operation of things, the salvation process is not complete without baptism. Now I want to take about 10 minutes and read to you direct quotations from the early Christian writings.
And these aren't proof texts, quotations I've pulled here and there that try to fit some preconceived notion. This is what anybody is going to find when they read their writings. These are just very typical quotations. And after each quote, I'm going to give you the volume and page in the Ante-Nicene father set where you can find these quotations. All right, first we're going to read from Barnabas.
This letter was written something as early as the year 70, no later than maybe 125 or 130, where he wrote," Blessed are they who placing their trust in the cross have gone down into the water. We indeed descend into the water full of sins and defilement. However, we come up bearing fruit in our heart, having the fear of God and the trust in Jesus in our Spirit." It's in Volume 1, page 144.
Ignatius, a personal disciple of the apostle John, writes," He was born and baptized so that by his passion," he's talking about Jesus, he could purify the water, talking about water of baptism.
Hermas, writing about the year 150, or perhaps even earlier, says," I heard, sir, some teachers maintain that there is no other repentance than that which takes place when we descended into the water and received remission of our former sins." It's in volume 2, page 22, and again from Hermas," Before a man bears the name of the Son of God, he is dead. But when he receives the seal, he lays aside his deadness and obtains life. This seal then is the water.
They descend into the water dead, and they arise alive." It's in volume 2, page 49. By now you can see, I think, the pattern of what they're all saying, that we receive the new birth in the water of baptism. They often refer to baptism as the seal, showing that we belong to Jesus Christ, just like a slave may have been tattooed or sealed, showing that that person belonged to another.
Justin Martyr, writing about the year 160, this is in volume 1, page 183, and this is from his apology where he is explaining to the Roman Emperor this is what the Christian church believes. This is what all Christians hold to. He says at our birth, talking about our natural birth, we were born without our own knowledge or choice, but by our parents coming together.
But in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and the Lord of the universe, and in the name of Jesus Christ, and in the name of the Holy Spirit.
Page 216 of that same volume, he writes," We who have approached God through Jesus have received not carnal, but spiritual circumcision, which Enoch and those like him observed. And we have received it through baptism by God's mercy since we were sinners, and all men alike may obtain it." And again, Justin on page 217, he says," But there is no other way than this.
To become acquainted with this Christ, to be washed in the fountain spoken of by Isaiah for the remission of sins, and for the rest to live sinless lives. Theophilus was another Christian apologist of the 2nd century.
Writing about the year 180, he says," The things proceeding from the water were blessed by God, that this also could be a sign of man being destined to receive repentance and remission of sins through the water and bath of regeneration, as many as come to the truth and are born again." Find that in volume 2, page 101. And Clement of Alexandria, writing about the year 195. Volume 2, page 215, he says," Being baptized, we are illuminated.
Illuminated, we become sons." This work is variously called grace, illumination, perfection, and washing. Washing by which we cleanse away our sins. Grace by which the penalties accruing to transgressions are remitted. Illumination by which that holy light of salvation is beheld. That is, by which we see God clearly. And again from Clement of Alexandria, he writes," Our transgressions were taken away by one medicine, the baptism of the Word. We are washed from all our sins and are no longer entangled in evil.
This is the one grace of illumination that our characters are not the same as before our washing." That's in Volume 2, pages 216 and 217. And again on 217 he says," In the same way, therefore, we also repent of our sins, renounce our iniquities, and are purified by baptism. Thereby, we speed back to the eternal light as children of the Father." All right, now I want to move to Tertullian, and these quotes are from about the year 198. He lived in the city of Carthage in northwest Africa.
Clement, who we just read from, he lived in Alexandria in modern-day Egypt. Justin Martyr wrote in Rome. Theophilus was in Syria. In other words, these different writers are from all over the ancient world. This isn't just one locale or one particular person. This is truly what the whole church believed.
Tertullian writes," Happy is our sacrament of water in that by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life." We, like little fishes, after the example of our Ichthus, Jesus Christ, are born in water. Ichthus is the Latin word meaning" fish," and it became an acrostic for Jesus Christ, our Savior. And again from Tertullian, on page 676, the other quote was on page 669 of that same volume.
He says," Unless a man has been born again of water and spirit, he will not enter into the kingdom of the heavens." These words have tied faith to the necessity of baptism. Accordingly, all thereafter who became believers were baptized. So it was too that Paul, when he believed, was baptized. Origen, writing about the year 245, you can find this in volume 9, page 491 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. He says," By the bath of regeneration, they were born as newborn babes." Commodian is writing about the year 240.
In volume 4, page 212, we read," In baptism, the coarse garment of your birth is washed. You have once been washed. Shall you be able to be immersed again?" All right, now we're going to move to Cyprian, who was the Bishop of Carthage, where Tertullian had been several decades earlier. This is around the year 250 when he wrote, and he said," By the help of the water of new birth, the stain of former years had been washed away, and a light from above, serene and pure, had been infused into my reconciled heart.
