Baptism

countrydancer · Baptism

I am becoming increasingly convinced that infant baptism has no biblical warrant and its practice is wrong. The alternative is not adult baptism but believers baptism. Anyone out there prepared to argue the case?

DavidH

The scary thing is the scriptures that they use to justify infant baptism in the old Methodist Service Book. "Suffer the little children..." indeed!
Talk about taking a text out of context to make it a pretext.

"Believer's baptism" is the only baptism that is scriptural. That is, the immersion in water (and subsequent resurfacing, of course,) of the individual who makes a public confession of their conversion and faith in Jesus. This encourages the church and is an act of obedience for the individual.

There may be a case for some kind of ritual washing, I suppose, but the baptism of the bible symbolises the lowering in death and the rising (clean) to eternal life. I guess this implies that only full immersion baptism will do.

However.....

What happens if the person wishing to be baptised has a water phobia or some kind of disability that prevents their full immersion?

also...

is baptism necessary for salvation? Accepting that generally the scriptures teach "Repentance and baptism" as the formula for new believers, There is a prominent instance of an unbaptised (but repentant) person being promised paradise by Jesus. I suspect that slavish adherence to the R&B formula may sail perilously close to works-righteousness as a means to salvation.

What think ye?

countrydancer · Baptism

Thanks for your comments David and as you would expect I agree with them. In the examples you quote pouring water over would surely be acceptable and no, baptism is not essential for salvation. (There is an interesting debate going on at the moment between John Piper and Wayne Grudem about the necessity of believers baptism for church membership in churches that practice believers baptism and also whether it is possible for a church to accept either - see Desiring God website)

However I was more interested in whether anyone who belonged to Seedfield, (being a Methodist Church), believed in infant baptism and could justify it biblically! Come on Darth. Presumably as you are training to be a Methodist minister you must believe in infant baptism as you will have to practice it. How do you justify it biblically? Answers on a postage stamp please!

countrydancer · Baptism

As well as the Desiring God website folks might like to look at a couple of helpful christian blogs with contributions on the baptism debate.

adrianwarnock.com and between two worlds by justin taylor on theologica.blogspot.com

Eli · Re: Baptism

paulvipond · Re: Baptism

paulvipond · Re: Baptism

Darthmiller

Firstly. I am not presently training to be a presbyter or a deacon, I am just doing foundation training.
Secondly. When I do candidate in October it will be as a candidate for the Diaconate.
Thirdly. It is not a prerequisite for presbyters or deacons to BELIEVE in infant baptism, merely to perform it if the Parents insist even after having the alternatives such as dedication explained to them as well as what ba[tism means.
Fourthly. This whole infant baptism comes from the extremely shakey doctrine of original sin courtesy of St Augustine of Hippo. So the infant baptism was to ensure that infants with their inherited original sin could get in to heaven

countrydancer · Baptism

Come on Paul. There is a bit of a difference between not agreeing with every bit of doctrine of the denomination you belong to and having to oversee a form of sacrament one does not agree with!
Anyway I am not a Methodist by choice but because it was where my parents sent me, where I became a Christian and the nearest local church which preached the gospel (that is Walmersley Road methodist for the first two and Seedfield for the third) - I may get round to commenting on your what is the gospel posting when I have thought through my answer.
I have always seen myself more as belonging to Seedfield than to Methodism over the years because of the many issues I have had with the denomination over its liberal theology.
I think Wesley was more of an evangelist than a theologian and don't forget there were significant groups of calvinistic methodists - followers of Whitfield and much of Welsh methodism.
I would agree with you on the dedication issue and would suggest that a thanksgiving and naming service is more in order.[/u]

countrydancer · Baptism

Thanks Darth for clearing that up!!
But what are presbyters and deacons in the methodist set up? We have never had either at Seedfield (at least not by those names)
You still haven't said why you believe the doctrine of original sin is extremely shaky! If we are not born sinners how do we become sinners and is it possible for a person never to sin and therefore not need a Saviour?
(Also as Paul said and I agreed with above there is no biblical warrant for a dedication service)

Darthmiller

If we are born sinners then why wasn't Jesus one if he was fully human? I believe we have an inherently sinful nature and we have inherited the consequence of Adams sin but I am not fully convinced that man is born with the sin of his ancestors upon him, it was something that Jesus spoke against, it was not the sin of our parents or even our parents parents but our own failure to live up to the law which convicts us as sinners and it is only in the grace of Christ that we can be saved.

Presbyters= Reverands
Deacons= Servants of the church, new project starters, workers for Christ outside of the church ministering to those on the fringe

Ministers= Everybody

DavidH

Having done a bit of digging around on the internet, (such a wonderful place as long as you're careful,) I discovered that there may be a connection between the early church's "rite" of baptism and the Jewish practice of "mikvah". Although today's Jews try to distance themselves from this and, over the centuries, mikvah has developed, for them, into something different altogether, it seems likely that the early (Jewish convert) Christians would follow the contemporary practice that they were familiar with and recognise what God had been telling them all along through it's ritual.

The Mikvah was a ritual bath which was performed before certain ceremonies and after certain bodily cycles (remember, we have young readers.) It had to be taken using "living" water, ie running water or water from a spring. Apparently, for the purposes of the mikvah, the Jews also regarded the sea as "living" water. We could pause here, to look into the ramifications of the term "Living Water" but, for the moment, I'll pass on that.

"Mikvah" was by full immersion, or at least making sure that every part of the body was touched by the water. This meant combing hair straight and, in the case of women with long hair, having another woman in attendance to make sure that every bit was soaked. There are apparently archaeological sites with mikvahs sited in them and they look very much like the small baptismal pools that you find in some baptist chapels. Of course, these were all connected to a running stream or spring, (quite hardy these folk - brrrr!)

The Mikvah apparently describes the act that would have been generally understood, by his visitors, as what John the baptist was doing in the Jordan (running, therefore "living" water.) It would also add weight to his claims that he was only using water but the coming Lord would exercise quite a different ministry.

Since the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we now have the one sacrifice, "once and for all." It would seem to follow then, that the early church adapted the mikvah to represent the one cleansing baptism in the Holy Spirit in a way that the whole church could share and rejoice in. As a sign to the church, (and the world,) only the one cleansing was now necessary as Christ died to wash away ALL our sins. Repeated "mikvah-ising" would not now be necessary.

I don't want to push this too far, using untried analogies but this would seem to be the origin of our practice of immersion "Baptism" in water.

DavidH

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