Baptism
Baptism is the sign and seal of union with Christ, administered to professing believers by immersion, on the basis of their credible confession of faith. This is not a Baptist preference; it is an exegetical and theological necessity.
Position
I hold to credobaptism, the baptism of believers only, as the clear teaching of the New Testament. Baptism follows repentance and faith. The pattern is invariable in Acts: hear the gospel, believe, be baptized (Acts 2:38, 8:12, 10:47–48, 16:14–15, 18:8). There are no unambiguous instances of infant baptism in the New Testament, and the paedobaptist case rests on inference from covenant theology rather than direct exegetical warrant.
The mode is immersion. The Greek word baptizō means to dip, plunge, or immerse. The symbolism of burial and resurrection (Romans 6:3–4) requires immersion to make sense. John baptized in the Jordan where there was “much water” (John 3:23); the Ethiopian eunuch went “down into the water” and came “up out of the water” (Acts 8:38–39). The early church baptized by immersion, and the shift to pouring or sprinkling was a later accommodation, not a recovery of apostolic practice.
On the question of covenant theology: I hold to 1689 Federalism, which reads the new covenant as substantially different from the Mosaic covenant in this crucial respect, every member of the new covenant is regenerate (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8:10–12). There is therefore no place for an unregenerate membership class corresponding to circumcised but unregenerate Israelites. The sign follows the reality; the reality is regeneration; and regeneration is known through credible profession of faith. Baptism marks the new covenant people as a confessing community.
I do not treat baptism as a saving ordinance. It does not regenerate; it signifies and seals what God has already accomplished in the believer. The thief on the cross was saved without baptism. Cornelius received the Spirit before he was baptized (Acts 10:44–48). Baptism matters, it is a commanded ordinance of the Lord, but it is not the instrument of salvation.
Key Scripture
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Matthew 28:19–20
“Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:3–4
“This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh: “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people… They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.”
Jeremiah 31:33–34
Confession Reference
The 1689 London Baptist Confession addresses baptism in Chapter 29. It defines baptism as an ordinance of the New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ, administered “to those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ”, specifically excluding infants. It identifies immersion as the correct mode, “dipping or plunging of the person in water.” The confession also teaches that baptism is not regenerative: it is “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God.”
Resources
- Pascal Denault, The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology
- Fred Malone, The Baptism of Disciples Alone
- Thomas Schreiner & Ardel Caneday, The Race Set Before Us (ch. on baptism)
- Gavin Ortlund, “Why I Changed My Mind on Baptism” (video and article)
- John Piper, “Baptism and Church Membership” (sermon series)