Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
047 | Four Views of Baptism
551 Plays4 years ago
What's the difference between infant baptism and creedal, or believers' baptism? We explore that in this episode! We talk about some of the sub-groups within these two views of baptism as well as the biblical basis for each. At the end, a quick discussion of the Jewish mikvah and how that influences our modern understanding of the sacrament.
Lutheran Views: https://www.lcms.org/about/beliefs/faqs/doctrine#baptism
Reformed Baptist Views: https://www.challies.com/articles/whats-the-purpose-of-baptism/
Six Views of Baptism: http://studies.travisechols.com/Six%20views%20on%20Baptism.pdf
Craig Blomberg on Baptism: https://denverseminary.edu/article/baptism-three-views/
Messianic View of Mikvah and Baptism: https://free.messianicbible.com/feature/mikvah-baptism-the-connection-between-immersion-conversion-and-being-born-again/
Catholic View: http://shamelesspopery.com/the-case-for-infant-baptism/
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction to Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Mason-Heimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith, ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to settle for watered down Christian teaching. And if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there. This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
Baptism Overview: Four Views
00:00:30
Speaker
Well friends, we are back with a new episode in the Ask Anything Theology series. Thanks for your patience and our couple of weeks break there. I needed to do some research for these episodes and get everything ready to go for the next couple of weeks. There is a lot of research that goes into these and so I appreciate your patience with that process.
00:00:53
Speaker
In this episode, you might also hear Ivan. He's hanging with me in my office and possibly a lawnmower because it's Saturday and we don't have snow on the ground anymore. Yes, that is an actual concern in Michigan in May. So
Understanding Pedobaptism vs. Credobaptism
00:01:08
Speaker
without further ado, we are jumping in to discuss four views of baptism. This has been a top request.
00:01:17
Speaker
both on Ask Anything Monday and via email and on the blog. And so I thought this would be the fastest and most effective way to educate on some of the different views of baptism throughout the Christian church. And we're going to be looking at four different views, but they are housed within two sections or two different, I would say categories.
00:01:48
Speaker
The first category is pedo-baptism or infant-baptism and the second category is credo-baptism or believers-baptism. So, pedo means child, credo
00:02:04
Speaker
indicates creed or testament. So you are basing the baptism off someone's personal testimony and they have to be an adult in order to do that. So the two main categories being pedobaptism and credobaptism underneath those categories are different ways of understanding what baptism accomplishes and how it should work.
00:02:30
Speaker
And so we're going to look at two subgroups within pedobaptism, and then we're going to look at two subgroups within credobaptism. All right. So pedobaptism or infant baptism, obviously this kind of baptism is not going to be by immersion. It's not going to be dunking because we don't want to be dunking a baby in a baptismal font. So this is also called sprinkling.
00:03:00
Speaker
And there are a couple different ways to view it. One of the terms for this kind of baptism or this view of how infant baptism works is called baptismal regeneration. Baptismal regeneration. And we're going to look at both the Catholic and the Lutheran views of this particular take on infant baptism because Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and also Lutherans,
00:03:30
Speaker
baptized infants.
Catholic View on Baptism
00:03:32
Speaker
And we're going to start with the Roman Catholic view. And so the Latin phrase ex opera operato basically means that baptism in the Catholic tradition confers grace. Like I believe all of the sacraments in the Catholic church, there is a measure of grace that is conferred upon the individual as they participate in that sacrament. It's not just symbolic.
00:03:58
Speaker
something is actually happening there. God is using a physical action of participating in a sacrament to administer grace to his people. And this is a pretty fundamental doctrine within Catholicism and in more liturgical traditions. So this is from the Roman Catholic Catechism, which is explaining kind of what happens in baptism. And it says, baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word.
00:04:28
Speaker
This sacrament is also called the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit for it signifies and actually brings about the birth of water in the spirit without which no one can enter the kingdom of God. So clearly baptism is a very important part of being a believer in the Catholic tradition.