Then, by the agency of the Spirit breathed from heaven, a second birth had restored me to a new man." You can find that passage in volume 5, page 276. And again, Cyprian wrote," He who has been sanctified, his sins being put away in baptism, and has been spiritually reformed into a new man, has become fitted for receiving the Holy Spirit." This is page 387 of volume 5.
And then again on page 497, he says," In the baptism of water, there is received the remission of sins." Again from Cyprian, page 511 of volume 5, he says," The old baptism should cease, and a new one should begin." Also, according to John," Unless a man is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." And finally, from Cyprian on page 551, he says," All sins are put away in baptism.
In the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, he writes," And these things indeed you were, but you are washed, but you are sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." So I think you can see that they all said the same thing. It's in baptism of water and Holy Spirit that a person's sins are washed away, his prior sins, and he is born anew as a citizen of God's kingdom, as a new creature. I want to just read to you from three more writers, three more quotations.
This next one is from Victorinus writing about the year 280. This is in volume 7, page 346 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, where he said," They asked that their reproach may be taken away. That is that they might be cleansed from their sins. For the reproach is the original sin that is taken away in baptism. Then they begin to be called Christians. Lactantius, writing around the year 304, it's in volume 7 page 201. We read," Man is born mortal.
He afterwards becomes immortal when he begins to live in conformity with the will of God." That is, he begins to follow righteousness. And this takes place when man, purified in the heavenly bath, lays aside his infancy along with all the pollution of his past life. Then, having received an increase of divine vigor, he becomes a perfect and complete man. And our last quotation is from an account of a debate between Archelaus and Manes.
This dates back to about the year 320, and you can find it in volume 6, page 228 of the ante-Nicene Fathers. We read," If he was not baptized, neither are any of us baptized. Yet if there is no baptism, neither will there be any remission of sins. Rather, every man will die in his own sins." Now, if you're like me, those quotations probably came as quite a surprise to you.
I mean, my first reaction when I read these writings for the first time was," Oh no, this sounds like the Church of Christ." Having spent a lot of my younger years sparring with members of the Church of Christ on various issues, I was in absolute disbelief. I can't believe this was the early Christian understanding of baptism. Yet there were so many quotations, and they all said the same thing. I had no choice but to recognize that this is what the early Christians believed. Ah, but is this what the Bible teaches?
That's the ultimate question. And so after I had read about six months in the early Christian writings, I decided one evening to just open up the New Testament and read the whole thing beginning to end. And you can do that in one full evening. And when I did that, when I started reading the Bible itself, I couldn't believe all of the verses that now were jumping out at me that I had never noticed before. Not just on baptism, but on a lot of subjects, but here's some of the ones I noticed on baptism. John 3:5.
We're all familiar with it. Jesus answered," Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Now, if you're like me, you had read that passage probably hundreds of times, and you never associated that with baptism.
I remember when I was a young boy in a Bible study class, and the teacher asked after we read that," Now what does it mean to be born of water and the Spirit?" Well, I raised my hand and said," Well, being born of water, that's water baptism, and being born of spirit, that's baptism in the Spirit." I mean, that was the logical inference that you would make if you read the Scriptures and were aware of being baptized in water, being baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Well, to my chagrin, the teacher corrected me and said," No, that's a misconception. That's not talking about the water baptism. It's talking about the Word of God." Well, okay, I kind of hung my head in embarrassment. But years later, I was the one teaching, and it was me correcting people who were associating that with baptism. Well, now I find out that I was apparently right the first time.
How about Mark 16:16, where Jesus says," He who believes and is baptized shall be saved." So he ties baptism in with salvation. More importantly, the verse that really hit me that night when I was reading through the New Testament was Acts 2:38, where Peter had just preached to the crowd there," This is on the day of Pentecost," and they were cut to the heart, and they said," What shall we do?" And Peter said," All of you come forward.
Let's say a prayer together and invite Jesus into your heart." Is that what happened? No, Acts 2:38 says," Then Peter said to them,' Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." He says," Let each of you be baptized for the remission of sins." I couldn't believe it when I saw that verse.
How had I read that over a hundred times and never noticed how remission or forgiveness of sins was connected with baptism there. Even more poignant was Acts 22:16 when Paul was recounting his own conversion. He said he was told," Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord." Then in Paul's letter to the Galatians, Galatians 3:27, Paul writes," For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Titus chapter 3:5.
Paul writes," According to His mercy, He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." See, the early Church understood that. Washing of regeneration, that's water baptism, renewing of the Holy Spirit, that's baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Another verse was Hebrews 10:22, where the writer says," Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." See, the early church understood all of those would be talking about baptism.
Finally, 1 Peter 3:21, where Peter writes," There is also an antitype, which now saves us, namely baptism, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God." So he says," baptism saves us." It's not the physical part of it. You go into the water, and perhaps the dirt from your body is washed away. No, it's the answer of a good conscience toward God. Now all of these passages I've read to you are from the New King James version.
