The Doctrine of Baptism

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  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited February 9
    Eutychus wrote: »
    @Lamb Chopped I can't see much difference between my "intangible reality with an independent existence" and your "invisible reality" which "is completely God's", and am puzzled as to why, in view of that, you think the use of "proper form" or "the right words" is such a critical component if "It's all down to God's promise and faithfulness".

    Okay, by analogy. Suppose I say to my kid, "If you run out of money at college, send me an email and I'll Zelle it to you." I give him the email address (yeah, just imagine he doesn't have it already!) and he knows by long acquaintance with me that my character is such that yes, when asked, I'll provide the money. So far, so good.

    Now let's suppose the kid runs out of money and contacts me. But he realizes an hour later that he sent it to the wrong email address.

    He's going to be a bit stressed, don't you think?

    Because he's got no assurance that Mom will send the money. He hasn't fulfilled the conditions of the promise, and it's going to cause him mental agitation until he gets that corrected. He will be worried, he will be concerned, and he will do his best to correct the situation ASAP because he wants that assurance. As Christians do too, particularly when they are assailed by temptations to doubt whether God has forgiven them, whether they are actually in the faith at all, and so on. One of the great blessings of physical, concrete sacraments is that you have something to hang your assurance on. "I am baptized," Luther would say to the devil when tempted to despair. Nobody can take that away from me. God gave it, and his promise is attached to it, and I can stop obsessing over whether I myself have repented enough, or have faith enough, or whatever crappy thing is assaulting me at the moment.

    Now the money/email analogy falls to the ground because of the fact that God knows everything, even the content of wrongly-addressed appeals to him, or wrongly-carried-out actions. And he is certainly merciful enough that I expect we will hear all sorts of freaky situations when we're chatting in eternity about how somebody self-baptized with a banana milkshake in the name of Yeshu ben Pantera and God forgave, washed, and provided new life anyway, because he's just that sort of God.

    But that assurance is remarkably shaky at 3 a.m. when my OCD is assaulting me and I've had a bad week and I've gained new insight into just what a messed-up human being I am. Saying, "God will accept me, I know it from his character" doesn't cut it when I'm in the throes of "WTF kind of person am I that I could have done such a thing as X this week." I'm drowning at that point. I need something concrete to get me out of the pit. And the promises tied to baptism do that for me. I can say confidently, "Yes, I have been baptized, and so it doesn't matter that I've just discovered new levels of shittiness in my personality. God's promise covers all, even me."
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    @Lamb Chopped OK. I'm with you so far. I take that as a functional, rather than a theological explanation.
    self-baptized with a banana milkshake in the name of Yeshu ben Pantera

    Soo tempted to somehow add this to my repertoire.
  • Heh.

    What is the difference between a theological and a functional explanation?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    You don't seem to be saying "the exact words are important because [chapter and verse]" but "some formality in this rite can provide reassurance". Which is not how it came across to me earlier.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    when interviewing people for my Master's some years ago, it became clear that most had expected "something" to happen - call it a "blessing" if you like - at baptism; indeed one person felt quite cheated because they hadn't sensed anything at all.
    I sensed nothing at all. I admit to being a bit puzzled about that, but I decided that it was more about me putting a marker down for myself than anything God needed to respond to and that faith wasn't about feelings.

    Looking back, I do have a retrospective sense of God saying "well, now you've decided to take me seriously, I'm going to start taking you seriously", but that was well after the fact and entirely subjective.
    The point I was trying to make was that any such "blessing" isn't an automatic corollary of the physical act of baptism, but rather God's response (which he may or may not choose to make) to the obedience of the person being baptised.
    I sort of see what you mean, but I think more thinking is required about what we (or at least I) understand about grace and how conditional it is.

    (Genesis 6:8 says "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord". I think it's Derek Kidner who said it should be understood "grace found Noah", but that really isn't what the context suggests. It sounds like the text being turned inside out to support a theological assumption).

  • Well, the words are provided for us in Matthew 28, of course, and I'd really hate to see someone swerve from them for precisely the reason of assurance. But then, I think that theology is intensely practical, because God is intensely practical, particularly in his dealings with human beings. Which is to say that I think he intended and established the sacraments for precisely this practical reason, among others.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Fair enough.

    Following on from that, can you address the question I raised here? That's where (from my perspective) your theology on baptism effecting remission of sins seems to come from, and yet your practice seems to deviate from what we read in those very same verses.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Acts 2:38

    "And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name." Acts 22:16

    @Lamb Chopped What I can't fathom is how these texts can be taken as proof of remission of sins through baptism separately from the action of repentance/response on the part of the baptisees which is so explicit in both of them and so manifestly impossible in the case of an infant.