00:04:50
Speaker
And so I have a bunch of sources that will be in the show notes on the blog. A couple of them will be in the show notes on iTunes, but most of the show notes and links and articles will be on my blog, FeliciaMasonHeimer.com. And that is where I pulled this information, including directly from the Roman Catholic Catechism. And as always, and I say this every time I talk about a topic, when I want to know
00:05:15
Speaker
what the Catholic church believes about something, I go to the Catholic church. If I want to know what a Lutheran believes, I go to the Lutheran church. I go directly to the source to get my information on these things rather than listen to somebody who just opposes them. And so I think that's a really important part of good research and reporting. Basically the information correctly is to go directly to the source. And so what I'm about to share with you is a Catholic perspective.
00:05:43
Speaker
on some of the fundamentals of baptism and what it accomplishes. First, baptism ushers people into the kingdom of God. It is the means of bringing people into the family and kingdom of God.
00:05:58
Speaker
I read actually a Lutheran text a couple of years ago about the purpose of baptism being the beginning of discipleship and bringing people into the family of God, kind of a transition from their old family apart from God to this new family of God. And since these are infants who are being raised by Catholic parents, it's really a serious thing. And the parents and the God parents need to be ready and equipped to be educating this child.
00:06:27
Speaker
in the truths of the church and scripture. So it ushers people into the kingdom of God. Secondly, it represents the new circumcision and the promise to bring the child up as a Christian and as a Catholic. So this is really significant and this carries over to the other views of infant baptism as well. That baptism represents the same thing that circumcision represented for old covenant Israelites.
00:06:55
Speaker
was a sign of being in the family of God. And so the understanding here is that circumcision is represented through baptism under the New Covenant. So for the Israelites it was actual circumcision and then and under the New Covenant of Christ it is baptism. I agree Ivan. So this kind of sets us up
00:07:19
Speaker
to understanding what we're going to talk about regarding the necessity of baptism. Because the third point is that baptism is a necessary condition of salvation. There are a couple of different reasons that the church supports this. And I'm going to read a couple of verses. John 3, 5, Jesus talking says, truly, truly I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit.
00:07:45
Speaker
Then Paul later says that God saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit in Titus 3.5. Peter says baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you in 1 Peter 3. And Jesus also says he who believes in his baptized will be saved in Mark 16, 16. So using these verses and others, the church believes that baptism saves. And we'll talk a little bit about what that means as far as implications in a little bit.
00:08:16
Speaker
Now, this also is seen in church history, particularly the practice of infant baptism goes all the way back to the early church. One church father in particular, Cyprian, in 253 said, in respect of the case of infants, which you say ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, and that the law of ancient circumcision should be regarded so that you think that one who's just born should not be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day.
00:08:44
Speaker
We all thought very differently in our counsel, for in this course, which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed. But we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to anyone born of man. For as the Lord says in his gospel, the Son of man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Luke 4, as far as we can, we must strive that if possible, no soul be lost. So what he's talking about here is that there's a debate
00:09:10
Speaker
among the council on whether to baptize infants on the second day or third day or on the eighth day. Not that they should be not baptized at all, but that it's accepted that infants were being baptized. The debate was over whether it's earlier or later. And he's saying, we think we should do it as quickly as possible. So the early church, this is just one example, but the early church was practicing infant baptism fairly early.
Infant Baptism Implications
00:09:39
Speaker
Another point regarding Catholic baptism is that it's necessary for discipleship. And oftentimes the church will look at passages like Ezekiel 36, which talks about this, saying, I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from your uncleannesses. And I will give you a new spirit that I will put within you. And I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.
00:10:08
Speaker
So this is kind of a launching point. Baptism is this launching point for discipleship by the parents, ideally, and then within the family of God in the church, representing the new circumcision, the new circumcision of the heart, and being brought up as a part of the family of God. Now, here is where things get sticky. If an infant is being baptized and it signifies
00:10:36
Speaker
the conferring of grace, the conferring of the Holy Spirit upon the child and the beginning of faith in that child's heart. Does that mean that the child is saved without ever having to make any Testament of faith ever having to actually follow Christ personally? Is there salvation permanent? Like what do we do with that? And I think a lot of Protestants, non-Catholics have that question.