Your translation may read slightly different, but I think all of them say basically the same thing. Actually, baptism is not only talked about in the New Testament, but it was prefigured in the Old Testament as well.
For example, that last quotation we just read from Peter," He likens baptism to the Ark of Noah, which saved Noah and his family." In 1 Corinthians 10, verses 1 and 2, Paul says that the Israelites, and they're being saved from the Egyptians by crossing through the Red Sea, that that was a type of baptism.
He says," Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses, in the cloud and in the sea." Now let me ask you this. Was crossing through the Red Sea, was that merely a symbol of the Israelite salvation from the Egyptians? Were they already saved from the Egyptians before they crossed through the Red Sea? Well, no, it was the Red Sea that crossing that saved them.
On the other hand, had they stepped out in faith before they crossed the Red Sea? Yes. I mean, first of all, there were the 10 plagues, and the last one specifically called on the Israelites to perform an act of obedience, splashing the blood from the lamb on their doorposts. And then a second act of faith was getting out of Egypt and journeying as far as the banks of the Red Sea. So they weren't completely saved from Egypt when they were there ready to cross the Red Sea.
On the other hand, they had entered into a relationship of faith with God. Another Old Testament figure of baptism that the early Christians mentioned several times was that of Naaman, the leper. Let me read to you from Irenaeus writing about the year 180. He says," Scripture says, and he dipped himself seven times in the Jordan. It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized. Rather, this was a symbol for us.
For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean from our old transgression by means of the sacred water. And the invocation of the Lord. We are spiritually regenerated as newborn babes, just as the Lord has declared. Unless a man is born again through water and the Spirit, he will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Tertullian points to this same passage as a figure of baptism, saying," The cleansing of the Syrian, talking about Naaman, portrayed to the nations of the world their own cleansing in Christ, their light. For the virtue and fullness of the one baptism was thus solemnly imputed to Christ. For he alone was one day to establish on earth not only revelation, but also a baptism endowed with bountiful power. Another Old Testament passage that points to Christian baptism prefigured it is Isaiah 55:1.
It says," Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat." Justin Martyr talks about that passage saying," This washing of repentance and knowledge of God has been ordained on account of the transgression of God's people," as Isaiah cries. Accordingly, we have believed and testified that the very baptism, which he announced, is alone able to purify those who have repented. And this is the water of life.
For what is the use of that baptism which cleanses only the flesh and body? Baptize the soul from wrath and from covetousness, from envy and from hatred. Another thing that prefigured Christian baptism was the miraculous power of the pool at Bethesda. The scriptures mentioned that an angel would stir the water. And when that happened, nobody could see the angel, but when the water stirred, if somebody went down into the water, then they would be healed. Tertullian writes about this.
It's in Volume 3, page 671, saying," Therefore, after the waters have been in a manner endowed with medicinal virtue through the intervention of the angel, the Spirit is physically washed in the waters, and the flesh is spiritually cleansed in the same water." And again, he writes on page 672," The waters that used to remedy bodily defects now heal the Spirit.
The waters who used to bring temporal health now renew eternal health." The waters who set free but once in a year, because that was what was happening at the pool of Bethesda. It was only once a year that the waters were stirred that way. He says," The waters who set free but once in a year now daily save people in mass, death being done away through washing of sins." Once the guilt is removed, the penalty is of course removed as well. It is not that in the waters we obtain the Holy Spirit.
Rather, in the water, under the angel, we are cleansed and prepared for the Holy Spirit. Thus too does the angel, the witness of baptism, make the paths straight for the Holy Spirit, for he is about to come upon us." Another prefiguring of baptism was the blind man, who Jesus healed of his blindness by telling him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.
Irenaeus pointed to this volume 1, page 543, saying," Man, with respect to that formation, which was after Adam, having fallen into transgression, needed the bath of regeneration. Therefore, the Lord said to the blind man, after he had smeared his eyes with the clay," Go to Siloam and wash." By this means, he restored to him both confirmation and that regeneration that takes place by means of the bath.
One final example I want to point to is in John chapter 4, verse 13," When Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, he said," Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. The early Christians saw that, again as prefiguring baptism. For example, Cyprian wrote:" By baptism, the Holy Spirit is received.
The Lord speaks to the Samaritan woman saying,' Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will not thirst forever." Cyprian says," By this, he signified the very baptism of saving water, which indeed is once received and is not again repeated. The Lord, when he came, manifested the truth of baptism in commanding that this faithful water, the water of eternal life, should be given to believers in baptism.
So you see, there were all of these signs and types that prefigured baptism that God would work through water to wash people of their sins. Now, as I told you, this was really hard for me to accept, just because I had been preconditioned from the time I was a small child, to believe that, no, God does not work through anything physical today. Everything is on a purely spiritual level.