    In keeping with the comment upthread by Chrisstyles, "All baptisms are infant baptisms, none of us really have the capacity to assent to the particular journey we embark upon"--

    As Lutherans we believe and teach that this is also true with respect to repentance and faith. Both of these are gifts of the Holy Spirit, and they have their origin in God's graciousness. Human beings on their own do not have the capacity to repent or trust in Christ--we're like those grocery carts (trolleys) that always have one wheel going wrong and dragging you off the straight path. Thus all the stuff in Scripture about "You did not choose me, but I chose you" and so on. The initiative is with God, not us.

    That being said, why should we be surprised when the Holy Spirit plants faith and repentance (and all other good spiritual gifts) in an infant's heart through baptism, just as he does for adults? In fact, it might be easier to do with an infant, because the infant isn't as fucked up in a position to resist the Spirit.

  • Eutychus wrote: »
    they would hope for grace to be given by God as a consequence of the person's decision to be baptised and obedient to Christ.

    I'm afraid I can't get my head round this formulation either. How can grace, which is by definition unconditional (at least as I understand it) be given as a consequence of a person's decision? I think it's all about realising the grace that is already there, and acting in response in order to enjoy more of it.
    Point taken and perhaps I was sloppy in my language. It's just that, when interviewing people for my Master's some years ago, it became clear that most had expected "something" to happen - call it a "blessing" if you like - at baptism; indeed one person felt quite cheated because they hadn't sensed anything at all. The point I was trying to make was that any such "blessing" isn't an automatic corollary of the physical act of baptism, but rather God's response (which he may or may not choose to make) to the obedience of the person being baptised.

    And that's another place where we differ. We would never say that God"may or may not choose to make" a response to the person at baptism, because he has already made those promises, and so they are surer than heaven and earth.

    If someone complains of not feeling anything--or of feeling the wrong things--that's where we would sit him down and explain the difference between feelings and facts, and try to prepare him a bit better for the spiritual road ahead--where "sensing God" is never guaranteed, and for some people maybe never happens at all (being built differently, maybe?), and where you're always safer to look to the Scriptures for guidance than to trust in sensing and feeling and so forth. Because you can be very badly misled if you use sensing as a criteria for reality. Anything that depends in part on my stomach's reaction to pineapple pizza cannot be called fully reliable.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    In keeping with the comment upthread by Chrisstyles, "All baptisms are infant baptisms, none of us really have the capacity to assent to the particular journey we embark upon"--
    Well if you put it that way, yes; but that's absolutely not how Luke describes things going down in those passages in Acts.

    Peter's expectation in the moment in Acts 2 and Ananias' exhortation to Paul in Acts 22 are all about eliciting a response (baptism) to something the hearers believe they have understood (the Gospel, essentially). Of course one can posit, poetically enough, that Paul or Peter's hearers didn't really know what they were letting themselves in for, but the fact remains that their baptisms were an acknowledgement and assent to what they had understood and were being invited to do.

    Again, what I find hard to understand is how (from my perspective) you take one half of those verses (about remission of sins) as being self-evidently set in stone and yet see the other half as being essentially deficient descriptions of what you believe to actually be going on.
  • You can be very badly misled if you use sensing as a criteria for reality. Anything that depends in part on my stomach's reaction to pineapple pizza cannot be called fully reliable.
    Yes, of course. However what do you see as the promises God makes to those who are baptised?

  • You can be very badly misled if you use sensing as a criteria for reality. Anything that depends in part on my stomach's reaction to pineapple pizza cannot be called fully reliable.
    Yes, of course. However what do you see as the promises God makes to those who are baptised?

    Forgiveness; cleansing; birth into the family of God; acceptance by God; the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I may have missed a few.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    In keeping with the comment upthread by Chrisstyles, "All baptisms are infant baptisms, none of us really have the capacity to assent to the particular journey we embark upon"--
    Well if you put it that way, yes; but that's absolutely not how Luke describes things going down in those passages in Acts.

    Peter's expectation in the moment in Acts 2 and Ananias' exhortation to Paul in Acts 22 are all about eliciting a response (baptism) to something the hearers believe they have understood (the Gospel, essentially). Of course one can posit, poetically enough, that Paul or Peter's hearers didn't really know what they were letting themselves in for, but the fact remains that their baptisms were an acknowledgement and assent to what they had understood and were being invited to do.

