Meaning of Christian baptism

The Christian baptism is an ordinance instituted by Jesus Christ himself (Matt 28:18–20). It might be the ordinance and/or doctrine that has caused more controversy and division among professing Christians during the history of the Church than any other. I myself have struggled over the meaning of baptism several years. I was baptized in the Swedish, Lutheran, church as an infant in 1990. However, when I had come to personal faith and repentance as an adult, I felt that the Holy Spirit urged me to let myself become baptized upon my own confession of faith. The 22nd of October 2010 I got baptized. I remember the day of my believers-baptism with great joy!

The year after that, I started to study in a Lutheran school of theology. After one year of my studies, I had accepted the Lutheran arguments for infant baptism, even though I had been baptized as a believer. A short time after that, I joined a Lutheran church. However, the Holy Spirit did not let me be at peace as a Lutheran. Therefore, I continued to read more about infant baptism and the arguments for and against it. It was during that time I first got a great interest in the Anabaptists of the 16th century Europe. Thousands of them were murdered because they denied the validity of infant baptism and ”rebaptized” people. Both the Catholic church and the Protestant churches supported the severe persecution of the Anabaptists. Jesus said that we will recognize who the false prophets are by their fruit (Matt 7:16). Jesus also told his disciples: ”…the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.” (John 16:2, NKJV) Luther, Zwingli and the other reformers, who supported the persecution of the Anabaptists, thought indeed that they did God a service, because they considered them to be heretics.

Because of what I read about the early Anabaptists and their willingness to die for the things they believed, I started to have stronger and stronger doubts about the validity of infant baptism. If it was right to practice it, how could its supporters have produced so much bad fruit in history? One great mark of the true Church is that it is a suffering and persecuted church. (Matt 5:10-12; John 15:18-20; 16:1–3; Rom 8:35-36; 2 Tim 3:12; Rev 12:17 etc.) True Christians don’t persecute others, but do good even to their enemies (Matt. 5:38-48; Luk. 6:27-36; 1 Thess. 5:15 etc.). Could the truth be that the Anabaptists were among Jesus’ true disciples, while their persecutors were the real heretics?

Now, let us study what the Bible has to say about the meaning of baptism. Is baptism simply a symbol of a person’s faith and dedication to Christ, or does God himself actually give grace and spiritual power through it? We will start with a text that is not used very much in discussions on baptism, Hebr. 6:1-2a: ”Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms…” (NKJV) The first thing we should note is that baptism is one of the most important principles of Christ, and that it, together with repentance and faith, makes you a Christian. Baptism is not a secondary issue, but it is the very starting point of one’s life as a disciple of Jesus.

We cannot deal with all texts of the New Testament that explain the meaning of baptism, but we will focus on what the book of Acts has to say about it.

Acts 2:37-38, 41: Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” 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 shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. (NKJV).

When Peter had preached his sermon about Jesus as the Messiah, whom the Jews had killed, but was risen on the third day, those who heard him became convicted of their sins and asked Peter what they must do. He answered that they had to repent and let themselves be baptized ”for the remission of sins.” Those who believed God’s word repented of their sins and were baptized. Notice that we even in this text have faith, repentance, and baptism listed. Together they are important in order for the new birth to take place and for receiving of the Holy Spirit.

If you study the book of Acts carefully, you will discover that it sometimes mentions faith as necessary for salvation (10:43; 13:38-39; 15:7–11; 16:30-31; 26:18). Other verses tell us that repentance is necessary for salvation (3:19; 5:31; 11:18; 26:20). Finally, even baptism is said to be connected to forgiveness and cleansing of sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16). How, then, are we to understand these things? Is the Bible contradicting itself by giving us different descriptions on how to become saved? The answer is NO! That baptism, along with faith and repentance, is part of salvation, is no more a contradiction than what we learn by the familiar verses of Rom 10:9–10:

That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (NKJV)

By these verses we learn that a person becomes righteous by the faith of the heart, and saved by the confession of the mouth that Jesus is Lord. Both faith and confession are important and necessary for salvation. If we do not want to throw away Rom 10:9–10, we should neither throw away Acts 22:16:

”And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” (NKJV)

This verse makes it clear that when you in faith have called upon the name of the Lord for salvation (Rom 10:13), you become baptized in order to have your sins washed away. This reminds me of 1 Pet 3:20-21, where Peter compares baptism with the flood that saved Noah and his family from the sinful world of their time. Please notice that Peter does not write that the ark saved them, but the water. Just as the water of the flood saved Noah and his family, while it destroyed the sinful world they had lived in, baptism now saves us, from sin, death, this evil world, and the devil). Does baptism save us automatically, then? No, Peter explains that baptism is an answer of a good conscience toward God by [faith in] the resurrection of Jesus Christ. By other texts, we learn that it is faith in the shed blood of Jesus that cleanses our hearts and gives us a clean conscience (Acts 15:9; Rom 3:21-25; Heb 9:14; 10:22).

Baptism cannot in and of itself save anyone, without personal faith in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. This fact, however, does not reduce baptism to a mere symbol of the grace of God. God is indeed works in baptism and by it he gives the believer grace to die to his sinful nature and rise with Christ to a new life, that consists of holiness and discipleship (Rom 6:2-6). Therefore, we must neither fall into sacramentalism, which makes baptism a magic act that gives grace apart from faith, nor into spiritualism (Gnosticism) which deny that God can work through a physical element in the one who receives water baptism by faith.

But, is this understanding of baptism in accordance with the view of the early Church? Did those who lived just about 1–3 generations after the apostles have this view on the meaning of baptism? Let us read three witnesses from the early Church.

The Epistle of Barnabas (c. 70-130 A.D.): ”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.”

Justin Martyr (c. 160 A.D.): ”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, 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.”

Theophilus (c. 180 A.D.): ”The things proceeding from the waters were blessed by God, that this also could be a sign of men 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.”

But what about the early Anabaptists – those who died for their conviction that only those who believe and have repented from all their sins are allowed to be baptized and members of the Church? Did not they have a mere symbolic view on baptism? The very first Anabaptists, who started the movement in Zürich in 1525, had a symbolic view on baptism. The reason for that was probably that they were influenced by Zwingli, whose disciples they had been. However, the symbolic view on baptism was not the only one among the early Anabaptists.

Peter Riedemann (bishop in present-day Czech Republic) wrote around 1540: ”Since in baptism a person’s sins are left behind and forgiven, and the church has the key, baptism should take place before the church.”

Bern Colloquy (debate between Anabaptist leaders and reformers that took place in Bern in 1538): ”Similarly with the seal of baptism in the New covenant. Here no eight-day limit is set but whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved. Therefore, whoever has remorse and sorrow for his sins and repents, he shall be baptized for the forgiveness of his sins…”

The article on baptism in the first Anabaptist confession of faith, the Schleitheim Confession of 1527, might imply a high view on the meaning of baptism: ”Baptism shall be given to all those who have been taught repentance and the amendment of life and [who] believe truly that their sins are taken away through Christ, and to all those who desire to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and be buried with him in death, so that they might rise with him…”