And most of you may be having a little trouble accepting this, even though we can see all of the passages in the New Testament and all of the things in the Old that prefigured baptism. Nevertheless, you may be saying to yourself, well, surely there was somebody in those early centuries who didn't hold to this view of baptism. Surely somebody else saw baptism as merely a step of obedience or a symbol of the regeneration that we've received.
You may be thinking to yourself, well, surely one of those reform groups that broke away from the Church or restitutionist groups you might better call them. I call them kingdom Christians. Surely they didn't hold to this view, but the truth is that they did. Take, for example, the Montanists, who weren't really a true kingdom group. But Tertullian wrote his passage on baptism after he was associated with the Montanists. That was their view as well as the view of the church. The Donatists held to this same view.
The Catholics never accused them of having a different view of baptism, nor did they ever claim that the view held by the rest of the church that in the fourth century we'll call Catholics said their view was different. Likewise with the Novatianists, in fact I'll read you a quote from Novatian himself. He said," It is the Holy Spirit who effects with water the second birth as a certain seed of divine generation. It is a consecration of a heavenly birth and the pledge of a promised inheritance.
You can find that in volume 5, page 641. But I should tell you, yes, there was a group in the early centuries that did not believe that baptism could wash away sins or play a key role in the new birth. You may have guessed who I'm talking about, it was the Gnostics who held to that view. I've talked about them before in other of my messages.
They taught that the earth and mankind on it were created by an inferior god, someone different from the Father of Jesus, someone different from the God of the New Testament whom we worship. And they said that because this God was imperfect, our Creator was imperfect, His creation is flawed and beyond redemption. Therefore, the flesh cannot be saved. They did not believe in the resurrection of the body, or in any way salvation of our flesh.
Likewise, they said Jesus didn't really come in the flesh because the flesh is actually inherently degenerate or evil. So there was no real incarnation of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, they said, material things can in no way facilitate or be involved in our salvation. Therefore, no one can possibly be reborn through physical water or have their sins washed away in the water of baptism.
Let me read to you three or four passages from the early Christian writings about the Gnostics and what they were saying about baptism. This first one is from Irenaeus, who wrote around the year 180, and he wrote a rather lengthy work against all of the different Gnostic teachers. And in that he says this," When we come to refute them," again talking about the Gnostics, we will show in its proper place that this class of men have been instigated by Satan to a denial of that baptism, which is regeneration to God.
Thus, they have renounced the whole faith. For the baptism instituted by the visible Jesus was for the remission of sins. Volume 1, page 346, on the same page he continues, but there are some of them who assert that it is unnecessary to bring persons to the water. Rather, they mix oil and water together, and they place this mixture on the heads of those who are to be initiated. This they maintain to be the redemption.
He continues other heretics, however, reject all these practices, and maintain that the mystery of the unspeakable and invisible power should not be performed by visible and corruptible creatures. These claim that the knowledge of the unspeakable greatness is itself perfect redemption. In fact, this is what Gnostic means is somebody who has knowledge. They're claiming," See, we have this great knowledge, and that is enough to redeem us.
We don't have to do things like baptism and that." Tertullian, writing against the Gnostics, said this," Oh miserable unbelief that denies to God His own properties, simplicity, and power." What then? Is it not wonderful too that death should be washed away by washing? It's in Volume 3, page 669. He writes again against them," We nevertheless proceed to answer this question," put forth by the Gnostics, how foolish and impossible it is to be formed anew by water.
Pray tell, in what respect has this material substance merited a position of such high dignity? What Tertullian answered to them is," Water was the first to produce that which had life, so that it would be no wonder in baptism if waters know how to give life." Now, all of this, to me, was quite a sobering point. If our evangelical view of baptism is right, that baptism is primarily a symbol or a step of obedience? Well, that's what the Gnostics were saying.
That would mean that the Gnostics were right about one of the core doctrines of the Christian faith, and the entire rest of the Church was wrong. And yet, John, writing very close to the Year 100, specifically writing against the Gnostics, he calls them the Antichrist, because they denied that Jesus had come in the flesh. So how could these Antichrists have a better understanding of the apostolic doctrine than the ones like Ignatius, who had been taught by the apostles? It just doesn't make sense, does it?
Particularly in light of all of the passages that we've read in Scripture that would demonstrate that God does work through baptism, that our sins are washed away, and that we receive the new birth through the baptism of water and the Holy Spirit. In light of all of this that we've seen, you may be wondering, well, how come most Bible-believing Christians today don't hold to that view?
Well, the reason is that many Christians have reacted to the fact that the established Church began treating all of the sacraments or ordinances as though they were guaranteed automatic happenings. They thought you could take people, immerse them in water, or pour water over them, say the right words, and presto out comes a born again Christian. That's not the way it is. And the issue wasn't just baptism. Professing Christians began to view Christianity itself as an automatic mechanistic religion.
As long as you belong to the Catholic Church and receive the prescribed sacraments with the proper words being said, then you're going to be OK. Well, this whole problem and mindset was amplified with the creation of the church-state hybrid, which began in the time of Constantine. New Testament Christianity was never something that could be practiced by a whole nation, because it was going to always be a narrow way that few would find.