    Again, what I find hard to understand is how (from my perspective) you take one half of those verses (about remission of sins) as being self-evidently set in stone and yet see the other half as being essentially deficient descriptions of what you believe to actually be going on.

    That's rather loaded language you're using there. Deficient? Set in stone?

    But let's skip over that.

    You seem to be postulating that, if someone orders you to do something ("Repent and be baptized, every one of you"), that is proof that you are capable of responding on your own. That you are not helpless, dependent on God to make the first move. That you are at least a partner and possibly an equal partner in the process.

    What, then, will you do with Jesus' commands to the dead: "Come out!" ?

    Yes, Lutherans preach repentance and baptism, and yes, we use the imperative forms. But we know all the while that when someone actually DOES repent and be baptized, it's because God is at the bottom of it. It's far more akin to raising the dead than to calling the household to dinner.

    And that is why we have no problem with baptizing infants, those in comas, those who are severely mentally disabled, and so forth.

    But returning to the crowd (and Paul):

    You do see that they are self-selecting? If we had a time machine, we would not be likely to find many infants in that crowd--many severely disabled--many people in comas--even many women or children. That crowd was composed of people who were both socially free from obligation to be elsewhere, and able enough to come running when they heard unusual sounds. Many of them were in fact travellers from foreign lands. So, most likely male teens and able-bodied adults. (The women would most of them be home or in camp minding the little ones and doing the endless household chores.)

    Small wonder if the apostles preach to this crowd as you would to people with a full set of human capabilities. They are not "doing theology" in the sense of "let's lay out a paradigm for how every human being comes to God." They are speaking to their audience, which is rather a privileged one. And they have no problem demanding the theologically impossible of their audience, because Jesus set the example himself. "Come out!" he said to Lazarus. "Repent and be baptized!" we say to adults--yes, and to infants, and to the comatose, and so forth. God will supply the necessary power and grace.

    Really, if you were going to try to disprove human incapability and God's full provision from the Scripture, you would need to show the apostles actively accepting for baptism those who made a worthy profession of faith and repentance, and actively rejecting those who were incapable. And we see no such thing.
  • @Lamb Chopped I don't really have any quarrel with seeing God as the ultimate initiator of everything in our walk with him - from an abstract, theological point of view at least.
    Small wonder if the apostles preach to this crowd as you would to people with a full set of human capabilities. They are not "doing theology" in the sense of "let's lay out a paradigm for how every human being comes to God."
    With this I agree entirely.

    It's a fair assumption that the crowd consisted of people with "a full set of human capabilities". And it also makes sense to me to say the apostles are "not doing theology" in the sense of "laying out a paradigm".

    Where we differ is that I would use pretty much that very same argument to explain the "remission of sins" comment, not the fact that the baptisms were preceded by an individual response. This is because it's not just the preaching (audience-tailored as it may be) that suggests the need for an individual response, it's the way that Luke documents that response: he puts it in terms of those who had accepted the message being baptised and "added".

    If the apostles were not "doing theology" at that point, why are you so sure they suddenly were when they mentioned "remission of sins"? I'm not sure they were making definitive pronouncements on the theology of baptism in that moment.

    Self-selecting audience or not, and ultimately divinely initiated or not, to me this establishes a pattern of baptism being framed as an individual response to a message one has at least partially understood. Not something one can perform on an unwitting third party, e.g. an infant, and expect remission of sins to occur as a result.

  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Self-selecting audience or not, and ultimately divinely initiated or not, to me this establishes a pattern of baptism being framed as an individual response to a message one has at least partially understood.
    It could be pointed out that there are all sorts of dynamics that happen in crowds, and that people get carried along to do something that they wouldn't freely choose to do if they weren't in that crowd. ie: the phrase "individual response" might not be the most appropriate.

    The Ethiopian Eunuch would be a much better example of individual response.
  • The key word in my reasoning above is "response". They responded (at least that's how Luke documents it); we understand that only those who did, however imperfect their understanding* were baptised.

    (*this brings to mind a relative attending a Billy Graham rally during Mission England: "it seemed you could get closer to him at the end...").
  • Forthview wrote: »
    I was fascinated by Eutychus' description of French Reformed Christians as made up historically of a few, often wealthy families who tend(ed) to see anyone not from the right class or family in the way that Jews traditionally saw Samaritans.

