Hello and welcome to A Faith that Obeys Podcast. If you are just joining us here, let me bring you up to speed on where we are in our lengthy series about water baptism which we started back in Podcast 012 – The Proponents.
We began by reviewing a good number of objections to baptism as a part of the salvation experience, then we looked at infant baptism and original sin, followed by the methods of baptism in our last podcast. Today, we enter the home stretch of our series as we begin to discuss the purpose of water baptism as revealed in the New Testament.
In our last Podcast, we learned the correct method of baptism is by complete immersion in water. A person submits themselves to this activity after they experience the four other steps in the Biblical Plan of Salvation. In this plan, we see that someone who wants to become a disciple of Jesus must hear the Gospel, accept the Gospel, repent of their sin, confess with their mouth (and with their repentant lifestyle) “Jesus is Lord,” and then make the decision to take the final step of obedience to Christ’s command and be baptized.
Before we begin our study about the pro-proponents side of the argument, I want to do a little reset and take a 30,000 foot review of our debate topic and then move into the scriptures which teach us about the nature and purpose of water baptism.
As we have seen in our study about the debate of whether water baptism is necessary for salvation, we find two clearly defined responses to that question. “Yes it is.” And. “no it is not.”
A Quick Review
In the first part of this series, we took a long, careful, honest and thoughtful look at the reasons our first group of proponents say “No, water baptism is not necessary.” We used a really good article from GotQuestions.Org as our framework. I think the author did an admirable job of presenting the classic argument and used a good number of scriptures to support his view. Even before I discovered his article, I was very familiar with each of the claims and very familiar with the approach. The information was nothing new or surprising. He used the same common answers and common scriptures evangelicals usually employ for this debate but I think it was organized very well.
Three Problematic Tactics
In this debate, Evangelicals use three tactics to form their conclusions. The first tactic is they label baptism a “work of man” and dismiss it as a requirement based on that claim. As we have seen, it is impossible for baptism to be a command of Christ and a work of man at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive. If we start our reasoning with that false premise, “baptism is a work,” the conclusion is false as well.
The second tactic involves the scriptures they choose to explain why baptism is not necessary. These scriptures, by-and-large, are not about baptism at all. In fact, in all but one of the scriptures our author used in his presentation, the word baptism was never even mentioned. Anti-baptism proponents tend to avoid the multitude of scriptures which speak directly and specifically about baptism. How can we possibly build a credible case while avoiding the very scriptures which speak clearly on that topic, using that word?
Avoiding scriptures which speak specifically about baptism, they choose scriptures which speak about belief and faith; which are vital to the salvation process, but claim these are the only two things that God requires. We have come to know this as the “All/Only” argument. Evangelicals tend to avoid other scriptures which teach us that repentance, confessing Jesus as Lord and obedience are equally important for salvation. Just because one scripture says, “Believe and be saved,” does not mean this is all that the Lord requires from His followers. Anti-baptism proponents fail to see a composite picture which reveals the full Biblical Plan of Salvation and instead focus on basically one element of God’s plan, faith.
For me, this avoidance issue is a pretty serious problem. Completely missing from the evangelical’s presentation is the most basic information about the subject we are arguing. What I mean is: If you want to show me your position on water baptism, use the the scriptures which talk about that subject. Show me why you think the Bible tells us to baptize people. Show me the reason for its existence. Show me how to do it. Show me when to do it. Show me when not to do it. Give me illustrations of its purpose.
Baptism is in the Bible, so please explain it to me. Show me examples of your position which use the word “baptism.” Explain any symbolism which may be involved. Show me the scriptures about baptism which demonstrate it has nothing to do with the forgiveness of sins, the gift of eternal life or the receiving of God’s Holy Spirit. Using scriptures about baptism, show me that it is not an act of obedience.
In short, if we are going to discuss a topic, let’s use the scriptures which talk about that topic directly and cover the who, what, when, where, why and how. It’s fine to bring in other scripture if you think it is important, just don’t leave out the main scriptures which define baptism and use that word.
The third tactic is this. When an anti-baptism proponent approaches a scripture which is specifically about baptism, they typically claim that this particular scripture is not about water baptism, they tell me it is a spiritual baptism. As we learned in Podcast 029, the baptisms we see in the New Testament, which are connected with conversion, are composed of two parts, water and the Spirit. Thus, the scripture at Ephesians 4:5, which insists there is only one baptism, is true. There is one baptism but two things are happening.
When we carefully and humbly examine the arguments and conclusions of the traditional or “Modern” plan, we see flaws in logic and weak reasoning. We see misunderstandings and powerful traditions supplant the Biblical Plan of Salvation such as the “The Sinners Prayer.”
Now, let’s begin looking at those scriptures used by the pro-baptism proponents. These scriptures tell us; water baptism is indeed a necessary and vital part of the conversion process.
Let’s place these scriptures under the same microscope we used for the anti-baptism scriptures in the first part of our series. As we do this, there is something vastly different in the way we approach our study.
In this part of our study, each scripture we use specifically mentions baptism and specifically contains that word, occasionally multiple times! We’re not going to dance around the topic and make assumptions based on things which are not in the passage or build a straw-man to beat him down. We will face the issue head on, unafraid of where the conclusions might take us. Our first scripture is found in Romans Six and we will look at that in our next podcast.
Enjoy!
Dana Haynes