00:11:02
Speaker
What happens then is this infant that was baptized into the Catholic Church literally believe, grow up and believe, I'm saved without ever having to actually walk in holiness or understand what they believe and have a personal relationship with Christ. Here's the important thing to note. This baptism is not magical. It actually does have to be walked out. The faith that is put into the heart of the child
00:11:31
Speaker
has to be nurtured and affirmed in order for salvation to be worked out in that individual. And this is where the importance of confirmation comes in, that at confirmation you are confirming your faith in Christ. And hopefully the parents of the child have raised them and discipled them and taught them the truths of scripture so that they can make that educated decision to be confirmed within the church.
00:11:57
Speaker
And so this really emphasizes that combination of God's gracious work in the heart of the believer alongside the response of man to God, which is really fundamental to Catholic theology, that in order to make grace effectual, man must actually interact with that grace, actually work out their salvation with fear and trembling. So infants that are baptized and have that seed of faith planted
00:12:27
Speaker
and they're in the Catholic Church and have that seed of faith planted by the Holy Spirit can eventually reject the Holy Spirit as they age, as they grow up. Although, and my Catholic followers can correct me if I'm wrong, I believe their membership in the Catholic Church is permanent unless they submit a statement requesting to be removed from the records. So they're still considered a baptized member of the church, even if they are non-observant
00:12:55
Speaker
and not actually saved. So in the Catholic view, you're baptizing the child into the discipleship of the family, into the covenant family of God. And you're going to be walking out your salvation as you grow older and are educated in the truths of scripture. And so the Holy Spirit basically can grow in his influence over your life, or you can reject him. You can quench the spirit and you can walk away from your salvation. Now
Lutheran Perspective on Baptism
00:13:23
Speaker
we're going to look at another
00:13:25
Speaker
branch within that baptismal regeneration view. And this is the Lutheran view. So this is according to Lutheran scholar Robert Cole, who says baptism fulfills what God promised to his Old Testament people. It gives salvation, new life in Christ to those who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. And although baptism saves, according to Lutheran theology, baptism is God's action and action of his word.
00:13:55
Speaker
So it's important to note here, especially because of Luther's perspective on salvation by grace alone, that baptism as a work is not saving you. It's God's action through baptism. Similar to the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church holds that baptism is one of the miraculous means of grace. So it's conferring grace. Another example would be the word of God that is written and spoken.
00:14:22
Speaker
and that God creates or strengthens the gift of faith in a person's heart. Sources for this are Acts 2, Acts 22, 1 Peter 3, Galatians 3, Romans 6, Colossians 2, and 1 Corinthians 12. So when the Bible talks about the beginning of faith, it includes terms like conversion and regeneration. And the Lutherans don't claim to understand fully how this happens. They believe that when the infant is baptized, God creates faith in the heart of the infant
00:14:51
Speaker
again, similar to the Catholic view. And this is because, citing Matthew 18.6, they say the Bible says that infants can believe and that regeneration happens in baptism, according to John 3 once again. So of course, the infant can't actually make any kind of response. Ivan here is trying to give some responses and thoughts, but obviously he's not intellectually capable of responding to
00:15:21
Speaker
this type of ritual. And so the faith that is in the child is considered real and present, even though the child cannot verbally express or fully understand it. But once again, the faith of the child must be nurtured by God's word and discipleship, or it will die. It will quench the Holy Spirit and they will not actually be walking in salvation. So the traditional Lutheran approach and also the
00:15:50
Speaker
Catholic approach are similar, although slightly different because in some of my research that I was reading, the LCMS, the Missouri sign out of the Lutheran Church does not believe that baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation. So a little difference here. All true believers in the Old Testament era were saved without baptism. Is there reasoning? They also indicate that Mark 16 implies that it is not the absence of baptism that condemns a person, but the absence of faith.