    This immediately reminded me, as a social phenomenon, of the long established Catholic 'old' families' in England. Like the traditional French Reformed Christians ,these were people who would have lived somewhat apart from the generality of the population, aware of vicious persecution at times in the past, generally intermarrying amongst themselves ,knowing that the apostacy of one man would lead to the disappearance from the community of a whole family and quietly proud of maintaining the faith of their ancestors in a surrounding world which was mainly hostile to them.

    Suddenly in the middle of the 19th century the old Catholics saw themselves being swamped by hordes of co-religionists from Ireland, mainly from a different social class.
    As if that were not enough to deal with ,there were good numbers of converts from Anglicanism who were 'enthusiastic' about their new found form of Christianity who wished to introduce new 'Continental' devotions and to trumpet the benefits of Catholicism to the general population, instead of keeping their heads down and trying not to be noticed.

    Although that is a long time ago these tensions are still sometimes noticeable in today's English Catholicism (demographics in Scotland are quite different).

    It seems to me that one can find these tensions in French Reformed communities between the traditional Huguenot areas in the Cevennes and certain coastal regions and the Lutherans in Alsace with a slightly different history and then the 'new' and more independent evangelical congregations.

    Whatever baptism means, whether it makes us 'children of God and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven' or not, we still mostly remain human beings, who are aware of where we come from and who the others are around us.

    In every Christian grouping there are tensions between those who see the value coming to us from the past and those who see the value of using the dynamic element of the spirit of the times

    The parting words of Jesus to his followers are three commands,
    1. go out into the whole world (universal church)
    2. preach the good news (proclamation of the Word)
    3. baptise in the name of Father,Son and Holy Spirit (Sacraments).

    The only imperative in the Great Commission is to "Go"
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited February 10
    Forthview wrote: »
    I was fascinated by Eutychus' description of French Reformed Christians as made up historically of a few, often wealthy families who tend(ed) to see anyone not from the right class or family in the way that Jews traditionally saw Samaritans.

    This immediately reminded me, as a social phenomenon, of the long established Catholic 'old' families' in England. Like the traditional French Reformed Christians ,these were people who would have lived somewhat apart from the generality of the population, aware of vicious persecution at times in the past, generally intermarrying amongst themselves ,knowing that the apostacy of one man would lead to the disappearance from the community of a whole family and quietly proud of maintaining the faith of their ancestors in a surrounding world which was mainly hostile to them.

    Suddenly in the middle of the 19th century the old Catholics saw themselves being swamped by hordes of co-religionists from Ireland, mainly from a different social class.
    As if that were not enough to deal with ,there were good numbers of converts from Anglicanism who were 'enthusiastic' about their new found form of Christianity who wished to introduce new 'Continental' devotions and to trumpet the benefits of Catholicism to the general population, instead of keeping their heads down and trying not to be noticed.

    Although that is a long time ago these tensions are still sometimes noticeable in today's English Catholicism (demographics in Scotland are quite different).

    It seems to me that one can find these tensions in French Reformed communities between the traditional Huguenot areas in the Cevennes and certain coastal regions and the Lutherans in Alsace with a slightly different history and then the 'new' and more independent evangelical congregations.

    Whatever baptism means, whether it makes us 'children of God and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven' or not, we still mostly remain human beings, who are aware of where we come from and who the others are around us.

    In every Christian grouping there are tensions between those who see the value coming to us from the past and those who see the value of using the dynamic element of the spirit of the times

    The parting words of Jesus to his followers are three commands,
    1. go out into the whole world (universal church)
    2. preach the good news (proclamation of the Word)
    3. baptise in the name of Father,Son and Holy Spirit (Sacraments).

    The only imperative in the Great Commission is to "Go"

    Yes, there is only one imperative in the great commission, but there are three participles in the same commission: i.e. Go, and this is how to do it:

    Poreuthentes – πορευθέντες make disciples
    Baptidzontes – βαπτίζοντες baptize
    Didaskontes – διδάσκοντες teach

    Ref: thinktheology.org/2013/11/07/greek-geeking-the-great-commission-in-matthew
    Fixed broken link. BroJames, Purgatory Host
  • The only imperative in the Great Commission is to "Go"

    So if the disciples went on vacations, or took a sightseeing tour, that would fulfill the Great Commission? As long as they were moving?
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Yes, there is only one imperative in the great commission, but there are three participles in the same commission: i.e. Go, and this is how to do it:

    Poreuthentes – πορευθέντες make disciples
    Baptidzontes – βαπτίζοντες baptize
    Didaskontes – διδάσκοντες teach
    The question is, when we go does it matter what order we then take the participles?