The Kingdom of God is not like the Kingdom of Israel of Old, where every single Israelite in the whole nation belonged to the kingdom. No, Jesus ushered in an entirely different kind of kingdom that would never encompass all of the inhabitants of a given geographical region. However, beginning in the time of Constantine, Christians began imagining that God was setting up something equivalent to the Kingdom of Israel. They began to equate the Roman Empire with the Kingdom of God.
And so now they imagined that they could actually defend the Kingdom of God with swords, just the way the ancient Israelites had defended their kingdom. They even imagined that they could expand the kingdom of God by making alliances with pagan kings, who would then receive baptism and require everyone in their kingdom to be baptized as well. Eventually, the Emperor Justinian enacted a law that required every newborn infant in the whole empire to be baptized.
And that law or laws that were modeled after it remained in effect right up to the time of the Reformation. So see, they thought baptism was an automatic thing, that you could baptize a whole nation, and they'd all be born again Christians. Well, it doesn't work that way. And all of this was entwined with the growth of sacramentalism, a view that the essence of Christianity is partaking of the sacraments.
So everybody throughout" Christian Europe" had to be baptized, regardless of their personal faith, regardless of the faith of their family. And then all the children were automatically confirmed when they reached a certain age, and this was supposed to automatically give them the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And then these same Catholics mechanically confess their sins to a priest, and so long as they performed the required penance, such as saying 10 or 100 Hail Marys, then they were automatically forgiven.
Grace was automatically bestowed on them through the Eucharist, because it was administered by a priest who had the right line of succession. And then after these" Christians" died, masses were automatically said, and this was supposed to automatically take away so many years of punishment in purgatory. Well, the end result was a mechanical religion that required no inner life, no relationship with Jesus Christ, no living faith, no holiness. And that's not Christianity.
Now, I don't mean to imply that there were no professing Christians during that time who had an inner life and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. There were definitely genuine Christians throughout that whole time period. I only mean that the majority of those persons were not, but they imagined that they were born again Christians nevertheless. Now in contrast to that, biblical Christianity is relational, not mechanical. The only priest it needs is our High Priest, Jesus Christ.
The important thing in baptism and in communion are the spiritual state of the person receiving the sacrament or the ordinance. Nothing is automatic. Everything is relational, turning on an obedient love relationship with Jesus. And the early Christians understood this. They neither taught nor practiced a mechanical form of Christianity.
They never imagined that all of these saving benefits of baptism that we've been reading about would just automatically happen if you dunked somebody in water or poured water over them and recited special words. For example, Origen wrote," Matthew alone adds the words to repentance, teaching us that the benefit of baptism is connected with the intention of the baptized person. To him who repents, it is saving.
However, to him who comes to it without repentance, it will produce greater condemnation." It's in Volume 9, page 367. And again, he wrote on that same page," Regeneration did not take place with John the Baptist. However, with Jesus, through His disciples, it does occur. What is called the Bath of Regeneration takes place with renewal of the Spirit. For the Spirit as well now comes. It comes from God and is over and above the water. Yet it does not come to all after the water.
So not everybody was born again because they went through the rite of baptism. It wasn't a guaranteed automatic thing. Tertullian echoed the same sentiment. After describing the saving benefits of baptism, he made this observation:" What we have to labor for is that it may be granted us to attain that blessing. For who will grant to you a man of such faithless repentance, one single sprinkling of any water, whatever.
He continues," However, some think that God is under a necessity of bestowing what He has promised to give, even on the unworthy." So they turn his liberality into his slavery. For do not many afterwards fall out of grace? Is not this gift taken away from many? It's in Volume 3, page 661. So as these early Christians realized, not every baptism produced forgiveness of sins in the new birth.
And if that was the case in Tertullian's day, when a person had to risk his life to become a Christian, think how much more so was this the case after Constantine when hordes of unrepentant people swarmed into the church because of the benefits of becoming a Christian, the political and social benefits. And if that was true at that time, think how much more so was the case when kings and emperors forced people to be baptized?
See, I doubt that any of those baptisms, I'm talking about the forced ones, did anyone any benefit, except perhaps cause them to have greater condemnation, greater responsibility since they had at least been introduced to Christianity. So the established Church never officially changed the early Christian doctrine of baptism, not on paper anyway.
But what did change was that the Church started treating baptism as though forgiveness of sins and a new birth automatically came to everyone baptized by the Catholic Church. So none of the kingdom groups like the Waldensians had any quarrel with the Church over the meaning of baptism. But they all recognized that most Catholics were not truly born again. Actually, the first major group to contest what was being said about baptism were the Anabaptists.