00:16:19
Speaker
And so there are other ways of coming to faith by the power of the Holy Spirit. So baptism is very, very important. It does confer grace when it's available. It would be the proposed mode of experiencing that grace for infant children, but God can save people apart from baptism. I think all of us have been at a women's conference where we were told you are a beautiful daughter of the Most High King. And it's true.
00:16:49
Speaker
But it's not the whole truth. The beauty of being God's daughter has some backstory and it's left out in a lot of messages preached to women. So if you're tired of hearing the watered down Christian teaching and you're hungry for a deeper spiritual life, I have something for you. It's
Spiritual Growth: 'Stop Calling Me Beautiful'
00:17:06
Speaker
my brand new book, Stop Calling Me Beautiful, Finding Soul Deep Strength in a Skin Deep World. Stop Calling Me Beautiful is a book about going deeper with God.
00:17:16
Speaker
I'm going to talk about pursuing the truth of who God is and who we are in relationship to him, how to study scripture, how legalism, shallow theology, and false teaching keep us from living boldly as a woman of the word. I'm so excited to put this book in your hands. You can grab your copy on Amazon or for more information head to my website FeliciaMasonheimer.com and click the book tab.
Covenantal Baptism Explained
00:17:42
Speaker
So we're still in
00:17:44
Speaker
pedobaptism world. We're still in infant baptism category. We've talked about baptismal regeneration with Catholics and Lutherans under that label. Now we're going to move over to covenantal baptism, covenantal baptism. So this is also a sprinkling infant baptism version, but it has a different reasoning and a different way it's understood and how it's practiced.
00:18:13
Speaker
And so once again, the thought process with covenantal baptism is that it is the sign and seal of the new covenant replacing circumcision. So all of those who are baptizing infants are looking to the parallels between circumcision and baptism, even as they disagree on exactly how it works out.
00:18:37
Speaker
Not only is baptism replacing circumcision as a sign of being in this Christian home, but it also is a seal of future faith. This particular practice of covenantal baptism is common in your more reformed churches. Not all of them, such as reformed Baptists would disagree, but more of your CREC, Dutch Reformed Presbyterian type churches.
00:19:04
Speaker
In this Reformed theology view, baptism is what's effective. Divine grace is really conferred by the Holy Ghost through baptism. And so this is a mystery. It's not completely understood, but this is what God has decided to do, according to Richard Pratt. Very similarly to circumcision, baptism serves as an entrance into the covenant community or family of God.
00:19:33
Speaker
So the child is baptized into the family of God. But once again, that child, as they grow up, must actually express faith in God and repentance as he or she gets older. This is just as God required his people to circumcise their hearts, as Tim Challies describes it. Now, Sinclair Ferguson is a scholar who holds to the covenantal view, and he describes this form of baptism
00:20:02
Speaker
as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. It in itself is not regenerating. So the children who are baptized in the covenantal model are still responsible for owning faith for themselves. And this practice of owning faith, moving towards like a confirmation style, right is a very important part of that process. So now I'm going to read to you from the Westminster Confession
00:20:31
Speaker
about baptism, because this is going to better express exactly what I'm describing here. And this is what it says. Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his engrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ,
00:21:01
Speaker
to walk in the newness of life, which sacrament is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world. Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary, but baptism is rightly administered by pouring or sprinkling water upon the person. Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized.
00:21:27
Speaker
The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is ministered, yet notwithstanding by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost to such, whether of age or infants, as that grace belongeth unto according to the counsel of God's own will in his appointed time." So this last portion connects to the Reformed theology of election.
00:21:57
Speaker
If you haven't listened to the Calvinistic versus Arminianism episode, I highly recommend doing so because that will help explain what is being said here in this last portion, that essentially those who God has elected to be saved will experience His grace through baptism. If they were not elected to be saved, then that baptism would not be effective, essentially. So this view, just in summary,
00:22:26
Speaker
Is again, that baptism is the sign and seal of the new covenant. It's ushering people into the church, infants included. It can be adults, but it can also be infants of believing parents and the commitment to raise them in the covenant family of God. But once again, they do have to actually walk out that Holy Ghost impartation at baptism.
