Dissecting Our "Personal" Relationship With God - Part One: Water Baptism

This is part one of a three-part essay dissecting our "personal" relationship with the Father. Like in many of my previous entries, I'm going to offend many of our religious traditions, all in an effort to challenge "what we believe" vs. "what is true". The first of these topics will be water baptism.

       Most evangelical Christians believe in and practice believer's baptism as opposed to infant baptism. Likewise, most Protestants believe and practice baptism by immersion rather than sprinkling. The New Testament as well as early church history stand with both of these positions.

       However, it is typical in most contemporary churches for baptism to be separated from conversion by great lengths of time. Many Christians were saved at one age and baptized at a much later age. In the first century, this was unheard of.  In the early church, converts were baptized immediately upon believing. One scholar says of baptism at conversion, "They belong together. Those who repent and believe the word were baptized. That was the invariable pattern, as far as we know." Another writes, "At the birth of the church, converts were baptized with little or no delay."

       In the first century, water baptism was the outward confession of a person's faith. But more than that, it was the way someone came to the Lord. For this reason, the confession of baptism is vitally linked to the exercise of saving faith. So much so that the New Testament writers often used baptism in the place of the word "faith" and linked it to being saved. This is because baptism was the early Christians initial confession of faith in Christ.

       In our day, the sinner's prayer has replaced the role of water baptism as the initial confession of faith. Unbelievers are told, "Say this prayer after me, accept Jesus as your personal Savior, and you will be saved." But nowhere in all the New Testament do we find any person being led to the Lord by a sinner's prayer. And there is not the faintest whisper in the Bible about a "personal" savior. But more on that later.

       Instead, unbelievers in the first century were led to Jesus Christ by being taken to the waters of baptism. Put another way, water baptism was the sinner's prayer in century one. Baptism accompanied the acceptance of the gospel. For example, when Lydia heard Paul preach the gospel, she believed and was immediately baptized with her household (Acts 16:14-15).  In the same way, when Paul led the Philippian jailer and his household to the Lord, they were immediately baptized (Acts 16:30-33).  This was the New Testament pattern. Baptism marked a complete break with a past and a full entrance into Christ and His Church. Baptism was simultaneously an act of faith as well as an expression of faith.

       So when did baptism get separated from receiving Christ? It began in the early second century. Certain influential Christians taught that baptism must be preceded by a period of instruction, prayer, and fasting. This trend grew worse in the third century when young converts had to wait three years before they could be baptized!

       If you were a baptismal candidate in this era, your life was meticulously scrutinize. You had to show yourself worthy of baptism by your conduct. Baptism became a rigid and embellished ritual that borrowed much from Jewish and Greek cultures -  elaborate with blessing the water, fully disrobing, the uttering of a creed, anointing oil with exorcism, and giving milk and honey to the newly baptized person. It had devolved into an act associated with works rather than faith.

       The legalism that accompany baptism led to an even more startling concept: only baptism forgives sin. If a person committed sin after baptism, he could not be forgiven. For this reason, the delay of baptism became quite common by the fourth century. Since it was believed the baptism brought the forgiveness of sins, many felt it was best to delay baptism until the maximum benefits could be obtained. Therefore, some people, like Constantine, waited until they were on their deathbeds to be baptized.

       Through our tradition, we have evacuated the true meaning and power behind water baptism. Properly conceived and practice, water baptism is the believer's initial confession of faith before men, demons, angels, and God. Baptism is a visual sign that depicts our separation from the world, our death with Christ, the burial of our old man, the death of the old creation, and the washing of the word of God.

       Water baptism is the New Testament form of conversion - initiation. It is God's idea. To replace it with a human-invented sinner's prayer is to deplete baptism of its God-given testimony.

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