What is Christian baptism? Why is it important? Who should receive baptism? Pastors Derek Brown and Cliff McManis answer these questions and more in this two-part podcast.
Transcript
Derek: Welcome to With All Wisdom, where we are applying biblical truth to your everyday life. My name is Derek Brown and I’m here today with Cliff McManis. We are both pastors at Creekside Bible Church in Cupertino, California, and professors at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary in Vallejo, California. And today we want to talk about baptism, what it is, why it’s important, and why some Christians disagree on this topic. But before we get to our topic for today, I want to point your attention to withallwisdom.org, where you will find a large and growing collection of audio and written resources across a variety of theological, practical, and cultural topics that are all aimed to help you mature in Christ. And now on to our topic. Baptism, believe it or not, is a topic that has been strongly debated among Christians for at least the last few centuries. The debates are usually over the way it’s to be done, when it’s to be done in relation to one’s conversion, where it’s to be done, why it’s to be done, and who it’s to be done to. So just about everything about baptism has been debated in one way or another among Christians, which leave may leave some Christians feeling a little unsure about the whole topic. We want to shed some light on this important issue. It is important. We don’t want to overemphasize its importance, but we don’t want to underemphasize it either. So, Cliff, why don’t you introduce us to this issue of baptism?
Cliff: Yeah, baptism. Important topic for a lot of reasons. For us, for you and I, we’re pastors and elders at a Baptist church, so that must mean something, whatever that baptism is or means. As a Baptist church, we have specific views about baptism. I think you would agree with this, Derek, that we believe that the teaching regarding baptism is clear in scripture.
Derek: Yes, it is.
Cliff: And at the same time you’ve got a huge debate among various Christians about the meaning of baptism, the mode of baptism, and those kind of things. I was reminded of this recently. I’m teaching currently a class at the seminary, the Cornerstone Seminary, on ecclesiology. So you talk about this stuff in the church. The Lord’s Supper, its meaning, and then baptism. Inevitably, we’ve got to discuss that. So I was just asking the students randomly. I just said, so, is baptism a big deal or a little deal? And they all shout out, it’s a big deal. It’s very important and I agree with that. It’s even in our statement of faith. That’s how important we think it is. But there are Christians who would disagree with us and say, well, baptism, it’s not really that important. It’s maybe a secondary doctrine or not a priority doctrine. And I would disagree with that. I think it’s very important. And so that’s what we want to do is just in the next couple of episodes here, look at what the Bible has to say about baptism and find out one of those. The question is, is it clear? Is it fuzzy? Is there room for debate, and if so, how much room is there for debate? So we’re going to intersect with some of those important questions. But I want to start out from ground zero, assuming maybe there’s people listening who don’t know anything about baptism from the Bible. So let me just start off with a definition of baptism, a couple foundational thoughts, and then maybe some observations and add a few more comments to that. And then kind of laying the foundation for you to talk more about the theology of baptism that I think will be helpful for people. So just let me start with the basic definition of Christian baptism according to the New Testament as instituted by Jesus. So here’s a basic definition Christian baptism is a religious ceremony commanded by Jesus, whereby a person who has heard, understood and believed in the gospel message and has repented of their sin is dunked or submerged in water. So all those phrases and words very carefully chosen, I think, representing biblical truth. So you have to hear the truth of the gospel. You have to understand it and then believe it and repent of your sin. And then when you do, you are dunked or submerged in water in a religious ceremony. And this was commanded by Jesus of those who have believed in his gospel. That’s just basic. And we’ll see that that’s in the scriptures. The next point I want to make is that you and I believe that our doctrine and theology of baptism needs to come from the Bible alone. So we are dependent upon the Bible alone. And that would mean the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament of the Hebrew Old Testament has anything to say about baptism. I listened to a sermon a couple of days ago of an evangelical pastor talking about baptism in the Old Testament, and he went on for 20 minutes, and he didn’t quote the Old Testament one time—not one time—because it’s not in the Old Testament. But he was arguing that it was. It was funny, but I believe that the Bible is clear about the method, the mode and the meaning of baptism.