00:22:51
Speaker
or eventually reject it. In the case of rejecting it, that would be because they were not elected. And that's the difference between this Reformed covenantal approach and the Catholic or Lutheran approach. Or actually, I would say the Catholic approach more so than Lutheran because Luther was a reformer. But the Catholic approach where man actually does have a part in responding to God's salvation, whereas in the Reformed view,
00:23:18
Speaker
It is all by God's grace and man does not have a part in working out his salvation in regard to partnering with the salvation process. So we've talked about pedo-baptism and some different perspectives within that view. Now
Introduction to Credobaptism
00:23:36
Speaker
we're going to turn to credo-baptism, believer's baptism. And where pedo-baptism often involves pouring or sprinkling most of the time,
00:23:47
Speaker
Credo baptism or baptism of the believer, believing adult is by immersion. So the dunk tank model of baptism. And within this immersion view, there are two subcategories. One, we're going to call salvation occasion baptism. Okay. So baptism is the occasion of salvation. It's when salvation happens, they can't be separated.
00:24:16
Speaker
And then believers baptism in which baptism is a symbol of personal faith, but is not the actual act of salvation. So let's start with salvation occasion baptism. In this belief, baptism is the culminating act of salvation and is necessary to complete it. So even though you're baptizing an adult who's making a confession of faith in Jesus Christ,
00:24:44
Speaker
It is absolutely necessary to be baptized in order for that salvation to be complete. So this is based on the fact that baptism and salvation are linked throughout scripture. So they use, a person who holds the salvation occasion baptism uses all the same passages that Catholics and Lutherans use in regard to baptism. 1 Peter 3, Colossians 2, Mark 16, 16.
00:25:13
Speaker
where salvation and baptism are connected. Peter, comparing baptism to the water that saved Noah, said baptism now saves you. Paul compared baptism to circumcision under the Mosaic law. And then Jesus said whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. So based on these texts, similarly to the Catholic view,
00:25:39
Speaker
Those who hold the salvation occasion baptism believe that baptism is an essential part of salvation. However, it's important that the person be an adult who is making that confession of faith. Based on those passages, baptism is essential to salvation because it is when someone's sins are forgiven and when someone receives the Holy Spirit. It's not that baptism is
00:26:08
Speaker
the grace of God, or that it's a work accomplished to earn the grace of God, it's that it is the occasion on which God dispenses the grace of salvation. So it is the point of actual salvation. That's what baptism is, the time and place that God forgives and saves. So salvation is given at baptism. The two are linked, salvation and baptism, and
00:26:35
Speaker
Once again, similar to what we've talked about before, under the Pato Baptist umbrella, baptism has a threefold purpose. It's necessary for salvation. It places the believer in Christ and it places the believer in the church. It starts the discipleship process. Salvation occasion baptism is particularly common in churches of Christ, which came out of the denomination disciples of Christ, which is somewhat descended from the Baptists.
00:27:06
Speaker
This, if you grew up in a church of Christ denomination, then this would be very familiar to you. It would also explain why baptism was considered so vitally important that you cannot be saved if you are not baptized because of salvation occasion baptism. So moving on to our last point within credo baptism or baptism.
00:27:30
Speaker
of adults by immersion, we're going to talk about believers baptism. And this is what you'd be familiar with if you grew up in most Baptists, Southern Baptist or non-denominational churches, as well as some Anabaptist churches. So in this view, baptism is an outward symbol of personal faith by an adult or a child.
00:27:54
Speaker
Scholar Bruce Ware is one of the foremost defenders of the believer's baptism position, and he says, the parallel between circumcision and baptism in the New Covenant is not between physical circumcision and infant baptism, rather the parallel is between spiritual circumcision of the heart and baptism, which signifies regeneration, faith, and union with Christ. Infant baptism may even give false assurance and add confusion about who is a member of God's family.
00:28:23
Speaker
So what Ware is saying is that people who are baptized as infants may actually misconstrue the teachings on baptism to mean that they are saved when they actually are not, when they have not actually owned their faith, walked out their faith and continue to walk in personal relationship with Christ and continued holiness. So in the believer's Baptist position, it's all symbolic. Baptism itself does not save you. It is a representation of a spiritual state of the heart.
