Baptism is the outward sing of an inward reality. It’s a public declaration of the repentance, the change of allegiance that has taken place in our hearts. Our statement of faith says it this way: “The Lord Jesus mandated two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which visibly and tangibly express the gospel. Though they are not the means of salvation, when celebrated by the church in genuine faith, these ordinances confirm and nourish the believer.”
The exposition of our statement found in the blue book goes on to talk about baptism from three different perspectives: the one being baptized, the local church, and God. In terms of the believer being baptized, we read this, “Baptism is the subjective response to the objective truth of the gospel. It is the biblically prescribed public action that corresponds to a personal response of faith in the gospel.”
The publicness of both our confession and the living out of the gospel is important. When I was in college, shortly after coming to faith, I was having a conversation with an acquaintance about Christianity. I think upon learning that he was a Christian, I had invited him either to our InterVaristy gathering or to the church I was attending. I don’t remember which, but I do remember his response. He said his faith was personal, between him and God, and he planned on keeping it that way. He didn’t need to be a part of any gathering of other believers nor engaged in any way in sharing his faith with others. I didn’t know Scripture well enough at that time to have a good counter to his argument other than I didn’t think that’s how it was supposed to go. But as I too thought that I had a personal relationship with God through Jesus, his argument didn’t sound completely wrong.
It would be later before I figured out the problem with his logic: he was confusing personal with private. Our faith is personal in that God of the universe, through the Holy Spirit, now dwells personally with each one of us, but there is no biblical warrant for it ever beginning or remaining private.
But what is this objective truth of the gospel that baptism responds to? First, repentance, as we said last week, is a change of allegiance. And that requires a putting to death of our old way of living. It’s not just packing our old ways up, putting them in a box on the shelf or down in the basement in case we need them again. It is a decisive break with the past.
Let’s say I had a girlfriend before I met Dana. So what would you think if I gathered up all the old photos and letters and mementos of that relationship and put them in a box. Then I took out one of the pictures and taped it to the side and put the box on a shelf. And then every month or two, I’d call up this old girl and check in on how things were going. How do you think that would go?
We put to death the old man and our old ways. And baptism is a reenactment of that, being buried in the water. That’s Paul’s argument in Romans 6:3–4 as to why we are by no means to take advantage of grace by continuing to walk in sin. “Don’t you know what baptism is? It’s a baptism into death, specifically Jesus’ death, uniting ourselves to him as he took on all our sin and had it judged.” And baptism is a ceremony marking this reality. Baptism for the Christian is the putting on of the ring for the husband or wife. I’m dead to all other loves by you.
That’s the believer’s part in all this: a public declaration of the inner reality that has taken place. But this publicness is public at the very least in front of a specific group of people: the local church. Again, from the exposition of our statement of faith, “Baptism has from the beginning, been seen as the point of entry into the visible body of Christ.”
The local church—for who else could do it—affirms and welcomes the one being baptized. We are not just baptized into some amorphous unidentifiable group. We are not just baptized into the universal church. There is a local church that is supposed to affirm our faith and welcome the baptized. Then that person is part of a local church whose responsibility it is to love and disciple, encourage and bless.
But the baptized individual is not just passive in all this. He or she is to learn to steward the gifts that God has bestowed for the good of the body. There is a mutual edification that comes from mutual sacrifice and love.
And so baptism is not just for the one being baptized, but it is a reminder for the witnesses of our own declaration of faith. It should encourage us to hold fast to our declaration of faith: I’ve died to sin. It is no longer my master.
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