    Most historic churches will baptise infants, teach them as they grow until they become disciples - indeed the discussion we had earlier of whether to baptise an adult who walks in off the street would seem to be basically the same order in some cases. Often the Baptist model can look like teaching the gospel, to make disciples who then mark their discipleship by baptism. Others will teach, then baptise on conversion which will be followed by discipling. The Ethiopian Eunuch was taught and was baptised, then left to work out the discipleship on his own (I guess two out of three ain't bad).
  • I am surprised my last entry actually posted. I was working at revising what I said, and it had disappeared on me. I checked to see if it was in my drafts. It was not there. I could not see it in the thread. Weird.

    I wanted to put a link to a fuller discussion of the participles Go to http://thinktheology.org/2013/11/07/greek-geeking-the-great-commission-in-matthew/
  • Thank you for this. I'm no Greek scholar, but I was fairly sure that the "Great Commission" is more "As you go, make disciples ..." than "Go! And make disciples ...".
  • Thank you for this. I'm no Greek scholar, but I was fairly sure that the "Great Commission" is more "As you go, make disciples ..." than "Go! And make disciples ...".

    It can be interpreted either way.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited February 11
    Basically, it's "Going therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep/treasure all that which I have commanded you; and behold, I with you am all the days to the end of the age." So the main verb (and therefore main command) is "Make disciples." The participles that hang from it are "going," "baptizing," and "teaching." Greek allows you to just throw participles out there and allow the hearer/reader to deduce exactly what the relationship is--in this case, probably "while" for "going," and "through" or "by" for "baptizing" and "teaching." So, "While/As you are going, MAKE DISCIPLES by baptizing ... and teaching..."

    It's probably not fair to take the last two participles to indicate time order (baptize first, then teach) because if Jesus had wanted to make it undeniable, he could have thrown in a couple more words like "first" and so forth. But it certainly offers no support for the notion that teaching must always precede baptism. So it's a wash, I think.
  • Not quite, Lamb Chopped, more like Go: making disciples, baptizing, and teaching.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited February 12
    Check the verb form of “make disciples “ again. It's μαθητεύσατε , not
    πορευθέντες.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 12
    I did Greek too long ago to remember, but -ate looks imperative and -entes looks like a present participle, judging by other Indo-European languages. Is that correct?
  • This is what Bible Hub gives on its “Text analysis” page. Only one of the four verbs is in the imperative. It’s the one that is usually translated as “to make (somebody) a disciple”.

    πορευθέντες : aorist participle passive
    μαθητεύσατε : aorist imperative active
    βαπτίζοντες : present participle active
    διδάσκοντες : present participle active

    https://biblehub.com/text/matthew/28-19.htm

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Now I'm well confused. When I did Greek the Aorist was described as being a bit like the English preterite. In that sense an aorist imperative makes no sense. However, I learn that the important point here is one of aspect - the Aorist in the imperative mood points to a one time completed action. Make of the choice of the Aorist rather than the present imperative what you will.
  • That makes two of us. The explanation I was given, many years ago, is that the aorist denotes a completed action (in the present, past or future) as opposed to an ongoing action (in the present, past, or future). What we are to deduce from this in the case of an imperative, I haven't the slightest idea. Maybe @LambChopped can help?
  • My understanding is that things work much the same with the imperatives. Hence the present imperative denotes doing a continuous action: "Keep on taking the tablets" or something similar; while the aorist imperative is a command to do a single action: "Get your hair cut - now!"
  • Ray SunshineRay Sunshine Shipmate
    edited February 12
    That certainly looks logical, but in the case of the risen Christ telling the Apostles to "make disciples of all nations," wouldn't it be a case of the tablets rather than the haircut?
  • MarthaMartha Shipmate
    @Ray Sunshine Thank you, that gave me a good giggle, imagining rival camps of Christians handing out conversion tablets or insisting on holy haircuts!

    (Yes, I do know what you really meant to say. But the only Greek I learned was in physics lessons, so I can't help you on that part.)
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited February 21
    That makes two of us. The explanation I was given, many years ago, is that the aorist denotes a completed action (in the present, past or future) as opposed to an ongoing action (in the present, past, or future). What we are to deduce from this in the case of an imperative, I haven't the slightest idea. Maybe @LambChopped can help?

    I have a sneaking suspicion Jesus was emphasizing the completion aspect of it--as in, finish the job and don't
    quit till it's done.
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