It’s not fuzzy. As a matter of fact, baptism is a command of Jesus. So I’ll start there with Matthew 28:19. This is known as the Great Commission. We call it the Great Commission, because I think it is. It’s a priority. It’s the last command Jesus gave to the church before he went back to heaven is the priorities of the church. Matthew 28:19. He’s talking to his disciples in Galilee just before he ascends into heaven, and he commands them with these words as he spoke it with authority: go therefore, or while you’re going, make disciples. So that’s the key verb—make disciples. How do you make disciples? Well, you go. You infiltrate the world, all the nations, and you give the gospel. And then when they believe, then you baptize them. So you go preach the gospel when they believe, then you baptize them, baptizing them in the name of the Trinity, the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. And after you baptize them, then you’re teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. This is the great commission of the church, right? We make disciples, and we do that by going, evangelizing. And those who believe, we baptize them, identify them into the local church through baptism. And then as long as there are Christian here on earth, we’re continually teaching them everything that Jesus had to say. So that’s the Great Commission. That’s where baptism starts. Christian baptism, as Jesus commanded it.
Derek: And just the fact that Jesus commands it in the Great Commission here highlights its importance. So you can’t say that it’s unimportant in light of a text like that.
Cliff: Exactly. The Great Commission. So the commission to baptize is a command from Jesus, the Great Commission, and a priority for the church. So it is a command directly given by Jesus. And then in John 14:15 Jesus said, just before he died, he told his apostles and us in John 14:15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Is baptism a commandment? Absolutely, yes it is. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. So that’s the goal of a Christian is if you love Jesus Christ, you’re going to submit to and obey every command that he gave. He told us what his commands are there in Scripture, in the New Testament. And if you go through the four Gospels and all the epistles and the entire New Testament, you can literally see all the commands of Jesus Christ. You could literally write them all down. Here’s everything that Jesus said. And our goal is to know those commands and to obey them. So I love Jesus and I want to please him, so I want to obey all of his commandments. And so I want to know all of his commands. And I don’t want to be fuzzy about some of his commandments. And recently, I was doing my own personal devotion and study, and I decided to look up every commandment of Jesus in the New Testament, really, and write it down. Just explicit commands.
Derek: Wow.
Cliff: I came up with hundreds in the Gospels, in the epistles by his apostles, and they were pretty clear. They were positive and negative. Do not be anxious or do not worry. That’s a command. Pray. Serve one another. Bear one another’s burdens. Do not lie to one another. Obey your parents. Do not exasperate your children. Pay your taxes, and submit to the government. I mean, it just goes on and on. See, these are all clear, and there is a command on baptism stated in a few different ways. We are supposed to baptize those that have been made disciples, right? That’s a command, right? And there’s a couple other verses that talk about who we’re supposed to baptize. We are supposed to baptize those who have heard the gospel, as Peter said in Acts chapter two. Those who heard the gospel, they were pierced to the heart, and those who believe and those who repent. That’s what Peter said, right? You heard the gospel. You believed it. You were convicted. Therefore, if you believe and repent, then you need to get baptized.
Acts chapter two, verse 38. So that’s a command. So in my hundreds of commands that I wrote down given by Jesus that I want to obey because Jesus said, if you love me, you’re going to obey all my commands, I never found a commandment that said, baptize babies in the New Testament. Couldn’t find it. We’ll talk more about that. So it is a command. It’s a priority. So I was going to ask you, Derek, I had a recent conversation with a couple other folks and even a pastor in the past who—and he’s at an evangelical church. His view is that baptism is not a priority doctrine. It’s a secondary doctrine. And it’s not good that pastors and churches divide over this issue. And so the church where he serves, they decided to get rid of baptism altogether. And he said, it’s a beautiful thing because now nobody fights or argues about baptism at their church because they don’t baptize anybody.
Derek: Oh, so they don’t baptize at all?
Cliff: They don’t baptize at all. They don’t do baptisms. And he said it was a beautiful thing because now nobody fights and argues about the mode of baptism. He thought that was a good thing. And then he proceeded to tell me that also at their church, they decided to do the same thing with the Lord’s Supper. Because people, Christians, fight and argue over the meaning of that, too. So we just we don’t do those things and it preserves the unity in our church. This is a true story of a pastor friend of mine. That’s what I said to him. I said, wow, this is not good.
Derek: It doesn’t set a good trajectory because eventually you’re going to have to eliminate everything because Christians debate on a whole lot of things.
Cliff: Yeah, it’s not just about everything about every doctrine. It’s like you said, it’s part of the Great Commission, and a command of Jesus. And who are we to decide to pick and choose which commands of Jesus we’re going to obey and not obey, right? That’s not our prerogative, right? We have to obey all of Jesus’ commands. And the other question is, there are theologians out there, well-known ones, who say that you can take Christian doctrines and categorize them into either two tiers, or I’ve heard the three-tier paradigm, as a matter of fact. A beloved theologian that you and I both respect and know on YouTube, he’s got a video and he’s talking about the doctrine of creation. And he says, well, what you need to understand is there are three tiers of Christian doctrine, and the first-tier priority ones are the most important, and there’s tier two and tier three. And tier three are kind of important, but don’t die on a hill over that doctrine or teaching. And he said that creation is a tier three doctrine.