00:28:52
Speaker
And it is only performed for confessing adults and children who can actually make the choice or response to Christ. Now, even if someone is reformed, they may hold to a believer's Baptist position. So even if they think that man can't respond to God of his own free will, the reformed Baptist position would still say that the believer's baptism is the correct way to go about baptism.
00:29:22
Speaker
Bruce Ware and Craig Blomberg have written extensively about this, but Blomberg says in an article for Denver Seminary, the parallels between the Old and New Covenants in Colossians 2-12 are between circumcision and faith, not circumcision and baptism. Both of the latter are initiation rites, to be sure, but circumcision was an initiation rite not just spiritually, but ethnically for ancient Israelites.
00:29:49
Speaker
and hence appropriate for babies whose ethnicity was assured even if their later spirituality wasn't. Since Christians are not limited to any particular ethnicity, it is not appropriate to baptize infants in New Covenant times. A few other proof texts that are used for this are in Acts 2, Acts 8, and Acts 16, baptism always followed a conversion. It never preceded it and it was not necessary for salvation.
00:30:17
Speaker
Baptists look to the Bible as their authority for faith and practice and argue that because there was a conversion prior to baptism, then therefore we should not be baptizing infants. Now, I hope at this point, you can see that the other traditions are actually looking to the Bible as well as a foundation for their position. And so we have to be very careful with saying, well, the Bible is clear about this particular thing because so far in the four different denominations we've looked at,
00:30:46
Speaker
we have seen that each one used scripture to support their point. Because of what Baptists see in scripture, they do not baptize infants. Now at first, this refusal resulted in persecution. So for instance, even in America, Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard University, was forced not only from his office, but also banished from Cambridge for refusing to have his infant
00:31:14
Speaker
children baptized in the state supported church. This is from Baptist distinctives, which will be in the show notes. So it's very interesting to see how the Anabaptists and the Baptists were both persecuted for not complying with infant baptism, which was the norm in the church at that time. And that's a shame because they were arriving at their conclusions from their study of scripture, just as the other churches had arrived at theirs.
Believers' Baptism in Practice
00:31:42
Speaker
So to the Baptist or those who hold the believers of baptism, not even just the denomination Baptist, baptism is symbolic and it's not sacramental. So the Bible is teaching to someone who holds to believers baptism that baptism symbolizes that a person has been saved. It's not a means of salvation in itself. So it's not imparting grace. It's just testifying to the saving grace that has been given.
00:32:12
Speaker
So it's not actually washing away sin. It symbolizes the inner transformation and forgiveness of sin that Christ has brought about. So I wanted to read from the articles of the first London Confession by Baptist. This was written in 1644. This is how they said it. Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament given by Christ to be dispensed only upon persons professing faith
00:32:37
Speaker
or that our disciples were taught who upon profession of faith ought to be baptized, the way and manner of the dispensing of this ordinance the scripture holds out to be dipping or plunging the whole body underwater. About 40 years later, in the 1689 Baptist Confession, this was written about baptism.
00:32:57
Speaker
Baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordinances of positive and sovereign institution appointed by the Lord Jesus, the only lawgiver, to be continued in his church to the end of the world. These holy appointments are to be administered by those only who are qualified and called according to the commission of Christ. Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament ordained by Jesus to be unto the party baptized, a sign of his fellowship with Jesus in his death and resurrection.
00:33:24
Speaker
of the Christians being engrafted into Jesus, of remission of sins, and of giving up into God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in newness of life. Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ are the only proper subjects of this ordinance. The outward element to be used in this ordinance is water, wherein the party is to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
00:33:52
Speaker
Immersion or dipping of the person in water is necessary to the due administration of this ordinance. So once again, to recap, this is not a sacramental or covenantal thing. It is symbolic of an inner transformation and salvation is distinct from baptism and must precede the baptism process. Also, it is of course by full immersion. It is not sprinkling or pouring.
