Some Random Thoughts on Baptism.

The early church was a sect within Judaism; it did not start as a separate entity from Israel. The first “Christians” were Messianic Jews. This is simply an historical fact.

 

Christ ordered his apostles to preach the Kingdom only to “the house of Israel” (Matt.10:5-6, italics added) and said categorically of His own mission from God that “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24, italics added). These statements are as uncompromising as they are plain. Christ’s first coming was not for the purpose of saving Gentiles. This makes perfect sense if we realize that Jesus was the Messiah. The notion of “Messiah” was completely foreign to the Gentiles (God-fearers excepted); Gentiles had no concept of a Messiah; it was entirely a Jewish notion. This is not to deny God’s plan for redeeming Gentiles, but this plan was accomplished after Christ’s ascension, not before, first through Peter when he preached the Kingdom to Cornelius, and later through Paul. This was so that the Gentiles could be saved by means of their engrafting into the olive tree of Israel (Rom. 11).

 

When Christ and the apostles were preaching the Kingdom, male Jews who came to faith—i.e. that Jesus was the Messiah—were already circumcised; and their children were still being circumcised on their eighth day. These same circumcised Jews were also receiving baptism. Now if circumcision was still a sign of covenant belonging and if baptism was also a sign of covenant belonging, and if the first believers were Jews (which indeed was the case) then baptism would have been redundant and unnecessary for new believers, if understood as a replacement for circumcision as the sign of covenant belonging. In effect, God would have introduced a double standard on the Jewish believers, who, until Cornelius and his household, constituted the “church.”  This would have been very frustrating to those who were coming to faith among Israel. Circumcision was still in place and in full force among the first believers even after the institution of baptism. If Jews were the first converts—which they were, Acts 2:3-4, 22 etc.—; if the apostolic church was Jewish, which it was (the apostles, the very first church, were all Jews)— then if baptism was the new sign of covenant belonging, it can only mean that God was establishing two overlapping signs of covenant belonging. At the very least, this would have been very confusing, but remember, God is not a God of confusion (1 Cor. 14:33a). The implications are enormous.

 

In believing that baptism is now the sign of covenant inclusion, and rightly administered to infants, what we have in effect is a means by the imposition of which the church could separate herself from Israel, and of course this is exactly what happened. As more and more Gentiles came to faith, their children were being given the rite of infant baptism, which incorporated them into the church. There is something insidious going on here though. The church was, through infant baptism, being populated by unbelievers. Many of those baptised in infancy never came to saving faith at all, therefore could not be considered children of the promise. This of course is still the case. This is a major reason why the church today is so spiritually weak and so easily led astray. In her present condition the church will not be able to fulfill the role which Paul envisioned in chapter eleven of his letter to the Romans that, “salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous (Rom. 11:11b).

 

I trust that underlying the debate regarding circumcision and baptism is the sinister belief of replacement theology. This theology—usually passively—assumes the rejection of Israel by God. It assumes, subconsciously for most of its adherents, that the church has replaced Israel, that she has become the new “Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16). In fact, the only way for the position of infant baptism as the sign of covenant belonging to even exist is for the church to assume the final and complete rejection of Israel. And historically, this is exactly what the church has done. This underlying and odious assumption is what enables the church to believe in infant baptism. By assuming that Israel is no longer the inheritor of the promises of God for His people, the way is cleared for her to consider herself the sole and proper heir of the promises. But God has never permanently rejected His people and all the covenant blessings He gave her are still in force! All the historic Christian traditions and communions have blithely ignored the fact that Israel is still God’s chosen people and that the only way for Gentiles to be saved is by inclusion into the olive tree of Israel. This is the way that God fulfills His own promises to bring to Himself a people, the Gentiles, without at the same time breaking His own covenant promises (Gen. 22:18; Isa. 2:2; 49:6; Amos 9:11-12; Acts 3:25-26 etc.).

 

The church pretends that Israel no longer exists as the chosen people of God. This allows her to change the very rules of the game such as insisting that baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of covenant belonging (since there is no longer a covenant with Israel, because of her disobedience and idolatry) and that Sunday has replaced the Sabbath. If the church actually acknowledged that Israel is what she has always been—in spite of the multitudes of secular and Rabbinic Jews who have not, nor will, come to faith—God’s chosen people, she could no longer hold to the illusion that she has replaced Israel as the apple of God’s eye.

 

What can we understand from Scripture about the nature of baptism? Can we learn the truth of the purpose of baptism in the NT? I think it is really very transparent. Let’s consider what I believe to be the clearest NT explanation of what baptism actually is, 1 Peter 3:20-21, “because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this [the salvation of a remnant through water by the ark], now saves you…as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

In these verses, Peter is making two related points. Firstly, he says that symbolically, the voyage of the ark through the flood represents the act of salvation. He then goes on to say through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that baptism corresponds to and means the same thing as this symbolic figure of the ark through the flood. He is saying absolutely nothing about covenant belonging. Second, Peter—again, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—says that baptism is an appeal by the believer for a good conscience, which I take to mean that the believer requests sanctification from God or else promises sanctification to God (Rom. 12:1-2).The word “appeal” is the Greek eperótéma and can be translated variously as inquiry, request, appeal, demand, a profession [as of faith], and pledge. I don’t think the issue could be made much plainer.