Derek: Why does he get to decide?
Cliff: Yeah, well, that was my point, because that’s what I asked. Because he just decided that and asserted there are three tiers of doctrines, and tier three is not very important. And I thought, well, why does he get to decide or who decided for him? Where did he get that right?
Derek: I think creation is a pretty foundational top priority.
Cliff: Yeah, I think it’s like in the first chapter of the Bible and is the foundation of everything. But then there’s the popular Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology. He does the same thing. He says that creation and angelology and a couple other things—those aren’t priority doctrines, so they’re not in tier one. They’re secondary or less important. So we can quibble and argue about those and that’s fine. That’s not an issue. And then Mark Devers got his tiers as well. And eschatology and the millennium and that kind of stuff are not as important and shouldn’t even be in your statement of faith, whereas other doctrines are more important. And so I’m just going to ask your initial thought on that. You’ve commented on it, that are we allowed to pick and choose about what Bible truths are in tier one, two and three, or five tiers? And who is the arbiter? Who decides that? I mean, if you and I took the list of the 400 commands Jesus gave in the New Testament, and on our own, we had to categorize those into tier one, two, and three. Is anybody going to agree on the 400 commands of Jesus? Which ones are more important and less important?
Derek: I don’t think there’s going to be agreement. No, it’s going to be exceedingly challenging. I think one thing you could say is that, you know, Paul says I delivered to you of first importance the gospel, and then he goes on—that’s 1 Corinthians 15. And so when it comes to baptism, you could say there’s a distinguishing between the gospel proper, which you believe to be saved and then getting baptized. And one of the things we’ll actually talk about in a next podcast is the particular so-called Christian denomination that says that actually baptism is necessary for salvation. And so we would say, well, no, that’s not the case. You have to make a distinction between the gospel proper and something like baptism that is to follow immediately after the gospel. But it’s not necessary to salvation. So there’s a kind of theological distinguishing between these things. But when you start to ask what’s more important, then the question is, who gets to decide? And where do we decide what gives? What criteria do you use to decide what is more important or less important or unimportant? And I would say that there’s no biblical doctrine in Scripture that is unimportant. Right?
Cliff: I would agree with that. And I would say that all of the commands that Jesus gave are equally important. First Corinthians 15: Of first importance is this…I take that as kind of a chronological priority that these are the elements of the message of the gospel. In other words, don’t be adding elements that don’t belong in the saving message of the gospel, because it’s very definitive in terms of that message. It’s about Jesus, his work, who he is, his substitutionary death and resurrection. To add to that is adding to the gospel, like works or whatever else. So I don’t think Jesus was saying, well, you know, believe some things and you don’t have to believe others. So that’s just very arbitrary. I think it’s very dangerous to do that. To take that upon ourselves. So we read the Great Commission, so we would agree that baptism is a command of Jesus. He is the master. That is a priority doctrine. It’s not a third-tier doctrine. It’s not something we can just arbitrarily decide to eliminate from our church. As a matter of fact, it’s a mark of an obedient church. And then Jesus goes back to heaven. The church begins. Peter preaches to these Jewish men in Judea. He gives the gospel in Acts chapter two. The focus of the gospel is Jesus Christ, his person, the fact that he fulfilled the Old Testament and that he died for sin, and he rose again from the dead.
He’s exalted on high. He reigns as King. God has made him both Lord and Christ. The Jews heard this message. They were pierced to the heart, meaning they were convicted of their sin. They were also convicted about the truth that they knew was in the Old Testament, and they were compelled to respond. So they asked Peter and the apostles, brethren, what shall we do in light of the fact that we just heard this message that has pierced our heart and convicted us? And Peter’s response to them was repent. And each of you be baptized, literally, get dunked or immersed in the water in the name of Jesus Christ. So this is a command. This is what you do. So a prerequisite to baptism is repentance. Based on this passage, a prerequisite to baptism is hearing the gospel and understanding it. They felt conviction. They were pierced to the heart. And then the passage goes on and in verse 41: so then those who had received the word or heard the gospel were baptized. There it is. They heard, and they understood. They believed. They embraced it. They repented of sin. They asked to be baptized. They were submerged in the water and they were baptized in this text. There’s nothing about babies getting baptized, right? Who didn’t hear, who didn’t understand, who didn’t repent.