Like other kingdom Christians, they could see that there was a huge disparity between the theology of baptism and what was happening in real life. Theology said that people were born again through baptism, but the reality around them was that few persons seemed to be truly regenerated souls in personal communion with Jesus Christ and living by His teachings. As Menno Simons, one of the Anabaptist leaders observed. Here he was writing to probably both the Catholics and the Lutherans.
He said," You imagine moreover that you were born again in your baptism and that you received the Holy Ghost." Faithful reader reflect that if it had so happened to you, as you say, you'd have to acknowledge that your regeneration took place without the hearing of the Word, without the faith and knowledge of Christ, and without all ordinary knowledge and understanding.
You would have to acknowledge beside that the aforementioned birth and the received spirit are altogether without effect, wisdom, power, and fruit in you. Yes, vain and dead. That you live neither after the Spirit nor in the power of the new birth. I shall let your gross avarice, drunkenness, pride, and idolatrous carnal lives demonstrate. All you baptized ones may be my witnesses.
Yes, my friend, if you were thus born of God in your baptism and had received the Holy Ghost as your comforters assure you, then certainly the new spiritual life and its new spiritual fruits would also be manifest, as was the case with the saints from the beginning, and still is. Also, those who have the Spirit of the Lord bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. But the Spirit of the Lord refuses to dwell in a wicked soul or in a body enslaved to sin.
In the second place, I say if you were properly baptized according to the Word of the Lord, as you imagine, then you would have put on Christ, and you would live no longer after the native evil nature of Adam, but after the regenerate, good nature of Christ. And I think Menno Simons hit the nail on the head. There is something wrong. You're saying you're reborn, you're regenerated, you've been baptized in the Spirit. Well, if that's the case, there's got to be some evidence of it.
These things can't exist without some evidence to back them up. See, what had happened is that the terms the new birth receiving the Spirit had become nothing but words for most professing Christians. They were not spirit-begotten, born-again Christians, regardless of what all the books on theology and all the official statements of the Church said. If theology said that these persons were regenerated, then the theology of baptism needed to change, because it did not fit reality.
As Paul put it, the kingdom of God is not in Word, but in power. In other words, the essence of the kingdom isn't words, it isn't theology, but it's power. And he wasn't speaking about the power to perform wonders. He was talking about the power to live the Christ's life. So the Anabaptists felt that some modification needed to be made to the standard teachings on baptism, because what was taught did not fit what was happening in real life. Menno Simons explained this.
He said," The Holy Apostle Peter also declares the same and says that even baptism also now saves us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the covenant of a good conscience with God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." He continues on," Here Peter teaches us how the inward baptism saves us by which the inner man is washed, and not the outward baptism by which the flesh is washed.
For only this inward baptism, as already stated, is of value in the sight of God, while outward baptism follows as an evidence of obedience, which is of faith. For if outward baptism could save without the inward, then the whole scriptures which speak of the new man would be spoken to no purpose. The kingdom of heaven would be bound to ordinary water, the blood of Christ would be shed in vain, and no baptized person could be lost.
Oh no, outward baptism avails nothing so long as we are not inwardly renewed, regenerated, and baptized with the heavenly fire and the Holy Ghost of God. So the Anabaptists made a distinction between the inner and the outer baptism. The outer baptism in water is only efficacious if an inner baptism in the Holy Spirit is going on at the same time. They correctly argue that it isn't the water itself that washes away sins. It's the work of the Spirit. We must never think of baptism as something magic or automatic.
At the same time, the Anabaptists did not discount baptism as being unrelated to salvation. They merely tried to put theology together with the witness of actual life, that there has to be something inward happening, because if it's only outward and there's no evidence of somebody now living as a newborn man, then obviously that baptism had no effect. It wasn't a genuine baptism. Another Anabaptist leader, Pilgram Marpeck, wrote this.
He said," Sacrament signifies all kinds of events which take place in the presence of an oath and are handled or dealt with by an oath." Well now the word" sacrament" is correctly taken in this natural meaning. It is not used incorrectly when baptism and the Lord's Supper are called sacraments. For they are, after all, instituted by Christ, and are commanded with the same kind of force and binding quality as the oath.
Only then is baptism truly a sacrament, that is, however, when the content and action of baptism happens with the commitment to a holy covenant. He continues," It is generally well known that to baptize means to dunk into the water." And concerning this fact, there is no controversy, nor does it need further discussion. Those baptized shall thereby confess their faith and commit themselves by the power of their faith in Christ to entirely lay aside their old beings and henceforth be inclined to live a new life.
Baptism is a burying of the old being and a resurrection of the new. Likewise, it is a portal of entrance into the Holy Communion or Church of Christ. Likewise, in the baptism of the believers, it is altogether to put on Jesus Christ. Without it, no one is able to have an assurance of a good conscience, nor is one able to forsake or to deny sincerely the old sinful life, and accept a new life and be in Christ Jesus. Baptism is similar to a betrothal or a marital union between the believer and Christ.