00:34:21
Speaker
So having talked about these different views, the pedobaptist and credobaptist overarching approaches, and then within those, the subcategories, looking at baptismal regeneration, covenantal baptism, salvation occasion baptism, and believer's baptism, we can see that the church unites around baptism as a sacramental act.
00:34:47
Speaker
as an act that shows what Christ has done or what Christ is doing in the life of the believer. And that's what we unite around. Baptism is a first tier doctrine. It's an essential because Jesus himself implemented it and gave us the example. But how that actually works out in individual churches and in individual believers lives will probably look very different. And that's when it becomes secondary.
00:35:15
Speaker
We do not get to say that someone is not a Christian because they practice baptism differently or that they have looked at scripture and said, I think this is how it works. What we want to see is that they are practicing baptism and that they are holding to those essential core doctrines of Christianity. The last thing I want to talk about is something that in all of my research for this episode, I did not see mentioned even once.
Jewish Precedent: Mikvah and Modern Baptism
00:35:43
Speaker
And I think it's interesting that in all the discussion of what baptism is and how we should practice it, so many of the scholars I was reading did not refer back to the Jewish precedent for baptism and maybe what it would have looked like at that time. And of course, I know that there are scholars who have referenced this, but the ones I was reading simply did not. And so I want to bring it up as I conclude this episode.
00:36:12
Speaker
It's helpful sometimes to look at the Jewish context in which baptism was practiced. When Jesus was baptized or immersed by John, what was that about? Because the church did not exist yet. Why would Jesus do that? What was the significance? Why would he go to John and have him immersed in the Jordan River? Well, this points back to the Jewish concept of mikvah.
00:36:41
Speaker
And Micba existed both prior to Christian baptism, but also alongside circumcision. It was for ritual cleansing before weddings, after menstruation for women, before going into the temple, and before attending festivals. And there's indication that Jesus was baptized in the fall, right before many of the holy festivals, and it could be related to his baptism at the beginning of his ministry.
00:37:11
Speaker
The mikvah is a pool of water, has to be living water, whether rainwater or a natural spring, that represents both the womb and also death and resurrection. When a Gentile wanted to convert to Judaism, they had to undergo both circumcision and immersion in a mikvah. For women, it was only immersion.
00:37:36
Speaker
And so when they went through this process, the Talmud says that that person, that Gentile, becomes an Israelite in all respects as soon as they come out of the water. So in John 3, when Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he must be born again, and he says, how can I be born again when I am old? Nicodemus was really referencing his understanding
00:38:03
Speaker
of the mikveh and of that process of being born again. And he's saying, how can I become Jewish again when I'm already a Jew? Jesus then says that you must have a spiritual transformation. You must be born of water and the spirit, not just be of Jewish heritage to be a part of the kingdom of God. This context is very important in our understanding of baptism. And I think it should at least make us think
00:38:33
Speaker
If Mikvah ritual cleansing existed alongside circumcision, why would then circumcision be replaced by baptism? Could it not be that baptism and circumcision already coexisted? So then why would one be replacing the other? We also have to consider what was meant by the Mikvah and the practice of baptism among the Jews
00:39:02
Speaker
that Jesus himself practiced. What did it mean to them? What did it mean for Jesus? And then how do we translate that theological principle to today? I will have a link from a Messianic perspective on the mikvah, what it meant, some pictures of ancient mikvahs and kind of what they looked like so that you can learn a little bit more about it and maybe think this through and consider the perspective that this might add to the conversation.
00:39:29
Speaker
I
Episode Wrap-up and Next Topic Preview
00:39:29
Speaker
hope this episode was helpful and gave you a little bit more light shed on the different views of baptism in the churches that we know today. I hope that it also improves our conversations across the aisle with those who hold to either pay to baptism or credo baptism, depending on which side you're on. I hope you'll join me next week as we talk about dispensationalism. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Verity.
00:39:57
Speaker
You can connect with fellow listeners by following me on Instagram at Felicia Masonheimer or on our Facebook page by the same name. Also visit FeliciaMasonheimer.com for links to each episode and the show notes.