Derek: And will you comment a little bit on the word for baptism in the New Testament? And what it means in terms of its very definition?
Cliff: Absolutely. Because you’re going to talk more about the theology of baptism. And we have to build our theology on exegesis of the scriptures. And that would include grammar and syntax and word choice and diction and semantics of words and how they’re used throughout the whole New Testament. So you have to deal with the words involved as the foundation for your exegesis before you do your theology. And so, the words are significant. The word that Jesus used for baptism is the Greek word baptizo. The same word that Peter used which meant “get baptized.” It’s baptism. It’s a verb. It’s used 81 times in the New Testament, and 100% of the time it can be translated as immerse. Dunk. Drown. Submerge. Envelope. 100% of the time. John Calvin believed in infant baptism. He even agreed with that definition. Here’s a quote from John Calvin from Calvin’s Institutes, book four, chapter 15, section 19. He’s got two chapters on baptism. And he concludes he that believes in infant baptism, but nevertheless he says this quote: “the term baptizo means to immerse. And that this immersion was the form used by the primitive church.” End quote. So he acknowledges that. But then he goes on to argue for two more chapters as sprinklings. As a matter of fact, sprinkling babies is the way to go. So 81 times it’s an intense form of that comes from the root baptizo. So there are two main verbs in the New Testament. There’s baptizo used four times. Baptizo is where Jesus dunked Judas’s bread. Or when you dunk in the water, so you’re dunking it in the water only four times. But 81 times, baptizo is to immerse, to submerge, to envelop, and then baptisma, the noun, is used 20 times. The baptism of John the Baptist, or the baptism of the church in the noun form, and that always means to submerge or immerse. So the word is clear. It doesn’t mean sprinkle or wipe or anoint with oil, right? And it’s never used passively. When baptism is a person being dunked in the water, it’s not putting water on the person. It’s never used that way. I thought this would be helpful. The word is actually used in seven different ways in the New Testament—seven different ways. So you’ve got to look at the context. And here it’s used primarily in a literal manner. And then in a metaphorical manner, in a metaphorical way, it is used in the following four ways. Metaphorically, there’s the baptism of the Jews in the desert under the days of Moses, meaning they were subsumed or they were enveloped in as God’s people. They were enveloped or identified with God. So that’s the metaphorical use of it in the desert. First Corinthians ten. Another metaphorical use is we were baptized as Christians. We were baptized into Christ’s death when he actually died. Right? So that’s a spiritual reality, right? We were subsumed or identified in his death even though we weren’t alive at the time.
Jesus talked about baptizing with fire. That’s a fire of judgment. That’s a consuming people with the fire of judgment. That’s metaphorical. There’s no water there. Matthew three. And then also there’s the baptism into the Holy Spirit. First Corinthians 12:13. That’s a spiritual reality that happens when you get saved. You are spiritually enveloped or subsumed or unified into an identity with Christ. Those are metaphorical uses. Then the three water uses are John’s baptism—John the Baptist. He dunked people in the Jordan River. It was dunking and that was a baptism of repentance. Then there’s Christian baptism that Jesus gave. Not a baptism of repentance, but baptism or being identified into Jesus Christ by believing in his gospel right identified into the body of Christ. But that’s shown through dunking in water, right? As Philip dunked the Ethiopian eunuch in the water and he came up out of the water. And then finally, in first Corinthians 15, Paul makes reference briefly to the baptism of the dead. People were doing some weird thing where they were literally baptizing people with water, but they’re doing it for the wrong reason or some obscure reason for dead people. We don’t quite know what that means, but those are three literal usages. So when you’re reading the word baptism, it can have seven different meanings in the New Testament. But the bottom line there is a common denominator to every one of those.
Derek: That’s what’s important.
Cliff: And the common denominator isn’t cleansing it because fire is not cleansing. The common denominator in all seven usages is identification or union with being completely submerged into the identity with Christ. That is the common denominator for baptism.
Derek: Well, I think that is an excellent and helpful introduction. And with all that helpful information now coming from examining biblical texts in the New Testament, we’ll now venture on into another podcast in part two, and we’ll discuss some important theology of baptism in relation to Baptists and Presbyterians. And we’ll even talk about another Christian denomination that suggests or actually teaches that baptism is necessary for salvation. So we’ll talk about that and have to distinguish between those things. But until we see you next time, keep seeking the Lord in His Word and visit withallwisdom.org to continue to find resources like these. Even on baptism. You’ll be able to find those there, and we will look forward to talking with you soon.