The believer is cleansed from all sins, has given himself over to Christ, and has committed himself to live and die according to Christ's will. He continues, now listen to what Peter says. He says that baptism saves us. Why? Is it because we are dunked into water or because it is poured over us? Oh no, for he differentiates between true baptism and the mere shedding of the pollution of the flesh. This last act alone cannot do it. Only the covenant of a good conscience with God has the power to save.
Therefore, baptism saves when through it the believer unites himself with God, and henceforth denies the desires of the flesh and the lust thereof, and desires with his whole heart to carry out the will of God. Such a conscience, however, can be created and achieved only by the Spirit of God. Insofar as this covenant of the conscience is sincere, when they in baptism totally commit themselves to God and to the obedience of the truth, the believers thereby purify their souls and are washed from all sins.
Otherwise, baptism is of no use and is only a mockery in the presence of God. A couple more excerpts. He says," Baptism is misused, particularly in two ways. First, when unwilling, innocent people are brought to baptism, people who do not desire nor are inclined to be baptized." Somebody's forced baptisms that we were talking about.
He says," Second, baptism is also misused when someone with a false, impure heart desires to be baptized." Whoever would enter into baptism and lay off evil and be cleansed from sin, he must assuredly first be converted through true repentance, and he must die to sin. Otherwise, baptism does not wash away sins. So the Anabaptists did not deny what the early Christians believed about baptism and its sacramental nature.
They just made a distinction between true baptism that takes place with a converted heart and with a commitment to live as a new man before Christ and to walk with Christ. And baptisms where people are just dunked in water or water is poured over them, there is no living faith there. They're forced into it, or their heart's not with God. And then it's just an act.
Now, I don't know that I would express things in exactly the same language as the Anabaptist did, but I do believe that they correctly saw the need to restore the biblical meaning of baptism, so that it was no longer an empty ritual that was usually disconnected from reality. I think they correctly saw that there has to be something inner going on with the outer, or else baptism is of no use.
So I still haven't answered the question, why do most Bible-believing Christians today not hold to the original view of baptism? Well, I've answered half of it, it's because baptism had become an automatic thing that was not connected with reality. But what introduced the big change in theology was the advent of pietism in the late 1600s and the Great Awakening of the 1700s.
That's because the Pietists and the Revivalists placed their emphasis not on baptism, but on the conversion experience, or spiritual awakening, and they called these the new birth. And there's a reason for that. It's because both pietism, which began in Germany, and the Great Awakening, which began in England and was carried over to New England, in all of these situations, you had state churches, the Lutheran in Germany, the Anglican in England, and the Puritan or congregational in New England.
In those settings, everyone had usually already been baptized, generally as an infant or as a child. And the Pietists and revivalists saw the same issue that the Anabaptists had seen back in the 1500s, and that is, our theology of baptism doesn't fit the reality around us. All of these people are supposed to be born again, but it's obvious that they aren't.
However, unlike the Anabaptists, the Pietists and the Revivalists didn't simply fine-tune the doctrine of baptism to make it clear that an inner conversion, or inner baptism, had to go along with the outer one. No, the Pietist and Revivalists simply relegated baptism to something rather unimportant. The all-important thing to them was the conversion experience, which they now theologically incorrectly called the new birth.
Now, it was far better to have wrong theology and yet awaken people out of their spiritual deadness, than it was to insist on precisely the scriptural and historical doctrine of baptism, but then have a bunch of people who are spiritually dead and aren't reborn as they've been told they have been. Really, I think the main error of the pietists and the revivalists is that they should not have called conversion or a spiritual awakening the new birth. The Scriptures don't use the term" new birth" in that manner.
Furthermore, the revivalists, if people who they converted had not been previously validly baptized, then they should have immediately baptized them right then upon their conversion. That's the example we have in the book of Acts. But what has happened because of the Great Awakening and the various evangelical revivals for the past several centuries is that the scriptural doctrine of baptism has been almost completely lost.
And in its place, most evangelical churches practice something that has no biblical precedent. That's the altar call. I'd like to make just a friendly challenge to you. Sit down when you finish with this message and read the whole book of Acts from the beginning to the end. See if you find any example in there of an altar call being given, or someone being told to simply pray the sinner's prayer.
If you read every account there, I think you'll find that every time the apostles or disciples baptized people when they believed. They didn't just say this prayer, and then baptism was something that, oh, we'll maybe take care of later on if we think about it. People were preached to, they repented, they were inwardly converted, and then they were baptized. And I can assure you that the altar call can be just as dead of a ritual as baptism had largely become in the Middle Ages and in the state churches.
For example, here in the south where I live, practically every other person you meet has prayed the sinner's prayer and claims to be born again. But the reality tells me that most of them truly are not born again. Now, am I saying that God has not used the altar call? No, I'm not saying that at all. We have to be careful that we don't put God in another box. We shouldn't assume that He automatically rejects something that isn't quite right theologically.
Because I see a lot of evidence that there are thousands and thousands of spirit begotten Christians who've been taught incorrectly about baptism. But the important thing is that they have been converted and they have been baptized. That is the most important thing. God is flexible. After all, there in Acts you have an example of Cornelius and his household receiving the Holy Spirit before they were baptized, which was the reverse of the normal order. But God can work that way if He chooses to do so.
He is free to do whatever He wants. I can only speak as to what God's normal channel of operation has historically been. But neither I nor anyone else can deny God the freedom to give a new birth however He wants to. The early Christians expressly recognize this, for example, in regard to those who were martyred before they had a chance to be baptized. The early Christians said, well, they've still been baptized. They've been baptized in a baptism of blood.
For example, Cyprian wrote," Some ask if one of these catechumens that was somebody studying in preparation of baptism. Anyway, if one of these catechumens before he is baptized is arrested and slain after confessing the name, does he lose the hope of salvation and the reward of confession since he had not previously been born again of water? They certainly are not lacking the sacrament of baptism who are baptized with the most glorious and greatest baptism of blood.
Concerning this baptism, the Lord also said that he had another baptism to be baptized with. It's in volume 5, page 385. Now the scripture that Cyprian was quoting there is Matthew 20:22, where Jesus said," You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" So he referred to his death on the cross as a type of baptism. Before closing, I want to address one more issue on baptism.
A lot of people have written and said, what was the mode of baptism? Did they immerse? Did they pour? Did they sprinkle? And what does it mean in Acts where it says people were baptized in the name of Jesus? Does that mean they did not baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as Jesus had specifically commanded them to do? Well, let me read to you from one of the earliest writings we have after the New Testament. This is the Didache.
And it says this:" Concerning baptism, baptize in this manner. Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in living water, which apparently means moving water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water. If you cannot baptize in cold water, baptize in warm. But if you do not have either, pour out water three times upon the person's head in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
However, before the baptism, let the baptizer fast and the one to be baptized together with whoever else can. But you will instruct the one to be baptized to fast one or two days before the baptism. It often comes to a great surprise to people that the early Christians weren't dogmatic on the mode of baptism. Immersion was the normal method, but pouring was also a valid method if immersion wasn't practical. And indeed, they did baptize in the name of the entire Trinity, not just in the name of Jesus.
This is made clear by the fact that they immersed or poured three times, once in the name of the Father, once in the name of the Son, and once in the name of the Holy Spirit. I'll read to you a passage from Tertullian, which corroborates that even in the early 3rd century, this was still the practice of the Church. He writes," He commands them to baptize into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Not into a unipersonal God.
And indeed, it is not once only, but three times that we are immersed into the three persons at the mention of each individual name. The second thing I think most Christians today are surprised at is that they either dipped or poured three times, not just once. And this was the custom is still the practice by most of the ancient churches. They've lost a lot of the original spirit of early Christianity, but most of them still baptized by triple immersion or triple pouring.
Outside of the ancient churches, the group known as the brethren, not the Plymouth Brethren, but the German Baptist Brethren or Dunkards, they still baptize with triple immersion. Now none of the writers say whether they baptize forward or backwards or even straight up and down. Things like that weren't important. This wasn't a magical rite that you had to do things just a certain way or else it wasn't valid.
I think God has accepted baptisms that were just a single pouring or immersion, but I certainly think the preferred way should be triple immersion or triple pouring since this was the ancient practice, and it fits Jesus' words to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In exceptional circumstances, the early church even allowed sprinkling, and that was if somebody was on their deathbed and it wasn't practical to really pour.
Now, when I'm talking about pouring, I'm not talking about just a drop or two of water on somebody's head. We have church buildings, we've found the remains of them, that go back as early as the early 200s, and every church building that has been uncovered always has a baptismal pool in it. Sometimes the pool isn't real deep, which might indicate that they poured rather than immersed in those particular church buildings. But it's always a pool. The person went down into the water, and they got a thorough drenching.
If it was pouring, as I said, it wasn't just a drop or two on their head. It was a pouring. They got a bath out of it. Or like I say, if they dipped the person, they got a bath out of it as well, because the symbolism in baptism is a cleansing. There's also the symbolism of dying and coming out as a new man, which, again, going under the water is a good picture of.
But if this wasn't practical, someone was on their deathbed, then yes, they would pour a little bit of water or sprinkle water on them, and this was still a valid baptism. It was the intention of following Jesus' commandment, not a specific mode that made baptism valid or invalid. Well, in conclusion, I'd like for you to remember three things from our discussion tonight.
Number one, the historic teaching of the Church on baptism is that our sins are washed away in baptism, and that we are reborn through baptism, and there is strong scriptural support for that teaching. But then number two, none of this is automatic. There has to be a repentant heart and a genuine faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. As the Anabaptist phrased it, there has to be an inner baptism to accompany the outer baptism, or else the outer one is of no value.
And finally, a person doesn't necessarily have to correctly understand the doctrine of baptism in order to receive the benefits of baptism. What counts with God is a converted heart and a person who truly loves him?